Cherokee Ethnobotanical Classification System

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Cherokee Ethnobotanical Classification System
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An Historical Ethnobotany

• Constructed from Ethnographic sources
• James Mooney
• Primary source of classification material
• May 10, 1889 to get at the Cherokee basis of
  classification

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Five Aspects

• Cherokee name
• Gloss for the Cherokee name
• Botanical species
• Place in the Ethnobotanical Classification System
• Cultural Association
• Medicinal, edible, and symbolic relationships

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Whats in a Name?

• Cherokee a changing language in 19th and 20th
  Centuries
• No continuity
• Phonetic styles were different among the various
  researchers
• Researchers used phonetic spellings, not Sequoyan
  syllabary

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(No Transcript)
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Determining Glosses

• Compare the glosses various researchers
• Glean meanings from portions of other names
• Reconstruct the name from the components

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Verify the Botanical Species

• Is there a voucher specimen?
• Herbaria not set up to find individual specimens
  or collections of individual researchers.

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Does it grow in the region?
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Does the Cherokee name describe the species in
question?

• Olbrechts
• tsâliyústi gígagéi (like tobacco, red)
• Lobelia siphilitica

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• Mooney
• Lobelia cardinalis

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Cherokee Ethnobotanical Classification System
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Kingdom

• The most inclusive rank in an ethnobiological
  system
• it contains a single member, but all others are
  automatically included (ex plant, animal, fungi)
• sometimes referred to as the unique beginner

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• The plant kingdom is alluded to in the Cherokee
  system, but not discretely evident
• Each Tree, Shrub, and Herb, down even to the
  Grasses and Mosses, agreed to furnish a cure for
  some one of each of the diseases named
  (Mooney, Myths)

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Life Form

• A small group of highly inclusive terms that
  represent a few shared gross morphological
  characteristics
• Are polytypic (contain more than one member) and
  include the majority of taxonomic categories of a
  lesser rank
• Plants tree, shrub, herbaceous, grass etc.
• Animal mammal, insect, bird, reptile, fish,
  amphibian, etc.

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There appeared to be several life forms extant in
the Cherokee Ethnobotanical system

• Tree
• Shrub
• Vine
• Herbaceous (non-woody)

• Grass
• Fern
• Moss
• Lichen

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Tree - Tlukûi
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Handy Concepts

• Opaque name has no other meaning than the
  object in hand, unanalyzable, suggesting a long
  cultural history and loss of original meaning
  (ex oak)
• Transparent name the name expresses the
  qualities of the organism through terms with
  other meanings, it can be analyzed (ex bluebird)

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• 67 of tree names were opaque (33 of 49)
• Shrubs and Vines 34
• Herbaceous plants 11

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Intermediate categories

• generally identified by a primary name that
  indicates a salient (prominent) feature, usually
  morphological similarities, shared by a number of
  often unrelated biological genera

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Cherokee Intermediate Categories

• shared coloration of plants or plant parts
• plants that change in color due to mechanical
  manipulation
• plants having a strong odor
• a shared mechanical feature (burrs)

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únistilû?isti

• they stick flat to a hairy substance
• memory retention, memories sticking just as the
  burs stick to a hairy substance

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Folk Genus (Generic)

• typically includes the largest number of folk
  categories and tends to correspond most closely
  to the biological species level

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Characteristics of Folk Genera

• Consistently labeled (given names) in folk
  biological taxonomies
• Usually included in a life form category (this
  is a type of X)
• Typical folk classification systems will consist
  of approximately 80 monotypic genera (no further
  subdivisions)

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• The Cherokee system appears to be atypical, 67
  monotypic genera
• Possibly due to the high number of specialists
  interviewed

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Generic names

• Organoleptic qualities
• Visual properties
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch
• Sound

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• Magnolia fraseri was called tsugwalâga tsegwa or
  big leaves, because leaves are up to ½ meter in
  length

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• Oxalis tsuntsâ?ysti (it is sour)

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Cherokee-ization

• Coffee became káwi (no f sound in Cherokee
  language)

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Onomatopoeia

• Cirsium altissimum known as tsítsi, the sound of
  a blow gun dart.

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Prototypes

• Prototypes are those organisms that are the best
  recognized examples of the category
• Prototypes are generally at the generic and
  subgeneric levels, but can also be at the
  intermediate level

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• yû or ya added to a word to indicate true or
  real type
• Desmodium nudiflorum
• únistilû?isti-yu

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Perceptual Relationship (Resemblance)

• iyústi (like or as)
• Oenothera fruticosa
• atátsû? (trout)

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• Oenothera biennis
• atátsû?-iyústi (like atátsû?)

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Specific and Varietal

• Specific and varietal taxa are generally labeled
  with secondary lexemes, labels that modify the
  primary lexeme of the generic label or name
• Examples
• Oak (folk genus)
• White Oak (folk species)
• Swamp White Oak (folk variety)

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• No adjective term is added unless it becomes
  necessary to distinguish species and then the
  adjectives used generally serve only to
  distinguish the species in hand, necessitating a
  new set of adjectives as often as new specimens
  are added to the series. Thus with two specimens
  the most obvious visual distinction is útana
  (large) or usdíga (small), but when another
  specimen, or two, is brought in, these words must
  be discarded and another basis of classification
  adopted. (Mooney)

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Flower Color

• Viola striata
• dindáskwatéski unega adsilû?ski (they pull each
  others heads off, white flowered)

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Ecological Heterogeneity

• e?hi (living or dwelling)
• gatuse?hi (mountain dwelling)
• gûtlatûe?hi (growing on the mountainside)

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• Limited or specific niche requirements
• nunyâhi-e?hi (rock dwelling)