Food Plants

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Food Plants
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New Food From Old
Aztec threshing Amaranth Florentine Codex
16th Century
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Amaranthus hypocondriacusAmaranthaceae
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Amaranth harvest in Sierra Madre, Mexico
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Amaranth seed balls for sale in market, Sierra
Madre
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Aztec God Huitzilopochtli
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Amaranth culture in US today
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More Amaranth Species
A. cruentus A. caudatus
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Triticale
On left wheat, triticale, rye
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The Trouble with Tribbles
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Star fruit Averrhoa carambola
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Pinyon Pine Pinus edulis
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Stone Pine Pinus pinea
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Pine nuts or pignoli from Pinus edulis
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Kiwi Fruit Actinidia chinensis
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Kiwi fruit cultivation
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Taro Colocasia esculenta
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Taro harvest - Hawaii
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Taro corms
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Tamarind Tamarindus indica
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Tamarind Fruits
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Tamarind based sauces
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Tamarinido Drinks
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Ethnobotany and Geography
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Ethnobotany and Geography

• Ethnobotanical studies often focus on limited
  geographic areas regions, countries, provinces,
  states, and even smaller areas.
• This may seem to be a limited arrangement because
  it prevents making large scale comparisons
  between areas or plant uses, but it makes sense
  because the relationships of plants and people in
  a particular area are often incredibly intimate

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Why study plants of Polynesia?

• In all traditional cultures the relationships of
  plants and people are reciprocal and dynamic
• In traditional societies, most plant products are
  collected, produced and consumed locally
• Michael Balick and Paul Cox feel that nowhere has
  the effect of the use of plants on human culture
  been more dramatic than in their use to
  manufacture sea craft that transport people and
  their crops across vast stretches of the ocean

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Long Ocean Voyages by Humans

• Erik the Red journeyed 800 miles from Iceland to
  discover Greenland his son Leif Eriksson went
  farther sailing nearly 2000 miles from Greenland
  to an area he called Vinland, which we know as a
  part of Newfoundland in Canada
• Polynesians would commonly travel the 422 miles
  from Fiji to Tonga or 769 miles from Fiji to
  Samoa Samoa to Tahiti (1059 miles) was not
  unheard of the longest trips were from Tahiti to
  Hawaii (2700 miles) such trips did not occur
  often, but occurred often enough to populate
  almost all habitable islands in the Pacific and
  to allow trade and exchange of culture across the
  Pacific

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Viking voyages
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Polynesian Islands
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Tahiti with sailing canoes and other ships
painted in 1773 by William Hodges with Capt.
Cooks expedition
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Boats on Island of Kabara

• The Camakau (thah-mah-cow) which is a
  single-hulled canoe of up to 15 meters in length
  and used in inter-island transport and warfare
• The Drua (ndrro-ah) which has two hulls and
  requires up to 50 men to sail it
• The Tabetebete (tahm-bay-tay-bay-tay) which is
  the largest of all Fijian sea craft with an
  intricate hull of fitted planks that could be up
  to 36 m long and 7.3 m wide - these vessels could
  transport up to 200 men, sail at 20 knots

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A Drua built about 1900 on Fiji
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Design of a camakau, traditional Fijian
ocean- going craft
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Josafata Cama, traditional shipwright of Kabara
Island
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Vesi tree Intsia bijuga
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Selecting Vesi trees for ship building Kabara
Island
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Hollowing out a Vesi tree trunk for a canoe hull
Kabara Island
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Vika Usu weaving a sail from Pandanus leaves
Kabara Island
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Pandanus odoratissimus
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Young Pandanus leaves
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Canarium harveyi sap used for caulk
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Kabara Islanders and Sandra Bannock on first
voyage of camakau
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Where did Polynesians come from?

• Based on many characteristics such as blood
  types, linguistics, indigenous agriculture, and
  archaeological evidence it is generally thought
  the Polynesians came from the Lapita, an
  agricultural people who left Indo-Malaysia and
  journeyed west

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Polynesian Islands
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Polynesian Migrations
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Maori Migration to New Zealand
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Sweet potato tubers
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Sweet Potato Names

• In most parts of the South Pacific, sweet
  potatoes are called kumara, very similar to the
  Peruvian word of cumara
• However, in Hawaii, the sweet potato is called
  uala, more similar to the Columbian word kuala -
  perhaps a couple of groups were in contact with
  South America

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• Plans for a balsa
• wood raft used
• along coast of
• South America
• drawn by F.E.
• Paris in 1841

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Thor Heyerdahls balsa wood raft 1947 in action
and model
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Possible Inca route to Pacific Islands and
Kon-Tiki route
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Hemp Cannabis sativa
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Hemp Fibers

• Hemp has long been a traditional source for fiber
  for rope and clothing and even for paper
• Hemp fibers were used to make fabric as long ago
  as 8000 BCE - the fibers are so strong that hemp
  was woven to make ships sales from the 5th
  century BCE until the mid-19th century
• Hemp was the major source of fiber for paper
  until 1883, when wood pulp replaced it

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Hemp Fabric
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Chinese guide to making hemp fabric - 1872
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Hemp traditionally used in sailing
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Hemp Paper
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Hemp Declaration of Independence
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Abaca or Manila hemp Musa textilis
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Manila hemp
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Manila hemp rope
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Modern Uses of Cannabis Hemp
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Hemp Cultivation
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Modern Hemp Paper
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Hemp clothes and fabric
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Hemp Cordage
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Hemp Seed Food and Oil
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Hemp Cosmetics