A guide to the ethnobotany of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region

Bethel: University of Alaska, Kuskokwim campus, 2012. — xi; 158 p. Draft.Ethnobotany can be defined as the study of the relationship between humans and plants. This includes how plants are used, as well as how people name them, think about them and connect them to other aspects of life and culture. This work is the result of a collaboration between western-trained botanists and anthropologists and many elders of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, who have generously given their time to help in this project. The central Yup’ik culture holds a deep respect for the land and the resources that people rely upon for subsistence. Knowledge of plants and their harvest is part of a whole system of knowledge, and as such, is intimately connected with other areas of culture and subsistence practice. This fact was made abundantly clear to those of us who are western academic researchers when, at the end of a long and productive day speaking with elders about plants, one of them asked When are we going to start talking about animals? The idea of ethnobotany as a separate discipline of study is in many ways a notion that comes from outside of Yup’ik culture. For this reason, we attempt to show in this volume, wherever possible, ways that knowledge about plants is connected to other areas of life.