![]() The projection of social identities on plants interjects an important symbolic component to human-plant interactions. The evolutionary and ethnobotanical implications of these observations are assessed in the context of the history of contact and its effect on health conditions. About half of all native plant medicinals are explicitly identified by the Ese Eja as having been learnt through contact with non-Ese Eja, and an additional 17% of medicinals are exotic or recently introduced species. Linguistic, ethnohistoric and ethnobotanical evidence suggest that medicinals have acquired a significantly more prominent role in Ese Eja ethnomedicine over the past fifty to one hundred years. Distribution of responses in a broad ethnomedical survey indicate a high level of idiosyncratic variability, though much variation is also patterned according to such socio-cultural variables as age and gender. Over 190 plant species and 50 animal species are used in a wide range of contexts, such as treatment of diverse ailments, manipulating social relations, improving hunting skills, promoting the development of healthy and strong infants, and controlling fertility. All these aspects of ethnobotanical interactions reveal much about broader ecological and social processes. ![]() These roles are frequently interrelated and, more importantly, subject to considerable degrees of spatial and temporal variability. First, the notion that plants simultaneously fulfil multiple roles: pharmacodynamic, medical, social, cultural and symbolic. Two aspects of Ese Eja ethnobotanical processes are highlighted and explored. The Ese Eja are a small indigenous group currently living in lowland tropical forest along a number of tributaries of the Madre de Dios and Beni rivers, in Peru and Bolivia respectively. This thesis examines the roles of plants in the context of Ese Eja health-related thought and behavior. This research contributes to the study of indigenous ethnobotany by (a) creating a record of the plant knowledge possessed by indigenous women, (b) giving voice to some of their health concerns, (c) indicating how the introduction of biomedicine has affected their plant use, and (d) providing a framework for understanding howmarginal peoples around the world respond to the impact that globalization and change has on their health needs and local ethnobotanical knowledge. This generational gap contributes to the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. Additionally, the midwives are not taking any new apprentices and laywomen are not passing on their knowledge to future generations. The introduction of biomedical clinics and hospitals in the region has had a significant effect on the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. The concept of equilibrium is very important in regaining health among the Nahua consequently, many of the medicinal plants have this as their primary purpose. It documents the women’s plant knowledge for reproductive purposes, which includes uses such as conception, pregnancy, birth, contraception, menstruation, post-partum, and general reproductive health. This paper reports the use of medicinal plants by Nahua women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Although the examples analysed come from Estonian ethnobotany, the method of analysis can be applied in ethnobotanical research worldwide. The wayfarer, guided by signs learned within the context of surroundings, walks along and perceives the plant as a part of the herbal landscape. The first can be looked at with the terms of Tim Ingold as transportation, using plant features to go across, leaving all other signs present in the landscape unnoticed. Different methods of perception of the signs within the herbal landscape are demonstrated comparing the herbal knowledge acquired from the herbals with the method of plant recognition learned in the traditional way. Whereas the plant can be seen as the object, the feature(s) the plant is recognised by is (are) the representamen(s), and the image of the plant within the herbal landscape can be understood as the interpretant. The process of perception of the plant can be divided into analytical categories according to the sign concept of Charles Sanders Peirce. The authors argue that the features by which a person recognises the plant in the natural growing environment is of crucial importance for the classification and the use of plants within the folk tradition. This contribution takes the notion of herbal landscape (a mental field associated with plants used to cure or prevent diseases and established within specific cultural and climatic zones) as a starting point.
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