Plants play a central role in human existence. Medicinal plants, in particular, have allowed for the continued survival of the human species. This book, based on over a decade of research in Southern Mexico with the Highland Maya, explores the relationship between medicinal plants, traditional ecological knowledge and the environment. The biodiversity of the region remains among the highest in the world, comprising more than 9000 plant species. Over 1600 employed for medicinal uses and knowledge for approximately 600 species is widespread. Medicinal plants play an overwhelmingly primary role in the daily health care of the Highland Maya. Three principal objectives are addressed: 1) identifying which medicinal plants are used; 2) determining the role of environmental variation on use and selection of medicinal plants; and 3) identifying which habitats are preferred for medicinal plant procurement. Findings demonstrate the overwhelming importance of human modified environments for medicinal plants. Explanations are presented from human ecology and biochemical ecology. Implications for conservation, health and the environment are discussed.

Plants play a central role in human existence. Medicinal plants, in particular, have allowed for the continued survival of the human species. This book, based on over a decade of research in Southern Mexico with the Highland Maya, explores the relationship between medicinal plants, traditional ecological knowledge and the environment. The biodiversity of the region remains among the highest in the world, comprising more than 9000 plant species. Over 1600 employed for medicinal uses and knowledge for approximately 600 species is widespread. Medicinal plants play an overwhelmingly primary role in the daily health care of the Highland Maya. Three principal objectives are addressed: 1) identifying which medicinal plants are used; 2) determining the role of environmental variation on use and selection of medicinal plants; and 3) identifying which habitats are preferred for medicinal plant procurement. Findings demonstrate the overwhelming importance of human modified environments for medicinal plants. Explanations are presented from human ecology and biochemical ecology. Implications for conservation, health and the environment are discussed.

Whereas most previous work on Maya healing has focused on ritual and symbolism, this book presents evidence that confirms the scientific foundations of traditional Maya medicine. Data drawn from analysis of the medical practices of two Mayan-speaking peoples, the Tzeltal and Tzotzil, reveal that they have developed a large number of herbal remedies based on a highly sophisticated understanding of the physiology and symptomatology of common diseases and on an in-depth knowledge of medicinal plants. Here Elois Ann Berlin and Brent Berlin, along with their many collaborators, provide detailed information on Maya disease classification, symptomatology, and treatment of the most significant health conditions affecting the Highland Maya, the gastrointestinal diseases. The authors base their work on broad-ranging comparative ethno-medical and ethnobotanical data collected over seven years of original field research. In describing the Mayas' understanding and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, Berlin and Berlin show that the plants used as remedies are condition specific.> Moreover, laboratory studies demonstrate that the most commonly agreed upon herbal remedies are potentially effective against the pathogenic agents underlying specific diseases and that they strongly affect the physiological processes associated with intestinal peristalsis. These findings suggest that the traditional Maya medical system is the result of long-term explicit empirical experimentation with the effects of herbal remedies on bodily function. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Scholars studying the ecology of specific areas often fail to take into account the presence of humans in those environments. People not only are fundamental components of an ecosystem but possess a unique understanding of its nature. This book examines subjects ranging from pastoralism to the use of medicinal plants to show that understanding the knowledge system of any people is essential to understanding their relation to their environment. Using cases from the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, the Highland Maya Region of Central America, and the Lowland and Andean regions of South America, the contributors examine the relation of humans and environment within the context of each local system’s beliefs, values, and knowledge. All emphasize the practical and cultural significance of indigenous knowledge of the environment and the importance of comparing this knowledge to scientific understanding prior to initiating development or conservation programs. They also contribute to a theoretical approach that allows findings to be applied across studies, regardless of ethnographic differences.

This volume showcases current ethnobiological accounts of the ways that people use plants to promote human health and well-being. The goal in this volume is to highlight some contemporary examples of how plants are central to various aspects of healthy environments and healthy minds and bodies. Authors employ diverse analytic frameworks, including: interpretive and constructivist, cognitive, political-ecological, systems theory, phenomenological, and critical studies of the relationship between humans, plants and the environment. The case studies represent a wide geographical range and explore the diversity in the health appeals of plants and herbs. The volume begins by considering how plants may intrinsically be ‘healthful’ and the notion that ecosystem health may be a literal concept used in contemporary efforts to increase awareness of environmental degradation. The book continues with the exploration of the ways in which medically-pluralistic societies demonstrate the entanglements between the environment, the state and its citizens. Profit driven models for the extraction and production of medicinal plant products are explored in terms of health equity and sovereignty. Some of the chapters in this volume work to explore medicinal plant knowledge and the globalization of medicinal plant knowledge. The translocal and global networks of medicinal plant knowledge are pivotal to productions of medicinal and herbal plant remedies that are used by people in all variety of societies and cultural groups. Humans produce health through various means and interact with our environments, especially plants, in order to promote health. The ethnographic accounts of people, plants, and health in this volume will be of interest to the fields of anthropology, biology and ethnobiology, as well as allied disciplines.

Bringing together decolonial, Romantic and global literature perspectives, Transcultural Ecocriticism explores innovative new directions for the field of environmental literary studies. By examining these literatures across a range of geographical locations and historical periods – from Romantic period travel writing to Chinese science fiction and Aboriginal Australian poetry – the book makes a compelling case for the need for ecocriticism to competently translate between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, planetary and local, and contemporary and pre-modern perspectives. Leading scholars from Australasia and North America explore links between Indigenous knowledges, Romanticism, globalisation, avant-garde poetics and critical theory in order to chart tensions as well as affinities between these discourses in a variety of genres of environmental representation, including science fiction, poetry, colonial natural history and oral narrative.