Date Thesis Awarded
5-1995
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Biology
Advisor
Martha A. Case
Committee Members
Joseph L. Scott
Donna M. E. Ware
Marjorie M. Snipes
Abstract
The Native American, Euro-American and African-American
medicinal usage of plants in the southeastern United States during
the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries was influenced
by each community's established knowledge of medicinal plants and
information transferred among the communities. Although there is
substantial documentation that these three communities obtained
information from one another, the extent of each culture's influence
on the others, as well as the direction of information exchanged
concerning medicinal plant applications are poorly understood. This
study addresses the extent and direction of communication in these
three groups by an analysis that compares the medicinal plant
applications of 66 species (52 genera). Each of these species is
known to be used by at least two of the three cultural groups.
Of the three cultural groups m this analysis, the Euro-American
community incorporated the largest amount of information from
another culture. Thirty-five out of 45 native North American species
(77 .7%) were found to be used by the Euro-Americans for purposes
similar to those of the southeastern Native Americans. This was
interpreted to represent information transferred from the Native
Americans to the Euro-Americans. The African-American influence
on the Euro-American community is less clearly represented in the
data, probably due to the dearth of documentation about medicinal
plant application within the African-American community. However,
two non-native North American species, Ricinus communis L. and
Chenopodium ambrosioides L., serve as examples of species from
which medicinal properties were apparently discovered within the
African-American community and transferred to the Euro-American
and the Native-American communities. Because of the infrequent
occurrences of shared medicinal plant applications between the
African-American and the Native American communities, these
cultural groups appear effectively isolated from the knowledge
systems of one another, except for secondary contact via the EuroAmerican
community. In addition to acting as an intermediary
between the African-American and Native American communities,
the Euro-American community also contributed knowledge of several
medicinal plants from Europe. These are Allium sativum L., Brassi c a
rapa L. , Plantago major L. , and Verbascum thapsus L.
These results are discussed in a historical context. Emphasis is
placed on the possible mechanisms by which medicinal plant
information was exchanged and includes discussion of cultural
factors that may have prevented the dissemination of information.
Recommended Citation
Loeffler, Wisteria F., "The Ethnopharmacology of the Early Americans: An examination of communication concerning medicinal plant usage within and among the Native American, Euro-American, and African-American communities in the southeastern United States" (1995). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 2247.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/2247
