Food Plants. New Food From Old Aztec threshing Amaranth – Florentine Codex – 16 th Century.

Presentation on theme: "Food Plants. New Food From Old Aztec threshing Amaranth – Florentine Codex – 16 th Century."— Presentation transcript:

1 Food Plants

2 New Food From Old Aztec threshing Amaranth – Florentine Codex – 16 th Century

3 Amaranthus hypocondriacus Amaranthaceae

4 Amaranth harvest in Sierra Madre, Mexico

5 Amaranth seed balls for sale in market, Sierra Madre

6 Aztec God Huitzilopochtli

7 Amaranth culture in US today

8 More Amaranth Species A. cruentus A. caudatus

9 Triticale On left – wheat, triticale, rye

10 The Trouble with Tribbles

11 Star fruit – Averrhoa carambola

12 Pinyon Pine – Pinus edulis

13 Stone Pine – Pinus pinea

14 Pine nuts or pignoli – from Pinus edulis

15 Kiwi Fruit – Actinidia chinensis

16 Kiwi fruit cultivation

17 Taro – Colocasia esculenta

18 Taro harvest - Hawaii

19 Taro corms

20 Tamarind – Tamarindus indica

21 Tamarind Fruits

22 Tamarind based sauces

23 Tamarinido Drinks

24 Ethnobotany and Geography

25 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

26 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

27 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

28 Viking voyages

29 Polynesian Islands

30 Tahiti with sailing canoes and other ships – painted in 1773 by William Hodges with Capt. Cook’s expedition

31 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

32 A Drua built about 1900 on Fiji

33 Design of a camakau, traditional Fijian ocean- going craft

34 Josafata Cama, traditional shipwright of Kabara Island

35 Vesi tree – Intsia bijuga

36 Selecting Vesi trees for ship building – Kabara Island

37 Hollowing out a Vesi tree trunk for a canoe hull – Kabara Island

38 Vika Usu weaving a sail from Pandanus leaves – Kabara Island

39 Pandanus odoratissimus

40 Young Pandanus leaves

41 Canarium harveyi sap used for caulk

42 Kabara Islanders and Sandra Bannock on first voyage of camakau

43 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

44 Polynesian Islands

45 Polynesian Migrations

46 Maori Migration to New Zealand

47 Sweet potato tubers

48 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

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

50 Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa wood raft – 1947 in action and model

51 Possible Inca route to Pacific Islands and Kon-Tiki route

52 Hemp – Cannabis sativa

53 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 ship’s 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

54 Hemp Fabric

55 Chinese guide to making hemp fabric - 1872

56 Hemp traditionally used in sailing

57 Hemp Paper

58 Hemp Declaration of Independence

59 Abaca or Manila hemp – Musa textilis

60 Manila hemp

61 Manila hemp rope

62 Modern Uses of Cannabis Hemp

63 Hemp Cultivation

64 Modern Hemp Paper

65 Hemp clothes and fabric

66 Hemp Cordage

67 Hemp Seed – Food and Oil

68 Hemp Cosmetics