Plains Apache Ethnobotany

by Julia A. Jordan

Book Overview

One tribe's traditional knowledge of plants, presented for the first time

Residents of the Great Plains since the early 1500s, the Apache people were well acquainted with the native flora of the region. In Plains Apache Ethnobotany, Julia A. Jordan documents more than 110 plant species valued by the Plains Apache and preserves a wealth of detail concerning traditional Apache collection, preparation, and use of these plant species for food, medicine, ritual, and material culture.

The traditional Apache economy centered on hunting, gathering, and trading with other tribes. Throughout their long history the Apache lived in or traveled to many different parts of the plains, gaining an intimate knowledge of a wide variety of plant resources. Part of this traditional knowledge, especially that pertaining to plants of Oklahoma, has been captured here by Jordan's fieldwork, conducted with elders of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma in the mid-1960s, a time when much traditional knowledge was being lost.

Plains Apache Ethnobotany is the most comprehensive ethnobotanical study of a southern plains tribe. Handsomely illustrated, this book is a valuable resource for ethnobotanists, anthropologists, historians, and anyone interested in American Indian use of native plants.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806139684
• ISBN13: 9780806139685
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Important research finally published

Julia Jordan studied the ethnobotany of the Kiowa-Apache tribe in Oklahoma while a student at the University of Oklahoma. She established a remarkable rapport with the tribal members, mostly the women. This enabled her to learn from the actual practitioners the ways in which they remembered fast-dissapearing uses for the endemic plants. This kind of research is seldom published, but 40 years later, it is the only research of this kind in existence. The book was brought up to date on plant names and locations, and is also well-written and a pleasure to read.

The Apache's abiding connection with wild plants is exhaustively documented through fieldwork and in

Research anthropologist Julia A. Jordan presents Plains Apache Ethnobotany, an in-depth study and reference of how the Plains Apache native people of North America used more than 110 plant species in food, medicine, and rituals, and material culture. Traditionally a hunter-gathering tribe that engaged in trade with its neighbors, the Apache's abiding connection with wild plants is exhaustively documented through fieldwork and interviews conducted with elders of the Oklahoma Apache Tribe in the mid-1960s. The text is studious yet accessible to readers of all backgrounds. A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this thoroughly comprehensive reference and resource, highly recommended for ethnobotany and Apache tribe Native American studies collections.