Exploring biocultural contexts: Comparative woody plant knowledge of an indigenous and Afro-american maroon community in Suriname, South America

Abstract

Despite the increasing use of quantitative methods in ethnobotany, there has been relatively little advance in understanding of cross-cultural patterns. Within three tropical forest vegetation zones, I documented and compared local plant knowledge, categorical use, and resource selection for a short-resident (±300 years) Afro-American Saramacca "Maroon" community and an indigenous Cariban-speaking Trio community. For 3-4 male specialists at each site, the "recognition" and use of stems ≥10 cm dbh in forest plots (0.5-1 ha) was recorded. Comparative methods included quantitative use value indices and categorized uses (construction, edible, medicine, technology, and trade). The Trio emphasized medicinal uses regardless of vegetation zone. Saramacca use value was greatest within fallow forest, exceeded Trio knowledge for "construction" and "trade", and emphasized timber and carving species. For both groups, the use value of most taxa (family and species) was correlated with "apparency" (abundance, species richness), with the exception of palms and major cultural species. As hypothesized, Trio indigenous knowledge was greater-with more biological species named (97.3% vs. 83.9%) and utilized (87.7% vs. 66.9%) and more uses cited per species. However, the shorter-resident Saramacca Maroon participants still revealed a robust knowledge and use of woody plant diversity.