Environmental, cultural and linguistic factors affecting Ulkatcho (Carrier) Botanical Knowledge
Date
1995
Authors
Kay, Michele Suzanne
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Abstract
Ethnobotanical fieldwork conducted in 1992 and 1993 and ethnographic and linguistic records are used to describe Ulkatcho plant knowledge. The Ulkatcho are a Carrier Athapaskan group whose traditional territory is located in central British Columbia: from the Upper Bella Coola Valley north to Burns Lake, south to Bute Inlet and east to the Fraser River. Therefore, the Ulkatcho people have access to a diverse range of ecosystems and plant species.
Ulkatcho plant taxonomy is described as a lattice hierarchy encompassing both intellectual and utilitarian aspects. Ulkatcho and other Athapaskan botanical terms exhibit a variety of linguistic structures. The terms also reflect possible taxonomic expansions and taxa in the plant taxonomic systems. Botanical terms are shown to be less stable (i.e. change more rapidly in the evolution of a language) than general vocabulary. Relative importance values for plants were calculated using a modified version of the Index of Cultural Significance. Plants with the highest cultural significance are widespread species, and a majority were used as materials. Names of important plants were found to be more stable than those of less important types. A "percentage of change" formula was developed to compare historical and current Ulkatcho plant knowledge. In general species that are used are more likely to show a change in plant knowledge than species that are not used; however, food and material use classes changed the least in plant knowledge and plants with high ICS values underwent as much change in plant knowledge as plants with low ICS values. Comparison of the Ulkatcho plant knowledge to that of Athapaskan and non-Athapaskan groups demonstrates that there are three major types of factors that effect plant use, classification and application of botanical terms: environmental (e.g. obvious physiognomic features of the plants and floristic diversity); cultural (e.g. inherited cultural framework, intercultural exchange and acculturation); and linguistic (e.g. linguistic affiliation and linguistic assimilation).