ethics

Sources: Navigating the Ethnobotanical Record

By Spirit Native Foods Research Team | Updated January 2026

Sources: Navigating the Ethnobotanical Record

The Historical Archive

The Stratigraphy of Knowledge

When you look at the Plant Database on Spirit Native Foods, you are looking at more than just a list of species. You are looking at a “stratified” record of human relationship with the land. Like the layers of soil on the Missouri riverbank, the ethnobotanical record of the Great Plains is composed of distinct historical eras—each with its own biases, its own terminology, and its own level of reliability.

To be a responsible student of ethnobotanical data, you must learn to navigate this record. You must know when a 1910 source is a survival guide and when it is a product of colonial misunderstanding. In this 2,100-word guide, we explore the primary pillars of the Plains Native ethnobotanical record, how to read between the lines of “salvage anthropology,” and how this archive validates its data.

1. The Savior Bias: The Era of Salvage Anthropology (1880–1930)

The bulk of our written ethnobotanical records come from a specific and problematic window of time. Between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century, researchers like Melvin Gilmore, Alice Fletcher, and Paul B. Sears raced across the Plains to document indigenous knowledge.

The Salvage Mindset

These researchers believed that indigenous cultures were “vanishing” (a false narrative fueled by colonial expansion). This led to a desperate, rapid-fire style of documentation.

  • The Benefit: They captured incredibly detailed information about the use of plants like Breadroot and Sunflower while the elders of the pre-reservation era were still alive.
  • The Bias: These sources often ignore the living nature of the cultures. They describe plant uses as if they were items in a museum rather than active components of a modern life. When reading Gilmore’s “Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region” (1919), one must remember that he was writing from a perspective that frequently patronized his informants.

2. Terminology as a Barrier: The Latin Wall

One of the greatest challenges in the ethnobotanical record is the shift in scientific classification.

Digital vs. Indigenous Knowledge Contrast

Synonyms and Name Shifts

A plant that Gilmore called Echinacea angustifolia in 1919 remains largely stable, but many other species have undergone dozens of name changes as botanical genetics evolves.

  • The Archive’s Role: We use the USDA Symbol and Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) as our anchor. This allows us to “link” a 100-year-old tribal use to the modern scientific understanding of that species.
  • Indigenous Names: We prioritize the indigenous names as the “true” identifiers. While a Latin name might shift based on a DNA test of a petal, a Lakota name like Pȟežíȟóta remains an enduring identifier of the plant’s ecological and spiritual role.

3. The Modern Synthesis (1980–Present)

In the late 20th century, a new generation of ethnobotanists—led by figures like Kelly Kindscher and Daniel Moerman—began to synthesize the historical records with modern pharmacognosy (the study of medicines from natural sources).

The Power of Synthesis

Sources like Kindscher’s “Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie” (1992) or Moerman’s “Native American Ethnobotany” (1998) perform a vital service:

  1. Cross-Validation: If three different tribes (Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Omaha) all used the same plant for the same respiratory condition, the “level of evidence” for that use increases dramatically.
  2. Scientific Correlation: Modern research often confirms the chemical presence of the exactly the alkaloids or glycosides described in the traditional stories, bridging the gap between Tradition and the lab.

4. Reading “The Gaps”: What Isn’t Recorded

As discussed in Respect & Data Sovereignty, many things were never written down.

  • Gender Bias: Most early ethnobotanists were men. Because the primary gatherers of roots and greens were women, the historical record is heavily weighted toward plants used for “male” activities (hunting, warfare, building) and often misses the nuanced daily foodways and reproductive medicines used by women.
  • The “Sacred” Gap: Ceremonial uses were often withheld by elders. If a record looks “vague” about a specific sacred plant, it is often a sign of the informant’s integrity, not their ignorance.

5. How to Validate a Source

When you encounter an ethnobotanical “fact” on the internet or in a book, apply the Triple-Check Protocol:

  1. Cultural Specificity: Does the source name a specific tribe? (Avoid sources that use “Indians say…”).
  2. Biological Specificity: Does it provide a scientific name and a clear description of the part used?
  3. Cross-Reference: Can you find this use in at least two independent historical or contemporary records?

The Stratified Record of Research

6. The Ethics of the “Digital Source”

Spirit Native Foods is a “secondary source.” We are a curator of the record.

  • Our Mandate: To provide the CITATION. Every plant in our database is linked back to the original ethnographic or scientific record. We want you to go look up the original work of Gilmore or Moerman.
  • Transparency: We explicitly mark where information is “Traditional Use” (based on the historical record) versus “Modern Practice” (contemporary ethnobotanical techniques).

7. The Living Informant: Contemporary Ethnobotany

The final and most important source is the Land. The written record is a guide, but the ultimate authority is the experience of the harvester. If a 1920 book says a plant is easy to find, but you can’t find it anywhere in its traditional range, your observation is the new “data.” Climate change and habitat fragmentation are rewriting the ethnobotanical record in real-time.

8. Conclusion: Becoming a Literate Researcher

Ethnobotany is a discipline of deep reading. It requires us to listen to the voices of the elders through the scratchy pens of 19th-century anthropologists, to decipher the Latin names of 21st-century geneticists, and to observe the silent behavior of the plants themselves.

By understanding the strengths and biases of our sources, we become more than just “consumers” of data. We become literate participants in the survival of a knowledge system that is as old as the prairie itself.

Key Pillars of the Plains Ethnobotanical Record

  1. Melvin Gilmore: “Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region” (1919). Focus: Omaha, Pawnee, Dakota, Winnebago.
  2. Daniel Moerman: “Native American Ethnobotany” (1998). The massive synthesis of 44,000+ uses across North America.
  3. Kelly Kindscher: “Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie” and “Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie.” Focus: Great Plains geography and modern botany.
  4. Alice Fletcher: “The Omaha Tribe” (1911). Detailed cultural and use context.
  5. Indigenous Language Projects: (Ongoing) Native-led projects to document plant names and stories within specific communities.
  1. USDA PLANTS Database: For verifying modern ranges and nomenclature.
  2. IT IS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System): The definitive authority on biological names.
  3. Native American Ethnobotany Database (NAEB Online): The digital version of Moerman’s work.

View Academic and Historic Ethnobotanical Reference Books on Amazon

Next in our Ethics Series: Seasonal Practice - Living with the Cycles.