504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



biting indiscriminately into all roots. Thus fear and cultural con- 

 servatism and, perhaps, lack of interest, save in dire necessity, pre- 

 vented all but a few individuals from acquiring systematic knowledge 

 of the flora. Probably very few old men and women throughout 

 Iroquoia, who through specialization were regarded as authorities, 

 could distinguish 300 species in a region that has yielded modern 

 botanists five times that number. An occasional herbalist might 

 recognize a third of the local flora. Nevertheless, the Iroquois were 

 aware of changes in topography and ecology that a traveler would 

 note as he passed from the coniferous forests north of the Mohawk 

 country, through predominantly beech-birch-maple forest in Oneida 

 and Onondaga territory, across elm bottoms and hemlock swamps to the 

 mucky land of the Cayuga; thence having passed the Seneca towns, 

 he would cross the Genesee, beyond which "oak openings" or prairies 

 in western New York were skirted by great stands of basswood and 

 white pine, and where such typically southern species as sassafras, 

 tulip, and cucumber trees blended into the oak-hickory-chestnut forest 

 of the Allegheny uplands (pi. 1, fig. 2). If the beech was the most 

 numerous upland tree of the Iroquois country, the maple was more 

 important in economy and religion: to this day it is remembered 

 with an annual festival of thanksgiving. Stately white pines towered 

 on the river terraces and invaded abandoned village sites, but until 

 after the introduction of the steel ax the pine was not as important 

 to the Iroquois for house building (pi. 2, fig.l) as the bottomland 

 American elm, which must have been an important species in the 

 primary forests of their region because they extensively used its bark 

 for houses, vessels, and boats, and it was the prominent tree symbol of 

 mythology and art.^ 



Since the culture of every society exists over and against an 

 environment, it becomes important to observe how a people adjust 

 to it, to what degree they exploit it, how its offerings affect the con- 

 tents of their behavior, and how they react to new discoveries. 

 Studies of how peoples of primitive culture use plants (ethnobotany) 

 in relation to the possible uses of plants to man (economic botany) 

 yield information for elaborating this type of problem. Because 

 plant lore and knoweldge of medicinal uses tend to survive among 

 peoples like the Iroquis the ethnologist can undertake such studies 

 on their reservations that form island commimities in the surround- 

 ing sea of whites. Here one may observe the clash of cultures in a 

 patient who caUs in the Government physician and later summons 

 his wife's mother, a noted herbalist. Reservations provide nexus of 



•Zenkert, Charles A., The flora of the Niagara frontier region. Bull. Buffalo Soc. Nat. 

 Sci., vol. 16, 1934; Gordon, Robert B., The primeval forest types of southwestern New 

 York. Bull. New York State Mus., No. 321, 1940. 



