ETHNOBOTANY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 



By Wilfred W. Kobbins, John P. Harrington, and Barbara 

 Freire-Marreco ^ 



INTRODUCTION 

 Scope of Ethnobotany 



ETHNOBOTANY is vii-tually a new field of research, a field which, 

 if investigated thoroughly and systematically, will yield results 

 of great value to the ethnologist and incidentally also to the botanist. 

 Etlmobotany is a science, consequently scientific methods of study 

 and investigation must be adopted and adhered to as strictly as in any 

 of the older divisions of scientific work. It is a comparatively easy 

 matter for one to collect plants, to procure their names from the 

 Indians, then to send the plants to a botanist for determination, and 

 ultimately to formulate a list of plants and their accompanymg Indian 

 names, with some notes regardmg their medicinal and other uses. 

 Ethnobotanical investigation deserves to be taken more seriously: it 

 should yield more information than tliis ; it should strike deeper mto 

 the thoughts and life of the people studied. If we are to learn more 

 of prmiitive peoples, we must attempt to gain from them their con- 

 ceptions not of a part but of the entire environment. Ethnobotany 

 is a special Ime of ethnologic investigation, the results of wliicli must 

 receive consideration in our ultimate analysis. 



Ethnobotanical research is concerned with several important ques- 

 tions: (a) What are primitive ideas and conceptions of plant life? 

 (b) What are the effects of a given plant environment on the lives, 

 customs, religion, thoughts, and eveiyday practical affairs of the 



1 The earlier, larger, and more systematic part of this memoir is the work of the two authors first 

 named on the title-page, Mr. Wilfred W. Robbins and Mr. John P. Harrington. Their methods of 

 Investigation and collaboration are explained in the Introduction. 



When the memoir, in its original scope and form, was in type, it was thought advisable to enlarge it 

 by including notes on some of the economic, industrial, and medicinal uses of the plants, made by the 

 third author. Miss Barbara Freire-Marreco, iii the course of work supported by the Research Fellowship 

 fund of Somerville College, Oxford, England, and by the late MLss Mary Ewart's trustees, as well as 

 many additional plant-names. It was thought well also to add, for the sake of comparison, information 

 gained from the Tewa colony settled since the end of the seventeenth century among the Hopi at Hano, 

 Arizona, although the winter season had made it difhcult to learn much of the plant environment. Mr. 

 Harrington is not responsible for the form of the Tewa words recorded at Hano, nor Mr. Robbins for the 

 tentative identifications of the plants obtained or described there; Mr. Harrington and Mr. Robbins are 

 alone responsible for the views expressed in pages 1 to 75; and Miss Freire-Marreco for those contained 

 in pages 76 to US. 



