Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea Edited by Marsha Quinlan and Dana Lepofsky Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea Edited by Marsha Quinlan and Dana Lepofsky Copyright 2013 ISBN-10: 0988733013 ISBN-13: 978-0-9887330-1-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2012956081 Society of Ethnobiology Department of Geography University of North Texas 1155 Union Circle #305279 Denton, TX 76203-5017 Cover photo: Amadeo Rea discussing bird taxonomy with Mountain Pima Griselda Coronado Galaviz of El Encinal, Sonora, Mexico, July 2001. Photograph by Dr. Robert L. Nagell, used with permission. Contents Preface to Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea . i Dana Lepofsky and Marsha Quinlan 1 . Diversity and its Destruction: Comments on the Chapters . .1 Amadeo M. Rea 2 . Amadeo M . Rea and Ethnobiology in Arizona: Biography of Influences and Early Contributions of a Pioneering Ethnobiologist . .11 R. Roy Johnson and Kenneth J. Kingsley 3 . Ten Principles of Ethnobiology: An Interview with Amadeo Rea . .44 Dana Lepofsky and Kevin Feeney 4 . What Shapes Cognition? Traditional Sciences and Modern International Science . .60 E.N. Anderson 5 . Pre-Columbian Agaves: Living Plants Linking an Ancient Past in Arizona . .101 Wendy C. Hodgson 6 . The Paleobiolinguistics of Domesticated Squash (Cucurbita spp .) . .132 Cecil H. Brown, Eike Luedeling, Søren Wichmann, and Patience Epps 7 . The Wild, the Domesticated, and the Coyote-Tainted: The Trickster and the Tricked in Hunter-Gatherer versus Farmer Folklore . .162 Gary Paul Nabhan 8 . “Dog” as Life-Form . .178 Eugene S. Hunn 9 . The Kasaga’yu: An Ethno-Ornithology of the Cattail-Eater Northern Paiute People of Western Nevada . .192 Catherine S. Fowler 10 . People of the Sky: Birds in Chumash Culture . .223 Jan Timbrook and John R. Johnson 11 . Upland Salado Resource Use . .272 Charmion R. McKusick 12 . Amadeo M . Rea and the Case of a Vanishing Owl . .297 Steven W. Carothers, Dorothy A. House, and R. Roy Johnson 13 . “To Feed all the People”: Lucille Clifton’s Fall Feasts for the Gitga’at Community of Hartley Bay, British Columbia . .322 Nancy Turner, Colleen Robinson, Gideon Robinson, and Belle Eaton Contributors . .364 Preface to Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea Dana Lepofsky† and Marsha Quinlan‡ We are most pleased to present Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea, as the inaugural volume of the Contributions in Ethnobiology series. The Soci- ety of Ethnobiology designed Contributions in Ethnobiology as a vehicle for original books on the relationships of diverse human societies with their biological worlds, from the very distant past to the immediate present. The data and illustration-rich collection of research in the present volume accomplishes the breadth of the series goals, and each chapter springs from the influence of Dr. Amadeo M. Rea, an eth- nobiological pioneer and valued colleague. Amadeo Rea was one of the Society of Ethnobiology’s original members, published an article in the first issue of the Journal of Ethnobiology (Rea 1981), and has continued to inspire ethnobiology with his finely crafted, interdisciplinary, artfully descriptive and scientific work. Here, leading ar- chaeologists, ethnographers, linguists, and prominent Southwestern U.S. biologists, explore much of the range of ethnobiology. They form an instructive overview of the field in homage to the influential role of Amadeo, but also with an eye toward the future of the discipline. Like any important event, the making of this volume comes with its own story. Some years ago, around the time that Amadeo Rea was considering retirement from his posi- tion at the University of San Diego, it struck Alana Cordy-Collins, then Chair of the Department of Anthropology, that Amadeo was such an accomplished colleague that he deserved a Festschrift, a volume in his honor. Too often, she thought, the idea for these volumes does not occur while the honoree is alive to enjoy them. With Amadeo’s help, Alana invited several pre-eminent biologists and ethnobiologists to participate in a vol- ume to honor Amadeo and his career. Not surprisingly, given the broad and deep respect † Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. Canada [[email protected]] ‡ Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA [[email protected]] ii | Lepofsky and Quinlan both for Amadeo’s scholarship and for him as a person, the response to contribute to the volume was swift and positive. The production of this volume took a circuitous journey. When the Society of Ethno- biology publicized the Contribution Series, however, Dr. Cordy-Collins approached us with this mutually fortunate and fitting opportunity. The Contributions in Ethnobiology series, in many ways, is the appropriate home for a volume that honors Amadeo Rea, and even more so because this is the first volume in the series. Amadeo Rea, as the trib- utes in many of the chapters attest, is a leader in the fields of biology and ethnobiology, both because of his scholarship and his integrity as a person. It is no coincidence that many of the North American ethnobiology leaders, and indeed founders of the disci- pline, contributed to this volume. Of significance, 60% of the chapters in this volume are authored or co-authored by past-Presidents of the Society of Ethnobiology (and this includes Amadeo himself). What’s more, the Society of Ethnobiology is the home of ethnobiological scholarship in North America (Wyndham et al. 2011). The papers in this volume are as diverse as the field of ethnobiology itself. Aside from the chapter summarizing Amadeo’s career (Johnson and Kingsley), the papers span geographic areas, temporal frameworks, and methods. But, they are also linked in that they seek to understand and elucidate the complex relationships between humans and their biological world. More specifically, the authors chose ethnobiological topics that Amadeo pursued in his own career, including: linkages between ecological diversity and cultural resilience (Carrothers et al.; Hodgson; McKusik; Nabhan) traditional food sys- tems (Turner et al.), ethnozoology and specifically, ethno-ornithology (Carrothers et al.; Fowler; Timbrook and Johnson), the importance of the “long view” on human-envi- ronmental interactions (Brown et al.; Carrothers et al.; Fowler; Hodgson; Johnson and Kingsley; McKusik; Timbrook and Johnson), and folk taxonomy and language systems (Anderson; Brown et al.; Fowler; Hunn; Nabhan). As this last topic illustrates, and as stated in Principle #5 (Lepofsky and Feeney), eth- nobiologists understand the potency of language. We know that words are powerful, and that how we use words reflects our relationship with the world around us. It is for that reason that Amadeo had one request for Alana when he agreed to a book in his honor. Preface to Explorations in Ethnobiology: The Legacy of Amadeo Rea | iii His request was, “That we avoid speciesism by treating the proper names of all organisms (not just birds) as proper nouns.” On this point, Amadeo feels very strongly. In a note to us, Amadeo said, “As a writing convention, what we respect we capitalize. That includes our individual names, our cities and countries, our tribes and empires, the lines we draw on maps. But not the species names we give to the plants and animals that we share the Earth with and who (or that) support our continued existence? I have argued (At the Desert’s Green Edge:xxvii, col 2; Folk Mammalogy of the Northern Pimans: 125; Wings in the Desert:xvii) that the proper names of all organisms should be treated as proper nouns, not just to avoid ambigu- ity (which it does), but to avoid anthropocentric arrogance. Sensitivity to speciesism is not unlike sensitivity to gender issues; once you become aware of it, it’s annoying.” We have tried to honor Amadeo’s request here, and we think we were mostly success- ful. In general, we capitalized only the most specific taxonomic designations (e.g., ‘com- mon bean’ versus ‘Kentucky Blue Bean’; ‘cedar’ versus ‘Western Redcedar’). We disclose that we sometimes regretted our decision to capitalize common names throughout the process. As Gene Hunn’s chapter on how we name dog “breeds” demonstrates, it is not always clear what the most specific taxonomic designation is. And, of course, different cultures will assign different levels of specificity to the names of organisms (Berlin 1992), depending on their cultural importance (Hunn 1982) and even the culture’s shared ap- preciation or disdain for that organism (Nolan et al. 2006). Still, we appreciate Amadeo’s point and tried to abide by his request. Our grade school teachers would be proud of the amount of time we spent discussing capitalization. We thank the many people who have contributed to the development and quality of this book. First and foremost, we thank Amadeo Rea, who has made this project a joy as well as an honor. We have much gratitude for Amadeo’s University of San Diego col- league, Alana Cordy-Collins, who spearheaded this project, organized the original sub- missions, and obtained publication funding from the David W. May American Indian Collection at the University of San Diego to support its final publication. Additional funding came from the Society of Ethnobiology. Also at the University of San Diego, we thank Monica Wagner in Sociology/Anthropology and Joyce Antorietto at the Anthro- iv | Lepofsky and Quinlan pology Museum for correspondence and technology help. The editors are indebted to the volume’s anonymous chapter reviewers. We owe special thanks to Eugene Anderson and Catherine Fowler for their considerable consulting on various aspects of the project. Thank you, Margaret Quinlan, for photographic editing and clerical assistance. We are grateful to Kevin Feeney for his conscientious copy editing of the volume, and to James Welch for advice, wisdom, and action along the way. Finally, we thank Cheryl Takahashi for her hard work, skill, and judgment on the book’s publishing, design, and layout.