Department of Environmental Studies DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
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Department of Environmental Studies DISSERTATION COMMITTEE PAGE The undersigned have examined the dissertation titled: Weed women, all night vigils, and the secret life of plants: negotiated epistemologies of ethnogynecological plant knowledge in American history presented by Claudia Jeanne Ford, candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and hereby certify that it is accepted.* Alesia Maltz, Ph.D., Committee Chair (Core Faculty, Department of Environmental Studies, Antioch University New England) James W. Jordan, Ph.D. (Core Faculty, Department of Environmental Studies, Antioch University New England) Yuriko Saito, Ph.D. (Professor of Philosophy, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island) Herman H. Shugart, Jr., Ph.D. (W.W. Corcoran Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia) Defense Date: Date Approved by all committee members: Date Submitted to the Registrar’s Office: *Signatures are on file with the Registrar’s Office at Antioch University New England. Weed women, all night vigils, and the secret life of plants: Negotiated epistemologies of ethnogynecological plant knowledge in American history by Claudia Jeanne Ford A dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Environmental Studies) at Antioch University New England 2015 © copyright by Claudia J. Ford 2015 All Rights Reserved I humbly dedicate this dissertation to the life, work, and memory of Dr. Vivian Marie Ford. I am eternally grateful that my mother paved the way before me by earning her doctorate as a young grandmother, and that her passion for education and lifelong learning is my legacy and my delight. i Therefore, always carry an observant eye and an analytic mind. You may suddenly stumble upon some truth for which your world is waiting. --Marcus Garvey, 1937 ii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi ABBREVIATIONS xii GLOSSARY xiii ABSTRACT xvii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Falling Woman’s Herbs 1 Weed Women, All Night Vigils, and The Secret Life of Plants 7 Organization of the Dissertation 16 Chapter 2: Integrative Review 19 TEK: Plants, Animals, and People 19 TEK: Place and Culture 37 Atlantic Encounters 44 Chapter 3: Conceptual Approach 51 Research Framework 51 Silences in the Archives 64 Chapter 4: Research Findings and Stories 81 Ethnobotany and the Secret Life of Plants 81 An Ethnogynecology Index: Plants and Practices 87 Materia Medica: Ethnogynecology and Herbal Medicine 164 Books Chapter 5: Interpretation and Analysis 176 Negotiated Epistemologies: A Thought Experiment 176 Negotiating Ecological Knowledge Across Boundaries 187 Chapter 6: Conclusion 230 Weed Women of All Races 231 Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Stories 240 Growing Forward 250 APPENDIX 253 BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 iii FIGURES 5.1. Negotiated epistemologies of traditional ecological knowledge 177 TABLES 4.1. Archives consulted in-person 253 4.2. Online archives consulted 254 4.3. Summary of documents and plant species in Ethnogynecology Index 255 4.4. Ethnogynecology Index source information by date of publication 256 4.5. North American Native tribes, bands, and groups discussed in Index studies 257 4.6. Ethnogynecological (RH) categories and recorded uses of plants for women 258 4.7. Ethnogynecological (RH) sub-categories and recorded uses of plants for infants 259 4.8. Ethnogynecologically significant plants frequently recorded for infant use 260 4.9. Ethnogynecologically significant plant frequently recorded for use in childbirth 261 4.10. Botanical online databases consulted 262 4.11. The twenty most frequently recorded ethnogynecologically significant plant genera 263 4.12. Plant remedies, parts, and preparations 264 4.13. Recorded unique preparations of plant remedies 265 4.14. Recorded uses for Caulophyllum thalictroides from 4 documents 266 4.15. Recorded uses for Caulophyllum thalictroides from Huron H. Smith manuscripts 267 4.16. Recorded uses for Gossypium sp. from 5 documents 268 iv STORIES In a Garden on Turtle’s Back 2 Lichens, Caribou, and Dams 20 Nanny Mother 78 The Secret Life of Squaw Root 149 The Passenger, January 1859 227 A Praise Poem: Spirit and Form 249 The Grandmothers 251 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible by an extraordinary amount of support and encouragement during my studies, research, and writing. I have many people to acknowledge and thank. First I must thank the staff of the libraries, archives, and rare book collections that enabled me to complete this research. It was an honor to be able to use the resources of The Mohegan Tribal Nation. I would like to thank Chief Malerba, Chairman Bozsum, Mohegan Tribal Nonner Stephanie Fielding, Mohegan Tribal Nonner Marie Pineault, and Mohegan Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel for according me the privilege of accessing such special resources. I humbly thank Elder Fielding for a fascinating personal tour of the government offices, I sincerely thank Ms. Zobel for her time, patience, generosity, and wisdom, and I am eternally grateful to archivist David Freeburg and librarian Rachel Sayet for their research assistance, for kindly sharing their office and time, and for so generously retrieving and photocopying important documents. I was privileged to spend 18 months researching and reading in the archives and collections of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. I want to thank the tribal council, staff, and administration for granting me unfettered access to these collections and for allowing me to present my research in its developing stages. The archivists and librarians went out of their way to support me in my investigations, and I thank Phyllis Ladd, Gabriella Kaye, and Betsy Peterson for their expertise and cheerful aid. I thank Museum administrators Kim Hatcher White and Jean Little, and researchers Dr. Kevin Mc Bride and Dr. Jason Mancini for their generosity and encouragement. The Mashantucket Pequot Library and Research Center is a beautiful, inspiring place for academic work, and I felt fortunate indeed to spend so much time in a sacred space, delightfully vi observing the weekly passing of the seasons in the surrounding forest. The biggest blessing of this time and this place, however, was the consistent, quiet, supportive, encouraging, and gracious presence of Native Elder Trudie Lamb-Richmond (Schaghticoke). I am honored and humbled by Ms. Trudie’s bountiful generosity, and her guidance and advice as a storyteller, a scholar, an activist, a mentor, and a friend. Thank you Ms. Trudie. I would like it to be understood that I cannot and would not pretend to be a biographer, historian, or anthropologist of the Mohegan, Mashantucket, Pequot Nations or any of the tribes and communities whose archives I have had the privilege of accessing. None of my research is meant in any way to be a biographical study, a tribal history, or an anthropological study. I am humbly aware that my access to sacred tribal resources remains a special privilege, and my gratitude is profound. Any errors in interpretation of these materials should reflect only on my limitations as an individual researcher, and should not be ascribed to the Native communities, the materials, or their provenance. I was very appreciative of the opportunity to present a preliminary stage of this research with the enthusiastic encouragement of the scholars from the Five Colleges Native American Indian Studies Program, especially Ron Welburn, Kathleen A. Brown-Pérez, Lisa Brooks, Alice Nash, and Nancy Rich. Thank you Dr. Nash for sharing a precious family document with me at a critical moment in my research. I would also like to thank the librarians and archivists of the Providence Athenaeum and the Brown University John Carter Brown Library for assistance with archival materials, and for unfailing words of support and encouragement at critical points in my research. In the early stages of this work I was greatly assisted by the following artists, designers, and scholars from Rhode Island School of Design, who generously shared information and ideas vii with me: Donna Bruton, Charlie Cannon, Karen Idoine, Joanne Stryker, and Drs. Elizabeth Dean Hermann, Damian White, David Bogen, and RISD mailroom clerk Kevin Page who carried pounds of books up College Hill to my office. I want to thank Dr. Nell Painter for being a superb role model and an excellent supporter, and Dr. Judith Carney for encouraging my initial ideas about African retentions of botanical knowledge. There are many other scholars and students at the academic institutions I am lucky to be associated with who offered a much appreciated word of advice and support over the years, and I respectfully thank my local and international colleagues from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, the Esavana Network, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg University, Goddard College, Salve Regina University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Brown University. A special thank you for their unflagging respect, reciprocity, relationship, and encouragement goes to Dr. Loren Intolubbe-Chmil, Dr. Caroline Berinyuy, Dr. Robert Swap, and Peter Hocking. I am grateful to the environmental studies faculty at Antioch, especially Jean Amaral, Drs. Beth Kaplin, Jim Gruber, Steve Chase, Daniel Smith, and Charles Curtin, who each went out of their way to assist me through specific academic tasks. I want to thank Dr. Fikret Berkes for his generosity, for the time he spent with me at a conference in Arizona explaining his research, and subsequently