Plant taxonomic systems and ethnobotany of three contemporary Indian groups of the Pacific Northwest (Haida, Bella Coola, and Lillooet) ...

• Main Author: Turner, Nancy Jean
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2012
• Subjects: haida
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0107164; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0107164

Plant names in three Pacific Northwest Indian languages -- Haida (Skidegate and Masset dialects), Bella Coola, and Lillooet (Fraser River "dialect") -- were analyzed semantically and taxonomically. A computerized sorting system was developed to handle pertinent information associated with these names and their corresponding plant types. At the present time, each language contains an average of about 150 generic-level plant names, over 50% of which correspond in a one-to- one fashion with botanical species. Some of the names have no meaning other than as plant names, but most are analyzable into smaller units of meaning, reflecting traditional beliefs, utilization, innate characteristics of the plants, or their resemblance to some substance, object, or other plant. Some of the generic terms are obviously borrowed from other languages, and a number of taxa can be found in each language which originally applied to indigenous species and have been expanded in recent times to include cultivated or imported ...