CSUDH Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology Field courses in Chiapas, Mexico, 2000-2008
In 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007, Dr. Janine Gasco took small groups of students to the Soconusco as part of a course on Mesoamerican Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology. Introduction to Mesoamerican Ethnoecology was taught in 2008 and will be taught again in 2010.
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Class of 2000, Eric de la Vega, Douglas Whiting, Shelia Vickery, Nancy Elder, Joan Stevens, Cheryl McKnight, Lily Aguilar |
During these courses, students are introduced to a wide range of field experiences directly related to ethnobotany or ethnoecology in the Soconusco region.
Documenting the use of Soconusco plants
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| Lupe Ochoa interviewing Rosa Cruz Vera (2006) | Antonio Sanchez |
Soconusco plants are used for many things, the most important of which is food.
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| escomite bean | chile chocolate |
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| chico zapote | mamey fruit |
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| chipilin | chipilin |
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texcamote (or malanga) |
texcamote (or malanga) |
locally produced foods being sold at Escuintla market (from L. chayote, beans, corn, texcamote
avocado, chipilin, hoja blanca, nopales, achiote paste)
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Plants are also used to make household implements like containers, brooms, and molinillos. Wood from the hormuguillo tree is used to make marimbas.
etc.
Plants are also used to make household implements like jicara containers, brooms, and molinillos.
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Brooms are made from the escobilla plant; the dried leaves are bundled and attached to
a stick. Containers and scoops are made from the fruit of the jicara tree. Molinillos are hand-held “blenders” made from a section of the trunk of the molinollo tree. Wood from the hormuguillo tree is used to make marimbas.
Many plants are used for medicine.
Soconusco residents often use certain plants as living fences to delineate their property. Many local trees are valuable sources of wood for houses and furniture.
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Learning about the many aspects of home gardens
Plants grown in home gardens provide families with food, medicine, and a wide range of other products. Home gardens are also important living spaces and many leisure activities as well as household tasks take place in the gardens.
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Monica Lomeli learning about a home garden from Manuel Perez (2006)
Learning about the ecology of cacao orchards
In the Soconusco, cacao is shade grown, and typically it grows under the canopy of native trees. But we have also learned that other plants that families use for their own food and sometimes sell grow along side of the cacao trees, making them true “forest gardens.”
Lily Gonzalez learning about cacao cultivation from Lucio Antonio Vazquez (2007)
Learning about farming in local milpas
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| Sara Reimann learning to cut sugar cane (08) | Ed Smith planting corn (08) | In a typical milpa farmers grow corn and a variety of other plants like beans, chiles, squash, and yuca. | Tommy Kasper learns to carry 40k of corn (08) |
Learning how sugar cane is turned into panela (sugar)
Many families grow sugar cane either in their agricultural fields or in their home gardens. The area is scattered with trapiches, sugar mills that turn sugar cane into brown sugar cakes called panela. Sugar cane is cut and fed into a sugar mill that squeezes the sweet liquid from the
stalk. It is then boiled and poured into wooden molds to make panela
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| Gloria Evins straining cane juice for panela (08) |
Making jicara containers
Gourd trees produce gourds that can be made into useful containers.
Manuel Perez showing students Angel Medina, Wendy Ghiloni, and Paul Vaca
how to make jicara containers and scoops (2004).
Making tamales (from scratch!)
Beginning with removing the dried corn from the cob, the corn is then cooked with mineral lime. Students help to grind the corn, and then make delicious mole tamales wrapped in the leaves of hoja blanca.
Antonio Solorio enjoying a tamal (2006)
Other activities vary from year to year, and have included:
Visiting the Museo Regional del Soconusco
Visiting the archaeological site of Izapa, near Tapachula, Chiapas
Visiting the Las Encrucijadas Biosphere in the mangrove swamp
Visiting the archaeological site of Tonina
Jeff Lewis, Sara Reimann, Ed Smith & Tommy Kasper at Tonina (08)
Visiting the archaeological site of Los Horcones, near Tonalá, Chiapas
Archaeologist, Claudia García-Des Lauriers explaining iconography on stela at Los Horcones
Hiking to the waterfall of El Chicol
Cesar Rodriguez, Monica Lomeli, and Ruben Bañuelos at waterfall El Chicol (2006)
Visiting the the Museo de la Organización de Medicos Indígenas del Estado de Chiapas (OMIECH) in San Cristobal de las Casas
Carole Yokota, Shannon Alves, Judy Clark, Antonio Sanchez at the Museo de OMIECH (2002)
Visiting the Museum of Medicine in Mexico City
Angel Medina at Museum of Medicine (2004)