Month: June 2011

Food and development

E. N. Anderson

“The first law of economics is that for every economist there is an equal and opposite economist,… and the second law is that they are both invariably wrong.”  (Paul Sillitoe, 2010:xvii.)

Recipes Worth a Thousand Gold:  The Food Sections

 

By

 

Sun Simiao

 

Translated by Sumei Yi, Dept. of History, University of Washington, Seattle, with notes summarized, from edition published in Peking, 1985; ed. E. N. Anderson

 

 

Introductory Notes by E. N. Anderson

Sumei Yi, a graduate student in Chinese history at the University of Washington, has done the world a signal service in translating the material on food and nutrition from the medieval Chinese work Recipes Worth a Thousand Gold (654 A.D.).

The following is a preliminary version.  I have lightly edited it but neither of us has, so far, checked it over carefully or compared it with other editions.  Ms. Yi is releasing it to the Chinese medical world for help and advice.  We need help especially with the medical terms.

Maya Ethnobotany:  Four Studies

 

E. N. Anderson

 

1.  Yucatan Maya Herbal Medicine:  Practice and Future                                      2

2.  Wild Plum Shoots and Jicama Roots:  Food Security in

Quintana Roo Maya Life                                                                        12

3.  African Influences on Maya Foods                                                            21

4.  From Sacred Ceiba to Profitable Orange                                                            30

 

 

 

1.  Yucatec Maya Herbal Medicine in Quintana Roo:  Practice and Future

 

 

Abstract

The Yucatec Maya of west-central Quintana Roo maintain an herbal medical tradition involving over 450 named taxa.  Some 347 species have been identified botanically (at least to genus level) to date; others remain unidentified.  Significant differences exist between this tradition and those found in neighboring Yucatan state.  Conditions treated are usually minor:  skin problems, respiratory diseases, stomach upsets.  However, more serious conditions, including diabetes and cancer, are also treated routinely.  Commercialization of major herbal drugs is beginning.  This presages problems with biopiracy and overexploitation in future.  To avoid conflicts such as those in Chiapas recently, there must be cooperation between governments, biologists, and Maya communities.  Some efforts in this direction have been made.

Doctor Faustus, Ethnobiologist:

The Morality of Ethnobiology

 

E. N. Anderson

Dept. of Anthropology and

Center for Conservation Biology

University of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0418

Gene@ucrac1.ucr.edu

 

 

Abstract

 

Recent debates over bioprospecting, biopiracy, and indigenous intellectual property rights have raised some basic ethical issues that lie well outside the ordinary province of anthropology and biology.  This paper focuses on the wider issues, some of which are rather intractable.   Possibilities for amelioration are suggested, but the paper is concerned primarily with basic questions about the morality of extracting information that is extremely useful but could be expropriated or abused.