For thousands of years, the Kumeyaay people of northern Baja California and southern California made their homes in the diverse landscapes of the region, interacting with native plants and continuously refining their botanical knowledge. Today, many Kumeyaay Indians in the far-flung ranches of Baja California carry on the traditional knowledge and skills for transforming native plants into food, medicine, arts, tools, regalia, construction materials, and ceremonial items. Kumeyaay Ethnobotany explores the remarkable interdependence between native peoples and native plants of the Californias through in-depth descriptions of 47 native plants and their uses, lively narratives, and hundreds of vivid photographs. It connects the archaeological and historical record with living cultures and native plant specialists who share their ever-relevant wisdom for future generations. Book jacket.

The Kumeyaay Indians (also 'Iipay--Tiipay, Ipai--Tipai, or Diegueño in the United States, or Kumiai in Mexico) have inhabited the landscapes of northern Baja California, Mexico, and southern California since long before European contact, originally making a living as mobile hunting, gathering, and fishing peoples in the region's varied environments. The division of Kumeyaay territory in 1848 by two distinct nation states imposed on the region an international boundary as well as separate political and economic structures, cultures, and languages. Historical processes have reduced Kumeyaay territory and population, and transformed indigenous lifeways, yet a few elder Kumeyaay still speak their native language and maintain cultural knowledge of the environment. In this thesis, I explore the questions of how contemporary ethnobotanical knowledge of Baja California's Kumeyaay Indians can make new contributions to scientific research of diachronic human-plant interactions in the study area, and how this knowledge can inform Kumeyaay cultural and linguistic revitalization through its incorporation in interpretive exhibits. I synthesize information from interviews conducted with 16 Kumeyaay plant specialists, documenting Kumeyaay knowledge of traditional uses for 47 native plants as food, medicine, tools, construction materials, and ritual resources, covering indigenous nomenclature, plant scheduling, harvesting, processing, and consumption, as well as cultural meanings associated with plants. I review archaeological, historical, ethnographic, linguistic, and botanical literature to situate the Kumeyaay ethnobotanical data in a regional and diachronic context. I discuss how this study contributes new information on the Kumeyaay and their interactions with the vegetative environment, and provide examples of how I have applied this information to support efforts toward Kumeyaay cultural and linguistic revitalization.

"The purpose of this project is to provide a resource guide for medical providers and traditional health care practitioners in an effort to better coordinate patient care with traditional practices. This guide will help to illuminate some contraindications of western medicine with Southern California Native American traditional medicine, in hopes of protecting patients from any negative reactions. A secondary purpose ... is to make available information about traditional medicine to anyone interested in disease prevention through Native American knowledge and traditions."--P. 1.

The Ethnobotany of the California Indians, revised, updated, expanded, from the First Edition (2003), is a compilation of 1,343 plants listed in alphabetic order by their scientific names. For each of the listings, depending upon the available literature, there are sub-headings that note by the tribe how the plant was utilized: Food; Material; Medicine; Miscellaneous. In addition, there are sections that provide the native terminology if available, Citations, as well as a Notes section presenting information on such things as food value, hazardous properties, etc. There is a full Reference Section and four Appendices: Tribal Listing by Plant Entry Number; Native Orthography; Plants Synonyms; and a Glossary.

The Chumash people have lived for thousands of years in coastal California from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara, a homeland of uncommon biological richness and diversity. This thoroughly-researched book, in documenting some 175 of the plant species important to Chumash culture, offers a glimpse of life in southern California from pre-European contact through historic times. The 2023 edition adds a new Preface to address topics not explicitly discussed in the original text: plant management techniques that the Chumash employed and their ecological effects; organization of plant knowledge through classification systems and naming; and patterns of usage - which plant families predominated in providing particular necessities of life. The Introduction includes a brief history of the Chumash and explains the purpose of the book, how it is organized, sources, and acknowledgements. The body of the book is a Plant Catalog, organized alphabetically by scientific botanical name and including each plant's common name in English, California Spanish, and as many as six Chumashan languages. Each entry describes in detail not just how the plant was utilized but also its other roles in Chumash life and thought. Following the main text are a Bibliography, an alphabetical listing of Chumash plant-related names and words with their corresponding scientific name and English common name, and an extensive Index. Chumash Ethnobotany draws primarily upon the voluminous and richly detailed field notes and plant collections of John P. Harrington (1884-1961), who interviewed ten Chumash consultants over a period of 50 years (1911-1961). Harrington's Chumash materials comprise some 300,000 handwritten pages and over 450 plant specimens. Information was also incorporated from a wide variety of other sources: ethnographic accounts and modern Chumash consultants; archaeological reports; historical accounts by explorers, missionaries, and settlers; letters, botanical research articles, and floras. Documentation is also provided from neighboring tribes who use or used the same or related species in a similar fashion The book is intended to reach a broad audience, making the information accessible to both interested laypersons and scholars. It is illustrated with Chris Chapman's watercolor botanical portraits and Timbrook's own woodcut-like interpretations of scenes from Chumash life.

This volume enables readers to identify California's native and naturalized plants by learning to recognize plant families. The heart of the book contains user-friendly keys and descriptions of seventy major families prominent in California's natural environment.