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The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, with active links to audio-video recordings, serves as a comprehensive guide to the botanical heritage of the northern Lacandones. Numbering fewer than 300 men, women, and children, this community is the most culturally conservative of the Mayan groups. Protected by their hostile environment, over many centuries they maintain autonomy from the outside forces of church and state, while they continue to draw on the forest for spiritual inspiration and sustenance.
In The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, linguist Suzanne Cook presents a bilingual Lacandon-English ethnobotanical guide to more than 450 plants in a tripartite organization: a botanical inventory in which main entries are headed by Lacandon names followed by common English and botanical names, and which includes plant descriptions and uses; an ethnographic inventory, which expands the descriptions given inthe botanical inventory, providing the socio-historical, dietary, mythological, and spiritual significance of most plants; and chapters that discuss the relevant cultural applications of the plants in more detail provide a description of the area's geography, and give an ethnographic overview of the Lacandones. Active links throughout the text to original audio-video recordings demonstrate the use and preparation of the most significant plants.
List of contents
Introduction.- Language.- The Lacandon Rainforest.- The Role of Plants in Traditional Lacandon Culture.- Botanical Inventory.- Ethnographic Inventory.
About the author
Suzanne Cook
University of Victoria, Department of Linguistics, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Summary
The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, with active links to audio-video recordings, serves as a comprehensive guide to the botanical heritage of the northern Lacandones. Numbering fewer than 300 men, women, and children, this community is the most culturally conservative of the Mayan groups. Protected by their hostile environment, over many centuries they maintain autonomy from the outside forces of church and state, while they continue to draw on the forest for spiritual inspiration and sustenance.
In The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, linguist Suzanne Cook presents a bilingual Lacandon-English ethnobotanical guide to more than 450 plants in a tripartite organization: a botanical inventory in which main entries are headed by Lacandon names followed by common English and botanical names, and which includes plant descriptions and uses; an ethnographic inventory, which expands the descriptions given in the botanical inventory, providing the socio-historical, dietary, mythological, and spiritual significance of most plants; and chapters that discuss the relevant cultural applications of the plants in more detail provide a description of the area’s geography, and give an ethnographic overview of the Lacandones. Active links throughout the text to original audio-video recordings demonstrate the use and preparation of the most significant plants.
Additional text
“Suzanne Cook’s ‘The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide’ is a much-needed addition to the ethnobotanical literature. … The guide is well organized and researched, and ethnobotanists will find this book extremely valuable. The inclusion of plant names in the southern Lacandon dialect as well as other Mayan languages makes this guide especially comprehensible.” (Economic Botany, Vol. 70 (3), 2016)
Report
"Suzanne Cook's 'The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide' is a much-needed addition to the ethnobotanical literature. ... The guide is well organized and researched, and ethnobotanists will find this book extremely valuable. The inclusion of plant names in the southern Lacandon dialect as well as other Mayan languages makes this guide especially comprehensible." (Economic Botany, Vol. 70 (3), 2016)
