The Plant World In Native Traditions

Few areas of the world are so richly endowed as California, especially Southern California, with diversity of plant life. A variable rainfall distribution, abrupt transitions of soil type. a subtropical climate, and the isolation of a rugged terrain have combined to produce a unique and highly varied flora.

It was due in part to this wide range of plant resources that the region we now call California, although it constitutes only 5% of the United States' surface area, supported 16% of the aboriginal population.

Plants provided the native peoples of this area with food, shelter, medicine, soap, glue, cosmetics, musical instruments, fibers and dyes as well as tools and toys of various sorts. Yet, California was no garden paradise. It was seldom that ripe fruit simply fell to the outstretched hand. Rather, the effective utilization of Southern California's native plant resources challenged human ingenuity and required centuries, perhaps even millennia, of precise empirical observation.

Knowledge required for plant usage was encoded in the folk traditions of native peoples. Food preparation techniques removed toxins and made nutrients more available. Medicinal lore included a knowledge of effects, dosages, toxicities, seasonal and local variability.

Unfortunately, much of this folk tradition was lost or severely fragmented in the cultural disruption of the last few centuries, when successive waves of invasion overran this part of the world — first the Spanish incursions, then later, the massive influx of American fortune seekers. What remains, however, of native traditions relating to plant use is impressive, both in its scope and sophistication.

Classification of the native flora was also a highly developed tradition. Study of Cahuilla folk taxonomy has shown that native identifications of several important plant groups correspond with scientific taxonomic classifications at both the family and species level.

The plant world entered into the the mythic traditions of Southern California's native peoples in various ways. In Luiseño tradition, the Big-cone Douglas Fir and the Incense Cedar are both among the First Born. The Cupeño told how the first people were turned to trees as they stood around the Creator's funeral pyre.

Metamorphosis motifs appear also in Kumeyaay stories, such as this legend of the Cuyamaca region:

It was the moon of lilac blossoms, and the south wind had loosened the voice of water in the canyons, when a stranger from along the Colorado came to the village called Rabbit House at the base of Cuyamaca Mountain.

He wore a splendid headdress, made from the red, yellow, and green feathers of rare birds. In the quiver that hung over his shoulder were arrows tipped with precious stones from the eastern desert.

Although he had come in friendship, his appearance was so magnificent that the young men of the Rabbit House grew envious and bitter towards him.

One clear day, the village youth led the stranger up to the top of Cuyamaca where the view extended from the eastern river to the western ocean. Then they began to taunt him. "Look how small your river is compared to our great ocean," they said.

In the fight which ensued, the stranger was killed, and the scalp lock with its long hair and colorful feathers was left far up on the mountainside.

To this day, after the lavenders and blues of wild lilacs have faded from the hills, one can see a patch of brilliant color, high up on the mountain, where flowers like tiger lilies bloom, and vines trail among the brush, and other flowers of many colors shine in the sunlight and flutter in the breeze.

Robin Hewitt, 1989