Enrique Salmón

The book doesn’t list every plant that anyone has ever used but has the 80 most commonly used important plants in the United Stated and Canada. Plants that are medicinal, edible, and sometimes both, and those that are useful in a variety of practical ways such as doe basket making, canoes, shelters, decorations, etc. etc. etc. The harvesting, preparing, cultural and traditions for the plants. The author includes some autobiographical information too. For the plants information is provided about their medicinal properties and/or the nutrients they contain.

For each plant it tells its: Family. Parts Used. Season. Region. Then there is a ton of information that is useful and absorbing.

The plants are listed in alphabetical order. The 80 plants are diverse. Everything including fruits and trees and grasses and flowers. Everything from psychedelics like peyote to commonly eaten foods such as blueberries and blackberries.

Personally, I could have done without the tobacco but of course it’s an important plant. I was interested in all the rest of the plants. For tobacco the author even says: “No other plant holds as much universal importance among the indigenous peoples of North and South America.”

There are photos of each plant and some additional photos too. I appreciated all of the photographs.

It’s a beautiful book.

Useful. Interesting. I learned a lot. This is a book worth owning. It’s a great reference and it’s a fascinating and pleasant read and it’s lovely to view.

I suspect that I’ll occasionally dip into it. I put it on my bookshelves in a place where I can easily see its gorgeous cover.

The one thing lacking that I wish it had has to do with the medicinal uses of the plants. It would have been helpful if there was a symptoms index where for each symptom/ailment all the plants that could be used to treat each one were listed. Having that feature lacking limits this book’s usefulness as a reference book. I guess I should have taken notes. I do remember quite a bit about quite a few of the plants but I don’t have confidence I’ll remember most of what I know now as more time elapses.

The different tribal areas and their origin stories start off the book. The West Coast (British Columbia to Baja California) had more than a third of all Native North Americans living there and was the most diverse region. All areas had abundant resources but I particularly enjoyed reading about the west coast region because it’s the area with which I’m most familiar.

The back of the book has a short Glossary and a very short list of Further Reading. There is an Index.

I loved this book. I took a long time to read it and deliberately finished it at the end of the year so that it would be my last book of the year.… (más)

"Traversing a range of cultures, including the Tohono O'odham of the Sonoran Desert and the Rarámuri of the Sierra Tarahumara, the book is an illuminating journey through the southwest United States and northern Mexico. Salmón weaves his historical and cultural knowledge as a renowned Indigenous ethnobotanist with stories American Indian farmers have shared with him to illustrate how traditional Indigenous foodways—from the cultivation of crops to the preparation of meals—are rooted in a time-honored understanding of environmental stewardship." -- from publisher's web site… (más)