Local plant names reveal that enslaved Africans recognized substantial parts of the New World flora
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Impact Factor: 9.81). 12/2014; DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.1418836111
ABSTRACT
How did the forced migration of nearly 11 million enslaved Africans to
the Americas influence their knowledge of plants? Vernacular plant names
give insight into the process of species recognition, acquisition of
new knowledge, and replacement of African species with American ones.
This study traces the origin of 2,350 Afro-Surinamese (Sranantongo and
Maroon) plant names to those plant names used by local Amerindians,
Europeans, and related groups in West and Central Africa. We compared
vernacular names from herbarium collections, literature, and recent
ethnobotanical fieldwork in Suriname, Ghana, Benin, and Gabon. A strong
correspondence in sound, structure, and meaning among Afro-Surinamese
vernaculars and their equivalents in other languages for botanically
related taxa was considered as evidence for a shared origin. Although
65% of the Afro-Surinamese plant names contained European lexical items,
enslaved Africans have recognized a substantial part of the neotropical
flora. Twenty percent of the Sranantongo and 43% of the Maroon plant
names strongly resemble names currently used in diverse African
languages for related taxa, represent translations of African ones, or
directly refer to an Old World origin. The acquisition of new
ethnobotanical knowledge is captured in vernaculars derived from
Amerindian languages and the invention of new names for neotropical
plants from African lexical terms. Plant names that combine African,
Amerindian, and European words reflect a creolization process that
merged ethnobotanical skills from diverse geographical and cultural
sources into new Afro-American knowledge systems. Our study confirms the
role of Africans as significant agents of environmental knowledge in
the New World.
