Culturally Modified Trees

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In culturally modified tree shortly CMTs is trees as part of their traditional use of the forest by indigenous cultures have been changed. The term is culturally very broad.

The cultural value of the CMTs to indigenous groups has long been known, but their importance as a historical source was not recognized until the early 1980s. In the meantime one speaks of “CMT archives” or simply “CMTs” to emphasize their importance as sources. The method of recording and interpretation has made considerable progress and the questions have been refined.

The CMTs have so far hardly been noticed by the public, but markings on the trees, such as in Stanley Park in Vancouver , have also made them known to the city dwellers there.

A culturally modified tree in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, USA. The bark of the tree of life has been peeled off

Although the limitation to the processing by indigenous people , especially Indians , cannot be explained in more detail, it has nonetheless prevailed in western Canada . The same applies to the west of the USA , north Scandinavia and south-east Australia with a view to the Indians, the Sami and the Aborigines . Although CMTs are rarely researched outside of indigenous cultures, there is a corresponding research project for the carvings of the Basque Shepherds, which were made in the USA between 1860 and 1930.

Types

The changes to the trees are strictly categorized. These modifications can be arboglyphs , i.e. carvings on trees, or arbographs , paintings on trees. However, these are quite rare. For example, they could have been made to remember a historical event . Signs of use in the broadest sense are much more common. These stem from the manufacture of a canoe or the extraction of fibers for blankets, clothing or hats. The fibers of some tree species were even used as food.

Protection, recording and analysis of the CMT archives using the example of Canada

In the Canadian province of British Columbia , trees are subject to complicated legislation that is based on those for historically significant sites . Trees that existed before 1846 and show relevant traces of processing are generally not allowed to be felled. In 2000, a Canadian was tried for the first time for knocking down several CMTs over 300 years old. From 1996 to 2006, no further approval was given to fell a CMT. In 2006, however, against the resistance of the Haida on the Queen Charlotte Islands ( Haida Gwaii ), such a permit was granted again for the first time.

Even if the CMTs are spared, the removal of the natural storm protection by the neighboring trees means a considerable risk. Therefore, the Hupacasath on Vancouver Island enforced a protection zone of at least 20 to 30 m.

The trees are recorded, classified and, if possible, dated using a process that has since become highly standardized. The traces found are dated and assigned to corresponding activities and rituals of the First Nations living there , as the Indians in Canada are called. There are a number of procedural regulations that regulate the recording, but also the collection of observations and their consolidation. Corresponding forms were developed in order to simplify, accelerate and standardize the recording. This enables the results of a simplified but also more comprehensive analysis, for example in the form of statistics and maps. The acquisition is facilitated and refined by satellite-supported systems for position determination .

The reasons for these investigations lie on the one hand in the special importance that these trees have for the ritual practices and the culture of the First Nations. Therefore, the Indians in the temperate rainforest , whose trees are particularly long-lived and up to 100 m high, attach great importance to their identification and conservation.

The processed trees also represent a source for the history of the First Nations that is only slowly emerging , which otherwise relies on archaeological sources and oral tradition for pre-European times , or on the results of genetics.

This poses considerable problems for historians , ethnohistorians , anthropologists and ethnologists . On the one hand, the wood industry expects clarity as to which trees can and cannot be felled. It is obvious that this is not always taken into account, especially where it has not yet been recorded. On the other hand, the form of logging that is still common in Canada, clear cutting , has long since created areas in which not a single tree is left. Another problem is the fact that these historical artifacts are not even recognized as such by most non-Indians. So there is always an unconscious destruction of sources. In addition, areas with CMTs are often extremely remote, so that scientists rely on indications from Indians and other local experts in order to be able to find the artifacts at all.

Ultimately, cultural misunderstandings and conflicts of interest often arise because this knowledge about the trees in question is often not intended for the public. It “belongs”, for example with the Nuu-chah-nulth on the west coast of Vancouver Island , to certain families who are also in possession of the corresponding rituals, ritual objects, stories, myths and dances. On the small island of Flores alone , 71 culturally modified trees are registered, which are under protection like monuments , archives or libraries .

Research beginnings

The changes in trees were noticed early on, but it was not until the early 1980s that their potential for historical and ethnographic research was recognized. In 1984 Hebda and Mathewes pointed out the importance of the CMTs for the Pacific coast, traces dating back to around 3000 BC. Deliver.

The importance of the CMTs became of considerable political importance in connection with the deforestation of old trees on Vancouver Island. Historical sciences and First Nations worked closely together. The battle for Meares Island , which u. a. the argument that an important historical site was being destroyed was also successful for this reason. Subsequently, other tribes tried to protect their forests with the same argument.

Most common tree species and their use

Gottesfeld has identified 21 tree species that play a role as CMTs, above all the so-called Western Red Cedar ( giant arborvitae , Thuja plicata ), but also the Yellow Cedar ( Nootka false cypress , Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ), as well as spruce ( Picea glauca etc.) ), Hemlocks ( Tsuga heterophylla ), pines ( Pinus contorta , Pinus ponderosa ) plus Populus tremuloides , Populus trichocarpa and Alnus rubra . Hemlock and spruce were also eaten or used as medicine. Spruce trees were used for their resin , which served as an adhesive .

The most common traces came from peeling the bark, extracting resin, cutting planks and boards, even whole canoes, totem poles or house stands. There were also test or test holes to determine the condition of the tree. The removal of tinder also left traces.

Development and results of some research projects

The aforementioned, unsubstantiated focus on indigenous peoples has long led to a limitation to a few areas in which such research was carried out. These projects were mainly carried out in western Canada, the USA, northern Scandinavia and southern Australia.

In 2001, Prince conducted a study in British Columbia on Lodgepole pines ( Pinus contorta ), the bark of which had long served as food there. He was looking for two areas in which access to salmon, the staple food, was possible once regularly and all year round, and was interrupted once in a while. He found the latter at White Eye Lake . There it was shown that peeling occurred very frequently in the years around 1810, 1880, 1910 and 1925. In addition, there was no spatial overlap between the areas that were increasingly affected in each year - so it was only “harvested” once. The Indians apparently used the bark as an emergency reserve, as a surrogate for the salmon that did not appear in those years or that appeared in too few numbers. In the comparison area with safe salmon catch, such clusters of spatial or even temporal nature could not be detected. They also needed a smaller area to get their food.

CMTs can also be evaluated for the displacement of the seeds living in northern Scandinavia to the north. In some places the peeling of the bark, which the seeds also prepared for food, breaks off from one year to the next. The Swedes and Finns , who pushed the Sami north in the 18th to 20th centuries, did not know bark as a food. The oldest find suggests peeling of bark as early as 800 BC. BC, so that research possibilities for Scandinavia suggest that their focus could be in the sections of non-Sami history with little or no script.

In the meantime, the determination process has been refined so that fossil trees can also be examined. The oldest living CMTs have so far been found in British Columbia. They date from the 12th century.

In Australia, work focuses on red (river) gum ( Eucalyptus camaldulensis ) and gray box ( Eucalyptus moluccana ). The use of these trees for food and, more broadly, craft needs is similar to that in North America. What is unusual, however, is that wood was used to make a kind of climbing shoe in order to be able to track possums on trees. Rhoads published in 1992 that 228 CMTs were detectable in an area of ​​10,000 km² in southwest Victoria . These are mostly located near former Aboriginal camps .

The Bob Marshall Wilderness in north-west Montana was examined particularly intensively . It covers over 3000 km² (with the neighboring wilderness areas even over 6000 km²) and has never been exposed to forestry use. Road construction or agricultural use did not occur here either. Still, the area was inhabited for a long time. For example, the presence of indigenous peoples from 1665 to 1938 could only be verified using the CMTs.

In the American Southwest , Zuñi CMTs have been detected and investigated. In the border area between Arizona and New Mexico , large numbers of yellow pines with peelings of the edible cambium can be found. Dating and comparisons with known precipitation data show that it was not about food in times of extreme drought and need, but that the particularly calcium-rich cambium belonged to the usual food spectrum. Both small-scale individuals and collaborative groups gained the bark.

Perspectives

With regard to the non-scripted cultures, no historical source is so endangered, but at the same time as precise as the CMT archives. In the absence of written sources, precise statements about time are usually only possible through their analysis. In their entirety, they allow very extensive statements, but also require a strict methodology and questions that have yet to be developed. An important prerequisite is the recording of primeval forests, the old growth forests . Therefore, the protection of these areas is promoted for ecological, cultural and research reasons.

Countries whose forests are, at least partially, still in an almost untouched state have only partially recognized the potential of these trees, some have not even recognized them. For example, the CMTs could play an important role in researching the history of North Asia, as recent studies show.

In Canada, where research was largely confined to British Columbia for almost two decades, CMTs are now being detected in other provinces as well, for the first time in 2001 in Nagagamisis Provincial Park in Ontario . Most of the trees are between 80 and 110 years old, some possibly over 400.

David Garrick has documented 1,800 CMTs on Hanson Island alone , so the Kwakwaka'wakw were able to achieve a moratorium to prevent the trees from being felled. Garrick recorded another 300 CMTs threatened by loggers in the Gitga'at First Nation area of the Great Bear Rainforest on British Columbia's west coast. They were supposed to cut the trees down to build a controversial road at Langford . In February 2008, the Times Colonist reported that a protest camp had been evacuated by order of the city.

In 1985, a conservation program began in Washington's Gifford Pinchot National Forest after over 6000 CMTs were identified in 338 locations. However, only half of the trees were placed under protection.

In the USA there is a growing interest in protecting trees, especially since not only human factors destroy these historical sources, but also natural ones such as the life expectancy of trees or tree diseases. 17 CMTs were found in the Blue Mountain area of ​​the Pike National Forest , at least 26 in the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument , plus trees over 200 years old in the Manitou Experimental Forest north of Woodland Park . Most of the territory of the Ute standing ponderosa pines , however, only have a life expectancy of 300 to 600 years. In the Indian Grove in the Great Sand Dunes National Park there are 72 old yellow pines that were probably peeled by Ute between 1816 and 1848. In February 2008, the Colorado Historical Society decided to invest over $ 7 million in various education and research projects, including a CMT project in Mesa Verde National Park .

Two examples from southern France show that CMTs can also be used for remarkable research in other regions. In addition, CMTs also offer opportunities for prehistory and early history that have not yet been considered.

literature

  • Rikard Andersson: Historical Land-Use Information from Culturally Modified Trees , Dissertation Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea 2005
  • Marc Antrop: Why landscapes of the past are important for the future , in: Landscape and urban planning 70 (2005) 21-34
  • Ingela Bergman, Lars Östlund, Olle Zackrisson: The use of plants as regular food in ancient subarctic economies. A case study based on Sami use of Scots pine innerbark , in: Arctic anthropology 41 (2004) 1-13
  • Michael D. Blackstock: Faces in the forest: First Nations art created on living trees . Montreal / Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 2001, 224 pp.
  • Greg Carver: An Examination of Indigenous Australian Culturally Modified Trees in South Australia , Doctoral thesis, Department of Archeology, Flinders University, Australia 2001
  • Juliet Craig: "Nature was the provider". Traditional ecological knowledge and inventory of culturally significant plants and habitats in the Atleo River Watershed, Ahousaht Territory, Clayoquot Sound , Diss. Victoria 1998
  • Tysk Staffan Ericsson: Culture within nature: Key areas for interpreting forest history in boreal Sweden Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae, 2001
  • Leslie Main Johnson: "A place that's good". Gitksan landscape perception and ethnoecology , in: Human ecology 28 (2000) 301-325
  • Amanda L. Marshall: Culturally modified trees of the Nechako plateau: cambium utilization amongst traditional carrier (Dahkel) peoples . Master's thesis, Department of Archeology, Simon Fraser University 2002
  • Charles Mobley: The Ship Island site: Tree-ring dating the last battle between the Stikine Tlingit and the Tsimshian. A report to the Alaska Humanities Forum , Grant 1999, 36-96
  • Sheila D. Ready: Peeled Trees on the Payette National Forest, Inner Bark Utilization as a Food Resource by Native Americans , USDA Payette National Forest, Supervisor's Office, McCall, Idaho 1993
  • Seppo Rouvinen, Anne Rautiainen, Jari Kouki: A relation between historical forest use and current dead woody material in a boreal protected old-growth forest in Finland , in: Silva Fennica 39/1 (2005) 21-36
  • Arnoud H. Stryd, Vicki Feddema: Sacred Cedar. The Cultural and Archaeological Significance of Culturally Modified Trees , digital (PDF, 1.3 MB): Stryd / Feddema (PDF; 1.3 MB)
  • Arnoud Stryd, Morley Eldridge: CMT Archeology in British Columbia: The Meares Island Studies , in: BC Studies 99 (1993) 184-234.
  • Thomas W. Swetnam: Peeled ponderosa pine trees: A record of inner bark utilization by Native Americans , in: Journal of ethnobiology 4 (1984) 177-190

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Fig. At Flick'r: Culturally Modified Tree .
  2. ↑ J. Mallea-Olaetxe: Speaking through the aspens: Basque tree carvings in California and Nevada , University of Nevada Press, Reno / Las Vegas 2000.
  3. ↑ CBC News v. November 17, 2000: Culturally modified tree-cutting trial resumes
  4. ↑ Hupacasath land use plan, phase 2, prepared by Tom Whitfield for the Hupacasath Band, o. O., o. J. (probably 2005), 44 pp., 14.
  5. ↑ RJ Hebda, RW Mathewes: Holocene history of Cedar and native Indian cultures of the North American Pacific coast , in: Science 225 (1984) 711-713.
  6. ^ Arcas Associates: Native Tree Use on Meares Island, BC , 4 vols., Victoria 1986.
  7. ↑ LMJ Gottesfeld: The importance of bark products in the aboriginal economies of northwestern British Columbia, Canada , in: Economic botany 46 (1992) 148-157.
  8. ↑ Lars Ostlund, Olle Zackrisson, Greger Hornberg: Trees on the border between nature and culture: Culturally modified trees in boreal Sweden , January 2002
  9. ^ JW Rhoads: Significant sites and non-site archeology: a case-study from south-east Australia , in: World archeology 24 (1992) 199-217.
  10. ↑ Ronald H. Towner, Stacy K. Galassini: Cambium-Peeled Trees in the Zuni Mountains, New Mexico . In: Kiva - The Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History , Volume 78, Issue 2, 2013, pp. 207-227, 223.
  11. ↑ Bill Cleverley: RCMP move in on anti-highway protest site In: Times Colonist, February 13, 2008.
  12. ^ From [State Historical Fund awards more than $ 7M in grants, in: Denver Business Journal, Feb. 14, 2008].
  13. ↑ VV Eetvelde, M. Antrop: Analyzing structural and functional changes of traditional landscapes: two examples from Southern France , in: Landscape and urban planning 67 (2004) 79-95.