When I hear the word ethnobotany
(the study of plants in relation to their cultural use) I think of soft-spoken,
docile academics carefully gathering and analyzing specimens in exotic
locations. But don’t be fooled; this job is not for the faint of heart. As Dr.Edward Palmer (1831-1911) can tell you, the practice of ethnobotany can get you ridiculed, ostracized – even killed.
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| Edward Palmer, 1864 Photo Lot 70, National Anthropological Archives |
But before his field work days, Palmer was a surgeon contracted with the US Army; at this time, his interest in plants was only a hobby. In 1868 he was named the official physician for the Kiowa and Comanche Agency in Oklahoma Indian Territory. According to the biographer William E. Safford, Palmer was pressed by his friends at the Smithsonian to collect specimens from both the tribesmen and the environment, and thereby send them back to Washington, DC for study.
Though Palmer first arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,
the realities of reservation life quickly sunk in. A small but vocal group of
Kiowa and Comanche were constantly raiding neighboring bands of settlers,
stealing their food, their provisions, and even their wives and children. The
head of the reservation, Colonel Leavensworth, managed to organize a truce in
1865, yet as evidenced by the ongoing raids the terms were paper-thin at best.
Palmer’s field notes from the time convey the air of danger and hostility at
the reservation.
Yet this failed to stop him from collecting specimens for
the Smithsonian. Any leisure time available to Palmer was devoted to studying
the flora and fauna of the area. It became such a large part of his daily
routine that Leavensworth soon dismissed him for continually neglecting his
professional duties. Palmer claimed it was his refusal to store the Colonel’s
stash of whisky in his wagon that really caused the dismissal.
Whatever the reason, Palmer soon found himself the physician to nearby Fort Cobb on the Washita River; though the head of this particular reservation, Major Shanklin, was much friendlier towards Palmer, the people certainly were not. They feared he was a witch-doctor because of his strange specimen-collecting practices. The women at Fort Cobb often referred to him as tewit-sa-mariett, or dangerous wise man. And when Palmer failed to save a child sick with pneumonia, it was the last straw; the Kiowa and Comanche of the Fort Cobb reservation decided they needed to be rid of the evil medicine man once and for all.
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| Drawing of two Comanche men, collected by Edward Palmer in 1868 Manuscript 127,601 National Anthropological Archives |
Word quickly spread that the Indians of the reservation
wanted Palmer dead. At one point a small group of armed men managed to sneak
into Palmer’s wagon while he was away. In the end they left everything
untouched, interpreting the wide array of animal specimens to be harmful magic.
Yet there was also hostility among the various native groups in the
reservation. A number of looting raids had forced many to move to neighboring
territories. The reservation community was getting smaller and smaller by the
day as more natives were fleeing the raiding parties. Taking his death warrant
into account, Palmer eventually joined the mass exodus out of Fort Cobb.
Palmer’s six months in Oklahoma Indian Territory is an
eye-opener. The heightened tensions between Native American groups and new
settlers, and even between the Native Americans themselves, can turn even the
peaceful task of studying plants into a death trap.
To learn more about Edward Palmer, visit the National Museum
of Natural History’s online
feature of Palmer’s botanical specimens. His collections are held at the National Anthropological Archives as well as other units within the Smithsonian.
Jacqueline Saavedra, Intern, National Anthropological Archives
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a hobby fantastic :)
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