Craft and Tenure

We’ve taken a brief glance at the word “wild” and some of it’s possible meanings in regard to plants. Now let’s continue to break down the word wildcraft and  look at it’s implications:

A definition of “craft” from the Oxford English Dictionary is: “Intellectual power; skill; art”.  Nova Kim and Les Hook of Wild Gourmet Food, two very seasoned wildcrafters in  Randolph, Vermont say that the art or craft of wildcrafting, “is ‘the quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful…skilled workmanship or execution.’ …When you know you are ‘a wildcrafter’ is when you walk through a landscape, familiar with the timing and seasons of those other beings around you, knowing that when you leave things will be better for having been there and better for you as well”. 

I have discovered that wildcrafters do not regard wild plants as being simply available for the taking. Tending the plant communities to increase species diversity and to help plants proliferate is very common. Tenure of wild species includes selectively harvesting certain parts of a plant so that it actually grows back more prolifically and replanting sensitive plants. Seed or spore dispersal is also common. These tending activities also blur the line between that which is “wild” or “cultivated”.

Nancy Turner, an ethnobotanist who teaches at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, says that “land tenure has always been an important element of land and resource use by First Nations”. Northeast Native Americans were known to intentionally clear lands by controlled burning in order to diversify plants and create land for the early successional plants that thrive in ‘disturbed’ habitats.

The ‘craft’ aspect of wildcrafting involves a stewardship of lands and plants through observation, knowledge, and intentional action, then using those plant resources to fashion fine art, delectable food, healing medicine, and useful tools. Wildcrafting is as much a cultivation of skill and civilized activity as it is a wild, primitive instinct.

“In Good Hands” by Helen Moore

In Good Hands

by Helen Moore

 

You see these, she says, hands

rising into the lamplight

from her dappled lap,

their contented coupling

parted for a while – 

palms up, her fingers stick out,

callused, knobbled at every joint,

like a pair of Willows pollarded for years.

In each basin curved lines with tributaries

(of husbands, daughters, a guardian angel),

are streams viewed from high in the hills;

their backs speckled Blackbird eggs,

nails horned as Donkey’s hooves.

Fearless hands that grasped Nettles

(if you hold your breath they won’t sting);

that saved seeds, grubbed in the ground

for Potatoes, Parsnips, Pignuts;

picked Rosehips, Blackberries,

and never mind the scratches;

snipped Betony from the waysides,

slipped stems into mossy pockets,

wound them out again,

fresh as water from a well.

Those constant hands that cored

Spartans, Pippins, Russets,

delved deep in sticky dough,

bounced pies from the oven;

that fed the birds, darned, soothed,

rubbed olive oil into the raw, new

skins of babies; made haphazard

hospital corners, put out huge Spiders

and Small Tortoiseshells, placed

Cowslips on the graves of village people – 

Like this, her fingers interlock

to form the church without the steeple.

In our Earth everything fits together just so….

Solemnly I stare at their curved surface

settling back into her dappled lap

as if in silent prayer – in good hands

I learned to care for every sacred being.

How Wild Is Wild?

Synonyms for “wild” include: independent, free, uninhabited (pertaining to place), uncontrolled, uncultivated, untamed, and uncivilized.

The boundary between a wild and a cultivated plant can be very blurred. Often, we can find a series of gradations of plants as they come into their domesticated forms. For example, dandelions, originally cultivated in numerous varieties in Europe, were either brought over or came with settlers in the New World unintentionally. Here they became naturalized into the landscape and now grow quite vigorously on their own. Or do people help a little?

The word “agrestis” is a Roman word that describes semi-wild plants growing on arable land, pasture land and fallow fields. This word can apply to dandelions, thistles, mullein, plantain and other weedy species that grow as early successional plants, moving into land which has recently been cultivated, mowed, logged, burned, or disturbed in some way. Thus, people actually create ideal habitat for weedy species and often spread their seeds through their activities. Joan M. Frayn speculates in “Wild and Cultivated Plants: A Note on the Peasant Economy of Roman Italy,” that, “The period in which wild and cultivated plants were not fully differentiated in Europe, and when an intermediate category existed, has usually been regarded as earlier than the classical age of Rome. J.G.D. Clarke refers to it: ‘…under primitive conditions the distinction between ‘wild’ and ‘domesticated’ plants is often slight and a multitude of gradations in status may exist between wild, protected, and fully domesticated species’ “.

Wildcrafting is not simply the act of harvesting from nature’s untouched lands and wilderness areas. Many people harvest mainly at the edges of the forest and agrestis-like habitats, which can often hold a larger diversity of plants than in the forest. I’ve spoken to a wildcrafter who considers harvesting the volunteer weeds that grow in the pots on her porch to be wildcrafting. What is the edge of wild?

The Medicinal Plant Industry

The terms wildcrafting and wild-harvesting have come into liberal use with the blossoming medicinal plant industry.  “His skill goes back to the hunters and gatherers at the dawn of humanity, but it has been resurrected under a trendy new name: wildcrafting” (Goldberg, “From Necessity New Forest Industry Rises”). “Wildcrafting” picked up more substantial meaning in the last twenty-five years as herbal medicine has become widely popularized in the United States. In this sense, wildcrafting refers specifically to the harvesting of uncultivated, or wild, plants to be marketed as products. It has become a word for a new niche market and wild plants have become resources to be commodified and commercialized. 

Just in the last several years the Non-Timber Forest Product market has boomed 20 percent annually (Goldberg). With high demand for certain medicinal plants native to North America, such as ginseng, goldenseal, and blue cohosh, wildcrafting often became almost synonymous with the poaching of medicinal plants for their high commercial value. With a market economy as the foundation of our livelihoods, there is a tendency for commercial value to dominate over ethical and traditional values. 

While poaching is one face of wildcrafting presented to the public, it tends to discredit a long-standing tradition of plant foraging that creates positive human relationships with and sustainable subsistence from the natural world. It’s important to understand the difference between poaching and wildcrafting of wild plants. Poaching  implies disrespect for natural resources, boundaries and life forms. However, wildcrafting, when practiced conscientiously, maintains value as a craft that supports people’s livelihoods, as a valid economic pursuit with potential to strengthen and sustain local economies, as a promoter of culture, food and craft appreciation, and as a reminder of our human place in and responsibility to ecological systems.

Contemporary Concepts of an Ancient Craft

In his book “Learning How to Ask”, Charles L. Briggs says that language is a tool that people use to construct their realities. Each person has his or her own unique relationship with the natural world, and the words they use to describe themselves define that relationship.

I will attempt to define “wildcrafting” by breaking down the term “wildcraft” and by exploring why people may call themselves wildcrafters and what some of the contemporary meanings of wildcrafting are.

Please post your personal definitions, replies, and feedback!