Life and Times of Ethnobotanist Richard Schultes in the Amazon

I’ve been taking Dr. D. Folsom’s botany class at Pasadena City College and it’s great. Not just great in terms of learning new things, but also re-learning how to learn. Meaning, flashcards, study pals, scheduling time. The class has been getting the humbling of a lifetime and our tests are hard, like even when studying all week, hard! She’s been great and offered extra credit to attend this lecture. It was truly great. It’s nice to visit the Huntington and be able to attend a lecture FOR FREE! Can you believe that? Anyway, it’s about Schultes, he led an interesting life – check out link on him.

Look, the lecture was cool. There was a lot of information regarding plants that have shaped society. Psychedelics that have been around for a very long time and integrated into first societies. What I find as an area of internal conflict is giving credit to European/American ethnobotanists when indigenous societies have been doing this for many generations. It seems that previously, we’ve regarded these societies as primitive and been dismissive of their medicine, at least until it’s been endorsed by the European cannon. The content of the lecture was great, it provided access to some of us who may not have had a background on these herbs, mushrooms, poisons, etc.

The interesting part for me was seeing the cartographers work, as it can be a useful tool for teaching about tribes in the amazon. Click through and take your time while checking it out https://www.banrepcultural.org/schultes/