How Is Local Knowledge of Forests Acquired over a Lifetime?: Gender and Age Differences in Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Shifting Cultivators in Southwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

How do people in small-scale societies acquire local knowledge of their surrounding environment throughout their lifetimes? How is knowledge acquisition related to their subsistence activities? How are children’s knowledge and skills for subsistence developed? These are key questions for understanding the patterns of local knowledge acquisition in small-scale societies. Although local knowledge of nature among hunter-gatherers and horticulturists has been studied from an ecological approach in geography, ethnoscience, and folk biology, studies on local knowledge from the viewpoints of life course/life history or child growth/development remain scarce.

The purpose of this study was to elucidate life course patterns of knowledge acquisition and identify the factors influencing those patterns by focusing on plant knowledge, particularly tree knowledge, among the Majangir, who engage in swidden agriculture, hunting, and gathering in the forest of southwestern Ethiopia (Gambella Administrative Region). This study utilized a plant-use database of the Majangir obtained from previous fieldwork. Three types of knowledge tests were administered to a group of Majangir between the ages of 9 and 72 years to analyze knowledge variations according to gender and age: 1) a plant name test, where the respondents were asked whether they knew the names of 50 sample species; 2) a tree-use knowledge test, where they were asked about the uses of 24 sample trees; and 3) a tree identification test, where they were asked to identify the sources of 26 small wood samples of about 10 cm in size. Information on their subsistence activities was also collected to investigate relationships between knowledge and those activities.

The results of the plant name and tree-use tests suggested that knowledge was rapidly acquired during the teenage years and slowly increased through adulthood. The tree-use test showed gender differences, probably because of gender-based divisions of labor in subsistence activities. Additionally, the result of the tree identification test suggested a slow increasing trend of scores in the teens through the 30s and a decreasing trend after the 40s. These acquisition and lost knowledge trends were similar to men’s acquisition/loss patterns with regard to honey collecting skills. Honey collection is the most important means of earning cash for men and is particularly challenging to learn as it requires highly advanced skills. These results suggest that patterns of knowledge acquisition differ depending on levels of knowledge and that local knowledge regarding nature is acquired and maintained in strong association with everyday subsistence activities.