Under the Shade of Thipaak: The Ethnoecology of Cycads in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean by Michael D. Carrasco et al. (review)

Each spring, i tour the california State University-Fullerton Arboretum with my biogeography students. Among the many sectors of the arboretum (most meant to resemble California biomes) is a sizeable section given over to cycads—odd because the group is not native to California. I would share my limited knowledge of the plants: that they are ancient conifers, that they are dioecious (separate male and female individuals), that they have highly toxic seeds that have been associated with neurological disease among Pacific Islanders, and finally, in spite of their frond-like leaves, that they are not palms. A few students would recognize them as fairly common front-yard ornamentals, known unfortunately as sago palm, further cementing their taxonomic confusion.

Under the Shade of the Thipaak, a fascinating collection of essays on this misunderstood order of plants by Michael Carrasco and colleagues, explores the agronomic, historical, and cultural significance of this underappreciated and understudied group. Having survived in the tropics and subtropics since well before the Great Dying some 250 million years ago, cycads are today one of the most useful undomesticated plants in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, and yet are also "one of the world's most threatened land plants" (p. 27). The term Thipaak in the title refers to a child fertility deity among Mexico's Teenek whose name means "heart of maize"; but this spiritual entity also takes the form of certain cycads, which are understood to be the Maize Lord (p. 176). It is this convergence of maize, cycads, and people that is the genesis of this volume. In eight chapters, written by anthropologists, biologists, chemists, and geographers from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States, much of the misunderstanding regarding the role of cycads in the ethnoecology of the region is put to rest, while at the same time fertile avenues for future inquiry are opened up.

The Introduction provides a useful overview of the significance of cycads around the world. After a brief review of the ecology and biogeography of the group, the authors explore the surprising ethnobotanical significance of cycads to cultures throughout the tropical realm—past and present. In India, the pollen cones (microstrobili) are consumed by young men as an aphrodisiac, and in parts of Japan cycads are prepared into a miso. In Vanuatu, cycads retain tremendous symbolic value, and are "revered as sacred ancestors" (p. 13). In South Africa, the Rain Queens (hereditary rainmakers of Limpopo Province) operate in lush gardens festooned by one of the world's largest cycads (Mudjadji's cycad, Encephalartos transvenosus). Wherever they occur, cycads have been consumed, used as medicine, made into crafts, and in many cases attained deep symbolic value.

Geographers will be drawn to several chapters, including chapter 3, in which Jaime Pagán-Jiménez explores the paleohistory of cycads in the Caribbean. The author notes that the earliest written description of cycad consumption was made by the Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas in the early 1500s. He recorded that "bread" was made by grating the underground stems of guáyiga (Zamia pumila), leaving it out several days to become "swollen with maggots," and then cooked as cakes (p. 98). Using starch grain evidence from sites throughout the Caribbean, the author shows that this (or similar species) of cycads have been exploited for food for at least 7,800 years. Interestingly, because this evidence for early Caribbean use of cycads is outside of the plant's current natural range, it seems likely that the plants were driven to extinction in the region, or perhaps they were acquired in exchanges with people from regions where it grows...