Conceptualising 'Core' Medicinal Floras: A Comparative and Methodological Study of Phytomedical Resources in Related Indonesian Populations

Although there have been comparative studies of the botanical content and patterning of ethnopharmacopoeias across different ecological zones, there are few attempts to compare these systematically within the same ethnographic and ecological areas in Southeast Asia. This paper undertakes a simple quantitative survey of the medicinal plant resources of three populations on the island of Seram in the Moluccas, and then compares the results with those from five populations on Borneo. The comparison reveals some surprising omissions and patterns; given what is known about the medicinal use of plants in islands of Southeast Asia from other sources. The paper discusses ecological, cultural, and methodological reasons for the lack of expected congruence. A model of medicinal plant resource pools is developed to aid comparison, and it is suggested that we need to examine carefully what might be understood by a ‘core’ medicinal flora. While biodiversity loss is evident in the areas where the studies have been conducted, and this may impact some actual and more potential medicinal plants, it is less likely to erode core ethno pharmacopoeias

Pragmatism, identity and the state: how the Nuaulu of Seram have re-invented their beliefs and practices as ‘religion’. Wacana

The Dutch colonial state categorized animists and ancestor-worshippers and inscribed them into written records in ways that have had long-term effects. The immediate post-independence period in Maluku, despite early political turmoil, settled-down to a kind of stability under the New Order, the paradoxical outcome of which was both gradual integration of Nuaulu into a wider political and cultural consensus and conditions favouring economic change that undermined that consensus. The new policies of reformasi after 1998 presented further opportunities for Nuaulu to engage with the state in ways that promoted their interests. The opportunities were short-lived, however, given the implosive events of the communal unrest that lasted until 2001. This paper illustrates how this history has influenced Nuaulu self-perceptions and conceptualisation of themselves as a separate people with a “religion” that goes beyond simply adherence to adat, and how this process has been partly driven by demography and a desire for pragmatic accommodation. ABSTRAK Pemerintah kolonial Belanda mengkategorikan penganut Animisme dan pemuja leluhur serta mendokumentasikan mereka dalam literatur atau dokumen tertulis sedemikian rupa sehingga memiliki efek jangka panjang. Periode pasca-kemerdekaan di Maluku -walaupun awalnya ada kekacauan politik- berlangsung teratur di bawah stabilitas pemerintahan Orde Baru, berlawanan dengan situasi orang Nuaulu sebagai hasil integrasi secara bertahap ke dalam konsensus politik dan budaya yang lebih luas serta dengan kondisi-kondisi perubahan ekonomi yang meruntuhkan konsensus itu. Kebijakan-kebijakan baru era reformasi setelah tahun 1998 memberikan kesempatan lebih jauh untuk orang Nuaulu terlibat dengan negara dalam hal menyokong kepentingan-kepentingan mereka. Namun kesempatan itu hanya sebentar karena pecahnya konflik komunal di Maluku yang berlangsung sampai tahun 2001. Tulisan ini menjelaskan bagaimana sejarah itu mempengaruhi persepsi-diri orang Nuaulu dan konseptualisasi diri mereka sebagai komunitas tersendiri dengan suatu “agama” yang melebihi ketaatan yang lazim terhadap adat, dan bagaimana proses ini sebagian disebabkan oleh keadaan demografi dan keinginan untuk penyesuaian secara pragmatis

Nuaulu Religious Practices; The frequency and reproduction of rituals in a Moluccan society

How religious practices are reproduced has become a major theoretical issue. This work examines data on Nuaulu ritual performances collected over a 30 year period, comparing different categories of event in terms of frequency and periodicity. It seeks to identify the influencing factors and the consequences for continuity. Such an approach enables a focus on related issues: variation in performance, how rituals change in relation to material and social conditions, the connections between different ritual types, the way these interact as cycles, and the extent to which fidelity of transmission is underpinned by a common model or repertoire of elements. This monograph brings to completion a long-term study of the religious behaviour of the Nuaulu, a people of the island of Seram in the Indonesian province of Maluku. Ethnographically, it is important for several reasons: the Nuaulu are one of the few animist societies remaining on Seram; the data emphasize patterns of practices in a part of Indonesia where studies have hitherto been more concerned with meaning and symbolic classification; and because Nuaulu live in an area where recent political tension has been between Christians and Muslims. Nuaulu are, paradoxically, both caught between these two groups, and apart from them. Roy Ellen is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of Kent, a Fellow of The British Academy, and was president of the Royal Anthropological Institute between 2007 and 2011. He was trained at the London School of Economics and at the University of Leiden. Among his other books are The cultural relations of classification (on Nuaulu animal categories) and On the edge of the Banda zone (on trade in east Seram)

The Great Eolith Debate and the Anthropological Institute

From the 1880s onwards, the Anthropological Institute played a key role in arguments surrounding eoliths, both as a venue for significant events and through the pages of its journals. Eoliths, stone objects claimed to be man-made and regarded by ‘eolithophiles’ as the precursors of handaxes, had become an issue almost as soon as the first chipped flints had been accepted as artifacts in the mid-nineteenth century. The ensuing debate, that drew in many luminaries of the age – such as Edward Tylor, John Evans, Alfred Russel Wallace and Joseph Prestwich – in many ways exemplified the changing relationship between amateurs and professionals in the affairs of the Institute, and between the different branches of evolutionist anthropology, addressing questions of scientific method, the use of ethnographic analogies, and contributing to the splits between the branches, and the eventual supremacy of the professionals by the eve of the Second World War

DAIRY DISPUTES IN NORTH AMERICA: A CASE STUDY

Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Non-matrix Matched Glass Disk Calibration Standards Improve XRF Micronutrient Analysis of Wheat Grain across Five Laboratories in India

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Within the HarvestPlus program there are many collaborators currently using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy to measure Fe and Zn in their target crops. In India, five HarvestPlus wheat collaborators have laboratories that conduct this analysis and their throughput has increased significantly. The benefits of using XRF are its ease of use, minimal sample preparation and high throughput analysis. The lack of commercially available calibration standards has led to a need for alternative calibration arrangements for many of the instruments. Consequently, the majority of instruments have either been installed with an electronic transfer of an original grain calibration set developed by a preferred lab, or a locally supplied calibration. Unfortunately, neither of these methods has been entirely successful. The electronic transfer is unable to account for small variations between the instruments, whereas the use of a locally provided calibration set is heavily reliant on the accuracy of the reference analysis method, which is particularly difficult to achieve when analyzing low levels of micronutrient. Consequently, we have developed a calibration method that uses non-matrix matched glass disks. Here we present the validation of this method and show this calibration approach can improve the reproducibility and accuracy of whole grain wheat analysis on 5 different XRF instruments across the HarvestPlus breeding program

Anchoring linkage groups of the Rosa genetic map to physical chromosomes with tyramide-FISH and EST-SNP markers

In order to anchor Rosa linkage groups to physical chromosomes, a combination of the Tyramide-FISH technology and the modern molecular marker system based on High Resolution Melting (HRM) is an efficient approach. Although, Tyramide-FISH is a very promising technique for the visualization of short DNA probes, it is very challenging for plant species with small chromosomes such as Rosa. In this study, we successfully applied the Tyramide-FISH technique for Rosa and compared different detection systems. An indirect detection system exploiting biotinylated tyramides was shown to be the most suitable technique for reliable signal detection. Three gene fragments with a size of 1100 pb-1700 bp (Phenylalanine Ammonia Lyase, Pyrroline-5-Carboxylate Synthase and Orcinol O-Methyl Transferase) have been physically mapped on chromosomes 7, 4 and 1, respectively, of Rosa wichurana. The signal frequency was between 25% and 40%. HRM markers of these 3 gene fragments were used to include the gene fragments on the existing genetic linkage map of Rosa wichurana. As a result, three linkage groups could be anchored to their physical chromosomes. The information was used to check for synteny between the Rosa chromosomes and Fragaria