Instituto de Recursos Naturales, Colegio de Postgraduados, Km. 36.5 Carretera México-Texcoco, Montecillo, Texcoco, Edo. de México 56230, Mexico.
J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2012 Jul 12;8:24. doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-8-24.
Traditional classification systems represent cognitive processes of human cultures in the world. It synthesizes specific conceptions of nature, as well as cumulative learning, beliefs and customs that are part of a particular human community or society. Traditional knowledge has been analyzed from different viewpoints, one of which corresponds to the analysis of ethnoclassifications. In this work, a brief analysis of the botanical traditional knowledge among Zapotecs of the municipality of San Agustin Loxicha, Oaxaca was conducted. The purposes of this study were: a) to analyze the traditional ecological knowledge of local plant resources through the folk classification of both landscapes and plants and b) to determine the role that this knowledge has played in plant resource management and conservation. The study was developed in five communities of San Agustín Loxicha. From field trips, plant specimens were collected and showed to local people in order to get the Spanish or Zapotec names; through interviews with local people, we obtained names and identified classification categories of plants, vegetation units, and soil types. We found a logic structure in Zapotec plant names, based on linguistic terms, as well as morphological and ecological caracteristics. We followed the classification principles proposed by Berlin [6] in order to build a hierarchical structure of life forms, names and other characteristics mentioned by people. We recorded 757 plant names. Most of them (67%) have an equivalent Zapotec name and the remaining 33% had mixed names with Zapotec and Spanish terms. Plants were categorized as native plants, plants introduced in pre-Hispanic times, or plants introduced later. All of them are grouped in a hierarchical classification, which include life form, generic, specific, and varietal categories. Monotypic and polytypic names are used to further classify plants. This holistic classification system plays an important role for local people in many aspects: it helps to organize and make sense of the diversity, to understand the interrelation among plants-soil-vegetation and to classify their physical space since they relate plants with a particular vegetation unit and a kind of soil. The locals also make a rational use of these elements, because they know which crops can grow in any vegetation unit, or which places are indicated to recollect plants. These aspects are interconnected and could be fundamental for a rational use and management of plant resources.
传统分类系统代表了世界人类文化的认知过程。它综合了特定的自然观念，以及作为特定人类社区或社会一部分的累积学习、信仰和习俗。传统知识已经从不同的角度进行了分析，其中之一对应于民族分类学的分析。在这项工作中，对瓦哈卡州圣阿古斯丁洛希察市萨波特克人的植物传统知识进行了简要分析。这项研究的目的是：a）通过对景观和植物的民间分类，分析当地植物资源的传统生态知识；b）确定这种知识在植物资源管理和保护方面所起的作用。该研究在圣阿古斯丁洛希察的五个社区开展。通过实地考察，收集植物标本并展示给当地人，以获取西班牙或萨波特克人的名字；通过与当地人的访谈，我们获得了植物的名称和分类类别，植被单元和土壤类型。我们发现了一种基于语言术语以及形态和生态特征的萨波特克植物名称的逻辑结构。我们遵循柏林[6]提出的分类原则，以构建一个基于生命形式、人们提到的其他特征和名称的层次结构。我们记录了 757 种植物的名称。其中大多数（67%）有一个与之对应的萨波特克名称，其余 33%的名称是萨波特克语和西班牙语的混合词。这些植物被归类为本地植物、前西班牙时代引入的植物或后来引入的植物。所有植物都被归类在一个层次分类系统中，包括生命形式、属、种和变种类别。单种和多型名称用于进一步分类植物。这种整体分类系统在许多方面对当地人起着重要作用：它有助于组织和理解多样性，理解植物-土壤-植被之间的相互关系，并对他们的物理空间进行分类，因为他们将植物与特定的植被单元和某种土壤联系起来。当地人还合理地利用这些元素，因为他们知道哪种作物可以在任何植被单元中生长，或者哪些地方适合采集植物。这些方面是相互关联的，对于植物资源的合理利用和管理可能是至关重要的。
