Healing, Haruki, Gymno, Island Foods

Presentations on healing plants of Micronesia


Pauleen described the use of plumeria sap on small cuts.


Verginia presented the use of the seeds of Premna obtusa (topwuk) to cure a fungal skin infection known as kil sarawi.


Noeleen presented Woleaian uses of Morinda citrifolia (leele). She covered the use of a coconut oil emulsion of the leaves for massage therapy, the fruits for treating diabetes, and the use of the roots to remove areas of white skin (possibly tinea versicolor).


Maylanda Mikel covers the use of Idahn woal for pwiriamwei (also pwirimwei), the treatment of fright in babies. Fright, or startling, leads to illness in infants.

Trisha  covers the  use of Parina laurina (ais) to treat rashes. Ais is mixes with grated coconut. Ais is widely recognized and used in Micronesia. On Kosrae it is known as ahset, in Chuuk as ayis.




Christlynn holds Piper ponapense, apparently known as aanees in Chuuk


 Neelma presented the Kosraean use of lo, Hibiscus tiliaceus in the treatment of diarrhea.


Claralyn broght in Ageratum conyzoides, known on Pohnpei as pwisehn kou, using the leaves to treat cuts.

The SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany class cleaned up the Haruki Japanese cemetery on the College of Micronesia-FSM property. The clean-up was scheduled to coincide with Ohigan.


Claralyn and Lisa clean up around the Hoshino Noritake memorial marker.


Barnson and Neelma team up on the reh padil.


Lots of reh padil to pull...


I explain to RinaRuth one of the meanings of Ixora casei, kalsruh, the flame of the forest. The bright red flowers stand brightly out even at distance under the forest canopy. And if they catch a beam of sunlight that penetrates the canopy, the blaze crimson amidst a dark forest.

On Kosrae the plant marks where people once lived and worked. 

A Kosraean hunter was taught to not shoot a bird if seen above a kalsruh. The bird could be an inut, a spirit. 

Barnson, RinaRuth, Verginia, Claralyn on the walk through the Pwunso botanic garden.


Noeleen comtemplates some of the largest  and oldest Araucaria columnaris trees on Pohnpei.


On 04 October the ethnobotany class visited the Island Food Community of Pohnpei. Four days ago Pohnpei lost the founder of the Island Food Community of Pohnpei, Lois Englberger. The loss feels overwhelming. To say her work lives on in the hearts and minds of each person who learns of the CHEEF benefits of local food feels too small, yet carrying message to new minds is surely what Lois wants to happen.

Local food is cultural food, healthy food, environmentally friendly food, economically beneficial to local farmers, and crucial to the island's food safety and security net.


Class photo opportunities!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, one o
Read more