[SACC-L] NY Times obit (fwd)

[Leila Monaghan]

  Not directly connected to ling anth but fascinating none the less! Leila
>
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0C44B.F7CC3340
> Content-Type: text/plain;
> 	charset="iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by mailbox4.ucsd.edu id f3DJ1YQ06090
>
> Richard E. Schultes, 86, Authority on Hallucinogenic Plants, Dies
> By JONATHAN KANDELL
> Richard Evans Schultes, a swashbuckling scientist and influential Harvard
> University educator who was widely considered the preeminent authority on
> hallucinogenic and medicinal plants, died on Tuesday in Boston. He was 86
> and lived in Waltham, a Boston suburb.
> Dr. Schultes (pronounced SHULL- tees) was often called the father of
> ethnobotany, the field that studies the relationship between native cultu=
> res
> and their use of plants. Over decades of research, mainly in Colombia's
> Amazon region, he documented the use of more than 2,000 medicinal plants
> among Indians of a dozen tribes, many of whom had never seen a white man
> before.=20
> "I do not believe in hostile Indians," Dr. Schultes was quoted as saying =
> in
> a 1992 article about him in The New Yorker by E. J. Kahn Jr. "All that is
> required to bring out their gentlemanliness is reciprocal gentlemanliness=
> ."
> Tall, muscular, wearing a pith helmet, he hiked and paddled through Amazo=
> nia
> for months at a time. He collected more than 24,000 plant specimens. More
> than 120 species bear his name, as does a 2.2 million-acre tract of
> protected rain forest in Colombia, Sector Schultes, which the government
> there set aside in 1986.=20
> "The last of the great plant explorers in the Victorian tradition," was t=
> he
> way one of his former students, Wade Davis, described him in his 1985
> best-selling book, "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (Simon & Schuster).
> But more than a real-life Indiana Jones, Dr. Schultes was a pioneering
> conservationist who raised alarms in the 1960's - long before
> environmentalism became a worldwide concern - that the rain forests and
> their native cultures were in danger of disappearing under the onslaught =
> of
> modern industry and agriculture. He reminded his Harvard students that mo=
> re
> than 90 tribes had become extinct in Brazil alone over the first
> three-quarters of the 20th century.
> "He believed ours would be the last generation fortunate enough to be abl=
> e
> to live and work among these tribes as he had," wrote one of Dr. Schultes=
> 's
> disciples, Mark J. Plotkin, in "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice," (Viking,
> 1993), "to experience their traditional way of life firsthand, and to rec=
> ord
> their vast ethnobotanical knowledge before the plant species - or the peo=
> ple
> who used them - succumbed to the march of progress."=20
> Dr. Schultes's research into plants that produced hallucinogens like peyo=
> te
> and ayahuasca made some of his books cult favorites among youthful drug
> experimenters in the 1960's. His findings also influenced cultural icons
> like Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs and Carlos Castaneda, writers who
> considered hallucinogens as the gateways to self-discovery.=20
> Dr. Schultes disdained these self- appointed prophets of an inner reality.
> He scathingly dismissed Timothy Leary, the drug guru of the 1960's who al=
> so
> taught at Harvard, for being so little versed in hallucinogenic species t=
> hat
> he misspelled the Latin names of the plants.=20
> According to a 1996 article in The Los Angeles Times, when Mr. Burroughs
> once described a psychedelic trip as an earth-shaking metaphysical
> experience, Dr. Schultes's response was, "That's funny, Bill, all I saw w=
> as
> colors."
> Dr. Schultes may have contributed to the psychedelic era with his
> ethnobotanical discoveries, but to him these were the sacred plants of
> Indians that should be studied for their medicinal value. He was in many
> ways a throwback to an earlier epoch of scientific research. He had no
> interest in publicity or self-promotion. Rather than confine himself to a
> narrow specialty, he was a generalist who crisscrossed several scientific
> disciplines.
> Dr. Schultes taught more by personal example than by the use of forceful
> intellect. His lecture room resembled an ethnographic museum, with huge m=
> aps
> of Amazonia, native dance costumes, demon masks, opium pipes, dried
> specimens of medicinal and hallucinogenic plants, and a blowgun for poiso=
> n-
> tipped darts, whose use he sometimes gingerly demonstrated in class.=20
> His former student, Dr. Plotkin, recalled a lecture in which the professo=
> r
> showed slides of masked dancers in the Amazon under the influence of a
> hallucinogenic potion. Referring to himself, Dr. Schultes told the class:
> "The one on the left has a Harvard degree. Next slide please."
> Richard Evans Schultes traced his fascination with the South American rai=
> n
> forests to the fantasies evoked while he was bedridden as a child. He was
> born on Jan. 12, 1915, in Boston, where his father was a plumber and his
> mother was a homemaker. Confined to his room for months with a stomach
> ailment when he was about 5 years old, he listened enraptured to excerpts
> read to him by his parents from "Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and th=
> e
> Andes," a travel diary kept by the 19th century British naturalist Richar=
> d
> Spruce. The impression left by those passages was so powerful that the bo=
> y
> decided to follow in Spruce's footsteps.
> Receiving a full scholarship to Harvard, Mr. Schultes wrote an undergradu=
> ate
> paper on the mind-altering properties of peyote, based on research he
> undertook with Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma who ingested the hallucinogen in
> ceremonies to commune with their ancestors. For his doctoral thesis, also=
>  at
> Harvard, he chose the plants used by the Indians of Oaxaca, a southern st=
> ate
> of Mexico. In his research there, he came across a species of morning glo=
> ry
> seeds that contained a natural form of LSD.
> In 1941, Dr. Schultes traveled to the Colombian Amazon, where he would sp=
> end
> most of his field research, and an area Spruce had studied. At first, Dr.
> Schultes concentrated on plants that produced curare. This substance, use=
> d
> by Indians as a fast-dissipating poison to hunt prey, also proved to be
> vital as a muscle-relaxant during major surgery in hospitals. The profess=
> or
> identified more than 70 plant species from which the Indians extracted
> curare.
> Dr. Schultes was deep in the Colombian rain forest when news of Pearl Har=
> bor
> reached him more than a week after the Japanese attack. He immediately ma=
> de
> his way back to Bogot=E1, the Colombian capital, and visited the United S=
> tates
> Embassy to enlist in the armed forces. But the United States government
> decided his World War II services would be much more valuable as a botani=
> st
> doing research on natural rubber, particularly since the Japanese occupie=
> d
> the Malayan plantations that accounted for much of the world's rubber
> supplies.=20
>
>
> Ann Popplestone
>
> CCC TLC
> 216-987-3584
>
>
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0C44B.F7CC3340
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
> <HTML>
> <HEAD>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-=
> 1">
> <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version 5.5.2653.12"=
> >
> <TITLE>NY Times obit</TITLE>
> </HEAD>
> <BODY>
>
> <P><B><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Richard E. Schultes, 86, Auth=
> ority on Hallucinogenic Plants, Dies</FONT></B>
> <BR><B><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Times New Roman">By JONATHAN KANDELL</FONT></=
> B>
> <BR><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Richard Evans Schultes, a swashbuckling =
> scientist and influential Harvard University educator who was widely consid=
> ered the preeminent authority on hallucinogenic and medicinal plants, died =
> on Tuesday in Boston. He was 86 and lived in Waltham, a Boston suburb.</FON=
> T></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes (pronounced SHULL- tees) was=
>  often called the father of ethnobotany, the field that studies the relatio=
> nship between native cultures and their use of plants. Over decades of rese=
> arch, mainly in Colombia's Amazon region, he documented the use of more tha=
> n 2,000 medicinal plants among Indians of a dozen tribes, many of whom had =
> never seen a white man before. </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">"I do not believe in hostile Indians=
> ," Dr. Schultes was quoted as saying in a 1992 article about him in Th=
> e New Yorker by E. J. Kahn Jr. "All that is required to bring out thei=
> r gentlemanliness is reciprocal gentlemanliness."</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Tall, muscular, wearing a pith helmet, he=
>  hiked and paddled through Amazonia for months at a time. He collected more=
>  than 24,000 plant specimens. More than 120 species bear his name, as does =
> a 2.2 million-acre tract of protected rain forest in Colombia, Sector Schul=
> tes, which the government there set aside in 1986. </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">"The last of the great plant explore=
> rs in the Victorian tradition," was the way one of his former students=
> , Wade Davis, described him in his 1985 best-selling book, "The Serpen=
> t and the Rainbow" (Simon & Schuster).</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">But more than a real-life Indiana Jones, =
> Dr. Schultes was a pioneering conservationist who raised alarms in the 1960=
> 's - long before environmentalism became a worldwide concern - that the rai=
> n forests and their native cultures were in danger of disappearing under th=
> e onslaught of modern industry and agriculture. He reminded his Harvard stu=
> dents that more than 90 tribes had become extinct in Brazil alone over the =
> first three-quarters of the 20th century.</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">"He believed ours would be the last =
> generation fortunate enough to be able to live and work among these tribes =
> as he had," wrote one of Dr. Schultes's disciples, Mark J. Plotkin, in=
>  "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice," (Viking, 1993), "to exper=
> ience their traditional way of life firsthand, and to record their vast eth=
> nobotanical knowledge before the plant species - or the people who used the=
> m - succumbed to the march of progress." </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes's research into plants that =
> produced hallucinogens like peyote and ayahuasca made some of his books cul=
> t favorites among youthful drug experimenters in the 1960's. His findings a=
> lso influenced cultural icons like Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs and Car=
> los Castaneda, writers who considered hallucinogens as the gateways to self=
> -discovery. </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes disdained these self- appoin=
> ted prophets of an inner reality. He scathingly dismissed Timothy Leary, th=
> e drug guru of the 1960's who also taught at Harvard, for being so little v=
> ersed in hallucinogenic species that he misspelled the Latin names of the p=
> lants. </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">According to a 1996 article in The Los An=
> geles Times, when Mr. Burroughs once described a psychedelic trip as an ear=
> th-shaking metaphysical experience, Dr. Schultes's response was, "That=
> 's funny, Bill, all I saw was colors."</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes may have contributed to the =
> psychedelic era with his ethnobotanical discoveries, but to him these were =
> the sacred plants of Indians that should be studied for their medicinal val=
> ue. He was in many ways a throwback to an earlier epoch of scientific resea=
> rch. He had no interest in publicity or self-promotion. Rather than confine=
>  himself to a narrow specialty, he was a generalist who crisscrossed severa=
> l scientific disciplines.</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes taught more by personal exam=
> ple than by the use of forceful intellect. His lecture room resembled an et=
> hnographic museum, with huge maps of Amazonia, native dance costumes, demon=
>  masks, opium pipes, dried specimens of medicinal and hallucinogenic plants=
> , and a blowgun for poison- tipped darts, whose use he sometimes gingerly d=
> emonstrated in class. </FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">His former student, Dr. Plotkin, recalled=
>  a lecture in which the professor showed slides of masked dancers in the Am=
> azon under the influence of a hallucinogenic potion. Referring to himself, =
> Dr. Schultes told the class: "The one on the left has a Harvard degree=
> . Next slide please."</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Richard Evans Schultes traced his fascina=
> tion with the South American rain forests to the fantasies evoked while he =
> was bedridden as a child. He was born on Jan. 12, 1915, in Boston, where hi=
> s father was a plumber and his mother was a homemaker. Confined to his room=
>  for months with a stomach ailment when he was about 5 years old, he listen=
> ed enraptured to excerpts read to him by his parents from "Notes of a =
> Botanist on the Amazon and the Andes," a travel diary kept by the 19th=
>  century British naturalist Richard Spruce. The impression left by those pa=
> ssages was so powerful that the boy decided to follow in Spruce's footsteps=
> .</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Receiving a full scholarship to Harvard, =
> Mr. Schultes wrote an undergraduate paper on the mind-altering properties o=
> f peyote, based on research he undertook with Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma who=
>  ingested the hallucinogen in ceremonies to commune with their ancestors. F=
> or his doctoral thesis, also at Harvard, he chose the plants used by the In=
> dians of Oaxaca, a southern state of Mexico. In his research there, he came=
>  across a species of morning glory seeds that contained a natural form of L=
> SD.</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">In 1941, Dr. Schultes traveled to the Col=
> ombian Amazon, where he would spend most of his field research, and an area=
>  Spruce had studied. At first, Dr. Schultes concentrated on plants that pro=
> duced curare. This substance, used by Indians as a fast-dissipating poison =
> to hunt prey, also proved to be vital as a muscle-relaxant during major sur=
> gery in hospitals. The professor identified more than 70 plant species from=
>  which the Indians extracted curare.</FONT></P>
>
> <P><FONT FACE=3D"Times New Roman">Dr. Schultes was deep in the Colombian ra=
> in forest when news of Pearl Harbor reached him more than a week after the =
> Japanese attack. He immediately made his way back to Bogot=E1, the Colombia=
> n capital, and visited the United States Embassy to enlist in the armed for=
> ces. But the United States government decided his World War II services wou=
> ld be much more valuable as a botanist doing research on natural rubber, pa=
> rticularly since the Japanese occupied the Malayan plantations that account=
> ed for much of the world's rubber supplies. </FONT></P>
> <BR>
>
> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">Ann Popplestone</FONT>
> </P>
>
> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">CCC TLC</FONT>
> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">216-987-3584</FONT>
> </P>
>
>
> <br>
>
> <!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| -->
>
> <table border=3D0 cellspacing=3D0 cellpadding=3D2>
> <tr bgcolor=3D#FFFFCC>
> <td align=3Dcenter><font size=3D"-1" color=3D#003399><b>Yahoo! Groups Spons=
> or</b></font></td>
> </tr>
> <tr bgcolor=3D#FFFFFF>
> <td width=3D470><a href=3D"http://rd.yahoo.com/M=3D190462.1393721.2979173.2=
> /D=3Degroupmail/S=3D1700079605:N/A=3D551014/?http://www.debticated.com" tar=
> get=3D"_top"><img width=3D468 height=3D60 src=3D"http://us.a1.yimg.com/us.y=
> img.com/a/am/ameridebtt/debticatedbanner1.gif" alt=3D"www.debticated.com" b=
> order=3D0></a></td>
> </tr>
> <tr><td><img alt=3D"" width=3D1 height=3D1 src=3D"http://us.adserver.yahoo.=
> com/l?M=3D190462.1393721.2979173.2/D=3Degroupmail/S=3D1700079605:N/A=3D5510=
> 14/rand=3D609106692"></td></tr>
> </table>
>
> <!-- |**|end egp html banner|**| -->
>
>
> <br>
> <tt>
> Be sure to check out the SACC web page at www.ccanthro.org for meeting mate=
> rials, newsletters, etc.</tt>
> <br>
>
> <br>
> <tt>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the <a href=3D"http://docs.yaho=
> o.com/info/terms/">Yahoo! Terms of Service</a>.</tt>
> </br>
>
> </BODY>
> </HTML>
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0C44B.F7CC3340--
>
>