In Chapter 6 we explored historical relationships between humans and several non-human animals. We will now turn to historical connections between humans and plants, once again focusing our attention on symbolic aspects as well as on changes over time.

In the Triangle, humans have always been surrounded by thousands of different plant species. The meeting point of three biodiversity hotspots, the Triangle boasts a wide range of landscapes and a lush monsoon climate. It is a verdant place and home to an astounding diversity of plant life. And yet, the significance of this diversity for human history has been insufficiently explored. It has remained largely invisible, taken for granted as a backdrop to human life. We need to overcome our tendency towards ‘plant blindness’ – the misguided anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals.

Plants were always absolutely vital for human life, not only as sources of nourishment, but also because of their cultural significance. Numerous interspecies relationships connected humans and plants in the Triangle from the earliest times. One way of putting it is to say that plants are deeply implanted in the region's imagination. Another is to state that humans have always constructed their cultures around plants.

How did the natural environment of the Triangle frame the lifeworlds of its people? How did they think about forests, plants and trees? How did plants figure in Triangle cosmologies? And how did plants shape human cultures? The answers cannot be as explicit as in the case of animals because the role of plants is often less clearly articulated in historical stories and practices. Even so, we can suggest several plant contributions to human cultures in the Triangle. We will first look at notions of ancient sacred connections between humans and plants, and the role of plants in ceremonial life. Then we will briefly consider ideas about the healing powers of plants and, finally, how humans interacted with plants as domestic companions.

Origin stories and plants

Stories about the origins of the universe do not dwell much on plants, and yet there is a givenness about their role. In Chapter 5 we encountered stories among the Khasi and Mizo about enormous trees that, at the beginning of time, used to connect the earth and the sky. The power of such ideas continues to be remarkable: a large piece of sacred wood, said to have been part of the original earth-sky tree, is still being preserved in a Khasi village.