Abstract
Indigenous plant-derived material culture dominates many of the tools and utensils manufactured and used by communities that depended on the natural resources for their livelihoods. Endemic plants provide humans with essential materials for construction purposes and for the design of household utensils. The goal of this study was to describe the current value of indigenous plant material culture. Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 127 respondents provide 13 native plants as sources of fibre, timber, culms, oil and dye used to make household utensils, huts, brooms, mats and baskets. The cultural significance of these materials includes the production, preparation, serving and storage of food; house construction; protection of courtyards; and cleaning. These materials are still valued in the culture of the studied community, and represent the tangible heritage of the community.
Highlights
Members of local communities have developed unique knowledge related to the uses of plant resources due to their constant association with the natural environment (Malla & Chhetri, 2009)
Materials and Methods 2.1 Study location Dikgale community is located in Polokwane Local Municipality, Capricorn District of Limpopo Province in South Africa, approximately 40 km from Polokwane, the capital of the province, and 15 km from the University of Limpopo (Statistics South Africa Census, 2014)
3.1 Indigenous plants used in material culture Thirteen native plants belonging to ten families were identified as sources of material culture in Dikgale community
Summary
Members of local communities have developed unique knowledge related to the uses of plant resources due to their constant association with the natural environment (Malla & Chhetri, 2009) These resources serve humans with many ranges of useful materials such timber, poles and fencing for construction purposes (Kochhar, 1998) as well as traditional arts and handicrafts (Cunningham, 1996; Molina, 2015). For Joshi et al (2011), a great variety of tools, weapons and utensils were manufactured and used to gather plants for food, fibre and medicine as well as clothing These make up a community’s material culture (Nakashima et al, 2000; Bates et al, 2009) which, according to Bahru et al (2012), varies across cultures in terms of the types and availability of plant species used, environmental conditions and indigenous knowledge of producing material objects (Yassin et al, 2015).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
