MSC Thesis Ethnobotany - Medicinal Plants - Junín - Peru

Indigenous Knowledge of Medicinal Plants:
A case study from the Ashninka community of Bajo Quimiriki, Junn, Peru.
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen ADK06021
MSc Thesis Faculty of Life Sciences, Copenhagen University June 2009
Supervisor: Marten Srensen Co-supervisor: Ida Theilade
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants
Indigenous Knowledge of Medicinal Plants:

A case study from the Ashninka community of Bajo Quimiriki, Junn, Peru
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen ADK06021
MSc Thesis Faculty of Life Sciences, Copenhagen University June 2009
Supervisor: Marten Srensen Co-supervisor: Ida Theilade
Cover illustration by the Author
ABSTRACT The study describes the medical use of plant species in the Ashninka indigenous community of Bajo Quimiriki, District of Pichanaki, Department of Junn, Peru. Data were collected over a 2 months fieldwork, from July to August 2007. The methods include interviews of informants of different age, status and gender. Knowledge of medicinal plants was documented during 12 forest walks with 72 pre-marked plants, a river walk with three informants, 16 semi-structured household interviews. Information was also collected during participatory observation and informal talks. A cross-check on 80 selected medicinal plants was performed presenting voucher specimens to 12 additional informants. Sixty-two species of medicinal plants were identified, belonging to 57 genera and 39 families. The forest and homegardens hosted similar proportions of medicinal plants. Medicinal plant knowledge was held both by healing specialists and by ordinary people in the community. Significative positive correlation was found between age of informants and their knowledge, with some exceptions due to personal background. Two of the medicinal plants widely mentioned in the community have not been reported in literature, suggesting that they could be studied in future investigations. This study can also be used to register and protect indigenous intellectual property rights. Keywords: ethnobotany, medicinal plants, traditional knowledge, acculturation, Ashninka, Peru
Table of Contents
PREFACE ......................................................................................................................................6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................7 1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................8 1.1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................8 1.2 Study objectives .............................................................................................................11 1.3 Ethnobotanical research ...............................................................................................11 1.4 Previous studies .............................................................................................................13 2. STUDY AREA .........................................................................................................................15 2.1 Ethnic group and affiliation .........................................................................................15 2.2 Location..........................................................................................................................15 2.3 History ............................................................................................................................16 2.4 Livelihood strategies .....................................................................................................17 3. METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................................20 3.1 Obtainment of research permits ..................................................................................20 3.2 Community meetings ....................................................................................................20 3.3 Investigating team .........................................................................................................21 3.4 Trust building ................................................................................................................21 3.5 Methods of collection of ethnobotanical information ................................................22 3.5.1 Informal conversation................................................................................................23 3.5.2 Participant observation..............................................................................................23 3.5.3 Household interviews .................................................................................................23 3.5.4 Collection of medicinal plants in the homegardens.................................................24 3.5.5 Forest walks ................................................................................................................25 3.5.6 Collection of medicinal plants on the river banks...................................................28 3.5.7 Cross check of information on 80 selected plants....................................................29 3.5.8 Focus group interview with children........................................................................30 3.6 Preparation of the voucher specimens ........................................................................30 3.7 Identification of specimens ...........................................................................................30 3.8 Limitations of the study ................................................................................................31 4. RESULTS.................................................................................................................................32 4.1 Ecological findings.........................................................................................................32 4.1.1 Medicinal plants diversity, life form and habitat ....................................................32 4.1.2 Plant parts used ..........................................................................................................34 4.1.3 Ailments treated .........................................................................................................35 4.1.4 Ways of preparation and administration of remedies ............................................43 4.2 Social findings................................................................................................................64 4.2.1 Relevant diseases in the community and their treatment.......................................64 4.2.2 Distribution of knowledge on medicinal plants in the community ........................65 4.2.2.1 The specialists of the community ...........................................................................66 4.2.2.2 The shaman..............................................................................................................68 4.2.2.3 Informants knowledge comparison during the forest walks..............................70 4.2.2.4 Informants consensus during the forest walks....................................................73 4.2.2.5 Indigenous nomenclature .......................................................................................74
4.2.2.6 Focus group interview with children.....................................................................74 4.2.2.7 Additional information from informal conversations and participant observations .........................................................................................................................75 5. DISCUSSION ..........................................................................................................................78 5.1 Medicinal plants diversity, life form and habitat .......................................................78 5.2 Ailments treated ............................................................................................................79 5.3 The specialists of the community: tradition or off-farm activity?............................80 5.4 Traditional beliefs, religion and health practices.......................................................81 5.5 Informants knowledge comparison ............................................................................81 5.6 Discussion of methods ...................................................................................................82 5.8 Borrowing of knowledge from other communities.....................................................84 5.9 Local medicinal plants reported in literature.............................................................84 5.10 Local perception of malaria and leishmaniasis ........................................................85 5.11 Local knowledge on a global stage.............................................................................86 6. CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................................89 7. ANNEXES................................................................................................................................92 Annex I. List of the inhabitants of the community of Bajo Quimiriki who participated in the various activities............................................................................................................................92 Annex II. Map of the Community of Bajo Quimiriki, provided by INRENA. ...........................93 Annex III. Research permit ..........................................................................................................94 Annex IV. Semi-structured interview guide.................................................................................96 Annex V. Scheme for collection of information on medicinal plants in the homegardens. .........97 Annex VI. References to texts that describe the uses and/or chemical composition and properties of the medicinal plant species described by at least 10 informants in the community of Bajo Quimiriki. ......................................................................................................................................98 Annex VII. Partly identified medicinal plants............................................................................100 Annex VIII. Family distribution of the plants identified at species, genus and family level.....103 8. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................104
PREFACE This MSc thesis is submitted in order to complete the MSc Programme Agricultural Development at the Faculty of Life Sciences, Copenhagen University, Denmark. It is based on a three months fieldwork conducted in Peru from June to September 2007. Two months were spent living in an Ashninka indigenous community, i.e. the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki in the Junn Department of Peru. I established contact with this Ashninka community through my husband, who met the headman Lino Herea four years ago when travelling in Peru. Since then the headman invited my husband to visit his community several times, mostly in relation to a project regarding the construction of a secondary school for which they were looking for funds. The headman also mentioned that they would have liked to have a medical post in the community, where modern medicine could be combined with traditional medicine. He said that at the moment they used only local medicinal plants for treatment. We thought that this was a very interesting setting and a good opportunity to go there came when I had to choose a subject and a destination for my MSc thesis, so my husband and I decided to visit this community together. I have a background in agronomy, while my husband is a student of Anthropology. Our idea when we left was that he would look at the feasibility of the project of the secondary school, while I would conduct field research on the medicinal plants, with the view that our work could be used for the development of the community. Once there and after two general assemblies, I agreed with the community that after completing the work of the MSc thesis I would compile a book written in Spanish on the medicinal plants used in the community, to be used in the local elementary school.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express my gratitude to all the comuneros of the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki for welcoming us among them and sharing their homes, their food and their friendship with us. A particular thanks goes to Lino, the headman, who invited and introduced us to his community. This work could not have been realized without the active participation of the members of the community who joined the various research activities and shared their knowledge with us. A complete list of their names is in Annex I. I would like to thank Joaquina Albn Castillo, head of the Herbarium of the Natural History Museum of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) in Lima for her help in applying for research permits and in the identification of part of the specimens. Jos Dextre Gutierrez, a former student of UNMSM, provided invaluable help in the field by helping to collect and dry the specimens during the days in which he joined me in the community. I am very grateful to my supervisor Marten Srensen for his comments to the manuscript and for his patience an humor and to my co-supervisor Ida Theilade for providing the contacts to the herbarium in Peru, and for her comments and encouragement throughout the whole process. The staff of the Botanical Section of LIFE have made my stay really enjoyable through the warm environment, moral support and lots of cakes. Many friends have helped me in one way or another during the process and among them I am particularly indebted to Fiorello Toneatto, Mette Srensen, Andreas Waaben Thulstrup and Rikke Rasmussen. A special expression of gratitude goes to my husband and travel companion, Rasmus Sterndorff Hansen, for his hard work during the fieldwork, for his critical comments with anthropological insights, and for being close to me in times of frustration while writing the thesis, giving me his comprehension and love. This project was funded by the AD grant of the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) of Copenhagen University and by the Danish government through DANIDA grant for MSc students. The Botanical section of LIFE covered the cost of transporting the herbarium specimens from Peru to Denmark. I dedicate this work to my mother, Luz Marina Perez Triana.
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Peru is one of the 12 most biodiversity rich, or megadiverse, countries of the world. The combination of its latitude and topography creates numerous ecosystems which are home to an extraordinary rich flora and fauna. At least 25,000 species of plants, of which 5,354 are endemic, are hosted in its numerous ecosystems (Brack Egg, 1999). Peru is also the country with the highest number of bird species in the world and the third for the number of mammals. The country is also highly diverse in terms of the great number of cultures represented by its many ethnic groups: according to the last census from 2007 the indigenous population of the Peruvian Amazon consists of approximately 333,000 individuals, belonging to 59 ethnic groups and 15 linguistic families. The largest ethnic group is the Ashninka with a population of 88,703 which represents 26.6% of the indigenous population recorded in the Peruvian Amazon (INEI 1, 2009). In 1974 the president Juan Velasco Alvarado promulgated the Law of Native Communities and Rural Development, which for the first time recognised the juridical state of indigenous communities and their right of ownership to the community land. Today, 940 indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon, from a total of 1067 registered, have received an official titling of the land in the territory that they were occupying (IBC 2, 2009). During this process the State has recognised the entity Native Community but not the tribal society as a whole, which is unfortunate considering the importance of inter-ethnic exchange, e.g. in order to maintain a viable population (Weiss, 2005). The atomisation of the indigenous territory into many Native Communities of limited extension has decreased the possibility of movement and interaction between the indigenous tribes as each local community became separated from the remainder by territories where original land use systems were converted to intense agriculture by people coming from various regions of the country (colonos), as well as by logging, mining and oil extraction activities (Huertaz-Castillo, 2007). In addition to interfering with the original social network, the establishment of economical activities in the territory disturbed the equilibrium that indigenous people maintained with the surrounding nature. The limits of the original territories used to go far beyond the confines of the actual Native Communities, and the consequence has been two-fold: 1. the disappearance of large mammals important for hunting and for cultural reasons like the Amazonian tapir sacha vaca and the jaguar and 2. the intensification of agriculture. In the 1980s the construction of a peripheral highway (Carretera
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Instituto Nacional de Estadstica e Informtica Instituto del Bien Comn
Marginal) along the Peren River dissected several native communities and opened access to wood loggers, who conducted intensive forest extraction activities even in the territories of the native communities. The road facilitated the flow of plants, people and markets that influenced indigenous agriculture (Hamlin and Salick, 2003). In particular during the years of terrorism, i.e. Shining Path, displaced people spread along the routes opened by the new roads, and in the native communities the houses started to aggregate along the roadside. The construction of roads has also exposed locals to acculturation through schools that impose the language and customs of the dominant society. Furthermore, catholic and protestant churches have made inroads into local communities, substituting or blending themselves with the traditional beliefs. The effects of these interactions are not completely clear. As indigenous traditional knowledge is mainly oral, a direct comparison with the past knowledge is not possible, unless written records are kept of it. Therefore, documentation is important in order to be able to analyze how knowledge changes with time and adapts to new conditions. Medicinal plants are an important resource for indigenous people, who often do not have access to other forms of medicine either due to their remoteness or to the lack of economical possibilities. This is a common condition in developing countries: e.g. in some African and Asian countries, 80% of the population depend on traditional medicine for primary health care (WHO, 2008). In the community of Bajo Quimiriki, where this study was conducted, the majority of the population relies exclusively on medicinal plants, due to the free availability of the resource, cultural traditions and lack of economic resources to pay for treatments at the hospital of the nearby town of Pichanaki. Indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants might also lead to the discovery of plant compounds not yet known in western medicine, which could be used to cure diseases which affect many people around world, like e.g. malaria. Indigenous medicine is often based on a different etiology of disease, in which health is defined as a coherent state of equilibrium between the physical and spiritual components of the individual (Davis and Henley, 1990). Therefore, the healing power of the plants are often strictly connected to rituals performed by the shaman of the community. The Native Community (NN.CC.) of Bajo Quimiriki belongs to the Ashninka ethnic group, and is located at the banks of the Peren River in the Peruvian Department of Junn. Its proximity to the town of Pichanaki poses some questions regarding the future survival of the indigenous knowledge and practices for the next generations, who are more and more
assimilated by the dominant society. The children of the community spend the majority of the day at school, where the language spoken is Spanish, and therefore they spend less time at home, which decreases their chances to learn from the older people about the uses of the medicinal plants. In the words of Martin (2004): Although attending school, learning the national language and migrating to urban areas can be important steps towards raising the standard of living and literacy in rural areas, they often result in a loss of the traditional ways of interacting with the natural environment which equally yield many benefits. Several studies showed that medicinal plants lore is particularly vulnerable to acculturation (Phillips and Gentry, 1993b; Shanley and Rosa, 2004; Case et al. 2005). The setting in the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki is particularly interesting due to its proximity to the fast growing town of Pichanaki. The process of acculturation is among the concerns of both the local headman and inhabitants in general, and no previous ethnobotanical studies of medicinal plants have been carried out at the site. This study was conducted under the specific request by the people of the Native Community. The aim is to document local knowledge and set the base for future research and community development. A study among Tsiman native communities of Bolivia showed that both economic development and local ecological knowledge might be simultaneously achieved if economic development takes place through activities that keep people within their habitat and their culture (Reyes-Garca et al. 2007). The study of local ecological knowledge might help the community to identify economic activities, e.g. the cultivation and commercialization of a medicinal plant particularly requested on the market, which can favour local development while valorizing the local culture. The information gathered will also allow the locals to register their traditional knowledge both at community as well as at national level in the public or confidential registers of INDECOPI 3. In Peru the law No. 27811 of 24th July 2002 introduced a Protection Regime for the Collective Knowledge of Indigenous People Derived from Biological Resources. The law seeks to establish a system of compensation to indigenous people for the use of their traditional knowledge, fight biopiracy and ensure that collective knowledge is respected, protected and preserved. In order to do so, the indigenous community should register their collective knowledge in a register that can be either national (public or confidential) or local. INDECOPI is
Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Proteccin de la Propiedad Intelectual.
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the institution that has been appointed to manage the national registers, while the local register can be realized in the local communities with subsequent technical collaboration by INDECOPI.
1.2 Study objectives The general objective of this study is: To document and analyze the knowledge of medicinal plants in the Ashninka native community of Bajo Quimiriki, Peru. The specific objectives of this study are: 1. To document which plants are known as medicinal by the local people, which ailments and/or diseases are they used for, and their ways of administration 2. To analyze the distribution of knowledge on medicinal plants within the community
1.3 Ethnobotanical research The study is carried out following the theories and methods of the discipline of ethnobotany. The term ethno-botany was first introduced in 1895 by the American botanist Harshberger and defined as the use of plants by aboriginal people. When describing the purposes of this discipline Harshberger mentioned: 1) the study of ethnobotany aids in elucidating the cultural position of the tribes who used the plants for food, shelter or clothing; 2) an ethnobotanical study throws light upon the past distribution of plants; 3) an ethnobotanical study helps us to decide as to the ancient trade routes; 4) ethno-botany is useful as suggesting new lines of manufacture at the present day. [] Again, we may learn by this study new uses of plants of which we were in ignorance (Harshberger, 1896). The interpretation of this discipline has changed through the last century to include not only the use of plants, but also the management and cultural value of plants to people. Martin (2004) defined it as the study of local peoples interaction with plants. In 2007, participants at the Ethnobotanical Summit at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in the island of Kauai (Hawaii) issued the Kauai Declaration, in which the importance of ethnobotany for providing some of the solutions toward more sustainable living is stressed. In the Declaration, ethnobotany is addressed as the science of survival due to its capacity to gather ecological knowledge accumulated by different human cultures in very different environments, knowledge that can effectively suggest solutions to the
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challenges that our societies face at present time. The strength of ethnobotany comes from its interdisciplinary nature, combining concepts from the fields of anthropology, agriculture, archaeology, biochemistry, genetics, horticulture, botany, ethnopharmacology, ecology, economics and linguistics (Martin, 2004; Kauai Declaration, 2007). Some of the global issues where ethnobotany can make its contribution are food security, deforestation, pollution, the quality of human life and the maintenance of human health (Kauai Declaration, 2007). Twenty years ago, when many qualitative studies had already been carried out on the uses made of plants by people in various regions of the world, the research in ethnobotany started to shift towards quantitative ethnobotany, a term coined by Prance et al. (1987). Quantitative ethnobotany allows calculations of the relative value of species and habitats for the local population and is therefore useful in terms of management of resources. The method has been initially used by forestry scientists and therefore mainly applied to trees and woody lianas, but in an increasing number of studies the method is being applied also to herbs, shrubs, lianas and epiphytes, which are the most commonly used medicinal plants. Usually research is done through the establishment of permanent plots of variable dimensions followed by transect walks with informants who are asked about the uses and relative value of tagged specimens (DeWalt et al., 1999). Often the plots are located in the proximity of research stations and the tagged specimens have already been identified during the course of previous studies. The value of the tagged plant might be assigned by the researcher (Prance et al., 1987), by the informants (Kvist, 1995) or be an average of scores across repeated events with the single informants and across the informants (Phillips and Gentry, 1993a) or an average of various categories of uses (Kvist et al., 1998). The scope of the present study was to document for the first time the knowledge on medicinal plants in this specific community and to analyze its distribution among the inhabitants. The methods that I used to collect the data provided information on the potential uses of medicinal plants: if an informant reported the medicinal use and preparation of a plant, this does not necessarily mean that he or she actually uses that plant. In fact, as indicated by Kvist (1995) and Stagegaard et al. (2002), estimated use values often do not reflect the real collection of plants: surveys conducted in the Peruvian Amazon among Ribereo households show that a limited number of the plants indicated as useful are used in reality. This might be because the plants are located too far away to reach, or because people prefer to use a plant that they know well rather than a new one, even if they know about its possible application. Plants might also
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have become scarce from overexploitation and therefore substitutes are used. Thus it is important to combine various methods to get a real view of the potential and actual use(s) of the plants (Stagegaard et al., 2002). If the scope of the ethnobotanical study was to register the actual use, a suitable method would be recording the remedies prepared in each household during a whole year. This can be realized by asking each family to keep record on a diary of the medicinal plants collected and used. The method has the advantage of allowing to record the frequency with which each plant is used and the quantities extracted. On the other side it has the drawback of leaving some uncertainty regarding the botanical identity of the plants reported (Kvist et al. 2001a). An analysis of the actual uses of medicinal plants in the community of Bajo Quimiriki could be a subject for a following study.
1.4 Previous studies Ethnobotanical studies in the Peruvian Amazon have so far been concentrated in the Eastern Departments of Peru, from North to South: Loreto, Ucayali and Madre de Dios, in the low rain forests or selva baja along major rivers as the Amazon (Lamont et al., 1999), and its upper reaches the Ucayali and Maraon rivers (Kvist, 1997; Kvist et al., 1995; 1998; 2001a; 2001b; 2001c; Padoch and de Jong, 1992; Stagegaard et al., 2002) and in the river Madre de Dios basin (Phillips and Gentry 1993a,b; Lacaze and Alexiades, 1995). Initially researchers worked primarily with indigenous people, like the Shipibo-Conibo (Crdenas, 1989; Tournon, 1984; 1986; 1990), but successively scholars drew attention to the need for more ethnoecological work with non-indigenous people (Hiraoka, 1992; Padoch and de Jong, 1992; Parker, 1989) who, as Phillips and Gentry stated (1993a), may have adapted techniques from extinct or endangered indigenous cultures. Since then forest resource use by the ribereos (Spanish-speaking detribalized descendants of indigenous people and old immigrants) of the lower Ucayali river has been extensively studied and abundant quantitative data are available on the use of different kinds of forest made by this group (Kvist, 1997; Kvist et al.,1995; 1998; 2001a; 2001b; Padoch and de Jong, 1992; Stagegaard et al., 2002). The studies of indigenous uses of medicinal plants conducted in the Department Madre de Dios by Lacaze and Alexiades (1995) had a different focus. They were associated with the AMETRA project (Aplicacin de Medicina Tradicional), a broader project with the aim of promoting health in indigenous communities. As a result they compiled a manual describing the most common diseases of the region, their symptoms and a list of medicinal plants that can be
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used to cure them. In this project information was collected among Amahuaca, Ese-eja, Harakmbut, Matsigenka, Piro, Quichua, Ribereos and Shipibo-Conibo pertaining to the indigenous federation FENAMAD (Federacin Nativa del Ro Madre de Dios y Afluentes). Another indigenous health program in the Peruvian Amazon was directed by the indigenous organization AIDESEP (Asociacin Intertnica del Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana) with the technical collaboration of the Danish consultancy company NORDECO and took place from 1993 to 2000 initially in three areas of the Peruvian Amazons but finally concentrated in the area of Atalaya, at the upper Ucayali River. The project succeeded in establishing a health service system in 119 communities where traditional and western medicine were integrated. In the book compiled by Hvalkof (2004), the experiences from the different parties involved in the project are presented, and among other things, the healing system of the Ashninka of the Ucayali is described. Literature focusing on the Ashninka ethnic group has been mainly produced by anthropologists in the form of ethnographical works like the ones of Rojas-Zolezzi (1994) and Weiss (2005). Ethnobotanical studies of the Ashninka of the Selva Central who live along the Peren river are scarce and those focusing on medicinal plants even rarer. Romn-Daobeytia (2002) made an ethnobotanical study of the woody species utilized to build the traditional Ashninka hut in the area of the Peren River, while the only ethnobotanical study specific to the ethnic group and including medicinal plants is the one by Reynel et al. (1990), which reports 96 species as medicinal used by the ethnic group Campa-Ashninka. A brief description of the Ashninka medical system is given by Keplinger et al. (1998) before focusing on the ethnomedicinal uses and pharmacological results of the species Uncaria tomentosa (Willd.) DC., ua de gato (cats claw) which is widely known and used by the Ashninka. Lenaerts (2006a,b) gives a description of the ethnomedicine and in particular of the relation between body and environment and interethnic borrowing by the Ashninka of the Ucayali and Ashninka del Gran Pajonal, who are related to the Ashninka, but he does not include any detail regarding the plant identity, with the stated purpose of protecting the indigenous intellectual property rights. It has not been possible to retrieve any quantitative ethnobotanical study made on this indigenous group.
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2. STUDY AREA 2.1 Ethnic group and affiliation The Ashninka language belongs to the Arawak linguistic group and therefore has affinities with the Piro, the Conibo, the Machiguenga and Yanesha languages in the Peruvian Amazon and the Guajira language in the Colombian Amazon (Reynel et al., 1990; Weiss, 2005). The ethno-linguistic group Ashninka was considered part of what was known as the ethno-linguistic group Campa that included also the Ashninka and other pre-Andean Arawakan dialects. In the middle of the seventies, the term Campa was replaced by the term Ashaninka, used as generic for all the sub groups. The reason was probably the colonialist pejorative denotation with which the term Campa was used and perceived (Weiss, 2005). The Ashaninka (Ashninka and Ashninka) are, as mentioned above, one of the most numerous indigenous groups of Amazonia. They live in the foothills of the Andean region in the central part of Peru. The mayority of the groups who live north of the Tambo river, mainly in the region of Gran Pajonal, call themselves Ashninka, while those that autodefine Ashninka live in the valleys of the Apurmac, Ene, Tambo, Satipo, Peren, Pichis and Pachitea rivers (Reynel et al. 1990; Weiss, 2005). The inhabitants of the native community of Bajo Quimiriki define themselves as Ashninka, a term which means brother. 2.2 Location
Figure 2.1 Map of Junn Department, showing location of the study area. ( www.worldatlas.com, with modifications)
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The native community of Bajo Quimiriki is located in the District of Pichanaki, Region Junn, at the oriental foothills of the Andes, in the central area of Peru known as selva central. The community is located at 4 km from the town of Pichanaki, along the Marginal Road that connects Pichanaki to the city of Satipo (Annex II). The community covers an area of 267.85 Ha and the altitude varies between 400 m along the basin of the Peren river and 900 m in the hills covered by forest. However, the great majority of the households are located along the Marginal Road at an average altitude of 515 m above sea level. The climate corresponds to the tropicalhumid forest according to Holdridges classification. The average annual precipitation is 1500 mm, with a concentration of precipitation in the months of January, February and March, while the driest months are June and July. The temperature during the year varies between 22 C and 26 C (INIA 4).
2.3 History The district of Pichanaki has a history of colonization dating back to the end of the 17th century, when the first catholic missioners entered the Ashninka territory and opened the way to colonos coming from various regions of Peru, moving into the area in search of land to cultivate. The new settlers occupying indigenous territories often employed indigenous people as workers in their agricultural fields. In the first half of the 20th century a few Ashninka families inhabited the area that now constitutes the community of Bajo Quimiriki. In the 1960s Ashninka from various places among others Satipo, La Merced, Puerto Bermdez, started to migrate within the area and found local spouses: nowadays they are referred to as the founders of the community. The migration continued throughout the 70s and 80s. In the year 1978 the community of Bajo Quimiriki was officially recognised under the law of Native Communities with its actual size of 267 Ha. At the same time the nearby city of Pichanaki grew and in 1972 acquired the title of Municipal District. During the 80s the logging industry expanded in the area only to decline in the 90s, during the time of insurgence and expansion of the terrorist movements Sendero Luminoso and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tpac Amaru (MRTA). However as soon as the actions of these groups declined, the loggers started to expand again, this time including the territory of indigenous communities. In general, they made agreements with the headmen of the communities paying small amounts of money and then extracted as much as they could without
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National Institute of Agrarian Investigation and Extension. The experimental station is located 500 m from the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki
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following specific technical criteria. The forest of the Community of Bajo Quimiriki was heavily felled in this period. In recent years the community has been involved in a programme of reforestation, establishing a communal reserve of 64 Ha with the technical collaboration of the German Development Service (DED), the German international cooperation enterprise GTZ and the NGO Procam. The long term scope of the reserve and its reforestation is to provide a source of income from sustainable timber harvest, a recreational zone, a habitat for animals and a habitat for medicinal plants.
2.4 Livelihood strategies The population of Bajo Quimiriki actually consists of 37 indigenous households and 6 households of colonos. The houses are close to each other, usually with people belonging to the same family living in proximity, and consist of huts with one or two levels built with wooden poles as support, cane walls and palm leaf roofs. The architecture of the houses varies between huts with an open ground floor for daily activities surmounted by a closed first floor for the night, and houses composed by multiple huts for different purposes. Every household has a piece of land for cultivation called chacra, the extent of which varies between 2 and 6 Ha, but normally the area under cultivation does not exceed 2 Ha. Traditionally, men were responsible for clearing the land of trees as part of their slash and burn cultivation, planting, hunting and fishing, while the women were in charge of cleaning the house, spinning cotton and weaving tunics, thatching mats, taking care of the children, collecting wood, cooking, cultivating the chacra, harvesting and fishing small fish. The main crop cultivated was yuca (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a staple food consumed roasted or used to produce masato, a fermented alcoholic drink. Other popular plants were achiote (Bixa orellana L.) used to paint bodies and arrows, platano (Musa paradisiaca L.), pituca (Xanthosoma sagittifolium Schott.), various types of beans and citrics (Fig. 2.2). Nowadays, the need for cash has led to an intensification of the work in the chacra, the production often being directed at the market. Crops such as cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) and coffee (Coffea sp.) have been introduced as cash crops, while the cultivation of achiote and bananas (Musa sp.) has been intensified to be sold in the market. Unfortunately, the price community members get for their products is often very low due to lack of negotiation skills, absence of access to agricultural credits, lack of transportation and because of the competition from the more skilled colonos agriculturalists. Regarding traditional activities like
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hunting and fishing, the creation of Native Communities reduced the territory in which indigenous people could go hunting, while the subsequent colonization of the areas surrounding each community made game animals very rare. Fish populations in the river have been largely over-harvested with the use of dynamite introduced by colonos. This has negatively influenced the nutritional value of the meals and people have become more dependent on products bought at the market. Due to the need for cash, the men look for work on the agricultural land of colonos, while the women spend more time working in the chacra than before and have less time to dedicate to traditional crafts like hand- weaving of the traditional tunic called cushma. The few cushmas woven by hand are usually worn by men during ceremonies, while women wear tunics made of factory-woven cloth. This has been a common event in Ashninka communities (RojasZolezzi, 1994). If a family of non-indigenous people wishes to live in the territory of the community, they have to ask permission and after a trial period of two years the community decides whether to accept them permanently or not. If the response is positive the colonos have to pay a fee and they receive a plot of land for building a house and a chacra. This land remains property of the community. The colonos who ask permission to live in the community are usually poor people who, coming from other regions in search for better life conditions, cannot afford to live in town.
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Figure 2.2 A tipical homegarden of the community. Several crops are associated with the traditional cultivation of yuca: in the picture it is possible to see an orange tree (Citrus sp.), the harvest of achiote drying in the sun (Bixa orellana L.), pituca (Xanthosoma sagittifolium Schott.) and platano (Musa paradisiaca L.).
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3. METHODOLOGY The fieldwork was carried out during the period JuneSeptember 2007. The first fifteen days were spent in Lima carrying out various preliminary activities which included making agreements with the Director of the Herbarium UNMSM where one set of my collections was to be deposited, applying for the research permit from INRENA (Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales) and looking for relevant literature. Literature on previous studies and maps were found at IFEA (Instituto Francs de Estudios Andinos), CAAAP (Centro Amaznico de Antropologa y Aplicacin Prctica), INRENA, the library of the Universidad National Agraria La Molina (UNALM) and at the NGO Terra Nuova, which are all situated in Lima.The months of July and August were spent entirely in the native community of Bajo Quimiriki. The last 15 days of the fieldwork were again spent in Lima to start the identification of the plants and apply for the exportation permit. This was obtained in February 2008 with registration No. 011447AG-INRENA and one set of the collected material was received in Denmark in April 2008.
3.1 Obtainment of research permits INRENA required a list of documents that I could not provide while I was Denmark. The official requirements state that the researchers should not get in contact with a native community before having received the official permits from INRENA. In order to get this permit, the person responsible of the project must hand in a number of papers including the Consentimiento Informado Previo, the Previous Informed Consent of the Community which is required when dealing with collective knowledge. However, the headman of the community said that such a document could be signed by him only after we had been introduced to the community during a general assembly, and the terms of our stay commonly agreed upon. It was a tricky situation, due to unique conditions where we were explicitly invited by the headman of the community, although not in a written form. I applied for a research permit without the Previous Informed Consent, my husband and I went to the community to obtain their consent and then I sent the missing document to INRENA by fax. The study was approved with Authorization No. 0862007-INRENA-IFFS-DCB (Annex III).
3.2 Community meetings
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Two plenary community meetings were held during our stay where all the inhabitants of the community were invited by a messenger of the headman that reached also the most remote households. A great participation was registered in these occasions, and as the community had no facility for meeting purposes, these meetings took place in the church adjacent to the elementary school. Smaller meetings concerning the organization of the weekly activities were usually held at the house of the headman.
3.3 Investigating team After the first meeting, in which almost all the residents of the community were present, our role in the community was clarified. It was agreed that I was responsible for an ethnobotanical study on the use of medicinal plants in the community and that I could use the information to write my MSc thesis. Permissions to participate in the activities were given also to my husband Rasmus Sterndorff Hansen, a Danish student of Anthropology at Copenhagen University (KU), who would help in all the aspects of the fieldwork, from transportation of collected plants to note taking in the forest walks to transcription of interviews, and to Jos Dextre Gutierrz, a Peruvian student of Botany from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) of Lima specializing in the Peruvian species of the botanical family Piperaceae. The inclusion of a Peruvian student in the team was required by INRENA in order for me to obtain the research permit. Although at first I feared that his presence could unbalance our already delicate situation in the community, during his stay of ten days he proved to be of invaluable help due to his knowledge of the Peruvian flora and his experience in collecting and preparing plant vouchers. The participation in the research of both Rasmus Sterndorff Hansen and Jos Dextre Gutierrez was officially authorized in the research permit emitted by INRENA (Annex III).
3.4 Trust building The theme of medicinal plants was sensitive, mostly for those who were making a living from this knowledge. The local shaman said during the first meeting that he would not be available for interviews, nor to show his personal garden of cultivated medicinal plants, because he suspected that I was financed by a private company or a pharmaceutical company and that I would make a profit from the information gathered in the community. In order to clarify my position and avoid being accused of biopiracy, I proposed that in the informed consent it
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would be clearly stated that I was not allowed to carry out any clinical extraction, bioprospecting and/or commercial activities with the plant material collected. It was also established that I would provide the community with a copy of my final work translated into Spanish. This document was signed by the headmen and his deputy to ensure an official approval of the study and was furthermore sent to INRENA to obtain the study permit from the government. I also agreed to successively compile a practical manual with the medicinal plants indicated to me in the community in the same style as the one edited by Lacaze and Alexiades (1995) for the Program of Traditional Medicine of the Native Federation of the Madre de Dis River and Affluents (FENAMAD) working with native communities Amahuaca, Ese-eja, Harakmbut, Matsigenka, Piro, Quicha, Ribereos and Shipibo-Conibo of Peru. This point was considered important by the community, because they saw the realization of the manual as a tangible result of my study in the community which they could use for didactic purposes in the school. As a response to the refusal of the shaman to collaborate, some of the villagers stated that his participation was not indispensable because extensive knowledge was to be found among the abuelos, the grandfathers (meaning the oldest people of the community, who often did not speak Spanish) and offered to translate what they would tell us about medicinal plants. The methods to be used to gather ethnobotanical information and eventual compensations were also discussed and agreed upon during the community meeting and written in the Informant Consent. A second plenary meeting was held approximately one month after to discuss the preliminary results and eventual issues during the fieldwork.
3.5 Methods of collection of ethnobotanical information The methods utilized to collect ethnobotanical data were: o Informal conversation o Participant observation o Household interviews o Collection of medicinal plants in the homegardens o Forest walks o Collection of medicinal plants on the river banks o Cross check of information on 80 selected plants o Focus group interview with children
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3.5.1 Informal conversation During the two months of permanence in the indigenous community we had on various occasions informal conversations with our neighbours and with other villagers on a range of issues, which helped to form a clearer insight of the situation in the community. These conversations were facilitated by the fact that we were living in the community, so in the everyday life we had time to formulate questions and be questioned by our neighbours.
3.5.2 Participant observation Living in the community where the fieldwork is conducted, rather than commuting from a nearby town, helps to break down barriers and establish confidence and familiarity with the people (Deveraux and Hoddinot, 1992). In the two months of permanence in the community we had great opportunities for participant observation, which helped for example understanding how people related to each other across gender and generations. We had contact everyday with our neighbours, who became so friendly with us at the point that we were given kinship identity, when we were asked to become godfathers (in the indigenous sense) of one of their children. When I felt sick during my stay, I had the chance of being treated with a steam bath made with the leaves of matico (Piper aduncum L.), so I could not only observe every detail of the practice, but also try personally its healing effects. In another occasion I accidentally twisted my ankle at the end of a forest walk, so one of my neighbours prepared an emplast with nudo nudo (Cissus sp.), which she tightened with a cloth around my ankle, and instructed me to keep it overnight with the leg lifted up. The following day I could walk without pain, although the ankle was still visibly swallen.
3.5.3 Household interviews Interviews were carried out in sixteen of a total of thirty-seven indigenous households. I used semi-structured interviews in order to present some important questions to all the households while remaining flexible as suggested by Cotton (1996). My intention was to carry out interviews in half of the households covering all the areas of the community, so I planned to visit every second household. I could not follow this method without exceptions because it would often happen that on the planned day the person with whom I had agreed a time was not home; in these cases I moved to the next household where I could
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find an adult at home. The information gathered during the interviews was annotated and documented with collection of plant voucher specimens, photographs and audio recording when these actions were permitted by the informant. During the interviews the respondents name, age, profession, place of birth, number of years spent in the community were recorded (Annex IV). Successively I would ask who they believed were the most knowledgeable persons on medicinal plants in the household and in the community: through this questions I intended to gather data on the distribution of knowledge on medicinal plants in the family and identify potential informants to take in the forest walks. The informants were also asked who did they rely to in case of illness, e.g. self-medication, a healing specialist in the community, doctor etc.. The following question concerned purchasing of medicinal plants and western medicine: if they declared to buy medicinal plants and/or western medicine, their identity and application would be registered. The diseases that had occurred in the specific household were decribed, including information on causes, symptoms and their respective cure. Any herbal medicinal remedy stored in the house would be visioned and its application described by the informant.
3.5.4 Collection of medicinal plants in the homegardens After the household interview we would walk through the homegarden and the informants described the medicinal application and preparation of any medicinal plant that they were cultivating or collecting from the wild in the vicinity of the house (Annex V). During each interview I collected samples of the plants, to be subsequently pressed and dried. It was not always possible to collect good plant material: in some cases there was a single plant of a specific species of herb that had been planted and I could not collect a sample with roots that would have caused the plant to die or I could not collect sufficient material to make more than a single duplicate. Other times, the informants did not allow me to collect the plants that they cultivated, because they wanted to keep them secret: this happened with the shaman and only for a limited number of plants with the midwife. Ethnobotanical information on name, uses and preparation were written in a diary during the visit. The plants collected in the houses were given a collection number formed by the number of the household (as I had numbered them in my community map) plus a higher number for each plant collected in the specific household. For example the plants collected in the household no. 01 were given voucher no. 0101, 0102, 0103, while those of the household no. 37 were given voucher no. 3701, 3702, 3703 etc.
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Figure 3.1: After having recurred the homegarden collecting cultivated and wild medicinal plants indicated by its owner, we would sit in the house of the informant and write down the information relative to the use, preparation and administration of the medicinal plants.
3.5.5 Forest walks 3.5.5.1 Community recognition and establishment of the track The first days in the community were spent becoming familiar with the people and with the environment. I joinedthe wife of the headman, another woman and their children for an informal walk in the hills in order to have an idea of the extent of the community seen from above, as well as to visit their communal reserve. The idea was to establish a path through the forest with pre-marked medicinal plants that ideally should have been indicated by the most knowledgeable person(s) in the community (having primarily the shaman in mind). I wanted to successively walk the path with additional male and female informants on separate occasions, in order to compare the knowledge on medicinal plants between the expert(s) and the common users and also to analyze the relation between informant age and gender and knowledge of medicinal plant uses, partly following the method presented by Phillips and Gentry (1993b). Unfortunately, the collaboration of the shaman could not be counted upon, but the path was established during four days of work with the help of three men indicated by the deputy headman. These men had a good knowledge of the forest and of the existing tracks as they were
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involved in the community project of re-forestation, and were also presented as knowledgeable about medicinal plants. Most of the information on the medicinal plants was provided by Eduardo Herea Quinchocre, the brother of the headman, who despite his young age (27) was indicated as very knowledgeable. On the track, we marked eighty-seven plants including herbs, trees and lianas, which they knew to be medicinal. The mark consisted of a metal tag with a number painted in red. All the numbers were preceded by an R to indicate that these were plants of the Reserve, so the tags appeared as: R01, R02, R03 etc. I thought that this would make it easier for me to handle my data at a later stage. During the establishment of the track, samples of the plants were collected and placed in plastic bags later to be pressed and dried the same day, once returned to the community. While preparing the first trip to the community reserve, I was told by one of the villagers that we should remember to give an offer of tobacco or coca leaves to the spirit of the forest prior entering it, in order to have its goodwill and have a safe walk. On the first trip I forgot about the offer and during that day a lot of accidents occurred: the most remarkable being that the only digital camera I had felt down on a steep slope and broke, with my great disappointment. Our guide commented that the forest was adverse. From that time it became a ritual for me to bury in the ground the tobacco from a cigarette and some coca leaves before each forest walk.
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Figure 3.2: Informal walk in the hills with the wife of the headman (on the right), her neighbour and their children. This walk was useful in order to provide an idea of the extent of the community and plan subsequent activities. 3.5.5.2 Identification of the informants for the forest walk The informants who would walk the track with me were six women and six men of different ages. They were chosen either because they were indicated by the deputy-headman as most knowledgeable on medicinal plants (after the specialists who could not or did not want to participate, see Table 4.7), or in a couple of cases just because they declared to make use of medicinal plants and they agreed to participate in the event. The headman was absent during most of our stay due to his job in the city of Satipo so the deputy-headman was in charge and would normally talk to the people to fix appointments for my visits or to arrange who would come to the forest trips. In fact it was quite difficult to find informants who were available to
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participate, the reasons given were that some of the women had nobody to take care of their children if they had to stay away most of the day and men were busy tending their chacra. I did not try to attract people by offering more money in order to avoid receiving false information. The informants in the final group of the forest walk were:
MALE INFORMANTS Name Jos Atilio Peralta Contreras Daniel Orestes Pedro Maximo Atilio Wilmer Romero Ignacio Woker Martinez Romer Maximo Sebastian Age 55 50 38 32 29 19
FEMALE INFORMANTS Name Flora Herea Manunca Isabel Quinchocre Leiva Anna Leiba Quinchocre Elena Quinchocre Lidia Martinez Carolina Maximo Atilio Age 71 55 46 45 36 35
3.5.5.3 The walks Each informant was guided through the track on a separate day. Each event took between seven and nine hours. We would stop at each marked plant and there I would ask if the informant knew the plant or not and if yes, I would annotate the name (both in Ashninka and Spanish when possible), medicinal use, plant part used and preparation. In addition to the marked plants every informant recognised a number of additional medicinal plants on the track: these were all collected and given a collection number starting with the first two or three letters of the informants name or surname (for example the additional plants recognised by Lidia were named Li01, Li02 etc.). All the information was written down in diaries.
3.5.6 Collection of medicinal plants on the river banks A number of informants suggested that some medicinal plants were collected along the river banks of the Peren river, so I organized a one day trip together with three women from the village to walk along the river and collect the medicinal plants of that area. The women who participated in this collection were aged 25, 35 and 36 and all had children. We walked along the shore of the river Peren where part of the community inhabitants have their chacra. As we walked, the informants looked for the plants that they knew and used as medicinal. The information collected on these plants was the same as for the others, i.e. name, use, preparation.
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Every plant was collected for successive identification. A negative aspect of this method is that it does not allow to differentiate the knowledge of the different informants. In fact everytime a woman described the use of one plant, the others would be there listening and confirming its use, or complementing the information with further details, so it was not possible to establish who knew which plant and who did not, because they influenced each other. Nevertheless for the purpose of the study the method proved to be fast and efficient in individuating medicinal plants of common use in the community.
3.5.7 Cross check of information on 80 selected plants A cross check was performed on the ethno-medical use of 80 selected medicinal plants. These were selected by the following method: 20 pre-marked ones from the forest walk which were identified by at least 6 informants 20 non pre-marked pointed out by informants during the forest walk 20 from the household interviews 20 from the river walk I decided to further investigate those plants that seemed to be best known in the community being lead by the assumption that those best known are more likely to contain active compounds that are effective in the cure of particular diseases. 20 plants recognised as medicinal by at least 6 out of 12 informants were selected from the forest walk. In order to select 20 plants from the ones that were pointed out outside the track by the single informants I compared the local names and looked at the dried specimens to find collections of the same species among the different informants. The same was done for the plants collected during the household interviews, while 20 out of 23 plants collected at the river were chosen eliminating those that had already been collected elsewhere. The informants for the cross-check were 6 women and 6 men that had not participated in the forest walks:
MALE INFORMANTS Name Manuel Herea Campos Luis Santico Herea Henry Poma Paulina Age 69 50 38 FEMALE INFORMANTS Name Roxana Aurelio Paulina Eima Sebastian Ramos Flora Samaniego Quinchisa Age 42 38 30
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Rolando Peralta Quinchocre Enderson Poma Jaime Cardenas
27 27 26
Xenia Barona Santiago Beatriz Peralta Quinchocre Yanet Quinchocre
28 25 23
For this activity dried voucher specimens were presented to the informants and the information on names, uses, preparation were noted in pre-printed schemes. It took between two and three hours for each informant to take note of the information for the eighty species.
3.5.8 Focus group interview with children A focus group interview was conducted with the children of the 5th and 6th grade of elementary school to dicuss their interest towards and knowledge of medicinal plants. The interview was undertaken with the permission of the teacher during a school hour in the classroom that the pupils of different ages shared. The class was composed of 17 children of which 9 were female and 8 male. The children were asked to list the medicinal plants they knew and their uses and preparation. The answers were given collectively. During this exercise no voucher specimen was collected and the identification of the plants has been done through the vernacular names provided by the children.
3.6 Preparation of the voucher specimens All the plants were pressed and dried in the field: at the end of every day the collected plants were arranged and the collection numbers written on each newspaper. Then they were placed in the press and afterwards in the plant dryer. This was built by a carpenter in the town of Pichanaki following the drawing of the plant dryer presented in Martin (2004). The heating element utilized was a gas stove purchased in town.
3.7 Identification of specimens A partial identification of the specimens collected was done at the Herbarium of the Museum of Natural History, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, with the help of Prof. Joaquina Albn Castillo. The funds available did not suffice to pay an expert to identify all the specimens, so I continued the identification of the dried specimens in Denmark with the help of various texts dealing with the medicinal flora of Peru and South America, in particular Desmarchelier and Schaus (2000), Castner et al. (1998), Rengifo and Cerruti (1997), Roth and
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Lindorf (2002), Gupta (1995), Pennington et al. (2004), Brack Egg (1999) along with internet resources like the Neotropical Herbarium Specimens digital herbarium of the Field Museum and the digital herbarium of Missouri Botanical Garden. I also compared some of the specimens with the Herbarium specimens of plants collected in Peru by Lars Peter Kvist, deposited in the Herbarium of the Botanical Section of the Ecology Department at the Faculty of Life Sciences in Copenhagen. The authors names follow the standard form given in Brummitt and Powell (1992).
3.8 Limitations of the study This study will only give detailed description of the medicinal uses of those plants that have been positively identified to species level, i.e. in total sixty-two species. The main obstacle to the identification of the remaining specimens has been their sterile condition, in fact numerous species did not present flowers or fruits during the period when the fieldwork was conducted (JulyAugust). The methods used allowed to register only the potential use of the medicinal plant species which the informants reported. The actual use of medicinal plants has not been registered apart from casual occasion in which I assisted to the preparation of some remedy for someone who was ill or that had an accident.
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4. RESULTS
4.1 Ecological findings 4.1.1 Medicinal plants diversity, life form and habitat Across the different methods applied, a total number of 395 taxa have been indicated as medicinal by the informants. They have been identified to the following different degrees: species (90 plants), genus (122 plants), family (117 plants), division (2 plants), not identified (64 plants), (see Annex 1). The taxa that could be identified at least to family level (329 plants) belong to 71 distinct families (see Annex VII). The 88 plants which have been completely identified correspond to 62 species belonging to 57 genera and 39 families (Table 4.5), and the following data analysis will focus on this group. Considering only the plants that have been positively identified to species level, the most important families in terms of number of species were Araceae (6 species), Solanaceae (5 species), Euphorbiaceae (4 species), Rubiaceae (4 species), Asteraceae (3 species) (Table 4.1). These five families are also the most prominent if the whole set of plants identified to at least family level is considered (Annex VIII). The families Apocynaceae, Blechnaceae, Phytolaccaceae, Piperaceae, Verbenaceae and Tiliaceae were represented by 2 species each, while the remaining 28 families had only one species each. For a complete list of families and species please refer to Table 4.5. Table 4.1 The five most frequent plant families among the 62 identified species of medicinal plants
Family Araceae Solanaceae Euphorbiaceae Rubiaceae Asteraceae
Number of plants 7 7 4 8 8
Number of species 6 5 4 4 3
% 9.7 8.1 6.5 6.5 4.8
Herbs were the main source of medicinal plants in terms of number of species (48% of total species) followed by shrubs (18%) and trees (15%). Small trees like Bixa orellana L. and Psidium guajava L. represent 6% of the species, epiphytes and lianas 5%, while rhizomatous
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herbs and arborescent ferns are represented by only one species each, equivalent to 2% of the total number of species (Table 4.2).
Table 4.2 Life form of the medicinal plants

Life form Herb Shrub Tree Small tree Epiphyte Liana Rhizomatous herb Arborescent fern Total Number of species 30 11 9 4 3 3 1 1 62 Percentage (%) 48 18 15 6 5 5 2 2 100
The forest and the homegardens were approximately of the same importance in terms of providing habitats for medicinal plants, hosting respectively 51.6% and 48.4% of the species, while 9.7% of the species were collected on the river banks (Fig. 4.1). Some species of medicinal plants were found exclusively in one of the three broadly defined ecosystems types, e.g. Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl. (only found wild in the forest), Aloe vera (L.) Burm. f. (only cultivated in the homegardens), while other species were present in two or in all of the three ecosystem categories, e.g. Piper aduncum L. and Bidens pilosa L..
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Number of species
30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Cultivated Wild
Homegardens
Forest
River beach
Figure 4.1 Habitat of the medicinal plants
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All medicinal plants collected in the forest and on the river beach were wild, while 70% of the medicinal plants growing in the homegardens were cultivated (Fig. 4.1). In this category those plants that the informants confirmed to have planted directly or transplanted from the forest, the chacra or the garden of a relative/other villager are included. The remaining 30% were wild plants growing in the vicinity of the household also used for medicinal purposes. In some cases the sources of germplasm (plant, seeds, seedlings) of the cultivated medicinal plants were obtained from other communities: one informant told me that she had acquired medicinal plants from an Ashninka community living on the Tambo River in exchange for clothes and plastic bowls. One of these plants was the cebollita (Eleutherine bulbosa (Mill.) Urb.) that she used in order to avoid pregnancy. Three households cultivated an Ayahuasca plant (Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce ex Griseb.) C.V.Morton), two of the owners said that they had travelled to distant forests in order to collect a cutting of the plant and transplant it to their gardens. 4.1.2 Plant parts used The plant parts used for medical preparations were leaves, stems, bark, roots, latex, fruits, sap, seeds, twigs, water contained in the stem, aerial roots, caudex, fruit pericarps oil and tuberous rhizome (Fig. 4.2). Sometimes different organs of the same plant were used for different medical applications, while at other times they were mixed to prepare a remedy like in the case of leaves and stems which were often used together (Table 4.5). The most frequently utilized plant parts were the leaves (72.6 %) followed by the stems (37 %), bark (17.7 %), roots (14.5 %) and latex (9.7 %). Aerial roots, caudex, fruit pericarps oil and tuberous rhizome correspond to one species each (1.6 %), respectively Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl., Cyathea multiflora Smith, Anacardium occidentale L. and Eleutherine bulbosa (Miller) Urb..
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% of total medicinal plant species
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Plant parts used
Figure 4.2 List of plant parts used as medicines, showing the respective percentages of the total number of medicinal plant species for which that plant part is used. 4.1.3 Ailments treated The 62 medicinal plants were used to cure in total 92 different ailments and diseases (Table 4.3). Problems related to the digestive system, dermic system, cultural belief system and reproductive system were among the most frequent ailments treated with the medicinal plants (Fig. 4.3). Each informant usually reported more than one therapeutical use for each plant and depending one the number of informants that indicated the same plant the number of uses ranged between 1 and 13, e.g. a total of 13 reported uses of the liana Ua de gato (Uncaria guianensis (Aublet) J.F.Gmelin) was given by 19 informants (Fig. 4.4, 4.5, 4.6). In some cases, like for the disease mal aire, it was difficult to ascribe the disease to one category, e.g. nervous system or digestive system. Whenever accessible as much information as possible on the disease was recorded, asking about the symptoms and the causes, in order to have a better understanding of it and eventually assign it to a specific category and not just to the category other. In fact as Lewis pointed out in Cox (1994), indigenous diseases could be described in terms of western categories more often than it is actually done, in fact the scientist faced with the problem of how to translate indigenous disease concepts into western disease concepts, often include a great part of the indigenous diseases in the category other. This
W at er co nt ai n
Se ed Tw ed ig in s th es te m A er ia lr oo ts Fr Ca ui tp ud ex er ic Tu ar p's be ro oi us l rh iz om e
Le av es
Ba rk
La te x
em
ui t Fr
St
Ro o
Sa p
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category frequently represents up to 35% of the total uses (Cox, 1994). In this study a classification adapted with modifications from Vecht (2005) was used in which categories are based not only on body system affected but also on aetiology and specific symptoms (Table 4.3). In this way both the inflation of the category other (which here represents only 2% of the applications) and underestimating the others was avoided. The 16 disease categories were the following: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) Parasitic, viral and insect related sicknesses Cancer, neoformations Dermic system Digestive system Muscoloskeletal and articular system Nervous system Reproductive system Respiratory system Sense organs (ears, eyes) Trauma/accident Specific conditions Urinary system Cardiovascular and circulatory system Aphrodisiac/sexual performance enhancer Cultural belief system Other
The most cited diseases in terms of number of species used to cure them were: stomach ache (20 species), parasites (13 species), kidney-complaints (10 species), diarrhoea (9 species), mal aire (9 species), wound-healing (8 species). The complete list of ailments and diseases for which the medicinal plants were used divided according to category is shown in Table 4.3. Information on magic or ritual plants was included in the category cultural belief system. This includes, among others, applications against witchery, uses of hallucinogenic plants for diagnosing illnesses (by the shaman) and bathing of babies in special herbal decoctions to make them walk at an early age. In the same category the disease mal aire (literally bad
36
air) is included, which is among the most cited diseases in the community and comparable to what by other indigenous and rural communities through South America is called mal viento or susto (De-la-Cruz et al., 2007) . People affirm that mal aire can come from the encounter with a spirit of a dead person when walking a path, especially in the forest by night, but can also originate from a malevolent or cold wind, and its symptoms are vomit, fever or headache. The applications falling in the cultural belief system are very relevant to local people, in fact this category included 10% of the total number of applications indicated by the informants, it therefore has the same relevance as the reproductive system and following only the categories digestive system (19%) and dermic system (11%) (Figure 4.3).
Aphrodisiac/sexual performance enhancer 2% Respiratory system 2% Nervous system 4% Muscoloskeletal and articular system 5% Cancer, neoformations 5% Urinary system 5% Specific conditions 6% Trauma/accident 7%
Sense organs (ears, eyes) Cardiovascular system Other 1% 1% 2% Digestive system 20%
Dermic system 11% Cultural belief system 10% Reproductive system 10% Parasitic, viral, and insect related sicknesses 9%
Figure 4.3 Percentage of the total number of applications of the 62 identified medicinal plants which fall in each disease category. Some conditions or diseases could be cured by many species, e.g. 20 species were used against stomach ache, 13 to eliminate parasites, 10 for kidney complaints, 9 to cure mal aire and to stop diarrhoea and 8 species were used in wound healing, while for others a limited number of species was reported: e.g. just 2 species were reported against malaria (Table 4.3).
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Table 4.3. Ailments and diseases cured by the medicinal plant species collected in the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki divided in disease categories with respective number of species.
Disease category No. of applications % Specific diseases No. of species
Parasitic, viral and insect related sicknesses
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Gonorrhoea Malaria Parasites Rabies Uta (Leishmaniasis) Cancer Hernia Prostate To disinflamate cysts 'Arcoiris' 'Pokio' Burned skin Dandruff Skin spots To bathe babies To enhance beard growth To enhance hair growth To prevent formation of scars To prevent hair loss To prevent white hair To strenghten hair Belly ache Colics Diarrhoea Dysentery Gastritis Liver-complaints Stomach ache Stomach acidity Stomach inflammation To extract caried teeth Toothpain Ulcers Arthritis Bone fractures Bone pain Cramps Joint dislocations To relax the body Fatigue suppressor
1 2 13 1 6 4 1 6 1 2 2 1 1 5 4 1 2 1 7 1 1 1 2 9 1 1 7 20 1 1 1 1 5 2 1 4 2 2 1 1
Cancer, neoformations
12
Dermic system
28
11
Digestive system
50
20
Musculoskeletal and articular system
12
Nervous system
10
38
Disease category
No. of applications
Specific diseases Headache Relaxant Sleep disorders
No. of species 7 1 1 3 1 1 1 5 1 2 2 1 1 3 1 2 3 2 2 1 5 1 3 1 8 5 1 4 1 1 2 1 2 1 10 2 2 2 1
Reproductive system
24
10
To abort Disinflamation following parturition Menstruation pain Ovary infection Ovary inflammation To correct irregular menstruation To enhance women fertility To give birth rapidly To induce rapid birth and not feel the pain To give birth without pain To prevent pregnancy To release the placenta after giving birth Vaginal infection Cold Cough Eye infection Eye inflammation Browses and swellings Haemorrhage Snake bites To disinfect wounds Wound-healing Fever High Fever Inflammation Internal inflammations Internal pain 'vaso' Pains in the body Vomit Infection of urinary duct Inflammation of urinary duct Kidney-complaints Swallen feet Penis extender To attract men To lift up testicles
Respiratory system
Sense organs (ears, eyes)
Trauma/accident
18
Specific conditions
15
Urinary system
13
Cardiovascular system Aphrodisiac/sexual performance enhancer
2 5
1 2
39
Disease category Cultural belief system
No. of applications 26
% 10
Specific diseases 'Chacho' 'Mal agua' 'Mal aire' Seeing shadows To connect with the spirits of the forest To diagnose illnesses To make babies walk fast To see other places To see who is the responsible for a witchery To strenghten newborn babies Witchery General not well being To prevent ageing
No. of species 2 1 9 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 5 2 2
Other
20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
br os oi de s lo sa in te gr ifo l ia
N. of informants/Uses
River
Informants Uses
de ns
gi g
co m
am
et um
Te ss ar ia
in us
Bi
Ch en op
Eq ui s
Species
Figure 4.4. Number of informants and number of therapeutic uses of the medicinal plants collected on the river banks.
So la nu m
od iu m
Ri c
am
er ica nu m
an te um
pi
un is
40
N. of informants/Uses 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8
one informant for one use.

Homegardens
Informants Uses
X axis were reported by numerous informants and had several medicinal applications, while those on the right side were reported by only
P Ve iper r a M b en d u om a nc or off um d i ic ca ina Cr ch a lis r ot on a nt Bi lec ia xa h le Bi or e ri de lla n H n Te a m s p a ss e l ilo Xi ar i ia p sa ph a a id int te n iu eg s m r Ja ca e ifoli tr o ru a le p Ce P ha u m st lan cu ru ta rc as g Br m un he o m Pa fel d io ajo sp sia nd r in al u u gr Ba m an d m ni con iflo st er ju g r a An iop atu no sis m n a ca a Pi mu pi El eu per rica th p er e lt ta a in e tum bu lb An o ac La n Alo sa ar ta e ve d n Cy iu m a c r a am m bo occ a po ide ra M n g Ca an on tale ih cit llia o r nd t es a tu ra cu s Ar an g le n ta to ca us t Ps rp ifol id us ia Pe ium alti tiv gu lis er a j So Sc ia a ava la op llia n Ad u m aria cea ia nt ma du l um m cis m ca os ye u m nn en se
Figure 4.5. Number of informants and therapeutic uses of the medicinal plants collected in the homegardens. The species on the left of the
Un ca r ia
10 12 14 0 2 4 6 8
N. of Informants/Uses
informant for one use.

Pi
16
18
20
Forest Informants Uses
were reported by numerous informants and had several medicinal applications, while those on the right side were reported by only one
gu i pe ane An r a ns is d th ur Bid un cu iu Sy e m ng m d ns on om p ilo iu b e sa Xi m ph po ya n As idiu d op um m cl hy ep ia ca e llum s ru Cy c ur leu m at a s s h Tr ea avi He c i lio um mu a ca fe ltifl t Pa r pu ta l or a sp s a ap al m p um e r ula Un co ica ca n ju nus r ia g to atu m m Hi A m nib en at to Se a la anth ca sa n gi ne u s eli lla su lla c M c on on uub st d u a e p An ra a lica Ph ta d t ilo hur a n de iu m so n n As dro ku ii nt n p Ps le n d e hii yc ium fle xu s Bl ho t m ec r ia err h n to atu um m m e J a oc n to s c Cy ca r ide a an nt cla a d Sa nth a c le us op lp ich bi a i Ph lae pa r a ys na titu Ch Ph alis v o s on lu dr yto pu bil od lac be is sc e c Cy n dr a r i en o n vi clo n s pe tom oid Di e es c r ltis an se n tos m o u Ph pte ico m ilo ris rd de p a ta e n So dro ctin a cr n Ag h ta a er tea yla ea at u m ex or e co rh ny iza zo id es
Figure 4.6. Number of informants and therapeutic uses of the medicinal plants collected in the forest. The species on the left of the X axis
42
4.1.4 Ways of preparation and administration of remedies The majority of the remedies, both in terms of number of species and number of applications, were prepared through decoction (Fig. 4.8), while the second most frequent way of preparation consisted in the use of fresh material. Other forms of preparation were (in decreasing number of species) steam bath, emplast, cold water extract, infusion, plant part heated, alcohol extract, plant part roasted and ashes (Table 4.4). Fresh material was often latex extracted from the bark of a tree or a liana, like in the case of the red latex of the tree sangre de grado (Croton lechleri Muell.-Arg.) or the sap from the stem or the leaves of herbs extracted by rubbing or crushing. A particular way of extracting the sap from the leaves consisted in rubbing the leaves between the hands and then squeezing them through a cotton wad. A special way of preparation of the medicinal plants is the steam bath: through observations and personal communications it became evident that this practice is usually within the female domain, in particular of those women called vaporadoras who have been trained from a young age and who have followed a particular diet. During this treatment selected herbs are placed in a pot with water and successively three to four previously fire heated stones are placed into the pan one after the other within a few minutes producing a large quantity of steam. Meanwhile the patient stands over the pot, capturing all the steam inside the tunic cushma, which is always worn during this kind of treatment (Fig. 4.7). When the steam has finished, the vaporadora proceeds to analyse what is left in the pot. If the treatment has succeeded a little stone or a piece or charcoal should be found in the pot: this object comes from the body of the patient and represents the evil or the cause of the disease. Some plants used in steam baths were: Isavanare (Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl.) used against headache and to attract men, Azonki (Monstera adansonii Schott) used as a relaxant and against bone pains, Chirisanango (Brunfelsia grandiflora D.Don) against witchery, Matico (Piper aduncum L.) to cure mal aire (Table 4.5). Regarding the administration of the remedies, 61% of the decoctions were administered orally and 39% externally in the form of baths or applied on the area to be treated. The plant material that was used fresh was also mainly administered orally (54%) and the same was the case for cold water extracts (78%), infusions (80%) and alcohol extracts (100%). Converserly, steam baths, emplasts, plant material that was heated, roasted or prepared as ashes were exclusively applied externally.
Table 4.4. Ways of preparation and administration of the remedies.

Applications Preparation Decoction Fresh Steam bath Emplast Cold water extract Infusion Heated Alcohol extract Roasted Ashes n 165 69 14 12 9 11 6 16 1 1 Percentage (%) 54 23 5 4 3 4 2 5 0,3 0,3 n 48 34 8 8 8 7 4 3 1 1 Species Percentage (%) 77 55 13 13 13 11 6 5 2 2 Administration External (%) 39 46 100 100 22 20 100 0 100 100 Oral (%) 61 54 0 0 78 80 0 100 0 0
Figure 4.7: Steam bath, a traditional form of healing in the domain of women called vaporadoras. During this treatment selected herbs are placed in a pot with water and successively three to four previously fire heated stones are placed into the pan, producing a large quantity of steam. Meanwhile the patient stands over the pot, capturing all the steam inside the tunic cushma, which is always worn during this kind of treatment (Photo: Hvalkof, 2004).
44
Figure 4.8: Decoction of leaves was the most frequently reported way of preparation. This picture was taken while walking in a homegarden, where the owner had just prepared the decoction of leaves of hierba santa (Cestrum hediondinum), that she would drink to alleviate a stomach ache.
45
Table 4.5. Scientific and vernacular names, habitat types, growth habit, illnesses treated, parts used, preparation, administration and informant details of the 62 medicinal plants.
Scientific name (Voucher N.) DIVISION MAGNOLIOPHYTA Anacardiaceae Anacardium occidentale L. (2917) Annonaceae Annona muricata L. (0701,1803, 2906) H Maraon Tree Uta (Leishmaniasis) Fruit pericarp's oil Fresh External 1 M: 33 Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Habit Use Plant part used Preparation Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age
Guanabana
Tree
Parasites Gonorrhoea Ovary infection Stomach ache Infection of urinary duct Prostate
Leaves Leaves
Decoction Decoction
Leaves Decoction Leaves and bark Decoction Leaves Decoction Leaves Leaves Decoction Decoction
Oral External Oral Oral Oral Oral External External
F: 21 M: 38, 27 M: 27 F: 33 M: 50 M: 38 F: 23 F: 23
Apocynaceae Asclepias curassavica L. (R29)
Shaoripini, Shaorishi, Kaporkishi Ashi Avatharo
Leche malva
Herb
Wound-healing
Latex
Fresh
External
10 M: 50, 27, 38, 69, 50 F: 55, 45, 24 F: 71 M: 19
Mala leche
Uta (Leishmaniasis) Eye inflammation
Latex Latex
Fresh Fresh
External External
Himatanthus sucuuba (Spruce ex Mll. Arg.) Woodson (EL4, IS3, PE5)
Parntzipa, Paiantzipa Kachnpitoki
Tree
Parasites
Latex
Fresh
Oral
F: 45, 55
Stomach ache Mal aire
Twigs Leaves
Decoction Decoction
Oral External
M: 50 M: 69, 50
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External M: 50
Habit
Use Witchery
Plant part used Preparation Leaves Decoction
Araceae Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl. (R23, R64)
Herb
Snake bites
Maranketza
Isavanare
Porenkishi Muetashipani
Tampiashi
Emplast Decoction Steam bath Decoction Decoction Steam bath To enhance hair growth Leaves and stem Decoction Parasites Stem Decoction Infection of urinary duct Leaves and root Decoction Stomach ache Stem Decoction Cough Leaves Decoction Seeing shadows Leaves Decoction Mal aire To attract men Headache
Aerial Roots Leaves Leaves and aerial roots Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves and root
Decoction Emplast
Oral External External External External External External External External Oral Oral Oral External External
10 M: 27 M: 28 M: 50 F: 71 F: 71 M: 50 F: 55 M: 50 M: 32 M: 55 F: 36 M: 27 F: 71 F: 71
Anthurium kunthii Poepp. (R22)
Patakaroshi Vairontzi Panca panca poderosa
Epiphyte
Parasites To enhance women fertility Stomach ache Abort
Stem Fruit Stem Stem
Decoction Fresh Fresh Fresh
Oral Oral Oral Oral
M: 27 M: 32 F: 55 F: 71
Monstera adansonii Schott (R21)
Azonki Panca panca del monte
Epiphyte
To calm ulcera pain To enhance beard growth Relaxant
Stem Stem Stem
Decoction Emplast Steam bath
Oral External External
M: 32 M: 32 F: 36
47
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Costilla de Adn Pituca selvaje Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External Oral Oral F: 36 F: 71 M: 27
Habit
Use
Plant part used Preparation
Bone pain Abort To disinflamate cysts
Stem Stem Fruit
Steam bath Fresh Fresh
Philodendron deflexum Poepp. ex Schott (R6)
Pituca selvaje, Pituca del monte Sampetacashi Kainto
Herb
Parasites
Stem
Fresh
Oral
M: 27
Browses and swellings Cough Cramps
Leaves Stem Leaves
Emplast Cold water extract Fresh
External Oral External
F: 36 F: 55 M: 55
Philodendron hylaeae G.S. Bunting (ROM7) Syngonium podophyllum Schott (R9)
Epiphyte
Parasites
Stem
Decoction
Oral
M: 19
Kuritishi, Merithadeki Meritzareki, Merishi
Herb
To correct irregular menstruation To extract caried teeth Toothpain To prevent pregnancy Parasites
Stem Leaves Latex Latex Leaves Stem and root Stem Stem
Decoction Decoction Fresh Fresh Decoction Fresh Fresh Cold water extract
Oral Oral External External Oral Oral Oral Oral
10 M: 27 F: 55 M: 50 F: 36 F: 71, 30, 28 F: 45 M: 69 M: 50 M: 26
Kainto
Joint dislocations Arecaceae
48
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Socratea exorrhiza (Mart.) H. Wendl. (WI17) Asphodelaceae Aloe vera (L.) Burm. f. (0611) H Sabila Herb To prevent hair loss Skin spots Leaves Leaves Cold water extract Fresh External External 1 F: 46 F: 46 Habitat Ashninka name type a F Chendero Spanish name Camonilla Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral 1 M: 29
Habit Tree
Use Penis extender
Plant part used Preparation Bark Decoction
Asteraceae Ageratum conyzoides L. (PA1) Bidens pilosa L. (0207, R3, LI25, PL13, ROM1)
Santapetashi
Herb
Parasites
Leaves
Decoction
Oral
M: 38
H, F, B Tzideroqui
Herb
Burned skin
Leaves
Fresh Decoction
External External External Oral External External External External External Oral External External
10
M: 27, 19 F: 24 F: 36, 35, 24 M: 27 M: 50 M: 29 M: 38 F: 46 F: 36 F: 55 F: 46 M: 50 F: 71 F: 36, 35, 24
Pichana Pichanashi Machancar Pichana Machancar Machancar Machancar Machancar
To prevent formation of Leaves Fresh scars To give birth rapidly Leaves and stem Decoction To prevent hair loss Stem Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction Leaves, stem Emplast and root Decoction Leaves and stem Infusion Leaves Infusion Root Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction
Dandruff To prevent pregnancy To make babies walk fast Skin spots
49
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Tessaria integrifolia Ruiz & Pav. (0102, PL21) Habitat Ashninka name type a H, B Shimagorishi Spanish name Pajaro bobo Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral Oral Oral External External External External External External External 10 M: 27 F: 71 M: 69 F: 36, 35, 24 F: 36, 35, 24 M: 50 M: 50 F: 30 F: 30 F: 28 F: 24
Habit Herb
Use Kidney-complaints Ovary inflammation General not well being Swallen feet Pokio Chacho
Fresh Leaves and stem Decoction Decoction Stem Steam bath Decoction Leaves Decoction Leaves Decoction Whole plant Decoction Leaves Decoction
Bignoniaceae Jacaranda copaia Juss. (R93) Bixaceae Bixa orellana L. (2810, 2907) H Achiote Small tree To prevent hair loss Eye infection Prostate Decoction Cold water Petiole sap extract Root Decoction Leaves Infusion Leaves and bark Decoction Leaves and bark Decoction Seed Fresh Root Fresh Leaves Decoction Leaves Decoction Leaves and root Decoction Leaves Decoction Leaves External Eye Oral Oral Oral Oral External External Oral External Oral External 11 M: 38, 50 M: 33, 27 F: 23, 24 M: 69 F: 42 M: 50 M: 50 M: 27 F: 30 M: 27 M: 26 F: 28 F: 23, 24 F Tzirapa Kontamania Tree Uta (Leishmaniasis) Wound-healing Leaves and bark Ashes Leaves and bark Decoction External External 3 M: 27 F: 55 F: 71
Potsoti
Diarrhoea Wounds Stomach inflammation Cancer Kidney-complaints To bathe babies Chenopodiaceae
50
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Chenopodium ambrosoides L. (PL1) Habitat Ashninka name type a B Spanish name Paico Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral Oral Oral 12 F: 36, 35, 24 M: 69, 27 F: 23 M: 50, 27 F: 36, 35, 24, 30, 28, 23 M: 27 M: 38 M: 38, 27 F: 38 F: 42
Habit Herb
Use Parasites
Plant part used Preparation Leaves and stem Fresh Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction
Colics
Fever Diarrhoea To bathe babies
Leaves Leaves
Fresh Decoction Decoction
Oral External Oral External
Leaves and stem Decoction
Cucurbitaceae Momordica charantia Descourt. (0108)
Caiba blanca Caiba amarga
Herb
Malaria
Leaves
Fresh Decoction
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral External
12
Stomach ache Stomach acidity Fever Diarrhoea Parasites Kidney-complaints Mal aire
Leaves Fruit Leaves Leaves Leaves Fruit Leaves
Fresh Decoction Fresh Decoction Decoction Fresh Fresh Decoction
M: 69, 27, 38 F: 71, 42, 24 F: 28 M: 26 F: 71 M: 38 M: 50 M: 38 M: 38 F: 30 F: 38 F: 23
Cyclanthaceae Cyclanthus bipartitus Poit. (R87)
Tzonaki
Shrub
To prevent hair loss Witchery Mal aire
Leaves and stem Decoction Leaves and stem Steam bath Leaves and stem Steam bath
External External External
M: 27 F: 71 F: 71
51
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Cyperaceae Cymbopogon citratus (DC. ex Nees) Stapf (0507) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age
Habit
Use
Hierba luisa
Herb
Stomach ache
Leaves
Infusion
Oral
F: 23
Euphorbiaceae Croton lechleri Mll. Arg. (0609)
Hirairiki
Sangre de grado
Tree
Wound-healing
Latex
Fresh
External
Ulcers Liver-complaints Uta (Leishmaniasis) Dysentery Disinflamate after giving birth
Latex Latex Latex Latex Latex
Fresh Fresh Fresh Fresh Fresh
Oral Oral External Oral Oral
12 M: 69, 38, 27, 27 F: 46, 30, 42, 38, 28, 23, 24 M: 69 F: 27, 30 M: 50 F: 30 F: 38 F: 24
Jatropha curcas L. (2919)
Pion
Shrub
Diarrhoea Uta (Leishmaniasis) Parasites
Leaves Latex Seed Latex Seed Seed
Decoction Fresh Fresh Roasted Fresh Fresh Fresh
Oral External Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral
Liver-complaints Kidney-complaints
M: 33 M: 69 F: 28 M: 69, 50, 38 F: 30, 42, 23, 24 M: 27, 26 F: 28 M: 50 M: 50
Manihot esculenta L. (2914)
Yuca
Shrub
To cure bites of dogs with rabies
Latex
Fresh
External
M: 33
52
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Ricinus communis L. (PL8) Habitat Ashninka name type a B Spanish name Higuerilla Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External Oral External External F: 36, 35, 24 M: 69 M: 50 F: 28 F: 24
Habit
Use
Shrub
Swallen feet Liver-complaints Mal aire Browses and swellings
Leaves Decoction Leaves and stem Fresh Leaves and stem Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction
Morinaki Jahiapa Fabaceae Calliandra angustifolia Spruce ex Benth. (1002)
Bobinsana H
Shrub
To strenghten newborn babies
Leaves, bark and root
Decoction
External
F: 36
Haemodoraceae Xiphidium caeruleum Aubl. (R55,0606)
F, H
Chapapetashi
Cola de gallo Herb
Bone fractures Joint dislocations Browses and swellings To strenghten hair
Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves
Emplast Emplast Emplast Steam bath Decoction Fresh Steam bath
External External External External External External External
To enhance hair growth Leaves "Mal agua" Leaves
10 M: 50 M: 50 M: 50, 29 F: 55, 46 F: 46 M: 29 M: 32 F: 36, 71 M: 27
Iridaceae Eleutherine bulbosa (Mill.) Urb. (2103, 2909)
Cebollita
Rhizomatous To prevent pregnancy herb Haemorrhage
Tuberous rhizome Tuberous rhizome
Decoction
Oral
F: 30
Fresh
External
M: 33
Lauraceae Aniba canelilla (Kunth) Mez
Meth
Arbol de canela
Tree
Stomach ache
Bark
Decoction
Oral
M: 27, 55
53
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) (R65) Belly ache Diarrhoea Malpighiaceae Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce ex Griseb.) C.V. Morton (2501, 2923) Bark Bark Decoction Decoction Oral Oral Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age M: 29 F: 71, 35 F: 36
Habit
Use
Kamarampi
Ayahuasca
Liana
To connect with the spirits of the forest To see other places To diagnose illnesses Cancer Arcoiris To see who is the responsible for a witchery Against general not well being
Stem
Decoction
Oral
M: 33, 53
Stem Stem Stem Stem
Decoction Decoction Decoction Emplast
Oral Oral Oral External
M: 33, 53 M: 33, 53 M: 69 M: 50
Leaves
Decoction
Oral External
M: 38 F: 42
Leaves and bark Decoction
Menispermaceae Chondrodendron tomentosum Ruiz & Pav. (R45) Moraceae Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg (2928) Myrtaceae Psidium guajava L. (2930) Phytolaccaceae
Corazn de Jesus
Shrub
Stomach ache
Root
Fresh
Oral
M: 27
Arbol del pan Tree
Parasites
Latex
Fresh
External
M: 33
Guajaba
Small tree
Diarrhoea
Leaves
Decoction
Oral
M: 33
54
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Petiveria alliacea L. (0104) Phytolacca rivinoides Kunth & C. D. Bouch (AQ12) Piperaceae Piper aduncum L. (R10,0603) Habitat Ashninka name type a H Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral F: 71
Habit
Use To give birth rapidly and not feel the pain
Herb
Leaves
Decoction
Herb
Skin spots
Fruit
Fresh
External
F: 46
F, H
Huarantzishi
Matico
Small tree
Wound-healing
Leaves
Decoction
High Fever Ulcers Mal aire
Leaves Leaves Leaves
Heat up the leaves and rub on the affected area Steam bath External Decoction Oral External Decoction Oral Steam bath External Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction External Oral External Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral
External External
13 M: 27 M: 27
Vaginal infections Witchery Menstruation pain Cramps Vomit Stomach ache
Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves Twigs
M: 27 M: 55 F: 35, 45 M: 50 M: 19 F: 36, 71 M: 38 M: 38 F: 55 F: 35 F: 46 M: 32 M: 32 M: 19 F: 46 M: 19 F: 36
55
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Piper peltatum L. (2911, 0114) Habitat Ashninka name type a H Zibetashi Spanish name Matico hembra Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral 2 M: 33
Habit Herb
Use
Plant part used Preparation Decoction
In order not to feel pain Leaves while giving birth To release the placenta Leaves after giving birth
Decoction
Oral
F: 21
Plantaginaceae Plantago major L. (0904, 0707)
Llantn
Herb
Disinflammatory Liver-complaints
Leaves Leaves
Decoction Fresh Decoction Fresh Heat up and emplast Infusion Decoction Cold water extract
Oral External Oral Oral External External Oral External Oral
Wounds
Leaves
F: 21 F: 24 M: 69 M: 69, 27 F: 24 M: 69 M: 50 F: 42 F: 42 F: 28, 23
Fever Vaginal infection Stomach ache Poaceae Paspalum conjugatum Bergius (3002, FL27, R28, ROM2)
H, F
Kataroshi
Herb
To prevent hair loss To prevent white hair Eye infection Pains in the body
Leaves
Decoction
External External External External
M: 50 F: 71 F: 42 M: 27, 19, 69, 26 M: 50
Leaves Decoction Sap Fresh Leaves and stem Decoction
Rubiaceae Hamelia patens Jacq. (2803, 2903)
Tzivanichetaki Chupa Sangre
Shrub
To disinfect wounds Browses and swellings
Leaves and stem Heated Leaves and stem Heated Emplast Infusion
External External External Oral
Stomach ache
Leaves
11 M: 38, 27 F: 28 M: 33, 69 M: 38, 27, 26 F: 30, 42,23 M: 50
56
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External F: 38
Habit
Use Headache
Psychotria tomentosa (Aubl.) Mll.Arg. (PE19, AQ11)
Matazpini Ishipichankishi Sharoshi
Shrub
Uta (Leishmaniasis) Mal aire Headache
Heat up and squeeze in the wound Leaves and stem Steam bath Leaves Decoction Leaves Decoction Leaves
External External External Oral External
M: 50 F: 46 M: 69 M: 50 M: 50
Uncaria guianensis (Aubl.) J. F. Gmel. (R19, PA3, R56)
Saventarotza
Ua de gato
Liana
Bone pain
Bark Root
Tonpetzpari
Arthritis Kidney-complaints
Bark Bark
Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Decoction Decoction Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Steam bath Decoction Alcohol extract Alcohol extract
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral External Oral Oral Oral
19 M: 27, 29 F: 36 F: 55 M: 27 M: 27, 26 F: 36, 71 M: 69, 38 F: 40, 24 M: 27, 55, 27 M: 55, 50 F: 23 M: 27 F: 36 F: 40 F: 24 F: 71
Ulcers Liver-complaints
Root Bark Leaves
Cold
Leaves Bark Bark
Cancer
Bark
57
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral M: 38, 27 F: 35 M: 50 F: 24 M: 27 F: 42 Oral Oral F: 23 F: 28
Habit
Use Penis extender Ovary inflammation Prostate Abort Stomach ache
Plant part used Preparation Decoction Decoction Alcohol Bark extract Decoction Bark Decoction Water contained Fresh in the stem Alcohol Leaves extract Water contained Fresh in the stem Bark Bark
Inflammation
Uncaria tomentosa (Willd.) DC. (PA4)
Ua de gato Ua de gato morada
Liana
Arthritis Bone pain Kidney-complaints
Bark Bark Bark and leaves Bark
Decoction Alcohol extract Decoction Decoction Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Decoction
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral
F: 71 F: 71 M: 69 M: 38 F: 24 F: 71 F: 23 M: 38 F: 28 F: 24 F: 24
Stomach ache Inflammation
Cold Prostate
Leaves Bark Water contained Fresh in the stem Alcohol Bark extract Bark Decoction
Scrophulariaceae Scoparia dulcis L.
Pichana
Machangar
Herb
To prevent hair loss
Leaves and stem Decoction
External
F: 24
58
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) (0912) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age
Habit
Use
Solanaceae Brunfelsia grandiflora D. Don (1001, 2905)
Sira
Chirisanango Shrub
Stomach ache Witchery
Root Root Leaves Leaves and root Leaves Leaves Leaves
Cold water extract Steam bath Decoction Decoction Alcohol extract Alcohol extract Decoction Decoction
Oral External External Oral Oral Oral External Oral External
F: 36 M: 33 F: 36 M: 50 M: 38 M: 69 M: 69 F: 24 M: 50 M: 50, 38
Cold Bone pain Mal aire
Cestrum hediondinum Dun (0607, 2904)
Amposhiniaki
Hierba santa
Small tree
Fever
Leaves
Infusion Cold water extract Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction
External
M: 33 F: 46, 24, 42, 30 F: 24 M: 26 M: 50 M: 50 M: 50
Stomach ache Headache Mal aire Witchery
Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves
Oral Oral External External External
Physalis pubescens L. (WA5)
Kapuli
Herb
Stomach ache Diarrhoea Parasites
Decoction Decoction Decoction
Oral Oral Oral
M: 29 M: 29 M: 29
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Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Solanum americanum Mill. (PL2) Habitat Ashninka name type a B Tzenirishi Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External External Eye Oral 6 F: 36, 35, 24 M: 50 M: 69 M: 38
Habit Herb
Use Wound-healing Headache Diarrhoea
Plant part used Preparation Leaves Leaves Leaves Heated Fresh Fresh Cold water extract
Solanum mammosum L. (3004) Tiliaceae Heliocarpus americanus L. (R14)
Shinkirontzitah
Shrub
Headache
Leaf sap
Fresh
Eye
M: 50
Shinti Shintze
Huampo blanco
Tree
Gastritis Internal inflammations Stomach ache Prostate To give birth rapidly
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral
Kidney-complaints Bark Ovary inflammation Bark Inflammation of urinary Bark duct
M: 27, 29 M: 27 F: 55 M: 50 M: 29 M: 32 F: 71, 55 M: 55 F: 36
Triumfetta lappula L. (R11)
Tzireroki
Pega pega
Shrub
To enhance women fertility Ovary inflammation Haemorrhage Kidney-complaints Stomach ache
Root Stem and root Leaves and root Bark Bark Root Root
Decoction Cold water extract Fresh Decoction Decoction Fresh Decoction
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral
M: 27, 32 M: 55 M: 50 F: 46 F: 36, 71 F: 55 F: 45
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Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Verbenaceae Lantana camara L. (0901) Habitat Ashninka name type a H Tucunai Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age External Eye F: 24 F: 24
Habit
Use
Herb
Fever Headache
Leaves Stem
Decoction Fresh sap
Verbena officinalis L. (2920, 3701)
Kepishiri
Verbena
Herb
Malaria
Leaves
Decoction
Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral External
Leaves and stem Fresh Stomach ache Diarrhoea To bathe babies DIVISION PTERIDOPHYTA Adiantaceae Adiantum cayennense Willd. ex Klotzsch (3005) Aspleniaceae Asplenium serratum L. (R83) F Yashe attara tarazpini Mainishi Lengua de perro Herb Internal pain "vaso" Stomach ache To prevent ageing Skin spots Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves Decoction Decoction Fresh Fresh Leaves Root Leaves Leaves Decoction Decoction Fresh Decoction
13 M: 33, 38 M: 27, 26 F: 25 M: 50, 69, 27, 27 F: 30, 28 F: 38 F: 42, 24 F: 42
Takre ki maranki
Herb
Snake bites
Leaves
Emplast
External
M: 50
Oral Oral External Oral External
M: 27 F: 71 F: 71 F: 35 F: 36
Blechnaceae Salpichlaena volubilis (Kaulf.) J. Sm. (PE32, IS7)
Mainishi F
Herb
Sleep disorders To prevent ageing
Leaves Leaves
Decoction Fresh
External Oral
M: 55 F: 55
61
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age
Habit
Use
Plant part used Preparation (Chewed) Fresh (Chewed) Fresh Decoction
Blechnum occidentale L. (AQ7)
Tzombishi Tzirompishi Chaca chaca Pusanga
Herb
Fatigue suppressor Skin spots To attract men
Oral External External
F: 46 F: 42 M: 27
Cyatheaceae Cyathea multiflora Sm. (R15) F Irakumanti Tziniro Arborescent Puo de tigre fern Wound-healing Hernia Ovary inflammation To make babies walk fast To lift up testicles Kidney-complaints Cancer Browses and swellings Liver-complaints Dryopteridaceae Cyclopeltis semicordata (Sw.) J. Sm. (PE6) Equisetaceae Equisetum giganteum L. (PL6) Top of caudex Top of caudex Top of caudex Top of caudex Top of caudex Top of Top of Top of Top of caudex caudex caudex caudex Fresh Fresh Decoction Decoction Decoction Fresh Decoction Decoction Fresh Decoction External External Oral External External External Oral Oral External Oral 9 M: 27 M: 50 M: 29 M: 32, 38 M: 55 F: 71 F: 36 F: 36 F: 55 F: 71
Marankishi
Herb
Snake bites
Leaves
Emplast
External
M: 55
Cola de caballo
Herb
Kidney-complaints
Leaves and stem Infusion
Oral
Liver-complaints Pains in the body
Leaves and stem Infusion Leaves Decoction
Oral Oral
8 M: 69 F: 36, 35, 24,38 M: 69 F: 36, 35, 24 M: 50
62
Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants Scientific name (Voucher N.) Habitat Ashninka name type a Spanish name Sunkabina Route of No. Informants' administration Inf. gender and age Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral Oral M: 38 M: 38 M: 38 F: 28 F: 28 F: 24 F: 24
Habit
Use Inflammation Ulcers Colics Pokio Arcoiris Chacho Prostate
Plant part used Preparation Leaves Leaves Leaves Leaves and stem Leaves and stem Leaves and stem Leaves and stem Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Decoction Infusion Infusion
Ishipatonashi
Gleicheniaceae Dicranopteris pectinata (Willd.) Underw. (PE29) Selaginellaceae Selaginella conduplicata Spring (R84)
Chamantoza F
Herb
To strenghten newborn babies
Leaves
Decoction
External
M: 55
Tzirishi
Herb
To relax the body To bathe babies To prevent hair loss
Leaves and stem Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction Leaves and stem Decoction
External External External
M: 27 M: 55 F: 55, 71 M: 38
Habitat types: home gardens, H; forest, F; river banks, B.
63
4.2 Social findings 4.2.1 Relevant diseases in the community and their treatment From the household interviews appeared that the diseases that had occurred most often in the families were (in decreasing order): mal aire, malaria, diarrhoea, chacho, headache and intestinal parasites (Table 4.6). Table 4.6: Diseases that had occurred most often in the family of the informants of the household interviews and the species used to cure the diseases in the community.
Percentage of informants reporting disease in their family
Most mentioned diseases in the community
Species used to cure the disease in the community and way of administration Bath in plant decoction: Himatanthus sucuuba, Anthurium dombeyanum, Momordica charantia, Piper aduncum, Ricinus communis, Psychotria tomentosa, Brunfelsia grandiflora, Cestrum hediondinum. Steam bath: Cyclanthus bipartitus, Piper aduncum, Psychotria tomentosa Decoction: Momordica charantia, Verbena officinalis Fresh: Momordica charantia Decoction: Bixa orellana, Chenopodium ambrosoides, Momordica charantia, Jatropha curcas, Psidium guajaba, Physalis pubescens, Aniba canelilla Cold water extract: Solanum americanum Fresh: Verbena officinalis Bath in plant decoction: Tessaria integrifolia Infusion: Equisetum giganteum Bath in plant decotion: Anthurium dombeyanum, Hamelia patens, Psychotria tomentosa, Cestrum hediondinum Decoction:Psychotria tomentosa Leaf sap applied in the eye: Solanum mammosum, Solanum americanum, Lantana camara Decoction: Annona muricata, Ageratum conyzoides, Physalis pubescens, Anthurium dombeyanum, Anthurium kunthii Fresh: Himatanthus sucuuba, Philodendron hylaeae, Syngonium podophyllum, Chenopodium ambrosoides, Momordica charantia, Artocarpus altilis Eat fresh or roasted seeds: Jatropha curcas
Mal aire
62%
Malaria
38%
Diarrhoea
31%
Chacho
23%
Headache
15%
Intestinal parasites
15%
Mal aire, a disease provoked by the accidental encounter with a spirit or by a cold wind, was cured exclusively with external treatments. Only one informant mentioned a particular fumigation treatment, which did not involve any plant: this consisted in burning a piece of clothes together with a grated piece of bull horn and standing in the smoke. Malaria was commonly referred to as paludismo by the inhabitants of the community; its symptoms were described as high fever, shaking of the body, headache, pallor, absence of appetite. All the informants indicated the cause as the bite of infected mosquitoes. The plants indicated to cure malaria were always described as bitter and were often called shawetashi or shawetapini, which respectively mean bitter-leaf or bitter-herb. Only two of the plants could be identified: Momordica charantia and Verbena officinalis. In reality, a greater number of plants were mentioned as a cure to malaria, but they have not been identified to species level. These included two taxa belonging to the genera Mikania and Hieraceum (Asteraceae) and taxa belonging to the families Asteraceae, Bignoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Lauraceae. Diarrhoea was very common and the informants believed that it was due to the excessive consumption of fruits or the mixing of sour and sweet food. I think that the cause was most likely the lack of adequate sanitation system and consequent high bacteria content of the soil in the proximity of the households, where some crops were cultivated and where the children used to play with the soil. The remedies for diarrhoea were all administered orally. Chacho is one of the diseases that I included in the popular belief system. It is considered a dangerous disease that occurs quite often and it might require the intervention of the curandero or the shaman. There are two form of chacho: chacho de cerro and chacho de agua. The first occurs when the forest of the hills does not permit tresspassing, or by falling asleep on a special rock in the forest. The second instead is provoked by the malevolent influence of spirits which reside in the water, usually in the river. The symptoms are fever, vomit, headache and body pain. Headache was a common ailment, it was cured both with external applications and oral administrations. The cause of intestinal parasites was recognized in eating non-washed fruit and drinking non-boiled water. Intestinal parasites affected numerous adults and children. The majority of the remedies were administered orally.
4.2.2 Distribution of knowledge on medicinal plants in the community
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4.2.2.1 The specialists of the community During the interviews in the households four persons were generally mentioned as the most knowledgeable in the community regarding medicinal plants, they were three men and a woman: Carlos Camacho, Manuel Herea, Victor Andrs and Rosa Violeta. Each of them had a specific field of activity in relation to healing with medicinal plants: the first was a recognised shaman, the second was considered by many a curandero, a man who can cure, the third man was a tabaquero and the woman a vaporadora. The characteristics of each of them are portrayed in Table 4.7. The three men were very difficult to approach: Carlos Camacho, the shaman, manifested adversion towards the ethnobotanical study from the very first meeting, but by the end of the fieldwork he invited me to visit his house and his medicinal garden, an event which will be described in more detail in the following section. Manuel Herea was always very busy and therefore not available for interviews and Victor Andrs did not want to be interviewed. Rosa Violeta, the vapour healer, was living temporarily in another community in order to recuperate her health. I met her when she was taken back for few days in her house in the community, but she was really weak and could hardly talk, so I did not ask to interview her. Her daughters explained that she became vapour healer through many years of practice and following a special diet. None of them became as good as her, because they were not willing to follow the strict diet. Another person who deserves to be given particular attention is the seora Flora, a lady aged 71, specialized in the field of midwifery. She was not mentioned as much as the other specialists among the persons who knew most about medicinal plants, maybe because her main customers were colonos living in the town of Pichanaki. The indigenous women of the community instead usually gave birth with the assistance of their mother or husband. She explained that some colonos preferred to give birth at home in order to avoid the expenses of the hospital and hired her also because she could help women to give birth rapidly and without pain by using special medicinal herbs. As far as she remembered, she had assisted in nine childbirths. She also told to have sold medicinal plants to induce abortion to colonos, but she did not want to do that anymore even if sometimes colonos where coming to try to buy such plants. Flora was the informant who recognised and described a medicinal application for the greatest number of medicinal plants on the forest track; it would have been interesting to see how many plants the shaman and the other specialists would recognise, but unfortunately this
66
comparison has not been possible as the other specialists were not available or did not agree to participate in the forest walk. Table 4.7. Portraits of the four persons considered most knowledgeable in the community from the results of the households interviews. THE FOUR SPECIALISTS OF THE COMMUNITY Name: Carlos Camacho Gender: Male SHAMAN Camacho, as the people of the community call him, acquired his knowledge from other shamans during years of apprenticeship, although he started at an adult age. He regularly relies on the drink Ayahuasca to diagnose and cure diseases and as a constant habit in the diet of a shaman. He can transform into a jaguar or see through the eyes of other animals of the forest, especially birds, after drinking Ayahuasca. The medicinal plants that he uses, like the problems that people try to solve through him, are mainly related to social relations and include love charms and witchery. Many of his customers are colonos. Age: 53 Name: Rosa Violeta Gender: Female VAPORADORA Rosa Violeta is a renowned vapour healer. Unfortunately she was not in the community during almost all the period of the fieldwork. Her relatives had in fact taken her to stay in another village, in an attempt to cure her from an illness that they suspected had been sent by one of the other healing specialists. The cause was probably the envy towards her fame. In fact Rosa Violeta was very appreciated in the community and her treatments attracted also people from the nearby town. She had been learning how to vaporear (giving steam baths) since she was young, following a particular diet that excluded salt and meat. Age: 52
Name: Manuel Herea Gender: Male CURANDERO Manuel Herea is among the founders of the community and father of the current headman. Many people described him as a man with an extensive knowledge on medicinal plants, others called him brujito (little wizard), considering him capable to do witcheries. He did not confirm any of these details, but he showed a wealthy knowledge of the 80 selected medicinal plants I showed to him during the cross Age: 69 Name: Victor Andrs Gender: Male TABAQUERO Victor Andrs is one of the oldest persons in the community, one of those that do not speak Spanish (maybe as a choise), specialized in curing with tobacco. I never had the chance to meet him or talk with him, as he was mostly in his home and he did not want to be interviewed. His daughter and other informants explained that his way of healing included inhaling smoke from Age: 73
67
check interviews specimens.
with
dried
voucher
tobacco leaves and then blowing it on the body of the ill person. A traditional tobacco healer is called sheripiari, from the word sheri, which means tobacco.
4.2.2.2 The shaman
Figure 4.9 Carlos Camacho, the shaman of the community, standing under his plant of Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) planted in front of his house. Carlos Camacho defined himself a shaman and was also recognised as such by the rest of the community. He had a wife but no children. In adult age he got interested in shamanism and travelled to several communities in order to acquire knowledge from local shamans and become one himself. He was very proud of his status, he said that he had been interviewed on television and his fame was going beyond the limits of the community, in fact the majority of his patients were colonos, people coming from the city. During the first community meeting he said publicly that he was not going to collaborate with my research because in the past he had travelled in far away places and paid other shamans to get to know what he knew now and he did not want to share this with me, most of all because he suspected that I would make a profit from this information. Nevertheless after I had spent two months in the community he seemed to be more
68
open and friendly and one day when passing by his house he invited me in. His wife poured some masato, a drink made of fermented yuca (Manihot esculenta Crantz), in a bowl made of the emptied and dried fruit of tutumo (Crescentia cujete L.) and after some friendly chat and more drink I was allowed to see his backyard garden of medicinal plants on the condition that I would not take any picture or collect any plant. The garden was different from those that I had seen in other households because the plants were cultivated in ordinate rows: there were a few different species of Pinitzi (is the local term for herb) and Ivenki (Cyperus spp.) and when I asked about their use I was surprised because two plants of the same species were said to be used for different purposes. The two plants were planted next to each other and he said that one was for good luck and the other for brujera (witchery). He saw me a little sceptical and he explained that the two plants were two separate organisms and therefore had different spirits and that he could get in contact with them and ask them to cure or help the patient. There I understood that the cures given by the shaman were different from the remedies prepared by common people because they involved a spiritual connection with the plants. Also, the diseases and condition cured where somewhat mystical including discovering the mandatory of a witchery, mortal spells (he said that he could but he did not do that), love charms and bringing good luck to business, among others. By the end of our chat we went back to the front of the house where an Ayahuasca plant, Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce ex Griseb.) C.V.Morton, was in bloom. The shaman told me that this was the Ayahuasca rosada (pink), which was the most effective among three kind of Ayahuasca. He added: this plant is like a woman, jealous like a woman: if I planted another one in my garden she would not talk to me anymore. He explained that when he drank the decoction of the liana he could see other places with the eyes of the birds of the forest that were his own children, fruit of his union with the Ayahuasca plant. He added that through this union it was possible for him to cure patients using the power of the plant. At the end of our conversation he agreed to have a picture taken under the plant of Ayahuasca and for the occasion he wanted to wear his cushma and a wreath with coloured feathers that are usually worn for ceremonial purposes (Fig. 4.9). During the interviews with the other villagers I got the impression that the relation to this man was not equal for all the people of the community: he was appreciated by some while feared
69
or hated by others. Envy towards the success of other people seemed to be the major force causing conflicts in the community.
4.2.2.3 Informants knowledge comparison during the forest walks A total of 864 independent events (72 pre-marked plants 12 informants) were recorded during the forest walks in the community reserve, with six informants for each gender. An event is here defined as the process of asking one informant on one day about the uses they know for one species (Phillips and Gentry, 1993a). Ethnobotanical information was also collected when the informants spontaneously described the medicinal use of plants that were not pre-marked, and this occurred in a total of 187 events. During the forest walks, the informants showed different degrees of knowledge of the tagged plants which I indicated to them along the way: sometimes they did not know the plant, other times they were able to name it but did not know any medicinal application for the plant, other times they knew one or several medicinal applications, and in this case in the great majority of cases they also described the preparation and way of administration. The performances of men and women were compared by summing up for each gender the number of events in which a medicinal application was described on the track by each informant. In the analysis only the events in which the informant could describe the medicinal use of the plant as well as its preparation were counted. Women described a medicinal application in a higher number of events: they scored a total of 310 records of use versus 206 total records of use by men. The difference is mainly given by the 72 pre-marked plants, of which women cumulatively provided 214 records of medicinal use (49.5 % of the total events with women), while men provided 115 records of medicinal use (26.6% of the total events with men). This means that women described one or more medicinal uses for the indicated plant in 49.5 % of the events, while men did that in 26.6 % of the events. The difference is statistically significant ( 2 = 47.1429, p-value = 6.6e-12). All the informants, with a varying extent, spontaneously pointed out at plants that were not pre-marked and described their medicinal application. The total number of additional plants indicated by the two genders is similar, being 91 for men and 96 for women (Table 4.8 and Fig. 4.10).
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Table 4.8. Number of events during which a medicinal application was described by each gender. Women described a medicinal application in a higher number of events.
Men 115 91 206 Women 214 96 310
Pre-marked Not pre-marked Total
Performance of the informants in the forest track

No. of plants for which a medicinal use was described 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 19 29 32 38 50 55
MALE Age
Additional plants Pre-marked plants
35 36 45 46 55 71
FEMALE
Figure 4.10 Number of medicinal plants recognised by each informant on the track in the forest. Female informants identified and described the medicinal use of the pre-marked plants in more events than men. Both genders indicated also a number of additional medicinal plants. In the group of men the oldest informant (55 years old) was the most knowledgeable, indicating a medicinal use for 30 of the 72 pre-marked medicinal plants; also in the group of women the most knowledgeable informant was the oldest person (71 years old), who indicated a medicinal use for 57 of the 72 pre-marked medicinal plants. In the group of women two other informants aged 36 and 55 were particularly knowledgeable indicating a medicinal use for 49 and 52 of the 72 pre-marked medicinal plants each. Age explaines 46% of the variation of knowledge between the 12 informants (Fig. 4.11). The correlation of the variables is statistically significant, with a 95 percent level of confidence (p-value= 0.015). If the group of men and women are considered separately, we see that for men age explaines 68% of the variation (Fig.
71
4.12) and the correlation between the variables is still statistically significant at 95 percent level of confidence (p-value=0.042), while for women age explains only 35% of the variation in the group (Fig. 4.13) and the correlation between age and knowledge is not statistically significant (p-value=0.21). The reasons will be discussed in the next chapter.
Total informants
No. of pre-marked medicinal plants known 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
R2 = 0,461
Age
Fig. 4.11 Correlation between age and knowledge on medicinal use of the pre-marked medicinal plants for all the informants. The correlation is statistically significant (p-value= 0.015; 95% level of confidence). Age explains 46% of the variation of knowledge between the 12 informants.
Men
No. of pre-marked medicinal plants known 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
R2 = 0,683
Age
Fig. 4.12 Correlation between age and knowledge on medicinal use of the pre-marked medicinal plants in the group of male informants. The correlation is statistically significant (p-value=0.042; 95% level of confidence). Age explains 68% of the variation of knowledge between the 6 informants.
72
Women
No. of pre-marked medicinal plants known 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
R2 = 0,3502
70
80
Age
Fig. 4.13 Correlation between age and knowledge on medicinal use of the pre-marked medicinal plants in the group of female informants. The correlation is not statistically significant (p-value= 0.21; 95% level of confidence). Age explains 35% of the variation of knowledge between the 6 informants. During the forest walks, 42 out of the 72 pre-marked plants, corresponding to 58%, were recognised with a medicinal use by a number of informants ranging between 1 and 4 (on a total of 12 informants), 20 plants were known by 5 to 8 informants and a smaller group of 10 plants were recognised as medicinal by 9 up to 12 informants (Table 4.9). Table 4.9. Number and percentage of plants that were known by each number of informants group during the forest walks.
No. of informants 1 to 4 5 to 8 9 to 12 No. of plants 42 20 10 Percentage % 58.3 27.8 13.9
4.2.2.4 Informants consensus during the forest walks Fifteen of the 72 pre-marked plants in the forest track have been identified as medicinal by the majority of the informants (seven or more informants on a total of twelve), nevertheless there was a great variability in the uses that the informants reported for each plant (Table 4.10). Of these fifteen plants, seven have been identified to species level and correspond to: Piper aduncum L., Heliocarpus americanus L., Cyathea multiflora Smith, Bidens pilosa L., Triumfetta lappula L., Uncaria guianensis (Aublet) J.F.Gmelin and Xiphidium caeruleum Aubl..
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4.2.2.5 Indigenous nomenclature Wild forest plants which were similar to cultivated plants, were often called with the name of the cultivated plant plus the epithet selvaje (wild) or del monte (of the hill), indicating that this was a wild variety growing on the hills. For example the name Pituca selvaje, indicating a plant which is similar to the cultivated pituca (Xanthosoma sagittifolium Schott.), was used during the forest walks by two informants to indicate two species in the Araceae family: Monstera adansonii Schott and Philodendron deflexum Poepp. ex Schott. In some cases the informants gave detailed information about the medicinal use and preparation of a plant, but they said that it had no name, they just referred to it as e.g. plant for stomach ache or plant to extract caried teeth. Few times the informants only described the plant with its way of preparation/administration e.g. para baar, which means to bathe, or para vaporear which means to do steam baths without providing any additional information. For some other plants instead the indigenous name and/or the common name in Spanish was provided. The indigenous names were often formed by a word that indicated the use of a plant or a characteristic of its morphology or its habitat, plus suffixes like pini and -shi, which mean respectively herb and leaf. For example the names marankishi, maranketza, takre ki maranki indicated plants used against snake bites, from the Ashninka name for snake maranki. These were respectively Cyclopeltis semicordata (Sw.) J.Sm., Anthurium dombeyanum Brogn. ex Engl. and Adiantum cayennense Willd. ex Klotzsch (Table 4.5).
4.2.2.6 Focus group interview with children The children of the 5th and 6th grade of the elementary school agreed that the persons that knew most about medicinal plants in their families were the grandfathers. Out of seventeen children in the class, two (a boy and a girl) declared that they would have liked to become shamans. The class listed 27 medicinal plants with their respective uses and preparations. These are displayed in Table 4.11. The children were able to describe the way of preparation only on 14 of the 27 plants. As no voucher specimen was collected during this activity, the botanical name has been inferred from the vernacular name for those plants for which the vernacular name was uniquely used in the community. For example several plants were called Amargn in the
74
community (from the Spanish word amargo which means bitter) and therefore the plant called so by the children has not been related to one particular species.
4.2.2.7 Additional information from informal conversations and participant observations A young man reported that at least once a year he was going to visit other communities together with a relative, being this a common practice among indigenous groups, and everytime he would make sure to bring back home some powerful plants. He had in his garden a young plant of Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) which he had taken back from one of this journeys and which he had used to cure a problem in his knee. This was the only case of self medication with Ayahuasca reported in the community. All the other informants attributed the use of Ayahuasca to be only in the domain of the shaman. Another informant reported that she had travelled sometimes to communities located on the river Tambo and that she had obtained some very good medicinal plants in exchange for plastic utensils that were highly valued in those distant communities. She now cultivated these plants in her garden. In the course of various informal conversations, it was perceived that it was a common idea of many of my informants that the indigenous communities that lived more deep in the forest, meaning going towards the low land Amazonian region and at more distance from colonos settlements, had a greater knowledge on medicinal plants than them.
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Table 4.10 Medicinal plants that were recognised by the majority of the informants (seven or more on a total of twelve informants) during the forest walks and their uses.
Voucher No. R10 No. of informants 12 Botanical name Piper aduncum L. Uses Cramps, High Fever, Mal aire, Menstruation pain, Stomach ache, Ulcers, Vaginal infections, Vomit, Witchery, Wound-healing
R14
11
Gastritis, Prostate , Inflammation of urinary duct, Heliocarpus americanus Kidney complaints, Ovary inflammation, Stomach L. ache, Used by women in order give birth rapidly Cyathea multiflora Smith Dieffenbachia sp. Xanthosoma sp. Liver-complaints, Bath babies, Blows and swellings, Cancer, Hernias, Kidney-complaints, Ovary inflammation, Prostate, Sustain testicles, To make babies walk soon, Wounds Insect bites, Bone pain, Bronchitis, Cold, Cough, Snake bites, Wounds Bone fractures, Haemorrhage, Insect bites, To help cicatrization , Wounds Burned skin, Dandruff, Skin spots, To give birth rapidly, To make babies walk fast, To prevent formation of scars, To prevent hair loss, To prevent pregnancy Belly ache, Colics, Kidney-complaints, Malaria, Bad breath, Dengue fever, Diarrhoea, Parasites, Stomach ache Kidneys, Prostate, Bone pain, Cramps, Fever, Mal aire, To punish people that misbehave, Witchery Dengue fever, Colera, Colics, Diarrhoea, Mal aire, Malaria, Parasites, Stomach acidity, Uterus infection, Vaginal infection Fever, Headache, Malaria Haemorrhage, Kidney-complaints , Ovary inflammation, Stomach ache, To enhance women fertility Parasites, Prevent caries, To abort To abort, Arthritis, Bone pain, Cancer, Cold, Inflammation, Kidney-complaints, Liver-complaints, Ovary inflammation, Penis extender, Prostate, Stomach ache, Ulcers "Mal agua", Broken bones, Bruises and swellings, Dislocations, To make hair grow faster, Strengthen hair Broken bones, Cough, Distortion, Hernia, Influenza, Kidney-complaints, Liver-complaints, Rheumatism, Source of drinkable water, To make hair grow faster
R15
11
R77 R89
11 11
R3
10
Bidens pilosa L.
R34 R32 R88 R91 R11 R4
10 9 9 9 8 8
Hieraceum sp. Urera sp. Euphorbiaceae Lauraceae Triumfetta lappula L. Philodendron sp. Uncaria guianensis (Aublet) J.F.Gmelin Xiphidium caeruleum Aubl. Not identified
R56
R55
R80
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Table 4.11. Medicinal plants known by the children of the 5th and 6th year of elementary school and their respective uses and preparation. Vernacular name Pusanga Chupa sangre Cuatro esquinas Verbena Matico Amargn Suelda suelda Paico Oja de Murcielago Llantn Sangre de grado Sachahuasca Ua de gato Scientific name Hamelia patens Jacq. Verbena officinalis L. Piper aduncum L. Chenopodium ambrosoides L. Plantago major L. Croton lechleri Muell.-Arg. Uncaria guianensis (Aublet) J.F.Gmelin; Uncaria tomentosa (Willd. ex Roemer & Schultes) DC. Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg Heliocarpus americanus L. Musa paradisiaca L. Persea americana Mill. Bixa orellana L. Nicotiana sp. Use To attract the other sex Wounds, colics Browses Malaria Wounds, fever Colics, diarrhoea Bone pain Belly/stomach ache, colic, diarrhoea Ovary inflammation, belly ache Ovary inflammation, belly ache Wounds Kidney-complaints Wounds, kidneycomplaints Hernia Preparation* Bw Bw, Bd Em Bd Lx Bd Bd
Pan de arbol Huampo Blanco Platano Pepa de palta 'Okilia' Achiote 'Porokishi' Tabaco Pion Guajaba Chanca piedra Lengua de perro Cola de caballo Pajaro bobo
Lx Bd Sa Cbd Cs Bd St, Bw
To purify the body Wounds, haemorrhage Diarrhoea Eye infection 'Susto', eye infection Wounds 'Susto', witchery, used by curanderos Jatropha curcas L. Parasites Psidium guajava L. Diarrhoea, stomach ache Phyllanthus sp. Wounds, malaria Stomach ache, ovary inflammation Equisetum giganteum L. 'Mal aire', witchery, to enhance hair growth Tessaria integrifolia Ruz & Pav. Head ache
*Bw: boil and wash with the decoction; Bd: boil and drink the decoction; Em: emplast; Lx: apply the fresh latex on the wound; Sa: apply sap on the wound; Cbd: crush the seed, boil and drink; Cs: crush and squeeze into the eye; St: steam bath
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5. DISCUSSION The ethnobotanical data that I managed to collect during the course of the fieldwork, together with my field observations, interviews and participant observations in the community, provided a broad and thorough base of information. The purpose of the study was to document the use of medicinal plants in the community, but it is also interesting to contextualize and discuss these findings in a broader perspective, in which medicinal plants and knowledge about them can prove to be a strong tool for the indigenous community in its constant struggle for cultural liberty. I will first discuss some of the ethnobotanical findings and afterwards discuss some of the broader perspectives.
5.1 Medicinal plants diversity, life form and habitat The five most prominently represented plant families among the 62 identified species of medicinal plants were the Araceae, Solanaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae and Asteraceae. This result is in accordance with previous literature. Species belonging to these families are often targeted during taxonomic approaches to drug discovery because they are rich in secondary compounds like steroids and alkaloids. In particular, the families of Solanaceae and Rubiaceae contain several biodynamically active alkaloids (Desmarchelier and Witting, 2000). The use of medicinal plants pertaining to the family Araceae is well documented in Brazil by Mors et al. (2000). The family Asteraceae includes numerous species used to cure several diseases. Gupta (1995) describes the uses of 54 Ibero-American medicinal species pertaining to this family. Other families particularly rich in secondary compounds, which include some species known as medicinal in the community of Bajo Quimiriki, are: Apocynaceae, Bignoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lauraceae, Malpighiaceae, Menispermaceae, Piperaceae (Roth and Lindorf, 2002). The number of medicinal plants indicated by the informants in each family could also reflect the relative abundance of species of these families in the local flora composition. I suggest that the medicinal plants are selected on the base of two factors: abundance and activity. Herbs represented the dominant life form of the medicinal plants used in the community. Tipically, the plant parts used were the leaves and the stem, mostly prepared as a decoction and administered orally. This has been reported elsewhere in Peru (De-la-Cruz et al., 2007) and suggests that local communities are sensible to sustainability issues. In fact, the use of leaves and
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stem allow regular harvest from the same plant, while other practices like stripping the bark, extracting the roots or using the whole plant, which are less frequently reported in the community, endanger the plant population (De-la-Cruz et al., 2007). The 62 species that were identified where collected almost equally in the homegarden and in the forest, while a minor number was collected on the river banks. This result is biased by the fact that the numerous plants growing in the homegardens were also commonly known and reported in texts of medicinal flora of Peru which I consulted during the plant identification. If it had been possible to identify all the plants indicated by the informants, it is very likely that a greater number would be provenient from the forest. The limited number of medicinal plants collected on the river banks can be explained with the minor plant diversity of the banks in comparison with that of the forest and of the homegardens. The river banks were also mentioned during the household interviews as a minor source of medicinal plants. Some species were reported only by one informant (Fig. 4.5, 4.6). This happened either when the plant was collected in the homegarden of the informant and not found elsewhere (Fig. 4.5) and successively was not included among the 80 selected plants for cross check (see 3.5.7), or when the species was indicated outside the forest track during the forests walks only by one informant and again was not included among the 80 selected plants for cross check. Nevertheless this information should not be necessarily disregarded as noise; as Kvist et al. (2006) noted: A limited geographical distribution and/or scarcity may limit the use of an ethno-botanically and phytochemically interesting species. We should also consider that many of the inhabitants moved in the area during the last two decades coming from different Ashninka settlements, and therefore they might have taken with them plants from their place of origin, or they might have a knowledge on plants that were widespread in their original territory, but which are rare and/or not well know in this area.
5.2 Ailments treated The most frequent categories of use of the medicinal plants in the community of Bajo Quimiriki are: digestive system, dermic system, cultural belief system and reproductive system. This was also reported by Cox (1994), with data collected among indigenous people in Australia, Fiji, Haiti, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, North America, Peru, Rotuma, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Tonga and West Africa. Therefore the ailments treated in the community of Bajo Quimiriki with medicinal plants, are the same common ailments suffered by the majority of
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rural people in developing countries, while they are different from the ailments most commonly treated by conventional drugs in developed countries. In the United States, for example, drugs are mainly used against microbial infections, nervous system affections, dermatology and cardiovascular diseases (Cox, 1994).
5.3 The specialists of the community: tradition or off-farm activity? The relation between the specialists in the community was of strong competition, probably due to the rivalry among them to attract customers and make a profit using their knowledge. The shaman and the partera were working particularly with non indigenous customers, and this suggests that they might have developed their profession in recent years as a form of off-farm activity. This could be one of the effects of the proximity to the city: the commercialization of local culture. It has been reported in Brazil, that young people acquired traditional ecological knowledge in order to work as eco-tourism guides (Voeks, 2007). In the Baram District of Borneo instead, it was noticed by Brosius (1997) that the Eastern Penan, after a decade of intense visits and campaigns of environmentalists in the area, would discuss issues related to medicinal plants much more often than they did before having contact with the environmentalists. The author thought that the new interest of the Eastern Penan towards medicinal plants had been influenced by the contact with western environmentalists. In the same way, the possibility that the shaman of the community of Bajo Quimiriki might have decided to specialize in this practice due to the possible economic returns from a clientele mainly composed by colonos should be considered. It should be remembered that he had started his apprenticeship at an old age, which is unusual, as it is variously reported that apprenticeship of shamans in the Amazonian region starts at a young age (Schultes, 2004; Hvalkof, 2004). The apprenticeship also comports strict rules like celibacy, while the local shaman had a spouse and he had gained his knowledge looking for advice and paying for the information shamans of other communities. The initial reluctance of the local shaman to provide information on the medicinal plants used by him should not be surprising; often in order to get to the necessary level of confidence and trust to be told this sensitive information a researcher should reside in the community for a long time. According to Cunningham (1996), the specialist medicinal uses have a high sensitivity level, while household herbal remedies have a medium sensitivity level. This is in accordance with the present study, where the ordinary users of medicinal plants where willing to share their knowledge, while the shaman and the tabaquero wanted to keep it secret.
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Also, the midwife, who gladly participated in the forest walks, indicated some pinitzi that she cultivated in her homegarden, which she did not want to share or divulgate to the community, while she was indifferent whether they would be known by outsiders.
5.4 Traditional beliefs, religion and health practices In the view of some of my indigenous informants, religion dogmas of the Catholic and evangelic church and traditional beliefs could pacifically live together. Lidia, a female informant aged 36, would attend to the Mess and believe in the existence of God, while she also believed in the existence of an animated world, where spirits of the forest and of the river could affect the health of a person. Another informant instead had a different opinion: he said that he and his wife stopped attending the shaman and believing in spirits since they became Christian. He said that before his conversion, he would also suffer from Mal aire or from other attacks from bad spirits of the forest, but he added that since he stopped believing in it, he did not experience this kind of illness anymore. This statement underlines the relation between local cultural beliefs and perception of illness. It has been proved that shamanic practices are very effective in curing psychosomatic illnesses (Hvalkof, 2004), this is probably due to the fact that the shamans usually have an estimated and socially important status within the community, fact which undoubtfully also influences psychologically their patients during healing practices.
5.5 Informants knowledge comparison The results of the forest walks indicated that there was a significant correlation between age of the informants and knowledge of medicinal plants. This result has been widely reported in literature (Phillips and Gentry, 1993b; Shanley and Rosa, 2004; Voeks, 2007). This result underlines the vulnerability of ethnomedicinal knowledge to acculturation and is a powerful evidence of the importance of doing as much ethnobotany as possible, as soon as possible (Phillips and Gentry, 1993b). Nevertheless, the correlation was statistically significant if the whole group of informants was considered, while it was not significant if only the group of women was analyzed. In order to explain the performances of the informants we should consider their personal backgrounds. Flora, the informant aged 71 who had the highest plant knowledge, was a midwife with a marked personal interest towards medicinal plants. She occasionally also sold medicinal plants to colonos. Lidia, the exceptionally knowledgeable young female informant (36 years old), was the elder daughter of the local vapour healer and she said to have
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learnt much from her mother. She explained that when she was very young she wanted to become vaporadora too, but during adolescence she gave up the apprenticeship due to the rigid diet to respect. So, the personal background of this informant explaines her particularly high knowledge compared to her young age. This is also true for the main informant with whom the track was established and who provided information on all the pre-marked plants: he was 27 years old, brother of the actual leader of the community and son of the curandero described in Table 4.7. He said that he was very interested in the use of medicinal plants and that in the future he might have considered becoming a curandero himself. So, although there is a general trend of acquiring medicinal knowledge through the age, much of the variation between informants can be explained by personal interests and also by the relation with a local healer.
5.6 Discussion of methods 5.6.1 Influence of the research team on the quality of data We experienced the common finding that the quantity and quality of information gained in the fieldwork is influenced by the gender of the interviewer in our community, where men tended to speak more frequently with my husband, while women tended to speak more freely with me. For this reason I believe that the presence in the fieldwork of my husband facilitated the interviews with men, who were more open with him than with me. On the other hand, being female gave me the possibility of entering in the households and interviewing women with more facility, treating topics like women ailments without embarrassing the informant. Moreover, the fact that I was in the community with my partner allowed us to have a private space, where we could be when we wanted to be alone to work, discuss about our daily impressions or just relax after a day of walks in the forest. 5.6.2 Influence of the limited determination to species on the results Had it been possible to identify to species level more of the collected plants, it is very likely that the forest would have remarkably appeared as the most important habitat for medicinal plants, because for many of the plants collected in the forest the species could not be determined. This does not mean that the people actually harvest more plants from the forest, but that the forest hosts a higher number of potential medicinal plants. In fact it was reported by some informants that they rarely walked to the forest in order to collect a particular plant. If a
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substitute could be found closer, this would be used instead. This is in accordance with the findings of Stagegaard et al. (2002). 5.6.3 Influence of the shaman on the other informants The shamans initial reluctance towards the research affected positively the quality and quantity of information provided by the other informants. This is due to the fact that the shaman did not have a positive net of relations in the community. Many informants called him egoist because he did not want to participate in this study, and this situation automatically made them my allies, willing to participate and to translate, if necessary, what the elderly people in their family could tell about medicinal plants. Another effect that was noted is that, after the speech of the shaman, people of the community demonstrated increased curiosity towards the future use of the information collected. In particular, the informants wanted to know if we had payed any money of which they were not aware to the community leader in order to conduct the fieldwork. They also discussed with more animosity what they could get in exchange of their participation, and the idea that I could realize a manual on medicinal plants to be used in the community elementary school was very well accepted.
5.7 Diverging names and uses of the medicinal plants The diverging names, uses and ways of preparation of the same species by different informants can be attributed to a number of factors. First, in the Ashninka language, plants are often given a name based on characteristics like taste, resemblance to a part of the human or animal body, or on their use e.g. Anthurium dombeyanum was called maranketza by one informant, from the term maranki which means snake, because the plant was used to cure snake bites. Another informant might have given a different name to the same plant, based for example on its bitter taste: in this case the plant would have been called shawetashi or shawetapini from the word shaweta which means bitter. So, an Ashninka person might decide to call a plant in different ways depending upon the characteristic of the plant he/she refers to. This is in accordance with Martin (2004), who reported that indigenous nomenclatures tend to characterise plants on a sensorial and practical base, where taste, smell and use are used and only secondarily on morphology. A second factor to consider is that the majority of the actual inhabitants of the community moved in the area coming from different regions during the
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last 30 years, and therefore speak different dialects of the language. Some of the slightly different terms which they used to indicate the same species are therefore cognates (Martin, 2004). The oral transmission of the traditional medicinal knowledge plays also its role. As Bale (1994) points out oral transmission tends to make knowledge unstable over the generations. The different application of the medicinal plants can also be related to the various provenance of the informants, which might continue to use the plant for the purpose they learnt when they were young and living in different regions. Another explanation is that the medicinal knowledge is continuously changing and being updated in response of the need of curing new diseases (for example gonorrhoea, mentioned by one young man as being a disease transmitted by promiscuous women in the nearby city). 5.8 Borrowing of knowledge from other communities The general belief among the studied community was that other Ashninka communities located deeper in the forest or along the river Ene and Tambo were more knowledgeable about medicinal plants. This is partly in accordace with the findings of Lenaerts (2006b) among the Ashninka of Gran Pajonal. This group, closely related to the Ashninka, not only regarded their neighbours, the Matchiguenga, more knowledgeable, but they also thought that their plants were more effective. The difference between the Ashninka and the Ashninka is that, while the firsts believed that remoteness and distance from the western influence was positively related to medicinal plants knowledge, the Ashninka studied by Lenaert highly esteemed their neighbours Matchiguenga and their medicinal plants because they had tighter relations with western world and western medicine. The correlation between medicinal knowledge in the communities and distance from cities has been studied by Case et al. (2005) and the results supported the theory that people living at more distance from the cities are less subject to acculturation and therefore possess higher ethnobotanical knowledge.
5.9 Local medicinal plants reported in literature The identified plants whose medicinal properties were described by at least 10 informants are listed in Annex VI. As it can be seen from the table, all these plants, with the exception of Verbena officinalis, Anthurium dombeyanum, and Syngonium podophyllum are widely mentioned in texts regarding South American medicinal plants. Verbena officinalis is perennial herb native to Europe, and its medicinal application are widely reported elsewhere. It is interesting that Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl. and Syngonium podophyllum Schott
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were widely known in the community, as ten informants reported their medicinal applications and preparations, while their medicinal use is not well documented in literature. On the base of the ethnopharmacological approach to drug discovery (Martin, 2004), these two species could be suggested for further laboratory analysis. 5.10 Local perception of malaria and leishmaniasis Particular attention has been given by researchers to the medicinal plants used against malaria and leishmaniasis among indigenous people of Peru (Kvist et al. 2006; Estevez et al. 2007; Valadeau et al. 2009). Malaria was introduced into South America from Africa by slave trading during colonial times, while leishmaniasis is an endemic disease in Peru. As indigenous people have lived with these diseases for centuries, they have individuated local plants which prove efficacious against these diseases or their symptoms. In the community of Bajo Quimiriki the parasitic nature of Leishmaniasis is not understood and the medicinal plants employed have the only purpose of curing the visible wounds which are the symptoms of the parasitic infection. This was also reported by Kvist et al. (2006) among different ethnic groups in the Loreto region of Peru and Valadeau et al. (2009) in a recent study among the Yanesha, an ethnic group closely related to the Ashninka. One of the plants employed by an Ashninka informant, Jacaranda copaia, is a well known species that has been reported elsewhere with the same use (Valadeau et al. 2009). Extracts of the leaves of this tree have shown some leishmanicidal properties, but the products were found to be toxic for macrophages (Chan-Bacab and Pea-Rodriguez, 2001). In the community of Bajo Quimiriki the ashes of the bark of the tree were applied on the wound. To the best of my knowledge, this preparation has not been reported before and it could be interesting to test wheter this preparation enhances the leishmanicidal activity, while reducing the toxicity previously reported in leaves extracts. All the informants were aware that malaria was transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes and in some of the households I saw mosquito nets hanging on the beds. This is probably due to the fact that this disease and its prevention have been amply publicized by campaigns organized by the Peruvian Ministry of Health, which also distributed free mosquitonets in indigenous communities (Harvey et al. 2009). In the Loreto region of Peru, Harvey et al. (2009) reported that indigenous people were not using the mosquito nets, despite these had been provided to them for free by the authorities, because they believed that malaria had been sent by
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God to punish them from their sins. In the community of Bajo Quimiriki no informant reported similar beliefs. 5.11 Local knowledge on a global stage Why is it important to document and analyze the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants? First of all we share a common interest in preserving indigenous knowledge that had been developed and refined through centuries. Humanity, no matter which place on earth, is built on knowledge gained through generations, and it is in our common interest to continue basing our societies and research on the platforms of knowledge that already exist. Linden (1991) wrote: Some scientists are beginning to recognize that the world is losing an enormous amount of basic research as indigenous peoples lose their culture and traditions. Scientists may someday be struggling to reconstruct this body of wisdom to secure the developed worlds future. Although the concept of losing culture is questionable, because culture is not a fixed entity that can be lost, this statement stresses the importance that indigenous knowledge has also for the developed world. Ancestral territories in Amazonia are being subtracted to the indigenous people and exploited for commercial purposes like forest logging, cattle production, bio-fuel production, mining and oil extraction. In Peru, the approval by the present government of laws meant to increase foreign investments on oil and gas extraction activities in the territories of the Native Communities has caused violent tensions in the Amazonian region. During the last two months indigenous people protested through blockades of the main roads and rivers, and at the beginning of this month, June 2009, thousand of indigenous people have protested against this law and several persons died during the clashes between armed forces and indigenous demonstrators. Extractive activities in the forests are very polluting, mostly for the waters, and therefore have a direct impact on the health of the indigenous populations that live in those territories. Traditional knowledge of indigenous people is threatened by the pressure of the dominant society through the process of acculturation. The cause is not necessarily only the contact with the western world and the increasing inclusion of the indigenous communities in the national market. What now puts at stake the process of transmission of traditional knowledge from generation to generation is the speed with which socio economic changes are happening. Knowledge today is not only being globalized, distributed and exchanged more intensely than ever seen before in world history, it has also become a good.
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Medicinal plant knowledge is particularly important because it might help humankind saving many lives. The plant richness of the tropical forests suggests that there might be more useful secondary compounds to be discovered in tropical plants. At the moment any ethnopharmacological study in the tropics should be carried out considering ethical issues and regulations regarding acknowledgment of the intellectual property rights and compensation for the providers of information and/or to the country were the plant properties were discovered, and used. Unfortunately, most of the advantages coming from the medical use of tropical plants are shared by developed countries, and not by the communities who first discovered plant properties. In the majority of cases traditional knowledge and genetic material are collected in developing countries, but the benefits from patents and commercialization of medical compounds are received by the companies or institutions that realized the research, being these located in developed countries (Martin, 2004). However, during the last years, the theme of traditional knowledge intellectual property rights have gained international attention and various solutions are being proposed regarding how to conduct research in the field of drug discovery in an ethical way. A form of agreement between a pharmaceutical company and indigenous informants which could be used as an ethically-correct example is that of Shaman Pharmaceuticals Inc., which provides retribution to the informants at each stage of a natural product development (King, 1994). In this work I tried to make a first step towards the recognition and description of the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants in the community of Bajo Quimiriki. Considering the pressure from the surrounding society to exploit the natural resources in the area, medicinal plants and traditional knowledge about them is in danger of overexploitation. During the forest walks, various informants told me how they could see that colonos, mainly from the close-by city of Pichanaki, had entered the territory of the community and removed entire plants considered medicinal, not leaving any roots for regrowth. It could prove to be a good solution for the community to registrer their medicinal plants with INDECOPI, which would ensure the protection of their intellectual property rights, but this does not guarantee protection against overharvesting of the resources by encroachment. Nevertheless, the strong self-identification and pride of being Ashninka that I noticed among all of my informants does give me some certainty that they will fight for their rights over
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their land and its resources. Furusawa (2009) indicated that modern knowledge is easily integrated into the ethnobotanical knowledge system, but is not directly related to the loss of indigenous botanical knowledge. The proximity to the city of Pichanaki could therefore be seen as something beyond a mere threat for the community, it could in fact be an opportunity, if well managed. The increasing interest in traditional medicinal knowledge and the demand on the market for medicinal plants, like the worldwide known Ua de gato (Uncaria guianensis and Uncaria tomentosa) which was reported in the community, could provide the indigenous inhabitants with an additional source of income, provided that the natural resources are rationally managed, avoiding their overexploitation. This could be achieved through small scale cultivation and commercialization of local medicinal plants.
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6. CONCLUSIONS The proximity of the Native Community of Bajo Quimiriki to the city of Pichanaki and the consequent possibility of selling agricultural products in its market, has led to the intensification of agricultural production in the community. The traditional cultivation of yuca, which required minimum work, is now sided by the plantation of cash crops. The intensified agricultural activities allow less time to be dedicated to traditional activities, like hand weaving of the cushma, the traditional tunic now only worn in special occasions. Nevertheless, even if the external appearance of the people has changed, the belief in an animated world where spirits of the forest and of the rivers can have direct influence on the health of the people, and the trust in the healing power of the plants are still well established in the community. The Ashninka of Bajo Quimiriki rely on a healing system based almost exclusively on medicinal plants. During the course of the study almost 400 plants were indicated by the informants as medicinal. Of these, 88 were positively identified and correspond to 62 species belonging to 57 genera and 39 families. The families of Araceae, Solanaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae and Asteraceae provided the majority of the medicinal plants indicated in the community. The majority of medicinal plants indicated by the informants are herbs, prepared through decoction and administered orally, although shrubs, trees, lianas, epiphytes and arborescent ferns are also used. The plants are mainly collected in the forest and in the homegardens. The medicinal plants which grow in the homegardens are for the majoriy cultivated, and include a particular category of plants called pinitzi and ibenky (Cyperus spp.), which have an important cultural value, having often magic-protective use in the household. Other traditional ways of preparation include steam baths, which are usually administered by women. The uses reported for the same species by different informants were often dissimilar, as well as their indigenous names. This can be a consequence of the different origins of the inhabitants of the community, many of whom migrated in the area during the years of terrorism. Some species were known as medicinal by a high number of informants, although the uses mentioned were often different. Of particular interest are the species Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl. and Syngonium podophyllum Schott, both reported by 10 informants as medicinal, which are not reported in literature on South American medicinal plants. Further analysis on the species could lead to the discovery of useful secondary compounds.
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Medicinal plant knowledge in the community is hold both by specialized figures, like the shaman, the tabaquero, the vapour healer, the curandero and the midwife and by everyday users. Within the families, the persons considered most knowledgeable about medicinal plants are the abuelos, the grandfathers, but both men and women of younger age can also have a consistent knowledge of medicinal plants, depending on personal interests and family background. The treatment of common ailments like mal aire, malaria, diarrhoea, chacho, headache and internal parasites is generally done within the family, while the specialist is consulted if the home remedies do not work or if the illness seems to be related to the malevolent influence of spirits or to witcheries. The shaman practiced the ritual drinking of Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) to be able to diagnose diseases and in order to be connected with the spirits of the forest and re-establish harmony in the eventual imbalances of the community. His initial aversion to the study can be justified by the high sensitivity level of the medicinal information, which gives him his special status in the community and which provides him a source of income. The revenues from the activities related to herbal and traditional healing, which attracted also many colonos as customers, were probably the cause of tensions between the different specialists. During the forest walk, where 12 informants were asked about the use of 72 pre-marked plants, women showed a greater knowledge, providing information on the use and preparation of the plants in a major number of events. The knowledge on medicinal plants was significantly correlated to the age of the informants as a whole group, but the correlation was not significant if only the group of women was considered. This supports the theory that although knowledge tends to increase with age, sometimes the variation between informants is better explained by the personal background of the informant. The children of the elementary school provided names and uses and ways of preparation and administration for 27 medicinal plants. The majority of these plants were growing commonly around the households and were used to cure common ailments in the community. Being the specialized forms of healing (shamanism, vapour healing, tobacco healing) in the domain of few people in the oldest generation, and considering the fact that there was no young apprentice in the community, the persistence in the future of the traditional healing system can be considered at stake. The results of the present study, once returned to the community, will provide the inhabitants with scientific information on their medicinal flora, which they can use for the
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benefit of the community. For example, they will be able to register the uses here described of the identified species in the registers managed by INDECOPI, which will help to protect their traditional knowledge intellectual property rights. Moreover, the manual on local medicinal plants which I agreed to compile for use in the community elementary school, will be a useful material to teach elements of traditional medicinal knowledge in the school, against the process of acculturation. As the present study reported potential uses of medicinal plants indicated by the informants, a documentation of their actual use, its quantification and the calculation of the relative value of species through quantitative ethnobotanical methods, could be the subjects of following studies.
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7. ANNEXES Annex I. List of the inhabitants of the community of Bajo Quimiriki who participated in the various activities.
Establishment of the forest track Eduardo Herea Quinchocre German Benavides Shivanco Luis Santico Herea Rolando Peralta Quinchocre Forest walks Anna Leiba Quinchocre Carolina Maximo Atilio Daniel Orestes Elena Quinchocre Flora Herea Manunca Isabel Quinchocre Leiva Jos Atilio Peralta Contreras Lidia Martinez Paredes Pedro Maximo Atilio Romer Maximo Sebastian Wilmer Romero Ignacio Woker Martinez Cross-check Anna Leiba Quinchocre Carolina Maximo Atilio Elena Quinchocre Enderson Poma Flora Herea Manunca Henry Poma Paulina Isabel Quinchocre Leiva Jaime Cardenas Lidia Martinez Luis Santico Herea Manuel Herea Campos Rolando Peralta Quinchocre Riverine walk Beatriz Peralta Quinchocre Carolina Maximo Atilio Lidia Martinez Paredes
Interviews Ana Quinchocre Martinez Basilio Mejia Lopez Beatriz Peralta Quinchocre Bersilia Benavides Carlos Camacho Camacho Daniel Orestes Ester Martinez Paredes Flora Manonga Herea German Benavides Shivanco Gilmer Armando Segura Puchoc Henry Poma Paulina Janet Quinchocre Janeth Martinez Paredes Kelly Andres Ramos Lidia Martinez Veronica Benavides Vilma Martinez Paredes Wilmer Romero Ignacio Yolanda Suarez
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Annex II. Map of the Community of Bajo Quimiriki, provided by INRENA.
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Annex III. Research permit
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Annex IV. Semi-structured interview guide

Date: 1. Name of informant: 3. Place of birth: 5. Years of residence in the community: 6. Number of persons in the household (only the persons who live in the house): House No.: 2. Age: 4. Occupation:
7. Who knows most about medicinal plants in the household? 8. Who knows most about medicinal plants in the community? 9. Who do you go to when you are sick? (e.g. self medication, doctor, shaman, vaporadora, tabaquero, relatives etc.) 10. Do you ever buy medicinal plants? 11. If yes, which plants do you buy and for which diseases? 12. Do you ever buy western medicine? 13. If yes, which ones and for which diseases? 14. Do you store any dried medicinal plant or herbal remedy in your house? 15. If yes which one? Yes No Yes No Yes No
16. Ailments and diseases experienced in the household: Name of disease Cause Symptoms Cure
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Annex V. Scheme for collection of information on medicinal plants in the homegardens.

Voucher No. Wild Cultivated Ashninka name Spanish name Use Preparation Administration Photo No.
Annex VI. References to texts that describe the uses and/or chemical composition and properties of the medicinal plant species described by at least 10 informants in the community of Bajo Quimiriki.
Total number of Uses by Ashninka informants informants To abort, Arthritis, Bone pain, Cancer, Cold, Inflammation, Kidney-complaints, Liver19 complaints, Ovary inflammation, Penis extender, Prostate, Stomach ache, Ulcers 13 Cramps, High Fever, Mal aire, Menstruation pain, Stomach ache, Ulcers, Vaginal infections, Vomit, Witchery, Wound-healing Malaria, Stomach ache, Diarrhoea, To bathe babies
Scientific name
References
Uncaria guianensis (Aubl.) J. F. Gmel.
Castner et al.(1998); Gupta (1995); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Roth and Lindorf (2002); Muoz et al. (1999); Brack Egg (1999); Rengifo and Cerruti (1997) Castner et al.(1998); Reynel et al.(1990); Gupta (1995); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Mors et al. (2000); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999)
Piper aduncum L.
Verbena officinalis L.
13
_ Castner et al.(1998); Gupta (1995); Desmarchelier and Witting (2000); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Mors et al. (2000);Roth and Lindorf (2002); Muoz et al. (1999); Lacaze and Alexiades (1995); Brack Egg (1999); Rengifo and Cerruti (1997) Gupta (1995); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Mors et al. (2000); Roth and Lindorf (2002); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999) Castner et al.(1998); Reynel et al.(1990); Gupta (1995); Desmarchelier and Witting (2000); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Roth and Lindorf (2002); Lacaze and Alexiades (1995); Brack Egg (1999); Rengifo and Cerruti (1997) Castner et al.(1998); Reynel et al.(1990); Gupta (1995); Desmarchelier and Witting (2000); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Mors et al. (2000); Roth and Lindorf (2002); Lacaze and Alexiades (1995); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999); Rengifo and Cerruti (1997)
Chenopodium ambrosoides L.
12
Parasites, Colics, Fever, Diarrhoea, To bathe babies
Momordica charantia Descourt.
12
Malaria, Stomach ache, Stomach acidity, Fever, Diarrhoea, Parasites, Kidney-complaints, Mal aire Wound-healing, Ulcers, Livercomplaints, Uta (Leishmaniasis), Dysentery, Disinflamate after giving birth To prevent hair loss, Eye infection, Prostate, Diarrhoea, Wounds, Stomach inflammation, Cancer, Kideny-complaints, To bathe babies
Croton lechleri Mll. Arg.
12
Bixa orellana L.
11
Hamelia patens Jacq.
11
To disinfect wounds, browses and Gupta (1995); Lacaze and Alexiades swellings, Stomach ache, (1995); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999) Headache
Asclepias curassavica L.
10
Wound-healing, Uta (Leishmaniasis), Eye inflammation Snake bites, Mal aire, To attract men, Headache, To enhance hair growth, Parasites, Infection of urinary duct, Stomach ache, Cough, 'Seeing shadows'
Castner et al.(1998); Grenand et al.(1987); Roth and Lindorf (2002); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999)
Anthurium dombeyanum Brongn. ex Engl.
10
Syngonium podophyllum Schott
10
To correct irregular menstruation, To extract caries teeth, Brack Egg (1999) Toothpain, To prevent pregnancy, Parasites, Joint dislocations Burned skin, Dandruff, Skin spots, To give birth rapidly, To make babies walk fast, To prevent formation of scars, To prevent hair loss, To prevent pregnancy Kidney-complaints, Ovary inflammation, General not wellbeing, Swallen feet, 'Pokio', 'Chacho' 'Mal agua', Broken bones, Bruises and swellings, Dislocations, To make hair grow faster, Strenghten hair Castner et al.(1998); Gupta (1995); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Mors et al. (2000); Roig (1974); Brack Egg (1999)
Bidens pilosa L.
10
Tessaria integrifolia Ruiz & Pav.
10
Reynel et al.(1990); Meja and Rengifo (2000); Lacaze and Alexiades (1995); Brack Egg (1999)
Xiphidium caeruleum Aubl.
10
Roth and Lindorf (2002)
99
Annex VII. Partly identified medicinal plants

Plants identified to Genus level Voucher N. 0513 FL13 0206 CA6 R57 IS6 R66 R38 R77 R50 R4 R68 R81 2815 R62 R71 R82 R89 PE37 ROM6 R70 WA4 0203 0908 FL3 2811 2908 R34 R33 PL12 0202 0101 PL20 2809 PE17 WI15 WI19 CA8 R13 0602 0907 AQ14 PE30 R86 0113 Plants identified to Family level
Family Genus Acanthaceae Phitonia Acanthaceae Sanchezia Amaranthaceae Chenopodium Amaranthaceae Pfaffia Anacardiaceae Tapirira Apocynaceae Tabernaemontana Araceae Anthurium Araceae Dieffenbachia Araceae Dieffenbachia Araceae Homalonema Araceae Philodendron Araceae Philodendron Araceae Philodendron Araceae Philodendron Araceae Philodendron Araceae Philodendron Araceae Rodospatha Araceae Xanthosoma Arecaceae Astrocaryum Arecaceae Astrocaryum Aspleniaceae Asplenium Asteraceae Acmella Asteraceae Acmella Asteraceae Acmella Asteraceae Bidens Asteraceae Chaptalia Asteraceae Chaptalia Asteraceae Hieraceum Asteraceae Mikania Asteraceae Porophyllum Asteraceae Porophyllum Asteraceae Senecio Asteraceae Senecio Asteraceae Vernonia Bignoniaceae Jacaranda Campanulaceae Centropogon Campanulaceae Centropogon Cecropiaceae Cecropia Cecropiaceae Cecropia Chenopodiaceae Chenopodium Chenopodiaceae Chenopodium Clusiaceae Vismia Clusiaceae Vismia Combretaceae Terminalia Commelinaceae Commelina
Voucher N. Family FL16 Acanthaceae LI5 Acanthaceae R36 Acanthaceae WI2 Acanthaceae IS2 Amaranthaceae LI4 Amaranthaceae PE2 Amaranthaceae 3007 Apocynaceae R78 Apocynaceae 0605 Araceae 0704 Araceae 2813 Araceae 2814 Araceae DH4 Araceae DH9 Araceae FL25 Araceae LI20 Araceae AQ3 Arecaceae DH5 Arecaceae FL22 Arecaceae PE26 Arecaceae PE36 Arecaceae 0107 Asteraceae 0211 Asteraceae 0608 Asteraceae 0902 Asteraceae 0911 Asteraceae 3010 Asteraceae 3011 Asteraceae CA4 Asteraceae DH1 Asteraceae FL2 Asteraceae PE1 Asteraceae PL18 Asteraceae PL22 Asteraceae PL23 Asteraceae R16 Asteraceae R27 Asteraceae R43 Asteraceae R7 Asteraceae DH2 Asteraceae PE10 Bignoniaceae R69 Bignoniaceae R74 Bignoniaceae 0705 Commelinaceae
100
2102 PL3 R2 3003 R49 ROM5 R53 R72 ROM4 R12 0910 PL14 WA1 2921 PE9 PL11 PE8 R44 WA14 WI6 0604 PE25 R35 R26 R76 R46 0508 0906 0702 WA2 R59 WA13 WI7 WI14 EL3 FL17 AQ5 PL9 LI3 PL4 PL17 WA12 0510 2101 R79 R51 2806 DH7 EL10 EL9
Commelinaceae Commelinaceae Commelinaceae Convolvulaceae Costaceae Davaliaceae Elaeocarpaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Fabaceae Gesneriaceae Gesneriaceae Lamiaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Maranthaceae Melastomataceae Melastomataceae Menispermaceae Menispermaceae Menispermaceae Moraceae Nyctaginaceae Nyctaginaceae Onagraceae Onagraceae Orchidaceae Phytolaccaceae Phytolaccaceae Piperaceae Piperaceae Piperaceae Piperaceae Piperaceae Piperaceae
Commelina Commelina Tradescantia Ipomea Costus Nephrolepsis Sloanea Alchornea Acalipha Achalipha Euphorbia Euphorbia Euphorbia Phyllanthus Phyllanthus Phyllantus Bauhinia Bauhinia Desmodium Desmodium Inga Inga Inga Alloplectus Corytoplectus Ocimum Gossypium Gossypium Malachra Sida Calathea Miconia Miconia Abuta Chondrodendron Chondrodendron Ficus Boerhavia Neea Ludwigia Oenothera Vanilla Petiveria Petiveria Peperomia Piper Piper Piper Piper Piper
LI6 R41 WI3 2901 WI11 0201 0205 2912 PE12 PL10 PL16 R18 WI10 0913 2915 R17 R88 0905 PE33 PL19 0212 1102 R91 0502 0610 2924 LI1 LI14 R40 WI9 2818 0210 LI13 R73 AQ10 AQ6 EL6 FL24 0909 1101 LI23 PL15 PL7 WI5 PE34 0204 EL8 FL20 FL21 IS4
Commelinaceae Commelinaceae Commelinaceae Cucurbitaceae Cucurbitaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae Dryopteridaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae Fabaceae Guttiferaceae Juncaceae Lamiaceae Lamiaceae Lauraceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Malvaceae Maranthaceae Meliaceae Menispermaceae Menispermaceae Menispermaceae Moraceae Musaceae Myristicaceae Myristicaceae Orchidaceae Poaceae Poaceae Poaceae Poaceae Poaceae Poaceae Polygalaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae
101
R52 R20 R63 PE15 PE18 R58 AQ9 EL7 0503 0601 PE28 CA1 FL8 R5 CA7 PA2 R32 0116 2808 PL5 2805 2918 1103 0106 R42 R85 FL23
Piperaceae Piperaceae Poaceae Polygonaceae Pteridaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Verbenaceae Verbenaceae Verbenaceae Verbenaceae Verbenaceae Verbenaceae Vitaceae Vitaceae Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae
Piper Piperomia Chusquea Coccoloba Pteris Calycophyllum Coccocypselum Palicourea Relbuim Nicotiana Nicotiana Solanum Solanum Solanum Urera Urera Urera Lippia Lippia Phylla Stachytarpheta Stachytarpheta Verbena Cissus Cissus Calathea Costus
IS8 PE16 R61 R54 EL11 WA3 3702 AQ15 ROM8 PE38 2817 R37 R90 R92 R95 0115 2902 PE4 0703 2812 AQ1 R24
Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Rubiaceae Salicaceae Sapindaceae Sapindaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Solanaceae Tiliaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Urticaceae Verbenaceae Vitaceae Vitaceae Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae
Plants identified to division level Voucher N. AQ8 PE23 Order Pterydophyta Pterydophyta
102
Annex VIII. Family distribution of the plants identified at species, genus and family level.
FAMILY
N. of plants
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Asteraceae Araceae Rubiaceae Euphorbiaceae Solanaceae Piperaceae Poaceae Verbenaceae Fabaceae Malvaceae Arecaceae Commelinaceae Cyperaceae Urticaceae Apocynaceae Menispermaceae Acanthaceae Zingiberaceae Amaranthaceae Bignoniaceae Phytolaccaceae Vitaceae Annonaceae Blechnaceae Chenopodiaceae Cucurbitaceae Lamiaceae Moraceae Tiliaceae Anacardiaceae Aspleniaceae Bixaceae Campanulaceae Cecropiaceae Clusiaceae
40 27 20 17 15 12 11 10 9 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71
Dryopteridaceae Gesneriaceae Haemodoraceae Iridaceae Lauraceae Malpighiaceae Maranthaceae Melastomataceae Myristicaceae Nyctaginaceae Onagraceae Orchidaceae Plantaginaceae Sapindaceae Adiantaceae Asphodelaceae Combretaceae Convolvulaceae Costaceae Cyatheaceae Cyclanthaceae Davaliaceae Elaeocarpaceae Equisetaceae Gleicheniaceae Guttiferaceae Juncaceae Meliaceae Musaceae Myrtaceae Polygalaceae Polygonaceae Pteridaceae Salicaceae Scrophulariaceae Selaginellaceae Total n. of plants
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 329
103
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INTERNET SOURCES: Instituto Nacional de Estadstica e Informtica (INEI): http://www.inei.gob.pe/ Instituto del Bien Comn (IBC): http://www.ibcperu.org/ Digital Herbariums: Missouri Botanical Garden: http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/image/imagefr.html The Field Museum: http://fm1.fieldmuseum.org/vrrc/index.php
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Indigenous Knowledge of Medicinal Plants:

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen ADK06021

MSc Thesis Faculty of Life Sciences, Copenhagen University June 2009

Supervisor: Marten Srensen Co-supervisor: Ida Theilade

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Indigenous Knowledge of Medicinal Plants:

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen ADK06021

MSc Thesis Faculty of Life Sciences, Copenhagen University June 2009

Supervisor: Marten Srensen Co-supervisor: Ida Theilade

Cover illustration by the Author

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Instituto Nacional de Estadstica e Informtica Instituto del Bien Comn

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Proteccin de la Propiedad Intelectual.

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

3.2 Community meetings

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Rolando Peralta Quinchocre Enderson Poma Jaime Cardenas

Xenia Barona Santiago Beatriz Peralta Quinchocre Yanet Quinchocre

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Family Araceae Solanaceae Euphorbiaceae Rubiaceae Asteraceae

% 9.7 8.1 6.5 6.5 4.8

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Table 4.2 Life form of the medicinal plants

Figure 4.1 Habitat of the medicinal plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

% of total medicinal plant species

Plant parts used

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Parasitic, viral and insect related sicknesses

Musculoskeletal and articular system

Gaia Luziatelli Hansen: Ashninka Medicinal Plants

Specific diseases Headache Relaxant Sleep disorders

Sense organs (ears, eyes)