Available online 21 January 2016
ABSTRACT
Ethnopharmacological relevance
Considerable
medicinal plant research in Brazil has focused on indigenous and
mixed-race (caboclo and caiçara) communities, but relatively few studies
have examined the medicinal plants and associated healing traditions of
the descendants of enslaved Africans. This study surveyed the medicinal
plants employed by a relatively isolated maroon community of
Afro-Brazilians in the Atlantic coastal rainforests of Bahia, Brazil, a
global biodiversity hotspot. The studied community is exceptional in
that the residents were defacto slaves until several years ago, with no
access to western medicine. We examined the following questions: 1) What
medicinal plants are used in this community? 2) What are the principal
taxonomic groups, life forms, source habitats, and geographical origins?
3) What species stand out as measured by use value and frequency
indices? and 4) Is the community’s geographical isolation and African
ancestry reflected in their medicinal uses of the local flora?
Materials and Methods
The
study was carried out in the Quilombo Salamina Putumuju maroon
community in Bahia, Brazil. Data were collected from May to October 2014
from 74 individuals (37 men and 37 women) by means of semi-structured
interviews, walk in the woods, and vouchering of identified species. We
used the Cultural Value Index (CV), the Relative Frequency Index (RF),
and the Use Value Index (UV) to determine the importance of medicinal
plant resources. Continuity of African medicinal plant uses and
traditions was determined through self-reporting and comparison with
previously published works.
Results
We
recorded 118 medicinal plant species distributed in 100 genera and 51
families. The best represented families were: Asteraceae, Fabaceae,
Lamiaceae and Myrtaceae. Most plant medicines were used to treat
respiratory, digestive systems, genitourinary, and skin problems. The
most common medicinal life form was herbs (44%), followed by trees (28%)
and shrubs (18%). Native species (55%) were used somewhat more than
exotic species (45%), and non-cultivated species (51%) were slightly
more numerous than cultivated species (49%). In spite of abundant nearby
old-growth forests, trails and gardens were the most common collection
sites. A mean of 13.2 medicinal plant species were cited per
participant. The highest CV was recorded for Cymbopogon citratus (0.20) followed by Lippia alba (0.19) and Stryphnodendron cf. adstringens (0.17). The highest RF included C. citratus (0.69), L. alba (0.59), and Eugenia uniflora (0.55). The highest UV figures were recorded for S. cf. adstringens (1.68), followed by Sida cf. cordifolia (0.97) and C. citratus
(0.93).Fifteen species (13%) of this maroon medicinal flora trace their
ancestry to Africa or African-derived healing traditions.
Conclusion
The
Salamina maroon community maintains considerable knowledge of the
medicinal value of the local flora. However, little of this knowledge is
derived from the surrounding old-growth tropical forests. Their
pharmacopoeia is a hybrid mix of wild and cultivated species, natives
and exotics. Among those species representing the community’s isolation
and African ancestry, most are associated with spiritual and magical
medicine.
Graphical abstract
Medicinal plant collections in the Salamina Maroon community, Bahia, Brazil.
Keywords
- medicinal plants;
- African diaspora;
- traditional ecological knowledge;
- ethnobotany
Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
