Saamaka uwii: Saramaccan medical plant knowledge, practices and beliefs for local health care in Suriname

This thesis describes Saramaccan Maroon medicinal plant knowledge, practices and beliefs in relation to local health care, education and biocultural conservation. The Saramaccan ethno-medical system in the village Pikin Slee focused primarily on cure followed by health promotion, and disease prevention. People made a deliberated choice for traditional medicines, even though most health concerns could be treated in the village health center. Herbal bathing plays a significant role in providing local health care among Maroons. The geographical separation between the Saramaccan and Ndyuka Maroons have led to distinct plant use in their herbal bathing practices.Writing proper Saramaccan plant names and the translation of health issues from Saramaccan into Dutch is a challenge for pupils in Pikin Slee, indicating a gap between the official school curriculum (in Dutch), traditional knowledge and literacy in Saramaccan. The growing influence of Sranantongo interrupts the conservation of Saramaccan traditional ecological and cultural knowledge stored in plant names which are influenced by European, African and Indigenous languages. Central-African Bantu languages, especially Kikongo, contributed most to the names followed by West-African Kwa languages. As Saramaccan plant names store large amounts of traditional knowledge, they play an important role in the conservation of Saramaccan biocultural heritage.Fieldwork was funded by the STUNT-Beurs (University of Amsterdam), the Alberta Mennega Stichting, the Van Eeden Fonds and Stichting de Zaaier. Publication fees were kindly provided by Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Netherlands. These funding agencies were not involved in any aspect of the research preparation, collection of research data, nor this publication.LUMC / Geneeskund

Medicinal plants used by traditional healers for the treatment of malaria in the Chipinge district in Zimbabwe

AbstractEthnopharmacological relevanceBecause about 50% of the Zimbabwean population is at risk of contracting malaria each year, the majority of people, especially in rural areas, use traditional plant-based medicines to combat malaria. This explorative ethnobotanical survey was undertaken to document how malaria is conceptualized and diagnosed by traditional healers, and to record the medicinal plants used in the prevention and treatment of malaria, their mode of preparation and administration.Materials and methodsThe research was conducted in three villages in Headman Muzite׳s area and in Chiriga village. These villages are located in the Chipinge district in the Manicaland Province in Zimbabwe.Traditional healers were selected with the assistance of the headman of the Muzite area and a representative of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 traditional healers from four villages in the Chipinge district in Zimbabwe.ResultsIn total, 28 plants from 16 plant families are used by the healers who manage malaria with medicinal plants. The most cited plant is Cassia abbreviata Oliv. (Leguminosae) followed by Aristolochia albida Duch (Aristolociaceae) and Toddalia asiatica (L.) Lam. (Rutaceae). Roots (55.3%) are the most common part used. Most of the plant parts used to treat malaria are stored as dried powders in closed bottles. The powders are soaked in hot or cold water and the water extract is taken as the active medicine. The healers consider their medicinal knowledge as a spiritual family heritage. Only 25% of the healers refer the malaria patients that do not respond to their treatment to hospital – they believe evil spirits cause their remedies to failure and they would rather try a different plant or perform a cleansing ceremony.ConclusionsLocal knowledge of medicinal plants in the treatment of malaria still exists in all four villages surveyed and traditional healers appear to play an important role in primary health care services in this remote rural area in Zimbabwe. This explorative survey underscores the need to preserve and document traditional healing for managing malaria and for more future scientific research on the plants to determine their efficacy and their safety. This could improve their traditional anti-malarial recipes and might contribute to a better integration of Zimbabwean traditional medicine into the national health system in the future