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the medicinal (and other) uses of a number of forest plants. These, however, are
what Hunn [ 147 ] would characterise as ‘simple remedies’, whereby the appropriate
part of a single plant is consumed in the form of a suitable preparation to treat a
particular ailment. ‘Complex remedies’ do exist, but are known in large numbers
only to specialist practitioners. While there does not appear to be a Solega word that
designates someone as a ‘medicine man/woman’ the knowledge of complex reme-
dies tends to belong to senior community members, such as priests and village
council members. Table 3.4 below lists the many uses that the plants of the B. R.
Hills are put to by the Solega—they include consuming plants as food or medicine
or using them to make artefacts, just to name a few. The remedies listed under
‘medicine’ are all simple remedies that Solega people will readily share with outsid-
ers or with one another. While several complex remedies have been documented by
the author, these have been omitted from Table 3.4 as the knowledge owners have
deemed them unsuitable for the public domain.
Plants utilised as food form the largest category in Table 3.4 , closely followed by
medicinal plant s. One of the more interesting aspects of Table 3.4 is the presence of
numerous reported uses of plants by non-human species, including birds, honeybees
and a range of large and small mammals. Of the plants mentioned above, those that
Solega people have noted as being used by other animals (18 %) rival in number the
plants used by humans as medicines (21 %) and as food (22 %). This category also
has implications for the ‘intellectual’ vs. ‘ utilitarian ’ debate addressed by publica-
tions such as [ 62 ] and [ 9 ] (see below). A further 5 % of plants serve as indicators of
important phenological or meteorological phenomena.
The observation that so many plant–animal interactions are noticed and com-
mented upon, can be explained in two ways. One, that knowing the food habits of
birds, bees and wild mammals may indirectly be of use to humans. The foraging
habits of honeybees constitute the most straightforward aspect of this phenome-
non—the presence of large numbers of bees on a particular type of fl ower signals
not only the imminence of a honey -fl ow, but also the type of honey that will soon be
available for harvesting, as well as providing clues to the location of the bees’
hive (s). This is made explicit in the following passage:
Hu: kaḍame ira dina, je: nu sariya:gi kelsa ma:ḍalla. Honne hu: ja:sti a:da dina hu:vina
me:le ja:sti kelsa ma:ḍutte. A maradalli je:nu iddare, ishṭu du:radalli no:ḍkobahudu,
e:kandare hu:vinda manege ja:sti o:ḍa:ḍtare... Namma avaru e:na ma:ḍtare, honne hu:
banda dina ka:ḍiga oitare. E:kandare je:nu sigutte a:ga. Honne hu: ho:da:ga maneli kelsa
ma:ḍta:re.
On days when there are few fl owers, the bees don’t work properly. When the honne
fl ower is fully in bloom, the bees work a lot. If there are bees on a tree over there [POINTS],
you can see them from here, because large numbers fl y between the fl owers and the hive ...
What our people do is, they go to the forest when the honne fl ower is in bloom. Because
that’s when you get honey. When the honne fl owers go away, people work at home.
Second, Solega men used to hunt various birds and mammals for food and
medicinal products (hunting no longer occurs within the confi nes of the BRT wild-
life sanctuary), and an important part of the skill set of any hunter would have been
a precise knowledge of the behaviour, distribution and feeding habits of prey species.
3 Plants in Solega Language and Culture