Ethnobotany is the study of how indigenous people
have learned how to use ambient vegetation for a
diversity of pragmatic purposes. It is broader in scope
than merely the extraction and subsequent usage of
chemicals contained within the plants. Ethnobotany
also includes a consideration of all uses of plants,
including for food and fiber. It is an interdisciplinary
field involving botany, anthropology, archaeology,
plant chemistry, pharmacology, history, and geography.
Ethnobotany is not confined to the tropics. A perusal
of old herbal manuals will quickly reveal that numerous
North American plant species were relied upon for
pharmaceutical applications in years past, until the
advent of modern medicines. Some still are used. As
one example, resin from the Mayapple (Podophyllum
peltatum), a common understory spring wildflower
throughout eastern forests, was commonly employed
by Native Americans to remove warts. It is still used
today to treat venereal warts. In the Neotropics, many
make the assumption that ethnobotany applies only
to isolated indigenous tribes, but this is false. Modern
populations of mixed heritage, such as the mestizos
and ribereños of Peru or the caboclos of Brazil, all of
which are linked to native Amerindian cultures but
also under strong Western influence, make heavy use
of ethnobotanical knowledge.
Ethnobotanical insight is gained through generations
essentially by trial and error. Not all indigenous
groups possess equally sophisticated ethnobotanical
understanding. With regard to extraction and
preparation of various drugs and drug combinations,
the knowledge is often housed in the mind of but one
revered individual, the shaman of the village. Nothing
is ever written down but is instead passed on from one
generation to the next by the shaman, who is both a
teacher and a practitioner, a person of substantial power
in the community. Illnesses are rarely if ever blamed on
organic causes but are usually assigned to evil spirits
or curses. It is the shaman who communicates with
the spirit world— and who cures headaches, back pain,
bug bites, and constipation. Unfortunately, a shaman
may die of old age before passing his knowledge to
the next generation. There is widespread fear among
ethnobotanists that much knowledge is currently
being lost, as traditional tribes experience the impact
of Western culture, and fewer young people study to
be shamans.
Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin, in his best- selling and
now classic book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice (1993),describes how he studied with shamans in northeastern
South America, relating many intriguing examples
to demonstrate the sophisticated knowledge of local
people in the use of tropical defense compounds.
Alkaloid- containing sap from a common liana is used
to help cure fever in children. Rotenone, a potent
vasoconstrictor, is extracted from another common
liana and employed to kill fish, a critical protein
source. Plants that even a skilled botanist has difficulty
telling apart are easily recognized as separate species
by the shaman. Equally intriguing is Plotkin’s vivid
descriptions of how he was tutored in this knowledge
(including the use of hallucinogens) by various
shamans whose trust and respect he patiently won.
Many serious ailments may be helped by potent
compounds from the tropics. For many years the
alkaloid quinine (found in tonic water), from the
Neotropical shrub/small tree genus Cinchona, has been
reasonably effective in combating certain malarias.
Resin extracted from plants of the genus Virola, used
as a powerful hallucinogen, may also prove to be very
effective in controlling or even curing chronic fungal
infections, which currently can be suppressed only
by Western medicines. The legendary ethnobotanist
Richard Evans Schultes, often called the “father of
ethnobotany,” spent a career documenting the diverse
uses of numerous plant species by indigenous peoples
of Amazonia. His classic book, The Plants of the Gods:
Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers (1979),
coauthored by A. Hoffmann, is required reading for
anyone interested in ethnobotany. Mark Plotkin notes
that at the time he was writing only about 5,000 of the
world’s 250,000 species of plants had been thoroughly
investigated as to pharmacological properties, and that
the 120 plant- based prescription drugs on the market
had been derived from only 95 species.
Plotkin emphasizes the obligation to share any
benefits that may be derived from ethnobotanical
studies with the indigenous people who, in fact,
obtained the knowledge in the first place. Such a
policy is not only morally compelling, it has strong
conservation potential. For example, the Terra Nova
Rain Forest Reserve in Belize was established in 1993
by the Belize Association of Traditional Healers, an
assemblage that includes people from most of the
cultural and ethnic groups in Belize, a country in
which about 75% of the people are estimated to be
dependent on plant medicines for their primary health-
care needs. The reserve, a 2,400 ha (5,930 ac) area ofchapter 17 human ecology in the tropics 373