Diversity of palm uses in the western Amazon

We used palm knowledge to understand the interaction between people and the rainforests and the factors that influence this dynamic process. We interviewed 278 informants in 12 villages in the Pastaza and Madidi areas of the western Amazon basin. Together they used 38 different palm species for 38 different uses in six use-categories (food, construction, utensils, ritual, medicine, commercial). Euterpe precatoria, Iriartea deltoidea, and Oenocarpus bataua were best known and were mentioned as useful by 76–72% of the informants in the 12 villages. There was a great variation in number of uses and in how widespread the uses were and five of the 38 useful palms were mentioned by only one informant. Among the socioeconomic factors analyzed, the residence village influenced the informants’ knowledge of palms and their uses more than any other factor. Length of education, prosperity and for how long the informant had lived in the village were also positively correlated to how many palms and palm uses were known. Gender differences in informants’ knowledge of palm uses were not observed in our data. We suggest, that the high importance of forest products to the livelihood of the villagers, the great variation in the knowledge they possess, and the fact that the differences between villages is so great, are important elements to consider when developing management plans for the sustainable use of the rainforest resources in the western Amazon.     

Sharing Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Traditional Villages: Evidence of Food and Nutraceutical “Core Groups” in Bali,Indonesia

The island of Bali has several aga (indigenous) villages that have survived despite the pressures of an intense tourist industry and agricultural changes. A rich ethnobotanical culture persists, but the meaning of differences in traditional ethnobotanical knowledge (TEK) remains under-explored. We analyzed information obtained from interviews of inhabitants from diverse villages on food and nutraceutical plants to identify plant patterns, i.e., relevant plant groups with species sharing a similar occurrence. Through cluster analysis, we identified 12 main groups of species and found that species were grouped based on traditional knowledge and the use each community made of plants on the whole, and not on growth forms nor on specific uses. The frequency distribution of species clusters showed a bimodal trend, with several groups present only in few villages, and a few groups present in almost all villages. The latter are defined as “core groups,” and represent the shared TEK of each aga community. Other “satellite species groups” embodied in the local TEK were related to small isolated communities. Cultural erosion caused by modernization, with the consequent fragmentation of information, was judged to be one of the main causes of increasing TEK heterogeneity.     

Traditional knowledge ofDypsis Fibrosa (Arecaceae) in Eastern Madagascar

Dypsis fibrosa is widespread in eastern Madagascar and local people regard it as one of the most important palms due to its use as thatch. In an interview survey 12 different uses of this palm were reported. Most informants knew only one or two uses, but variance was large. How many uses people know and what they use different palm parts for is correlated to socioeconomic factors such as personal wealth and home village. Comparison of data obtained from interviews and observations showed that there is not always a strict correlation between ethnobotanical data elicited in surveys, actual extent of use, and importance accorded to different plant resources. Informants were generally aware of an human-caused decline inD. fibrosa abundance, but viewed it as inevitable and suggested to replaceD. fibrosa products by other materials. Although local people viewD. fibrosa as very important, motivation for its conservation and sustainable use seems to be low.     

Antes and Hoy DÍa: Plant knowledge and categorization as adaptations to life in Panama in the Twenty-First Century

Ethnobotanical studies often assume plant knowledge is shared by all members of an arbitrarily bounded human group. By describing the uses and local categorization of plants in one village in rural Panama in a heteroglossic approach, the different knowledges within a village are presented in one article. Plants used in the daily work of women and men, and the work of village spe-cialists are described. Villagers negotiate changing realities by adapting plant use and knowl-edge; this is reflected in local categorization of plant names into antes and hoy dia. Unlike the established ethnobotanical assumption that bounded units of plant knowledge are dying, the younger generations of villagers, who work both within and outside the village, know more plants useful to their changing economic opportunities. Subsistence agriculturalists possess the adaptive plant knowledge skills to be stewards of the environment.     

湖南通道染制侗布的民族植物学研究

侗族人民千百年来,一直从事侗布的染制。该文对湖南通道的侗布染制进行了详细的民族植物学研究,发现侗布的染制工艺繁杂,不同的人所用的植物有较大差异。侗布染制共涉及野生及栽培植物16种,分属14科16属。这些植物都有一定的药用功效,有些植物在染布中属首次报道。侗布染制的民族植物学知识在各个村寨流失严重,需要加强挖掘和整理。     

Environments of Learning: Rarámuri Children’s Plant Knowledge and Experience of Schooling,Family, and Landscapes in the Sierra Tarahumara,Mexico

This paper investigates social-environmental factors contributing to differential ethnobotanical expertise among children in Rarámuri (Tarahumara) communities in Chihuahua, Mexico, to explore processes of indigenous ecological education and epistemologies of research. One hundred and four children from two schools (one with a Ráramuri knowledge curriculum and one without) were interviewed about their knowledge of 40 useful plants. Overall, children showed less ethnobotanical expertise than expected and a great deal of variability by age, though most shared knowledge of a core set of culturally and ecologically salient plants. No significant difference was found between girls’ and boys’ knowledge. The overall use-knowledge scores were almost twice as high as naming scores (mean of 40% vs. 24.4%). This supports the conclusion that use-context is more culturally relevant, salient or easier for children to remember than names. The social–environmental factors significant in predicting levels of plant knowledge among children were whether a child attended a Rarámuri or Spanish-instruction school, and, to a lesser extent, age. However, these effects were not strong, and individual variability in expertise is best interpreted using ethnographic knowledge of each child’s family and personal history, leading to a model of ethnobotanical education that foregrounds experiential learning and personal and family interest in useful plants. Though overall plant knowledge may be lower among children today compared to previous generations, a community knowledge structure seems to be reproduced in which a few individuals in each age cohort show great proficiency, and children make the same kinds of mistakes and share specialized names for plants.     

An Ethnobotanical Survey of Inner-West Anatolia, Turkey

This study is focused on ethnobotanical usages of wild plants growing within the Afyonkarahisar province districts of Sinanpaşa, Hocalar and Dazkırı. Ninety local informants in 11 villages were interviewed. A total of 129 different usages of wild plants in the study area were recorded. Out of 650 plant species commonly present, 93 plant taxa (14.3%) belonging to 43 families were used for medicinal (52 citations), foodstuff (37 citations), fodder (14 citations), dye (six citations), firewood (five citations), construction materials (four citations) and miscellaneous purposes (11 citations). At least 15% of the information regarding ethnobotanical uses of wild plants was obtained by showing herbarium voucher samples to the informants. It was noted that Sideritis leptoclada and Verbascum stenostachyum are endemic to Turkey and their endangered status has markedly increased in recent years because of increased collecting for ethnobotanical purposes. Informants indicate that members of the younger generation have a much reduced interest in ethnobotanical knowledge and that this is a danger to the continued use of local plants.     

Assessing the Effects of Indigenous Migration on Zootherapeutic Practices in the Semiarid Region of Brazil

Human migration implies adaptations to new environments, such as ways to benefit from the available biodiversity. This study focused on the use of animal-derived remedies, and we investigated the effects of migration on the traditional medical system of the indigenous Truká people. This ethnic group lives in Northeast Brazil and is currently distributed in four distinct villages. In these villages, the zootherapeutic knowledge of 54 indigenous people was determined through semi-structured questionnaires given from September 2013 to January 2014. The interviewees indicated 137 zootherapeutic uses involving 21 animal species. The variety of species and their uses have a higher similarity between villages that are closer to each other, which can be a reflection of geographic and environmental factors. However, even close villages showed a low similarity in the zootherapeutic uses recorded, which reflects a strong idiosyncrasy regarding the knowledge of each village. Hence, each village may be influenced by the physical environment and contact with other cultures, which may maintain or reduce the contact of younger villages with the original village.     

Conventional and Land-Time Budget Analysis of Rural Villages in Hubei Province,China

Five rural villages in Qianjiang County (Hubei province), PR China, were investigated to collect information on the socioeconomic characteristics relevant to farming system analysis. In each village, 50 households were randomly sampled and household heads interviewed. We first present the results of this conventional survey, which describes these five villages in terms of conventional socioeconomic parameters such as demographic variables, land availability and profiles of land use, time allocation and profiles of working time use, cash flows, and degree of food self-sufficiency. Then we change focus by characterizing household types rather than village types. This is done analyzing the same raw data aggregated at the household level to illustrate the difference of a parallel readings at different hierarchical levels. Finally, we present a new approach to organize the information gathered in the conventional way into “typologies” referring to both household and village level. Such a passage makes possible a multidimensional reading of the system. One key concept of this analysis is the land-time budget (LTB) approach, which is first explained in theoretical terms and then illustrated with examples applied to our data set.     

Shaping the Tourist'S Gaze: Representing Ethnic Difference in a Nepali Village

A certain practice associated with the tourism industry in Nepal's Chitwan district, the 'village walk', has become one way through which ethnic status can be expressed and claims to modernity made by local people. This phenomenon illustrates how globalizing processes reinforce the particulars of locality by providing people with new frameworks through which to interpret their societies. Thus, the ideology of modernity has replaced that of caste as the way in which Tharus and Brahmans in rural Nepal understand inter-ethnic relationships. Foreign tourists serve as a foil for this reinterpretation through the practice of the village walk, in which high-caste tourist guides conduct tourists on cultural tours of Tharu villages. The representation of Tharus as 'primitive', 'jungly', and living in another time meets both the desire of tourists for exotic experiences and that of high-caste Nepalese who wish to represent themselves as belonging to the modern world from which the tourists presumably come.     

Evaluation of the efficacy of Olyset® Plus in a village‐based cohort study in the Cukurova Plain,Turkey, in an area of hyperendemic cutaneous leishmaniasis

The aim of this study was to measure the protective efficacy of Olyset® Plus, a new long‐lasting factory‐treated insecticidal net (LLIN) incorporated with 2% permethrin and 1% of the synergist piperonyl butoxide (PBO), against cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) transmission under field conditions. A village‐scale trial, promoting the use of LLIN by the local inhabitants of the study area was conducted as a pilot study in a new hyperendemic focus of CL caused by a Leishmania infantum/L. donovani hybrid parasite transmitted by proven vector species Phlebotomus tobbi in Cukurova Plain, Adana, Turkey, between May, 2013 and May, 2014. The study area comprised eight villages; two of them were selected as an intervention village with Olyset® Plus net (Kizillar) and a control village without net application (Malihidirli). Six villages with surrounding allopatric barriers were utilized as a buffer zone cluster between intervention and control villages. Monthly entomological surveys were performed in the intervention and control villages and Damyeri, representing the other six villages, to collect adults of Phlebotomus tobbi. Results showed a significant reduction in cutaneous leishmaniasis incidence in the intervention village from 4.78% to 0.37%. The protective efficacy rate of LLIN was 92.2%. In contrast, incidence rates increased in the control village from 3.67% to 4.69%. We also evaluated residual insecticide levels of used nets after six and 12 months of usage. It was determined that the nets had retained full insecticidal strength. These results highlight the value of real‐world data on bed net effectiveness and longevity to guide decisions regarding sand fly control strategies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first field study to evaluate Olyset® Plus efficacy in a hyperendemic cutaneous leishmaniasis area.     

Promoting community knowledge and action for malaria control in rural Cambodia: potential contributions of Village Malaria Workers

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Cambodia has been investing in Village Malaria Workers (VMWs) to improve malaria case management in rural areas. This study assessed the quality of the VMWs' services compared to those by a government-run health center from the perspective of community members. We focused on VMWs' contribution to promote their action to control malaria. Methodology A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Kampot in 2009. Interviews were conducted at every accessible household in a village with VMWs (n=153) and a village with a health center (n=159), using interviewer administered questionnaire. Preference of the interview was given to female household head. Multiple regression analyses were run to compare knowledge about malaria, preventive measures taken, and time before first malaria treatment between the two villages. FINDINGS: The villagers perceived the VMWs' services equally as good as those provided by the health center. After controlling for confounding factors, the following indicators did not show any statistical significance between two villages: community members' knowledge about malaria transmission (AOR=0.60, 95% CI=0.30-1.22) and government-recommended antimalarial (AOR=0.55, 95% CI=0.25-1.23), preventive measures taken (Beta=-0.191, p=0.315), and time before the first treatment (Beta=0.053, p=0.721). However, knowledge about malaria symptoms was significantly lower in the village with VMWs than the village with a health center (AOR=0.40, 95% CI=0.19-0.83). CONCLUSIONS: VMWs played an equivalent role as the health center in promoting malaria knowledge, action, and effective case management. Although VMWs need to enhance community knowledge about malaria symptoms, the current government policy on VMWs is reasonable and should be expanded to other malaria endemic villages.     

Perceptions, use and availability of woody plants among the Gourounsi in Burkina Faso

The present study was conducted in five villages around the Nazinga Game Ranch, Burkina Faso. Fifty informants of the Gourounsi ethnic group were used. Eighty-one useful woody species were identified, out of a total of 110 woody species in the area. Woody plant use was quantified as: edible fruits (28 species), vegetable sauce (22 species), firewood (33 species), construction (29 species) and medicine (64 species and 167 remedies). Further, species accumulation curves were used to estimate that more than 650 remedies for medicine are used in the area. The community's knowledge of plants was analysed in relation to age, gender, village of residence and amount of intercultural visits. The knowledge pattern was remarkably uniform, with only two variations: (1) men generally identified more edible fruit trees than women, and (2) one village reported more firewood species than the other four villages. The informants had a variety of opinions concerning the availability of useful plants, but the majority found the availability to be fine and 47% of the informants searched for useable products in the savanna on a daily basis. No correlation was found between an informant's impression of useful products availability and his/her frequency of visits into the savanna. The results show that the Gourounsi people live in intimate relation with the savanna surrounding their villages. They are aware of the environment and are willing to learn and adopt new conservation practices.     

Ethnobotany ofpru, a traditional Cuban refreshment

Urban, Smilax domingensis Willd., and Pimenta dioica Merr., are three species widely used within Cuban ethnobotanical traditions and practices. Pru is a traditional refreshment and medicinal drink produced by their decoction and fermentation with sugar. It is claimed to have hypotensive, stomachic, depurative, and diuretic properties. Pru has long been confined to a number of traditional villages in eastern Cuba, and its origin may be traced back to the ethnobotanical knowledge of French-Haitian people that migrated to Cuba from the end of the 1700s. With the economic crisis of the early 1990s that resulted in the disappearance of industrial soft drinks and in the search for new income sources, pru spread across almost the entire island. This has resulted in the commoditization of the drink and related traditional knowledge, and possibly in increasing pressure on the species’ wild populations.     

Traditional Beverage Plants Used by Dai Villagers in Xishuangbanna

One hundred and fourteen plant species which belonging to 43 families and 93 genera were recorded in this study. All these species were used as traditional beverage plants by Dai people in two Dai villages (Man’an and Mansan)of xishuangbanna and 65 . 8% of the plants may hold medicinal functions. The results indicated that the species and the number of species were quite different between the two villages , and the difference between genders was not significant. However, the results of ANOVA showed that there was not significant difference between the average number of plant species mentioned in the villages and among genders, and the mean number of plant species mentioned in young group was significantly lower than that in old group, especially inMan’an village where transportation is much convenient. The study suggested that the indigenous knowledge was on the way of loss with the influence of exotic culture.     

The Changing Moral Economy of Ancestor Worship in a Chinese Emigrant District

This paper describes the reciprocal influences between Anxi County Fujianese, whose families and clans have migrated to Singapore, and their ancestral villages in Fujian, China. The Singaporeans bring wealth and cultural capital to their poor relations in rural China. Their participation is crucial for local socioeconomic development. Besides bringing material support and globalizing values and lifestyles, they also reinvigorate and transform the local religious tradition. They, in turn, reaffirm and even remake their own ethnic and regional identity. The complex outcome illustrates the fact that China's social change under economic reforms and global influence is, in its huge rural core, not merely a matter of infrastructural, market, and social welfare improvements, but involves exchange and transformation in meanings of rituals and experiences. We can see that kinship and religion are not unchanging aspects of the cultural tradition that are separate from programs of modernity. Indeed, modernity and tradition appear to be inseparable, and they may reveal that the recipe for effective community projects requires a vital tie between cultural, social, and interpersonal processes.     

西双版纳傣族传统饮料植物利用的研究

利用民族植物学与人类学相结合的方法,对西双版纳州曼伞、曼安两个傣族村寨利用传统饮料植物的情况进行了调查。结果显示,两个村寨利用的传统饮料植物有114种,隶属43科、93属,其中65．8％的种具有药用价值。两村寨利用传统饮料植物的种类及物种数有较大不同,而村民传统饮料植物知识在性别间无明显差异。ANOVA分析表明,传统饮料植物平均被提及的物种数在村寨、性别间无明显差异,但在不同年龄组间有显著差异,即随着年龄减小,访谈中人均提及的物种数呈下降趋势,这种趋势在交通较为便利的曼安寨更为明显,表明环境变化和外来文化等对植物传统利用知识的传承有很大影响。     

Mandan And Hidatsa Villages In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

This paper attempts to specify, as precisely as possible, whichvillages the Mandan 11nd Hidatsa occupied in the period c. 1675 to c. 1800, how long each one was occupied, and the reasons why movement from one to another took place. It isbased primarily on the literary sources, but also makes considerable use of archaeological data, particularly unpublished material supplied by D. J. Lehmer. The evidence relating to the Mandan villages in the century or so before the greatsmallpox epidemic of 1781 is examined in detail, and it is demonstrated that there were about half-a-dozen of these villages in the Heart River district, and two or three others further up the Missouri. There follows a short accountC of the Hidatsa sites of the same period. The paper then details what is known of the northward movement of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages between 1781 and 1787, by which last date most of them had settled near the Knife River. Several accounts ofthese villages in the years before the arrival of Lewis and Clark (1804) are analyzed. The two tribes continued to live near the Knife until after the second great smallpox epidemic, in 1837. New dates are proposed for changes of villagelocations in this period (1804-1837), and it is shown that after 1834 there was only one Hidatsa village near the Knife. The paper ends with brief comments on the obscure period 1837-1845 and with a discussion of the site of the last independent Mandan village, Nuptadi, which was 11bandoned in about 1860.     

Diversity of Medicinal and Food Plants as Non-timber Forest Products in Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve (China): Implications for Livelihood Improvement and Biodiversity Conservation

Diversity of Medicinal and Food Plants as Non-timber Forest Products in Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve (China): Implications for Livelihood Improvement and Biodiversity Conservation. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) play an important role in rural livelihoods. People living in and around forests are dependent on a variety of NTFPs for their subsistence and for income generation. This paper gives a general overview on the diversity of NTFPs in the Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve, with a focus on medicinal and food plants. Data on NTFPs use were gathered through an ethnobotanical inventory with semistructured, free-listing, and household socioeconomic interviews. Interviews were supplemented with voucher collections. Bamboo shoots were analyzed further as proxy NTPF. It was hypothesized that there is no significant difference between collection amounts of bamboo shoots and their contribution to the household income between the villages studied. A rapid vulnerability assessment (RVA) was conducted to identify vulnerable and threatened species. A total of 480 plant species (25% of recorded flora) from 117 families and 334 genera are used as NTFPs by the local people. Results revealed that there is a significant difference in the collection and contribution of bamboo shoots to household income among the villages. However, their contribution to per-capita income is very low, and they are mainly used in households. Vulnerability assessment showed that most of the medicinal species have moderate vulnerable status and that most of the food species have less vulnerable status. Some medicinal plants, such as Paris polyphylla var. yunnanensis, are overexploited and getting scarce. Sustainable harvest and management strategies should be implemented to prevent overexploitation of these species.     

Malaria transmission risk variations derived from different agricultural practices in an irrigated area of northern Tanzania

Malaria vector Anopheles and other mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) were monitored for 12 months during 1994-95 in villages of Lower Moshi irrigation area (37 degrees 20' E, 3 degrees 21' S; approximately 700 m a.s.l.) south of Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. Adult mosquito populations were sampled fortnightly by five methods: human bait collection indoors (18.00-06.00 hours) and outdoors (18.00-24.00 hours); from daytime resting-sites indoors and outdoors; by CDC light-traps over sleepers. Anopheles densities and rates of survival, anthropophily and malaria infection were compared between three villages representing different agro-ecosystems: irrigated sugarcane plantation; smallholder rice irrigation scheme, and savannah with subsistence crops. Respective study villages were Mvuleni (population 2200), Chekereni (population 3200) and Kisangasangeni (population approximately/= 1000), at least 7 km apart. Anopheles arabiensis Patton was found to be the principal malaria vector throughout the study area, with An. funestus Giles sensu lato of secondary importance in the sugarcane and savannah villages. Irrigated sugarcane cultivation resulted in water pooling, but this did not produce more vectors. Anopheles arabiensis densities averaged four-fold higher in the ricefield village, although their human blood-index was significantly less (48%) than in the sugarcane (68%) or savannah (66%) villages, despite similar proportions of humans and cows (ratio 1:1.1-1.4) as the main hosts at all sites. Parous rates, duration of the gonotrophic cycle and survival rates of An. arabiensis were similar in villages of all three agro-ecosystems. The potential risk of malaria, based on measurements of vectorial capacity of An. arabiensis and An.funestus combined, was four-fold higher in the ricefield village than in the sugarcane or savannah villages nearby. However, the more realistic estimate of malaria risk, based on entomological inoculation rates, indicated that exposure to infective vectors was 61-68% less for people in the ricefield village, due to the much lower sporozoite rate in An. arabiensis (ricefield 0.01%, sugarcane 0.1%, savannah 0.12%). This contrast was attributed to better socio-economic conditions of rice farmers, facilitating relatively more use of antimalarials and bednets for their families. Our findings show that, for a combination of reasons, the malaria challenge is lower for villagers associated with an irrigated rice-growing scheme (despite greater malaria vector potential), than for adjacent communities with other agro-ecosystems bringing less socio-economic benefits to health. This encourages the development of agro-irrigation schemes in African savannahs, provided that residents have ready access to antimalaria materials (i.e. effective antimalaria drugs and insecticidal bednets) that they may better afford for protection against the greater vectorial capacity of An. arabiensis from the ricefield agro-ecosystem.