Ethnomedicine

Contributed by Nemer E. Narchi During the year of 2007 I was walking down the streets of La Paz, Bolivia, as part of a group of anthropology students waiting for some others to arrive and go down to the Bolivian Amazon to learn field methods in anthropology as part of the Tsimane Amazonian Panel Study… Read more »

Contributed by Michelle Baumflek Medicinal plants and fungi play important roles in the health of Maliseet people from northern Maine, USA. A critical aspect of health sovereignty for this community is being able to locate and have access to these plants.  Commercial development on their traditional gathering sites and restricted access to privately owned lands… Read more »

Contributed by Morgan Ruelle Subsistence farmers in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia maintain a rich legacy of plant diversity, including many plants they know how to use as medicine. These farming communities are encountering a number of complex changes, including population growth, new road construction and local effects of global climate change. Favorable market prices… Read more »

Contributed by Jeffrey Wall                            In the fourth century BCE, the Greek traveler Xenophon reported that chestnut was a prominent food for people of the Caucasus (Xenophon [1895]).  The tree and its use as food and timber first spread from this region around the Black Sea and eventually to Central and Western Europe (see Figures 3… Read more »

Contributed by Rajeev Goyal When the foothill region, known as the “Chure Bawar” or “Little Himalayas,” was first settled, Amrit Bahadur Rai founded the Sawitri Primary School in Yangshila village in 1969, and served as its first headmaster and teacher. Today, Amrit Baaje (“Grandfather Amrit”), as he is known, is also the most knowledgeable medicinal… Read more »