Medicinal wild plant knowledge and gathering patterns in a Mapuche community from North-Western Patagonia.

ESTOMBA, DIEGO; LADIO, ANA; LOZADA, MARIANA

JOURNAL OF ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY

Elsevier

Lugar: The Netherlands; Año: 2006 vol. 103 p. 109 - 119

0378-8741

Medicinal plant use has persisted as a long standing tradition in theMapuche communities of Southern Argentina and Chile.  An ethnobotanicalsurvey was conducted in the rural Curruhuinca community located near themountain city of San Martin de los Andes, Argentina.  Semi-structuredinterviews were carried out on 22 families in order to examine the presentuse of medicinal plants and their  reputed therapeutic effects. Ecological variables,such as distance to the gathering site and biogeographical origin were alsoanalyzed. Our results showed that the Curruhuinca dwellers cited 89 plantspecies for medicinal purposes, both of native and exotic origin. They know about  47 native plants, of which they use 40, and they know of 42 exotic plants of which they use 34. A differential pattern was observed given that only native species, relevant for the traditional Mapuche medicine, were collected at more distant gathering sites. The intervieweesmentioned 268 plant usages.  Those most frequently reported had therapeutic value for treating digestive ailments (33 %), as analgesic/anti-inflammatory (25%) and antitusive(13%). Native species were mainly cited as analgesics, and for gynecological,urinary and "cultural syndrome" effects, whereas exotic species were mainly citedfor digestive ailments. The total number of medicinal plants known and usedby the interviewees is positively correlated with people´s age, indicatingthat this ancient knowledge tends to disappear in the younger generations.