Local empirical knowledge about medicinal properties of plants is the basis for their use as home remedies. Particularly in developing countries such remedies still are an indispensable resource for everyday health care. They form the basis for numerous studies on drugs from natural sources. Like other indigenous groups across the world, the Ch'orti' Maya in Eastern Guatemala are currently experiencing a phase of dramatic cultural change, with their traditional knowledge about plants being in great danger of disappearing. During 17 months of fieldwork, medicinal plant uses were documented using a semi-quantitative approach and analysed using ethnopharmacological methods. The most important groups of illnesses treated with plants were gastrointestinal complaints and illnesses associated with pain and fever. Field data were compared with mostly unpublished historical data collected in the 1930s by the anthropologist Charles Wisdom. This comparison showed that medicinal plant uses that are more consistent over time are also shared by a larger number of people. A literature search on the most frequently mentioned medicinal plants showed that, even for widely used medicinal species, phytochemical and pharmacological data are insufficient for fully understanding their therapeutic profile. Whereas a few examples of potentially dangerous practices were encountered, the limited amount of information available mostly supports local medicinal plant usage.

The transdisciplinary research design facilitated scientifically rigorous and societally relevant large-scale fieldwork, which is clearly beneficial to indigenous collaborators. It provided access and built trust as prerequisites for assembling the largest comparative ethnopharmacological collection, vastly extending knowledge on Maya phytotherapy. The collection represents knowledge of the two groups' most reputed herbalists and is a representative selection of the Guatemalan medicinal flora. ICD-10 proved useful for making broad comparisons between the groups, but more refined approaches would be necessary for other research objectives. Knowledge in the two areas is highly diverse and seems fragmented. New approaches are required to assess how coherent Maya phytotherapy is. The documented 'traditional' ethno-pharmacopoeias demonstrate dynamic change and acculturation, reflecting the two linguistic groups' sociocultural history and context. This highlights the adaptive potential of phyto-therapeutic knowledge and calls the equation of local indigenous pharmacopoeias with 'traditional' medicine into question. We suggest using the term 'local' pharmacopoeias, and reserving the term 'traditional' for the study of indigenous pharmacopoeias with a clear delineation of ancient knowledge.

Material and Methods Plant MaterialIn 1995 cuttings of 16 L. alba populations from all over Guatemala (Table 1) were transplanted in an experimental field at ICTA (Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologia Agricola), Cuyuta, Guatemala. The term 'collection source' in Table 1 specifies the origin of plant material, which was collected from house gardens ('cultivated') or from the wild. Cuttings were planted at distances of 75 × 50 cm in a randomized block design with three replications, 16 plants per replication.The decision to collect cuttings instead of seeds from wild populations derived from the extremely low germination rates found for L. alba of only 1-2%. Herbarium specimens of each population were deposited at the Universidad del Valle, Guatemala City, Guatemala. 90 days after transplantation, leaves and flowers were harvested and dried in a greenhouse at an average temperature of 32°C for 4 days. The temperature in the greenhouse was regulated by a ventilator. Morphological CharactersThree out of several morphological characters were especially interesting in the context of essential oil composition: leaf shape, width of the leaf, and length of the flower stem. The length of the flower stem, measured at the 4th node from the top, is defined as the distance between the axilla and the node of the involucre.

No abstract

No abstract