Phytotherapies in motion: French Guiana as a case study for cross-cultural ethnobotanical hybridization

Abstract

Background French Guiana is characterized by a very multicultural population, made up of formerly settled groups (Amerindians, Maroons, Creoles) and more recent migrants (mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean). It is the ideal place to try to understand the influence of intercultural exchanges on the composition of medicinal floras and the evolution of phytotherapies under the effect of cross-culturalism. Methods A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Semi-directive interviews were conducted in 12 localities of French Guiana’s coast between January 2016 and June 2017, and the responses to all closed questions collected during the survey were computerized in an Excel spreadsheet to facilitate quantitative processing. Herbarium vouchers were collected and deposited at the Cayenne Herbarium to determine Linnaean names of medicinal species mentioned by the interviewees. A list of indicator species for each cultural group considered was adapted from community ecology to this ethnobiological context, according to the Dufrêne-Legendre model, via the “labdsv” package and the “indval” function, after performing a redundancy analysis (RDA). Results A total of 205 people, belonging to 15 distinct cultural groups, were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. A total of 356 species (for 106 botanical families) were cited. We observed that pantropical and edible species hold a special place in these pharmacopeias. If compared to previous inventories, 31 recently introduced species can be counted. Furthermore, this study shows that the majority of the plants used are not specific to a particular group but shared by many communities. However, despite this obvious cross-culturalism of medicinal plants between the different cultural communities of French Guiana, divergent trends nevertheless appear through the importance of 29 indicator/cultural keystone species in 10 cultural groups. Finally, we have emphasized that the transmission of herbal medicine’s knowledge in French Guiana is mainly feminine and intra-cultural. Conclusion French Guianese medicinal flora is undoubtedly related to the multiple cultures that settled this territory through the last centuries. Cultural pharmacopeias are more hybrid than sometimes expected, but cultural keystone species nevertheless arise from a common background, allowing to understand, and define, the relationships between cultural groups.

Disadvantaged Economic Conditions and Stricter Border Rules Shape Afghan Refugees’ Ethnobotany: Insights from Kohat District, NW Pakistan

“…More than half of the identified taxa were common to AI and AO, possibly due to the fact that both these communities inhabited the same socio-ecological environment before their migration and had similar cultures and customs. Additionally, the two groups are exogamous, which allows intermarriages and consequently promotes exchanges of LEK, mainly through vertical transmission (transferred from grandmother to mother and from mother to daughter); a similar finding has been documented in other studies [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Ceiba pentandra (Malvaceae) and associated species: Spiritual Keystone Species of the Neotropics

“…The concept of Cultural Keystone Species was originally an adaptation (Platten and Henfrey, 2009) of the 'keystone species' concept of ecology (Paine, 1969). It has been applied to a diverse range of culturally-important flora and fauna, from rice in the Phillipines (Zapico et al, 2020) to bears in Canada (Clark et al, 2021), echidnas in Australia (McKemey et al, 2019), medicinal plants in French Guiana (Tareau et al, 2020) and herring on the Pacific coast of North America (Moss, 2016). Modifications of the original concept have included combining it with the concept of biocultural diversity, arguing that 'Biocultural Keystone Species' better captures the diverse range of ecological and cultural significance such species often hold (Shackleton et al, 2018).…”

When local phytotherapies meet biomedicine. Cross-sectional study of knowledge and intercultural practices against malaria in Eastern French Guiana

“…The population stems from a great diversity of cultural groups: Amerindians (mostly Palikur, Wayãpi and Teko from the upper-Oyapock, and a minority of Karipuna and Galibi-Marworno from Brazil), French Guianese Creoles, a mixed Franco-Brazilian population, and Brazilian migrants. As discussed in previous works (Tareau et al, 2020), defining ethnicity in these mixed-populations is difficult, as cultural groups may be built upon ethnic specificities as much as upon nationalities. We thus adopted the most common self-denominations (for example Palikur or Creole), and considered the broad "Brazilian" group, understood as "non-Amerindian Portuguese speaking people".…”

“…In keeping with Hurrell and Pochettino (2014) and Leonti, (2011), the use of this plant has probably increased due to its prominence in local media. This species of widespread use (Odonne et al, 2020) was in recent years the center of a polemic related to a biopiracy issue (Bourdy et al, 2017) that has certainly added a kind of scientific dressing to its already widespread fame. It is also interesting to note that this species is the most cited in SGO regarding all kind of diseases (Tareau et al, 2019b).…”