From the Land

Sustainable indigenous practices survive over the years to prove beneficial for today’s world

While ancient farming, hunting and social traditions remain in use among indigenous tribes of Guyana, for many years they were ignored by the wider society and often dismissed as primitive practices.
With more focus being paid today on sustainable environmental practices however, the world has turned to ancient indigenous traditions to learn about the natural environment as well as develop natural medicines.

Fishing traditions
According to barima.com, the fact that some of the plants Amerindians use for fishing can also be used as medicines has caused researchers to look into their curative properties, particularly in certain types of cancer.
Fishing using poisonous plants is a practice among many different cultures worldwide. Guyana’s Amerindian tribes make use of a wide variety of plants for catching fish, along with the common arrow and bow or spear fishing.
The most used substance, the website goes on to state, and the least dangerous for man, is rotenone. Rotenone is used as an insecticide and pesticide in other societies.
Rotenone, obtained from such plants as barbasco and cubé, are taken from the roots, seeds and leaves. The extract paralyses the lungs of the fish, which is therefore obliged to surface, where it is “picked up” by the Amerindian fishermen. Since rotenone only reacts in direct contact with the bloodstream in man, eating the fish is not dangerous, states barima.com.
Plants containing this chemical, such as the Fabaceae family, especially species of Lonchocarpus, Paraderris and Tephrosia, are utilised by submerging in the fishing grounds.
The site notes too that in the Barima River region, more than 11 plants are used for fishing, and at least seven of these are cultivated.

Medicinal treatments
Using herbs or plants, along with animal parts and insects, to cure a variety of ailments have been part of indigenous tradition for millennia, now being investigated by scientists and researchers.
Over the years, the village medicine man has been a powerful and important figure in traditional communities for his knowledge of herbal medicines and cures for injuries, diseases and ailments. Many of Guyana’s indigenous communities are no different as they still rely on such individuals in the absence of modern clinics or hospitals nearby.
The barima.com website writes that there is a wealth of choice from the 294 plant species with recognised curative properties. Two simple problems, it says, such as coughs and colds can be treated by almost 50 different plants, whilst eczema has a choice of five remedies.
A recent publication, written by Clifford Stanley called “Uses of medicinal plants in Guyana”, looks at more than 100 plants in Guyana that are being used as non-traditional medicine for a variety of ailments.
The commonly known crab oil, made from the seeds of the crabwood tree, is widely used as hair oil, mosquito repellent and tonic.
Along with plants, insects are also used in medicinal treatments. One report noted that the Patamona tribe, without the availability of modern pain reliever medicines, treats a simple headache using the Uyuk, a small black, shiny insect; a person would sting himself or herself around the temples with the insect’s sting to relieve the pain.
For injuries like snakebites, the report stated that the Patamona would use caiman’s teeth to draw the venom out of the individual’s blood.
Patamona boys also drink a certain vegetable and push a plant called “busy- busy” down their throats to aid regurgitation, as a way of building up their resistance to the common cold.

Learning from indigenous practices
While many such remedies are unorthodox to modern societies, there is nevertheless much interest in traditional indigenous medications worldwide.
At the end of the last century, several Amerindian villages were proposed as study fields for, among other things, the preservation and documentation of Amerindian medicinal practices and traditional health practices.
The villages included the Makushi villages of Annai, Kwatamang, Surama and Wowetta. The Patamona of Paramakatoi and the mixed Amerindian settlement of Kurupukari were some of the communities identified for the research.
Malaria in particular was noted as a health issue, and among the Makushi there was knowledge and use of certain plants for the relief and treatment of the disease.
Further research and documentation of indigenous health practices should help to preserve indigenous knowledge in a rapidly changing world that sees traditional native culture losing ground to modern developments and ways of life.
As the traditional ways of conveying such knowledge of nature through oral communication and experiencing the natural environment are lost when many new generations leave their communities, the documentation of Amerindian age-old knowledge of the land is vital to future generations.
However, it is also important that there should be equal sharing of the benefits of Amerindian knowledge when modern science relies on such sources to develop future medications. Exploiting indigenous knowledge is just as heinous as Columbus’ arrival in the New World proved to be for our original peoples.