ETHNOBOTANY OF INDIA

This chapter introduces the scope and contents of this volume, which deals with the ethnobotany of the Eastern Ghats and adjacent Deccan region of India. The physical features and geomorphology of the study region are briefly introduced. The ethnic diversity, worldviews and belief systems, ethnoecology, ethnotaxonomy, ethnonomenclature, traditional crop biodiversity, utilization aspects of plants of different ethnic communities (food, medicine, veterinary medicinal plants, etc.), documentation, conservation and management of ethnoplant resources, etc. of the study region are briefly introduced. The importance of mainstreaming traditional botanical knowledge of the study region is also emphasized.

1.1PHYSICAL FEATURES AND GEOMORPHOLOGY OF THE STUDY REGION

It is generally agreed upon that the Indian subcontinent was part of the Gondwanaland, got separated from it, drifted northwards and finally collided with the Asian tectonic plate to position itself as we see it today. The drifting took place by the early Cretaceous period and collision around 50–65 million years ago. The present day Indian subcontinent consists of four geomorphic provinces, each of which is structurally and lithologically distinct and physiographically contrasted; the four provinces also have an altogether different evolutionary history (Valdiya, 2010); the four provinces are: (i) The mountainous Himalayan province that girdles the northern border of the subcontinent; (ii) The flat and expansive Indo-Gangetic plains in the middle; (iii) The plateaus and uplands of peninsular India; and (iv) the coastal plains along the seaboard (Arabian Sea on the West, Bay of Bengal on the east and the Indian Ocean on the south). South of the Himalayan mountains is peninsular India, a shield of Archaean antiquity. Four well-defined crustal blocks, called Cratons (containing the oldest granite rocks) make up this mosaic of peninsular shear zones: (i) The Dharwar Craton (3.20 to 3.40 Ga) in south India, covering parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Kerala; (ii) The Bastor Craton (3.01 Ga) in central India, covering parts of north west Andhra Pradesh, south west Odisha, Chhattisgarh and north east Maharashtra; (iii) the Singhbhum Craton (3.56 Ga) in eastern India, covering northern Odisha, and south West Bengal; and (iv) The Bundelkhand Craton (3.31 Ga) in north western India covering eastern Rajasthan, southwest Uttar Pradesh and north west Madhya Pradesh. Each of these cratons have undergone “events of crustal rifting and sagging or shrinking of dismembered blocks, with the attendant volcanism, as well as deformations, metamorphosis, and granatization or charnockitization” (Valdiya, 2010). These processes have resulted in the welding of the crustal blocks into composite rigid cratons. During subsequent geological history these craton regions underwent several other geological and geomorphological changes.

Peninsular India is triangular in shape and the apex of the triangle is at the southernmost end of India (at Kanyakumari). It is about 2,200 km long in the N-S direction and around 1,400 km wide in E-W direction (in the region of greatest width). It consists of three physiographic regions: the mountain ranges on its three sides, the uplands and plateaus, the latter two constituting the longer part within the confines of these mountain regions and the coastal plains along the eastern and western seaboards (Figure 1.1). The peninsular Indian region covered in this book is bordered on the north by the Vindya-Satpura hill range that trends in the ENE-WSW direction, the Sahyadri hill range that extends 1, 600 km southwards from the Tapti valley to Kanyakumari on the western side and the East Coast hill range, which forms a series of physiographically discontinuous hill ranges on the East. The plateaus enclosed within these three hill ranges are the Deccan plateau. It encompasses practically the plains of Maharashtra (especially the Vidarba region), Odisha, the adjoining parts of the undivided Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The average elevation of Deccan is 600 m above msl. Covering the whole of Karnataka, adjoining Tamil Nadu and the undivided Andhra Pradesh is the Mysore Plateau, which is made up of Archaean gneisses, granites and high-grade metamorphic rocks.

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FIGURE 1.1Major mountain systems of India.

The major rivers of the Deccan region are the following: The Mahanadi, which has its source in Dandakaranya near Sihawan Rajpur district, has a length of 857 km, covers an area of 141,600 km² and the with a volume of average annual flow of 67,000/66,640 million cubic meters. The Godhavari river has its source at Trimbek Plateau near Nasik and has a length of 1,465 km, a drainage area of 312,812 km²and an annual volume flow of 105,000/118,000 million cubic meters. The Krishna river has its source near Mahabaleshwar (northern Sahyadri), runs for a length of 1,400 km, covers an area of 258,948 km² and has an annual volume flow of 62,800/67,670 million cubic meters. The Kaveri river has its origin in Talakaveri at central Sahyadri, runs for a length of 800 km, has an annual water flow of 87,900 km² and covers a drainage area of 20, 950 million cubic meters. The Pennar river originates near Kolar district in Karnataka, runs a length of 910 km, has an annual water flow of 55, 213 km² and covers a drainage area of 3, 238 million cubic meters.

The east coast (=eastern seaboard) stretches from Athagarh in Odisha to beyond Ramnad in Tamil Nadu. It is about 126 km wide. It is a coast of emergence, characterized by well-defined beaches, many sand dunes and sand spits and many lagoonal lakes associated with backwater swamps. The eastern seaboard is believed to have originated in the post-Cretaceous times and has grown and got modified since then. The shore between Visakhapatnam and Ganjam is a shore characterized by cliffs. Pulicat, Kolleru and Chilka lakes are the most prominent lakes in the east coast.

The most important study region covered in this book is the Eastern Hill range or Eastern Ghats (E. Ghats). These are ‘tors’ of geological antiquity and are geologically older than the Himalayas and Western Ghats. The Ghats orogeny had happened around 1600±100 million years ago. This hill range that lies on eastern side of the Deccan plateau of peninsular India forms a chain of physiographically discontinuous, elevated hill range that does not have any structural unity (Krishnamurthy et al., 2014). Many geographers consider the Khondmal hills in Odisha as the northern extremity of E. Ghats, while others consider the Simlipal massif of northern Odisha as the northern extremity. The E. Ghats traverse through the states of Odisha, undivided Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and parts of Karnataka and finally meet the Nilgiris of W. Ghats in the Moyar valley (Figure 1.2). BR hills form the southwestern extremity of E. Ghats while the southern extremity is near Ramnad in Tamil Nadu. The discontinuity in this hill range is mainly due to the great rivers, mentioned earlier, and the small rivers like Dahuda, Vamsadhara, Nagavalli, Sarada, Varaha, etc. that cut through the range.

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FIGURE 1.2Four major sections of Eastern Ghats with section 2 divided into two subsections (Source: Murthy et al 2007b [Proc. Nat. Sem. Conserv. Eastern Ghats, 2007, EPTRI]. Used with permission.)

The E. Ghats over an area of about 75,000 km², with an average width of about 200 km in the north and about 100 km in the south. A maximum area of about 48% of E. Ghats falls in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, while its area in Tamil Nadu and Odisha is about 25% each and the remaining 2% pass through Karnataka (see Krishnamurthy et al., 2014). The hill range has a length of 1,750 km. the average elevation is about 700 m, though individual peaks may rise up to a height of 1,675 m msl. Most geologists believe that the E. Ghats is geologically heterogeneous in origin: two distinct kinds of hill ranges make up the so-called E. Ghats. The first one (often called the northern E. Ghats runs parallel to the east coast in a N-SW direction up to Krishna valley (Ongole). This is the true E. Ghats and is also called the E. Ghats Mobile Belt (EGMB). The other part runs south of Krishna valley and has hills that are of heterogeneous character. However, in this volume, E. Ghats is been considered to include both these regions, as many others have done earlier. The composite E. Ghats generally is considered to have three major sections: North (North Odisha to Guntur in undivided Andhra Pradesh), Middle (Krishna river to near about Chennai in Tamil Nadu), and South (the rest of the E. Ghats in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka). In Karnataka E. Ghats runs from Bellary, through Chitradurga, Kolar, Tumkar and ends in BR hills. There are 138 major hills in E. Ghats (Krishnamurthy et al., 2014).

1.2ETHNIC DIVERSITY OF THE STUDY REGION

India is remarkable for its diversity, both biological and human. The Indian subcontinent has about 427 tribal communities (Singh, 1993) with about 62–65 million people (Vinodkumar, 2007), although others speak of 4635 well-defined groups under 532 tribes (of which 72 are primitive including 36 hunter-gatherer tribes). The great ethnic human diversity of India is due to its position at the tri-junction of the African, the northern Eurasian and Oriental realms, as well as to its great variety of environmental regimes. Its plant (and animal) wealth has been continuously attracting humans in many streams starting from about 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, at different historical times and from different directions. This has brought together a great diversity of human genes and human cultures into India and their subsequent mix-up to various degrees. While in other parts of the world the dominant human culture of those parts has been known to absorb or eliminate other cultures that might enter there, the tendency in India, from historic times, has been to isolate and subjucate the subordinated cultures, thereby segmenting the cultural (and thereby the human) diversity (Gadgil et al., 1996). In the light of this background, the second chapter of this volume contributed by Bir Bahadur et al. provides a detailed account on the ethnic diversity of E. Ghats and Deccan region of India, the ethnobotany of which is the focus of this volume. They have not only explained the origin of the great ethnic diversity of this region, essentially based on the works of Gadgil et al. (1996) and Thangaraj (2011), but also have given details on the various ethnic tribes and their distribution in different parts of the region of study mentioned above.

1.3WORLDVIEWS AND BELIEF SYSTEMS

Societies, cultures and knowledge systems evolved almost simultaneously with the first establishment of modern human species in different parts of the world all along its migratory routes from Africa. The evolution and establishment of each one of the three was critically dependent on the evolution and establishment of the other two. All the three were not only dependent on the environmental conditions that prevailed in the different places where the human species got settled but also on the threads of culture and knowledge systems that the settling human population already possessed and carried along with it during their migration. Thus, there are two components in their social behavior, culture and knowledge system: one that they had before actually settling down and the other after they got settled to a place. The first component largely explains most, if not all, common aspects of social life, cultures and knowledge systems of the different ethnic societies of the world, however far away they are from each other at present. However, we should not also rule out parallel or independent evolution of certain common components in societal organization, culture and knowledge systems of different ethnic societies of the world.

Hunting-gathering and nomadic society, and cultures and knowledge systems associated with it, were the earliest to evolve as humans were on a constant move during their early migration from Africa, as well as around places of settlement within a reasonably smaller territory until about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago when agriculture and the societies, cultures and knowledge systems associated with evolved and almost replaced the hunter-gatherer culture. It is this hunter-gatherer, short-distance-nomadic populations “settled” on the various migratory routes who have greatly contributed to the evolution of societies, cultures and knowledge systems. These pockets of human population are to be rightly referred to as Indigenous communities. The occupation of new environmental niches by these human societies was initially enabled by the effective tool-making and using abilities, control over fire and the group-gathering and hunting for food. These adaptations fine-tuned the utilization of the natural resources available around them (Gadgil, 1987). The interrelationship between different members of an ethnic/tribal group, which make social life possible, is called social organization. An ethnic society normally has a territory and is endogamous and is often divided into clans, subclasses/subgroups, etc. each pursuing traditionally a well-defined, similar mode of subsistence and similar levels of access to environmental resources like plants and are egalitarian in nature. The social relationship amongst the members is governed by kinship and mutual help and all of them strive for protecting their environment and its resources and sustainably use them (Gadgil and Thapar, 1990).

The world knows (had known in the past also) a great variety of cultures and civilizations) each with their own knowledge, value and belief systems. Biologists define culture as the acquisition of behavioral traits from conspecifics through the process of social learning (Gadgil, 1987) and, thus culture is one that is learnt. Sociologists define it as that complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any other attributes acquired by any one as a member of a society (Tylor, 1874) and thus a culture is a man-made component of the environment (Parthasarathy, 2002). Hence, culture of different ethnic communities is largely dependent on the environmental conditions prevailing in any region, particularly the environmental resources available. It is because of this that cultural diversity and biodiversity of any region go hand in hand, particularly in primitive human locations (McNeely and Pitt, 1985; see also Krishnamurthy, 2003).

The knowledge systems known to traditional/indigenous ethnic societies is called traditional knowledge system (TKS) or indigenous knowledge system (IKS). TKS is also referred to by terms, such as worldviews, cosmovisions or beliefsystems. These three terms actually refer to the different ways of perceiving, interpreting and learning about the world around the people. The different worldviews of different ethnic communities have come to gain knowledge about the world and its environmental components (living as well as non-living) around them, thus resulting in different knowledge contents. Invariably, however, worldview is expressed by conceiving life and the knowledge obtained during a life period in terms of three interrelated and inseparable domains (or worlds or spheres): Natural, Human and spiritual. To a great extent, the ability of an ethnic community to use the local environmental resources like plants is determined by the above worldview. The worldview includes knowledge that is not limited to the world that can be perceived with human senses and can be explained in a rational way, but also to a world beyond human perception. Thus, knowledge, according many ethnic societies, is a combination of that which is true and that which is believed, and that truth and belief go together. This knowledge is also qualitative, practical, partial, intuitive and holistic. Information relating to worldviews on plants and their validity and importance has largely been obtained through three main approaches (Cotton, 1996): (i) ecocultural approach (ii) cognitive and socio-cultural approach, and (iii) utilitarian or economic approach. The first invokes certain traditional cultural practices, such as sowing, transplanting and harvesting taboos and/or rituals; their importance can only be realized when the relevant cultural influences are known. Despite their culture-specific nature and importance, many traditional cultural practices involving plants may at first glance appear irrational, but in reality they have important functional consequences. The cognitive approach explains how different ethnic communities perceive plants and vegetative types and how such perceptions are influenced by sociocultural factors and spiritual beliefs. This approach also involves rituals/symbolic behaviors that fall in the realm of society, religion, magic, spiritual and supernatural domains. The utilitarian approach records how different species of plants are used as food, medicine or for other materialistic needs of humans and seeks to explain these uses on the basis of modern scientific methods. In Chapter 3, Krishnamurthy explains in detail the worldviews and belief systems of people of the Indian region covered in this book regarding plants and their importance from an ecocultural and sociocultural perspective; this kind of approach has not yet received adequate attention of those who are interested in Western science and its so-called rational (and reductionistic) approach.

1.4TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE ON ETHNOECOLOGY, ETHNONOMENCLATURE AND ETHNOTAXONOMY

Plants were there on this earth long before the evolution of the modern human species. Once on earth, man had to confront all major groups of plants, which had already adapted themselves to diverse habitats/ecosystems of the world, through his own adaptation to the very different environments around him. The knowledge was gained by him gradually during his prolonged period of interaction with the different environments and the diverse plants associated with them. This has resulted in an enormous body of information on traditional knowledge on plants, both wild and domesticated. As already stated, information relating to traditional knowledge on plants and their validity and importance have largely been obtained through ecocultural, cognitive and utilitarian approaches. Traditional knowledge on Indian plants is both non-codified and codified and cover folk/tribal knowledge. The knowledge on plants as gained in India in historic times is covered under Vrikshayurveda (= science of plant life). A thorough understanding of the languages and dialects often are used locally to the correct interpretation of most data/information on plants (Carroll, 1992). A variety of linguistic techniques have been employed so far (Martin, 1995).

The foremost and very important traditional knowledge on plants concerns knowledge on ethnoecology, ethnonomenclature and ethnotaxonomy, the former referring to naming of plants (and animals) around them by ethnic societies, while the third refers to a study of traditional systems of classification of plants (and animals). A critical study reveals that plants were named and classified by almost all traditional societies of the world. According to Malinowski (1974), and many others, satisfying the needs (for food, medicine, etc.) of traditional people is more important in recognizing naming and classifying plants (a materialistic view point). On the contrary, for Levi-Strauss (1966) and some others, the outlook of traditional people towards plants (and animals) is primarily intellectual and cognitive (and a natural urge) and divorced from pragmatic concerns, such as the one mentioned above. Both these perspectives are important in understanding ethnonomenclature and ethnotaxonomy. Ethnoecology concerns the ideas and concepts of ethnic communities on ecology and ecosystems that prevailed around their communities.

Ethnonomenclature and ethnotaxonomy require a deep and critical knowledge on the life of plants (animals) around the different ethnic communities. It also requires several technical/descriptive terms to denote the different structural and functional characteristic of the different plants. Also needed are practical and intuitive knowledge on characters of primary importance, especially identifying sets of contrasting characters, for the diagnosis and classification of plants. In naming plants, linguistic definition has often attained importance. Patterns revealed through linguistic analysis of plant names and categories have often provided clues to the used and other characteristics of plants (Martin, 1995). It is now widely recognized that not all conceptual categories of taxa received linguistic recognition and hence folk taxonomists are now beginning to look only at the structural details of linguistically defined nomenclatural and taxonomic systems, but also at their substantive nature (Ellen, 1994). Perhaps the first and detailed ethnonomenclatural and ethnotaxonomic analysis was done by Conklin (1954, 1974). This was followed by a synthesis of general principles by Berlin and his co-workers (Berlin et al., 1973; Berlin, 1992), and a statement on other cross-language patterns in ethnonomenclature and ethnotaxonomy (Brown, 1984, 2000). These aspects are described in detail by Krishnamurthy and John Adams in Chapter 4. These authors have tried to fit in details of nomenclature and classification of ethnic Tamil people into the general principles proposed by Berlin and his group and in the cross-language patterns detailed by Brown.

1.5TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL CROP DIVERSITY

Today, most people depend on agriculture for their daily sustenance. Yet, it is a very recent development in the history of humanity. It is commonly believed that only around 10,000 radio-carbon years ago agriculture started first in South West Asia. The transition from foraging to farming drastically changed the relationship of humans with their environment. Because agriculture allowed more people to be sustained per unit area of cultivable land, it paved the way for a settled human life as well as for the development of towns, crafts, trade, scripts and technologies; there was a drastic cultural, social, and political change as well (Harris, 2005). By about 1500 CE, when Europeans were beginning to colonize other continents, most people of the world were already dependent for their sustenance on agriculture practiced in a variety of environmental systems, except in Australia.

Tracing the exact origin of agriculture (the transition from foraging to farming), at least in some parts of the world, such as Africa, is very difficult, particularly because lack of clinching archaeobotanical records/data. Neither is clear the causes of origin of agriculture. Although several hypotheses, such as the Oasis hypothesis, the Natural habitat hypothesis, the Population pressure hypothesis, the Edge-zone hypothesis, etc. have been proposed in the past to explain the origin of agricultural activity [see Harris (2005) for detailed literature], it is now generally agreed that climate changes, population pressure and technological advancement involving people-plant interaction all have resulted in the origin of agriculture. Once initiated agriculture evolved through the involvement of cultivation, domestication and the establishment of agricultural economies.

The facts relating to the origin, antiquity and sources of agriculture in India are very vexed, hazy and controversial problems (Srivastava, 2008). The earliest evidence of agriculture in the Indian subcontinent is from 8000 years ago from the present (Srivastava, 2008; Jarrige and Meadow, 1980). It started in the Indo-Gangetic region and then got spread to south a little later (see Fuller et al., 2001). Traditional biodiversity knowledge is being studies at three levels: genetic, specific and ecosystem. Traditional communities throughout the world have been promoting efforts to maintain all these three levels of biodiversity. Maintenance of genetic diversity within a species implies maintenance of that plant species. India is one of the eight centers of origin of crop plant species accounting for about 115 food species and for about 110 non-food species out of about 325 domesticated in India (Krishnamurthy, 2009) out of which about 45 are believed to have been domesticated in Eastern Ghats and adjacent regions (Krishnamurthy et al., 2014). E. Ghats is believed to be a primary/secondary /diffuse center of origin, diversity and spread for rice, pigeon pea, some cucurbits, black gram, banana, mango, jamun, some millets, cow pea, sesame, Okra, green gram leafy amaranths, etc. It also has around 460 out of about 2000 domesticated medicinal plants. Besides, this region is very rich in wild relatives of useful plants. In Chapter 5, Pandravada et al. discusses all aspects related to the diversity of agricultural crops in the region under consideration in this volume.

1.6UTILITARIAN ETHNOBOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE

It was discussed earlier in this chapter that there are three approaches to the study of ethnobotanical knowledge, one of which is the utilitarian or economic approach (see Cotton, 1996). Harshberger (1896) was perhaps the first to emphasize the strictly utilitarian aspects of ethnobotanical knowledge. This approach involves the collection of knowledge about the uses and management of different plant species as well as about the identification of useful species possessed by the tribal communities although it generally fails to take into account the cultural perception of plants used by different tribal communities, Most protagonists of western science are interested only in the utilization aspects of ethnobotany. The physical structures, the chemical contents and their nutritional, therapeutic and other effects on humans have all enabled the use of plants for various human requirements, such as food, nutraceuticals, medicines, cosmetics, etc. In an age when population is exponentially increasing, man has to find additional/alternate sources of plants for meeting various human needs. Hence it is not surprising that research is mainly aimed at identifying novel plants and plant products that have untapped economic potential and to conserve traditional plant sources. This type of research is known as bioprospecting or geneprospecting (Reid et al., 1993; Sittenberg and Gamez, 1993; Krishnamurthy, 2003). Essentially three methods have been used until now for bioprospecting. The first is the random method, which randomly selects a plant for its probable economic potential. The second is the phylogenetic method, which selected a plant species for analysis if its related species is already known to have economic value. The third is the ethno-directed method. In this method, attention is specifically focused on plants, which are known to be used by tribal people/ethnic communities, but not yet received wider attention. It is a ready-made knowledge that is sure to yield the desired results in addition to involving less research and development costs; it is also less time-consuming. Hence it is ideal to know and document available information on the various plants used by ethnic communities.

1.7FOOD PLANTS

The most important utilitarian botanical knowledge relates to food plants. Food is considered the very stuff of life. Along with water and heat, food is the substance and agent of operation and driving force of life. Most, if not all, of the food plants that humans use today have been identified as food plants by the ancient human communities in different parts of the world. It has been estimated that about 70,000 species of plants of the world have been found to be edible by indigenous human societies (Krishnamurthy, unpublished information). However, over the history of humankind on this earth, food and food systems (and their plant and animal sources) have got changed depending on the life-style of people. Hunter-gatherers depended on a tremendous variety of plant food, from tubers and grass seeds to the pith of palms and fleshy fruits. Agricultural-pastoral community tended a much smaller number of plant (and animal) species (around 3,000 species of plants). However, the level of production per unit area from these species is far greater. Such food plant harvests imply an intensification of the outflow of materials from small areas of cultivated and intensely grazed lands. The number of plants depended on as food got drastically reduced as transition from hunting-gathering to specificalized agriculture took place (Gadgil and Thapar, 1990). Thus, the humans gradually became more dependent and specialized for their food supply on a small selection of crops, grains in some parts of the world and on tuber crops and roots in other parts. The traditional foods and food systems, although still survive in many primitive ethnic societies of the world, have been mostly corrupted or altogether replaced in several world communities, gradually in most cases, but quite abruptly in certain others. Globalization and homogenization have replaced local food plants and diet-related chronic disorders and other forms of malnutrition (Kuhnlein et al., 2009). It should, however, be emphazied that the traditional food systems of indigenous communities touch the full spectrum of life in ways that the present day food systems do not. If something bad happens to the present day food systems and their source plants, we have no other option except to go back to our traditional food sources.

Food is close to the hearts of indigenous peoples and is often suited to their local environmental and cultural conditions. Social networks and cohesion were often involved in traditional food systems. Indigenous peoples’ food systems contain treasures of knowledge from the long-evolved cultures and patterns of living in their respective ecosystems. The dimensions of nature and culture that define a food system of an indigenous society contribute to the whole health picture of the individual and the community-not only physical health but also the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of health, healing and protection from diseases. An impressive array of food species and varieties has been documented and some of these still require botanical identification and nutrient-composition analysis. Equally impressive are the diverse methods that traditional societies have employed in food collection, preservation, processing and cooking. Not all the foods that the ethnic societies used are equal. Some are relished, others only tolerated and still others are loathed, being eaten only when absolutely necessary (Minnis, 2000). Although the greatest scientific attention has been paid so far on the most common and relished food and its source plants, attention need also to be focused on the less desirable foods, frequently called ‘famine foods,’ ‘starvation foods,’ ‘emergency foods,’ or ‘queer foods.’ In Chapter 6, Sadasivaiah and Pullaiah discuss on the various aspects of ethnic food systems and their source plants. It is evident from their discussion that many tribal food plants have been domesticated; yet there are several others that need to be further researched on their potential to be added to the principal food sources of mainstream people. Also needs to be researched is whether ‘famine’ or ‘starvation’ food plants mentioned in this article are once commonly used food plants, as per the suggestions of Minnis (2000).

1.8MEDICINAL PLANTS

Plants are known not only to have nutritive value and to providing a long life, but also are known to be important allies in the curing of ailments and as antidotes for poisons. Plants also save humans from ailments. The traditional people’s wisdom is that there is no herb (=plant), which does not possess medicinal properties (Zimmer, 1935). Most, if not all, human diseases now known were also known to ancient people, although in different names. Ancient medical knowledge is available in the form of both non-codified folk medicine and of codified medicine. Traditional (also often called alternate or complementary medicine) medicine was particularly well developed in India, China, Tibet, Greece, Egypt and other Arab countries and in many traditional societies of other parts of the world. Although the power of plants is certainly due to the actual physiological processes of healing, for traditional societies it equally seems that their ritual principles of similarity, for example, to “sympathetic” transformations, wherein the appearance, location, or other properties of plants (for example the panchabhuta or five-element nature) are directly related to the medical problems at hand.

The tribal communities have a tremendous depth of knowledge regarding the use of natural medicinal resources, including plants. The tribals, in India alone, use over 7,500 to 9,000 species of plants as medicines and nutraceuticals; similarly the codified traditional medical systems of India, such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, etc. use around 8,000 species of plants. An integral component of tribal medicine is its association with shamanism. A shaman or poojari is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits; he typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul, while at the same time prescribing ritually sanctified herbals or their extracts/juices. Shamanism cannot be strictly defined as medicine, although healing is its main objective. Shamans have a vast knowledge on the medicinal properties of plants. Thus, tribal medical system effectively combines belief systems and medicinal properties of plants.

In Chapter 7, Karuppusamy and Pullaiah have given an elaborate account on the ethanomedicinal plants of Eastern Ghats and the adjacent Deccan region of south India. They have not only given a detailed list on medicinal and aromatic plants but also the ailments for which these medicinal plants are used. Also given in this chapter are the accounts on the indigenous medicinal systems followed in this region as well as on the major types of medical formulations used.

1.9PLANTS OF ETHNOVETERINARY IMPORTANCE

India is blessed with a very rich animal biodiversity. It is also one of the important centers of animal domestication. Animal domestication, particularly of cattle, was perfected predominantly by the pastoral people, generally called Yadavas (in ancient Tamil country these people were known as Idaiyars or Konars), who were generally nomadic and pastoral initially but were settled subsequently. India is known to have 30 indigenous cattle breeds, 12 buffalo breeds, 20 breeds of goat, 40 breeds of sheep, 6 breeds of horse, 8 breeds of camel, 3 breeds of pig, 18 breeds of poultry (Aruna Kumara and Anand, 2006), and many breeds of dogs and cats. Farmers use livestock and many other animals as a source of milk, manure and fuel, as draft animals for plowing and carting, and as a source of animal protein; some are treated as pets. The most important breeds of cattle in the region covered in this book are Amruthmahal, Hallikar, Krishna valley, Ongole, Punganur, Baragur, Kangayam, Manapparai, Malaimadu, Pulikkulam, Toda buffalo, etc.

Traditional communities paid a good deal of attention to animal husbandry which included breeding, feeding and maintenance, and preventing and curing diseases that may afflict domesticated animals or livestock. Fodder from wild and cultivated resources was given importance in feeding domesticated and in attracting game animals. Indeed, many traditional communities demonstrated a considerable knowledge of both the nutritional quality of different grazing or forage plant species and the ecological interactions between particular wild species of plants and animals (Krishnamurthy et al., 2014). Traditional communities also paid very great attention to prevention, control and eradication of diseases of domesticated and game animals. Ethnoveterinary medicine is as old as the domestication of animals, and in India and many other tribal localities of the world this medicine is rich and efficient and plays an important social, religious and economic role in the life of traditional societies. It comprises of belief, knowledge, practices and skills pertaining to healthcare and management of livestock (Nair, 2006). More than 250 diseases and their preventive and curative herbs have been known. However, there is a great need for documenting local ethnoveterinary practices as well as to assess these practices and knowledge for their efficacy and safety. There is also a need to revitalize these practices. In Chapter 8, Hari babu et al. discuss and summarize our knowledge of the traditional societies of Eastern Ghats and adjacent Deccan region on local ethnoveterinary practices involving plants.

1.10PLANTS THAT ARE USED FOR PURPOSES OTHER THAN FOOD AND MEDICINE

Species of plants provide an array of products, other than food and medicine, used by people. Certain of these plants are exploited from the wild, while others sustain humanity through cultivation. In spite of vast overall development, plant biodiversity as a resource largely remains poorly understood, underexploited and inadequately documented. Knowledge on plant use from indigenous people has not yet been translated into wider use largely because of its non-availability to most people. Other than for food and medicine ethnic communities throughout the world have been exploiting, sustainably, plants around them as sources of horticultural and ornamental plants, timber, fiber, dyes, fuel and other renewable energy and a host of other products used in industry and commerce (Krishnamurthy, 2003). In Chapter 9, Chandrasekhara Reddy et al. have provided a detailed account on the traditionally used plants of Eastern Ghats and the adjacent Deccan region for purposes other than for food and medicine. It is evident from their account that many traditionally-used plants of this region should be brought into mainstream use not only through popula-tionization and cultivation but also through biotechnological tools and techniques.

1.11CONSERVATION, DOCUMENTATION, AND MANAGEMENT OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE ON PLANTS

The idea that ethnic knowledge on plant biodiversity is worth conserving rests on several fundamental arguments including nostalgia and human benefits and needs. The innate desire to experience the great pleasure that ethnic plant biodiversity knowledge has given us is part of the nostalgic argument for its conservation, although this nostalgic argument should not push us into construing conservation as an act aimed at considering tribal biodiversity knowledge an untouchable entity. Conservation, on the contrary, should be considered as a philosophy of managing plants and other environmental resources in a sustainable way so that it does not despoil, exhaust, or extinguish the resources and the values and uses they have.

The first and foremost effort towards conservation of traditional knowledge on plants is the serious and effective documentation of such knowledge since most, if not all, such knowledge have all along been passed on from one generation to another, mostly orally. It was possible that valuable information might have been already lost in this process. Documentation should begin at the most local level, for example, at each of the traditional communities of the world. An important example is the initiation of community Biodiversity Registers by Gadgil and his coworkers (Gadgil et al., 1995; see details in Krishnamurthy, 2003). The creation of databases and Networks on indigenous knowledge is another. As examples we may cite the Indigenous people’s Biodiversity Network (IPBN) and SRISTI. Yet another effort is the running of newsletters like the ones on Eastern Ghats, medicinal plants, Seshaiyana, etc. with the help of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. Mention must also be made on the All India Coordinated Project on Ethnobotany and the National Agricultural Technology Project on germplasms of useful Indian plants as well as books written by various authors on ethnobotanical information pertaining to Indian indigenous communities. Bir Bahadur et al. have given an excellent account on the documentation efforts so far undertaken in Chapter 10.

Traditional communities themselves have been excellent conservators of their own knowledge and resources. Their approach is based more on cultural and social perspectives as well as on belief systems than on political and reductionist western scientific systems. A truly sustainable developmental approach is followed by them with the involvement of the entire community in benefit sharing of the common resources. Participatory resource management and use of the resources owned commonly by the entire community is one such approach. A detailed account on conservation strategies, documentation and management of ethno-knowledge followed for Eastern Ghats and the adjacent Deccan region is also provided in Chapter. These activities are made easy through developments in computer science and information technology in the last two to three decades. Chapter 11 written by Pal and Bir Bahadur deal in detail with computer applications in ethnobotany.

1.12MAINSTREAMING TRADITIONAL BOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE

Attempts to make a wider use and application of indigenous knowledge system, because of the superiority of the ethno-directed approach, have begun to revolutionize the food, agriculture, health and other consumer sectors. Hence there is an increasing effort to mainstream traditional knowledge, popularize it and to exploit it through Bioprospecting. Such an effort has often resulted in biopiracy and deprivation of the legitimate rights to benefits of traditional societies which own this knowledge (see discussion in Krishnamurthy, 2003). Bioprospecting looks for every valuable traditional genetic and/or biochemical resource that finds use in pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, agricultural and biotechnological industries either through bioprocesses unique to the resource or through novel end or byproducts that can be obtained from it. The medical formulations found in codified and non-codified systems of medicine are now getting gradually subjected to phytochemical and therapeutic analysis to understand the chemical bases of their activity through reverse pharmacognosy and reverse pharmacology. The number of plants investigated so far in this way is very few and more traditionally used plants should be prioritized for analysis on a war-footing (Krishnamurthy, 2009). In Chapter 12, Pushpangadan et al. discuss some aspects related to bioprospecting, ethnopharmacology and patenting. The demand for ethnobotanicals is often not with adequate supply of genuine raw materials and is topped up, often, with substitutes or adulterants. As a result, we need standardization of ethnobotanicals through proper authentication using techniques like microscopy, phytochemistry and molecular biology.

1.13CONCLUSIONS

There is no doubt of the considerable potential benefits that arise from ethnobotnaical research. There is also no doubt that these benefits have considerable importance to the sustainable economic development, particularly of rural areas, in spite of problems that may be associated with ethno-directed developmental projects. India, as discussed in the chapters of this volume, is an ethnobotanically rich country and, therefore, can develop into an economically sound country, if its ethnoresources are adequately conserved and sustainably exploited. It is also very clear from the chapters of this volume that attention needs to be focused in future not only on a utilitarian approach but also on a cultural and cognitive social-cultural approach, so that the development that would be achieved would be definitely holistic and not reductionistic. It is certain that ethnobotany-based development in India would indirectly contribute to the overall development of the whole world. One of the fundamental problems which, however, remains is the protection of the ethnic tribes themselves and also their bundle of rights, including the benefit-sharing rights. The other problem pertains to the standardization of ethnobotanicals using adequate techniques including techniques of ethnogenomics.

KEYWORDS

•Belief Systems

•Deccan

•Eastern Ghats

•Ethnocrop Diversity

•Ethnofood Plants

•Ethnogenomics

•Ethnomedicinal Plants

•Ethnotaxonomy

•Worldview

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

ABSTRACT