The Q'eqchi' Maya of Belize have an extensive ethnopharmacopoeia of medicinal plants used traditionally for reproductive health and fertility. Ethnobotanical research was carried out in the Q'eqchi' communities of the Toledo District of Southern Belize from 2007-2011 on medicinal plant species used for reproductive health. Data was gathered primarily through semi-structured interviews and plant collecting trips with 6 traditional healers, 3 midwives, and 12 female herbalists. The Belizean Q'eqchi' are utilizing more than 60 plant species for reproductive health treatments, with the most species from the family Piperaceae.
The Q’eqchi’ Maya of Belize have an extensive pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants used traditionally for reproductive health and fertility, utilizing more than 60 plant species for these health treatments. Ten species were selected for investigation of their estrogenic activity using a reporter gene assay. Nine of the species were estrogenic, four of the species were also antiestrogenic, and two of the extracts were cytotoxic to the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. Women’s healing traditions are being lost in the Q’eqchi’ communities of Belize at an accelerated rate, due to a combination of factors including: migration from Guatemala disrupting traditional lines of knowledge transmission; perceived disapproval by biomedical authorities; women’s limited mobility due to domestic obligations; and lack of confidence stemming from the devaluation of women’s knowledge. Q’eqchi’ medicinal plant knowledge is highly gendered with women and men using different species in traditional health treatments. Revitalizing women’s healing practices is vital for maintaining the traditional knowledge needed to provide comprehensive healthcare for Belize’s indigenous communities.
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India Has One Of The Oldest, Richest And Most Diverse Cultural Traditions Called Folk Tradition Associated With The Use Of Medicinal Herbs. Traditional Folk Medicine Is The Application Of Indigenous Beliefs, Knowledge, Skills And Cultural Practices Concerned With Human Health. The Ethnic People Have Provided Several Miracle Plants Of Medicinal Value To Modern Civilisation. The Present Book, Ethnomedicinal Plants, Contains 15 Articles On Different Aspects Of The Subject. The Book Contains Articles On Medicinal Plants In India And Their Conservation; Protection Of Traditional Knowledge; Medicinal Plants Of Nepal; And Ethno-Medico Botany Of Orissa And Some Parts Of Rajasthan. Articles On The Uses Of Plants In The Treatment Of Urinary Tract Diseases; Ethno-Veterinary Medicinal Plants And Plants In Healthcare During Pregnancy Include Some General And A Few Specific Medicinal Plants Of Great Importance. In Addition To This, General Articles, Namely, Ethnobotany Green Gold Branch Of Botanical Sciences And Modulation Of Radiosensitivity By Certain Plant And Plant Products, Etc. Have Added To The Value Of The Book. This Book Provides Excellent Glimpses Of The Rich Ethnomedicinal Heritage Of India. The Present Book Will Serve Not Only As An Excellent Reference Material But Also As A Practical Guide For Folk Healers, Vaidyas, Research Workers And Students In The Field Of Ethnobotany. Photographs On Front Of Jacket From Left To Right: 1St Row: Adhatoda Vasica, Solanum Nigrum, Abutilon Indicum, Ceterach Officinarum. 2Nd Row: Nardostachys Jatamansi, Selinum Candollei, Oryza Sativa, Cyperus Scarious 3Rd Row: Seeds Of Elaeocarpus Angustifolius, Abrus Precatorius, Celastrus Paniculatus, Vigna Unquiculata.
This volume uses bioarchaeological remains to examine the complexities and diversity of past socio-sexual lives. This book does not begin with the presumption that certain aspects of sex, gender, and sexuality are universal and longstanding. Rather, the case studies within—extend from Neolithic Europe to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica to the nineteenth-century United States—highlight the importance of culturally and historically contextualizing socio-sexual beliefs and practices. The Bioarchaeology of Socio-Sexual Lives highlights a major shortcoming in many scholarly and popular presentations of past socio-sexual lives. They reveal little about the ancient or historic group under study and much about Western society’s modern state of heteronormative affairs. To interrogate commonsensical thinking about socio-sexual identities and interactions, this volume draws from critical feminist and queer studies. Reciprocally, bioarchaeological studies extend social theorizing about sex, gender, and sexuality that emphasizes the modern, conceptual, and discursive. Ultimately, The Bioarchaeology of Socio-Sexual Lives invites readers to think more deeply about humanity’s diversity, the naturalization of culture, and the past’s presentation in mass-media communications.
The work of Rosita Arvigo and Michael Balick to bring the knowledge of the Mayan healers to the Western reader deserves due credit. This revised and enlarged second edition includes much additional information about the major herbs in the Mayan pharmacopoeia. Their work proves that the rainforest has more value to mankind alive than cut down
This ambitious sourcebook surveys both the traditional basis for and the present state of indigenous women’s reproductive health in Mexico and Central America. Noted practitioners, specialists, and researchers take an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the multiple barriers for access and care to indigenous women that had been complicated by longstanding gender inequities, poverty, stigmatization, lack of education, war, obstetrical violence, and differences in language and customs, all of which contribute to unnecessary maternal morbidity and mortality. Emphasis is placed on indigenous cultures and folkways—from traditional midwives and birth attendants to indigenous botanical medication and traditional healing and spiritual practices—and how they may effectively coexist with modern biomedical care. Throughout these chapters, the main theme is clear: the rights of indigenous women to culturally respective reproductive health care and a successful pregnancy leading to the birth of healthy children. A sampling of the topics: Motherhood and modernization in a Yucatec village Maternal morbidity and mortality in Honduran Miskito communities Solitary birth and maternal mortality among the Rarámuri of Northern Mexico Maternal morbidity and mortality in the rural Trifino region of Guatemala The traditional Ngäbe-Buglé midwives of Panama Characterizations of maternal death among Mayan women in Yucatan, Mexico Unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and unmet need in Guatemala Maternal Death and Pregnancy-Related Morbidity Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America is designed for anthropologists and other social scientists, physicians, nurses and midwives, public health specialists, epidemiologists, global health workers, international aid organizations and NGOs, governmental agencies, administrators, policy-makers, and others involved in the planning and implementation of maternal and reproductive health care of indigenous women in Mexico and Central America, and possibly other geographical areas.
Across Guatemala, Mayan peoples are struggling to recover from decades of cataclysmic upheaval--religious conversions, civil war, displacement, military repression. Richard Wilson carried out long-term research with Q’eqchi’-speaking Mayas in the province of Alta Verapaz to ascertain how these events affected social organization and identity. He finds that their rituals of fertility and healing--abandoned in the 1970s during Catholic and Protestant evangelizations--have been reinvented by an ethnic revivalist movement led by Catholic lay activists, who seek to renovate the earth cult in order to create a new pan-Q’eqchi’ ethnic identity.
Ethnobotany includes the traditional use of plants in different fields like medicine and agriculture. This book incorporates important studies based on ethnobotany of different geographic zones. The book covers medicinaland aromatic plants, ethnopharmacology, bioactive molecules, plants used in cancer, hypertension, disorders of the central nervous system, and also as antipsoriatic, antibacterial, antioxidant, antiurolithiatic. The book will be useful for a diverse group of readers including plant scientists, pharmacologists, clinicians, herbalists, natural therapy experts, chemists, microbiologists, NGOs and those who are interested in traditional therapies.
