An ethnomedicinal study of the Seri people; a group of hunter-gatherers and fishers native to the Sonoran Desert

Abstract

BackgroundWorldwide, coastal communities’ ethnomedicinal knowledge has been sporadically recorded and poorly understood. Based on the ethnomedicinal knowledge of the Seri people; a hunting-gathering and fishing society of Northwestern Mexico, this study assesses a) the biological richness of Seri ethnomedicinal knowledge, b) the fidelity level of Seri remedies, and c) the association between gender, age, years of formal schooling and Seri ethnomedicinal knowledge.MethodsTo assess the degree of ethnomedicinal knowledge proficiency, we conducted 75 open-ended semi-structured interviews collecting information on ethnomedicinal knowledge of marine and terrestrial organisms and the socio-demographic profile of each collaborator. With the support of primary collaborators, we collected the materials to be used as stimuli along our interviews. A correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between gender, literacy and age with the ethnomedicinal knowledge proficiency. A paired t-test was used to determine differences in the number of remedies known by gender among members of the Seri community.ResultsA total of 28 medicinal specimens were presented as stimuli material. Marine remedies (12 species), were represented by 4 algae, 3 mollusks, 3 echinoderms, on reptile, and one annelid. Terrestrial plants (13 species) were distributed in 12 families. About 40 % of marine preparations used the organism in whole. In contrast, 29 % of of the remedies involving plants made use of leafy branches. Stimuli materials are used against 17 ailments mainly, being diarrhea, colds, menstrual problems, and swelling the ailments against most organisms (44 %) are used for. Marine organisms presented higher fidelity level values overall, suggesting that lower fidelity levels in terrestrial plants reflect a process of continuous and ongoing experimentation with easily accessible biological materials. Highest fidelity level values were recorded for Atriplex barclayana (93.87 %) Batis maritima (84.37 %), and Turbo fluctuosus (84.21 %). Age moderately correlates to ethnomedicinal knowledge proficiency (r = 0.41). Conversely, years of formal schooling show a negative correlation with ethnomedicinal knowledge proficiency (r = -0.49). Significant differences (p <0.05) were observed on ethnomedicinal knowledge proficiency when gender groups were compared under a paired t-test.ConclusionsThis research contributes to describing the complex biodiversity present in the ethnomedicinal systems of coastal non-agricultural societies. In addition, our research improves our understanding of the role that gender plays in the intra-cultural distribution of ethnomedicinal knowledge among Seri. Our results broaden our understanding of human adaptations to coastal and xeric environments. This research can potentially benefit the development of proposals to improve coastal and marine resource management and conservation while strengthening ethnomedicinal knowledge systems in populations, such as the Seri, limited by precarious socio-economic conditions...

Prioritizing Wild Edible Plants for potential new crops based on Deciduous Forest traditional knowledge by a Rancher community

“…Unlike the reported for some indigenous communities (Eyssartier et al 2011, Cruz et al 2013, Sujarwo et al 2014, Narchi et al 2015, knowledge erosion was no observed among the younger and the older male ranchers, at least in the number of species they cited. This result agrees with the reported for a non-indigenous community in Rayones, Nuevo León, Mexico; however, unlike our finding, they found that women cited more species (edible and no edible) than men (Estrada-Castillon et al 2014).…”

“…Mexico also has a long tradition in ethnobotanical studies, which are the basis to select wild plants for use, conservation and domestication purposes. However, most of these studies have been focused in population of the south-central region (the states of Puebla, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Yucatán, Morelos, Guerrero, Tabasco, Mexico, and Hidalgo) and indigOaxaca, Veracruz, Yucatán, Morelos, Guerrero, Tabasco, Mexico, and Hidalgo) and indigenous (mainly Maya, Nahua, Mixtec, Otomí, and Totonac) people (Caballero et al 1998, Yetman & Van Devender 2002, Camou-Guerrero et al 2008, Vázquez-Alonso et al 2014, Narchi et al 2015, Camou-Guerrero et al 2016, whereas other people living immerse in nature with their own accumulated knowledge have been relegated, as it occurs with the ranchers. Some examples of ethnobotany works in Mexican non-indigenous rural communities are the studies about the native tree species used by ranchers of the central Veracruz (Suárez et al 2012), the medicinal plants used by ranchers of Tabasco (Gómez-Álvarez 2012), and the ethnobotany of farmers in Rayones, Nuevo León (Estrada-Castillon et al 2014).…”

What Happened to Seri Sweets? Dietary Transition through Culinary Acculturation

“…In one of the first written health reports on the Seris, dating back to the mid-1950s, Alejandro Marroquin (1957) noted that, despite the healthy appearance of the people, there was a recurrence of gastrointestinal diseases among the population; such health care demands remained constant for nearly five decades (Narchi et al 2015).…”

“…Evidence suggests Seri residence in the region for at least a thousand years (Haynes et al 1966). Although there has been considerable loss of traditional information due to acculturation (Felger and Moser 1973), the Seris still extensively rely on marine and desert resources (Bertsch and Marlett 2011; Narchi et al 2015), including—though declining—the use of local sweets. Based on the historic dietary pattern and drawing a parallel with other small-scale societies (Pontzer et al 2018), it can be inferred that the local diet was rich in carbohydrates and simple sugars, in contrast to the current use of highly caloric, industrialized foods.…”

El CoLaboratorio de Oceanografía Social: espacio plural para la conservación integral de los mares y las sociedades costeras

“…También hay, inter alia, los que se desenvuelven en la teoría de sistemas complejos (Hughes et al, 2005), etnobiología (Narchi et al, 2014), nutrición (Hernández-Santana y Narchi, 2018), etnoecología (Lloret et al, 2014), etnomedicina (Narchi et al, 2015) y etno-oceanografía (Moura, 2017a).…”