Ethnozoological study of animals based medicine used by traditional healers and indigenous inhabitants in the adjoining areas of Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, India

Abstract

BackgroundIndia has an immense faunal, floral, as well as cultural diversity with many ethnic communities who are primarily dependent on the traditional medicinal system for their primary health care. Documentation and evaluation of this indigenous remedial knowledge may be helpful to establish new drugs for human health. The present study is intended to look into different zootherapeutic medicinal uses in the traditional health care system among the native inhabitants adjacent to the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, India.MethodsField survey was carried out from March 2015 to August 2015 by personal interviews through semi-structured questionnaires. In some cases where participants were uncomfortable with the questionnaires, informal interviews and open group discussions were conducted with a total of 62 indigenous respondents (43 male and 19 female) who provided the information regarding various medicinal uses of animals and their products (local name of animal, mode of preparation, application etc).ResultsThe study recorded a total of 44 different species, 44 genera and 36 families of animals which are used for the treatment of 40 different ailments. Insects occupied the highest uses (30.9%), followed by mammals (23.8%), fishes (16.7%), reptiles (11.9%), amphibians (7.1%), annelids (4.8%) and gastropods (4.8%). Further, some zootherapeutic animals i.e. cockroach (Periplaneta americana), praying mantis (Mantis religiosa) and earthworms (Metaphire houletti, Pheretima posthum) are used for the treatment of asthma, otorrhoea and cancer respectively.ConclusionThe findings suggest that the traditional zootherapeutic remedial measures followed by the native people adjacent to Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary plays an important role in their primary health care. The documentation of this indigenous knowledge on animal based medicines should be very helpful in the formulation of strategies for sustainable management and conservation of bio-resources as well as providing potential for the novel drugs discovery.

Ethno-medicinal uses of vertebrates in Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape, central Nepal

“…For our data collection, we divided the whole study area into four different study blocks based on topography ( The ethno-medicinal data on uses of animals (mainly vertebrates) was collected by using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method [20,[22][23][24]. In this method we used sets of questions related to use of animals as ethnomedicine and discussed their local status and medicinal properties.…”

“…4). Consumption practices of raw body parts of animals are common for curing diseases in many ethnic groups at global level [2,23,35,40,44,45]. However, consumption of raw meat may increase the risks of transmitting different types of parasites and diseases to human [11,46].…”

Ethnozoological Study of Traditional Medicinal Animals and Their Products Used by The People of South Achefer District, Northern Ethiopia

“…The district is biodiversity rich area especially in faunal resource. The documentation of this indigenous knowledge on animal-based medicines should be very helpful in the formulations of strategies for sustainable management and conservation of bio-resource as well as providing potential for novel drug discoveries [20].…”

Zootherapeutic uses of animals and their parts: an important element of the traditional knowledge of the Tangsa and Wancho of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, North-East India

“…2) not mammals, but birds scoring 37% followed by mammals (26.3%) and insects (21,1%), annelids (10.5%) and fish (5.6%) topped the list. In the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, birds also achieved the highest uses followed by mammals (Neelima and Jain 2015), but for the inhabitants of the Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu, mammals and insects were therapeutically considerably more important than birds (Raja et al 2018) and the native inhabitants adjacent to the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, according to the list presented by Borah and Prasad (2017), used mainly insects and mammals, in that order, but no birds at all.…”

“…Among the tribal communities of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, the Tangsa of Changlang district and the Wancho of Longding district are blessed with rich cultural heritage. The increasing global interest in ethno-biological knowledge and, on the other hand, the danger of losing important information before it can properly be documented (Alves 2012;Alves and Rosa 2013) had spurred us to embark on this study and to continue the earlier work that had already dealt with vertebrates used for medicinal purposes by Nyishi and Galo tribals (Chakravorty et al 2011) of Arunachal Pradesh, the Biate (Betlu 2013) and Karbi (Verma et al 2014;Borah and Prasad 2016) of Assam, the Chakhesang (Kakati and Doulo 2002) and Ao (Kakati et al 2006) as well as other tribes (Jamir and Lal 2005) of Nagaland. We chose to examine the extent that members of the Tangsa and Wancho tribes make use of animals and their products for treatments of various common ailments and diseases, because none of the earlier studies [not even the detailed surveys of ethno-zoological diversity of North-East India by Chinlampianga et al (2013) or that of Arunachal tribes by Solanki and Chutia (2009)] had provided information on these two remote tribes of eastern Arunachal Pradesh.…”