Medicinal foods and beverages among Maasai agro-pastoralists in northern Tanzania

Roulette, Casey J.; Njau, Efrem-Fred A.; Quinlan, Marsha B.; Quinlan, Robert J.; Call, Douglas R.

doi:10.1016/j.jep.2018.01.022

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…Maasai often have extensive practical knowledge about herbal remedies for common ailments (Heckelsmiller 2015;Roulette et al 2018). Traditionally, the inexplicable and/or serious illnesses had been brought to the laibon, who plays a role as a healer and diviner in times of uncertainty (Spencer 2004).…”

Section: Results Of Semi-structured Surveys and Field Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnomedical specialists and their supernatural theories of disease

Lightner¹,

Heckelsmiller²,

Hagen³

2021

Preprint

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Religious healing specialists such as shamans often use magic. Evolutionary theories that seek to explain why laypersons find these specialists convincing focus on the origins of magical cognition and belief in the supernatural. In two studies, we reframe the problem by investigating relationships among ethnomedical specialists, who possess extensive theories of disease that can often appear “supernatural,” and religious healing specialists. In study 1, we coded and analyzed cross-cultural descriptions of ethnomedical specialists in 47 cultures, finding 24% were also religious leaders and 74% used supernatural theories of disease. We identified correlates of the use of supernatural concepts among ethnomedical specialists; incentives and disincentives to patronize ethnomedical specialists; and distinct clusters of ethnomedical specialists that we label prestigious teachers, feared diviners, and efficacious healers. In study 2, we interviewed 84 Maasai pastoralists and their traditional religious and non-religious healing specialists. We found that laypersons relied on medicinal services based on combinations of efficacy, religious identity, and interpersonal trust. Further, laypersons and specialists largely used abstract concepts that were not conspicuously supernatural to describe how local medicines work. We conclude that religious healers in traditional societies often fulfill a practical and specialized service to local clients, and argue that supernatural theories of disease often reflect abstract cognition about rare phenomena whose causes are unobservable (e.g., infection, mental illness) instead of a separate “religious” style of thinking.

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Section: Results Of Semi-structured Surveys and Field Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnomedical specialists and their supernatural theories of disease

Lightner¹,

Heckelsmiller²,

Hagen³

2021

Preprint

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“…Physically they see what they believe and they practice traditional during and after pregnancy (Roulette CJ et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Situational Analysis of Home Delivery among Maasai Communities of Orkesumet, Northern Tanzania: The Qualitative Evidences

Mbwele¹

2019

jhms

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“…Billing & Sherman (1998) proposed that because spices have antimicrobial properties, and because foods, especially meat, contain dangerous microbes, this practice is adaptive. On this view, the routine addition of spices and other medicinal substances to foods is a constitutive pathogen defense -it is always active, incurring the cost of potential interference with physiological functions but providing benefits by deterring infection and subsequent pathogen growth (for detailed example of medicinal foods among Maasai pastoralists, see Roulette et al, 2018). In support of the antimicrobial hypothesis, Billing & Sherman (1998) found a positive association in 36 countries between mean temperature, a proxy of food-borne pathogen risk, and the proportion of recipes containing spices, number of spices per recipe, total number of spices used, and use of the most potent antibacterial spices, both within and among countries.…”

Section: Spices As a Constitutive Pharmaceutical Toolkit To Manage Enteric Pathogen Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homo medicus: The transition to meat eating, increased pathogen pressure, and the constitutive and inducible use of pharmacological plants in Homo

Hagen¹,

Blackwell²,

Lightner³

et al. 2021

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The human lineage entered a more carnivorous niche 2.6 mya. A range of evidence indicates this increased zoonotic pathogen pressure. This evidence includes increased zoonotic infections modern hunter-gatherers and bushmeat hunters relative to others living in the same environments, exceptionally low stomach pH compared to other primates, human-specific downregulation in ANTXR2 that would have protected against increased exposure to zoonotic anthrax, exceptional human immune responses to LPS compared to other primates, and other divergent immune genes. These all point to change, and likely intensification, in the disease environment of Homo compared to earlier hominins and other apes. At the same time, the brain, an organ in which inflammatory immune responses are highly constrained, begins to increase, eventually tripling in size. We propose that the combination of increased zoonotic pathogen pressure and the challenges of defending a large brain and body from pathogens across what would eventually become the longest lifespan of any mammal, selected for intensification of the self-medication strategies already in place in apes and other primates, resulting in a variety of plant-based pathogen defenses. In support, there is evidence of medicinal plant use by hominins in the middle Paleolithic, and all cultures today have sophisticated, plant-based medical systems, incorporate plant components high in secondary compounds (spices) into food, and regularly consume psychoactive substances that are harmful to helminths and other pathogens in the CNS and other tissues. The computational challenges of discovering effective plant-based treatments, and the economic challenges of benefiting from costly-to- acquire medical knowledge that would be more often useful to others than oneself, were selection pressures for increased cognitive abilities and unique exchange relationships in Homo. In the story of human evolution, which has long featured hunters, shamans and healers had an equal role to play.

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Medicinal foods and beverages among Maasai agro-pastoralists in northern Tanzania

Cited by 25 publications

References 83 publications

Ethnomedical specialists and their supernatural theories of disease

Ethnomedical specialists and their supernatural theories of disease

A Situational Analysis of Home Delivery among Maasai Communities of Orkesumet, Northern Tanzania: The Qualitative Evidences

Homo medicus: The transition to meat eating, increased pathogen pressure, and the constitutive and inducible use of pharmacological plants in Homo

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