So what? Karen and Lawa medicinal plant use: Uniformity or ethnic divergence? Northern Thailand

We compared Karen and Lawa knowledge of medicinal plants in northern Thailand in the Mae Cheam watershed where both ethnic groups have settled and where they share identical ecological conditions for resource extraction. We were interested in documenting to what degree the two ethnic groups use the same or different medicinal plant species and in what way their use systems differ. We took the use of the same plant species as a sign of a uniform and cross cultural local knowledge. In contrast we take the use of different medicinal plants as a sign of culturally specific local knowledge that has developed within each ethnic group. We inventoried the plant species in different habitats around two villages, one of the Karen and one of the Lawa, using stratified vegetation plots and we interviewed 67 key informants with semi-structure questionnaires concerning their use of plants for medicine between August 2011 and February 2012. We then calculated the Fidelity Index (FI) and the, Cultural importance index (CI) to estimate the variation in use value of medicinal plants. We used Jaccard’s index (JI) to analyze the similarity of medicinal plant uses among the two ethnicities. A total of 103 species of medicinal plant species, in 87 genera and 41 families, were identified and they were used to cure 36 ailments. The FI of each medicinal plant species was different for each ailment and different in each ethnic group. The most important medicinal plant species, those with highest CI value, were not the same in the two villages. Costus speciosus (used to treat urinary infection and wounds in animals) had the highest CI value in the Karen village, while javanica (used to treat wounds, fractures, bloat and edema in humans) had the highest CI value in the Lawa village. The similarity of medicinal plant between the two villages was 32%. Only 17 species were shared between two villages. Method of preparations and medicinal applications show designificant differences between the two villages, whereas plant part used, habit and route of administrations were similar.These finding shave important implication for the understanding of ethnobotanical knowledge as they demonstrate how geographically closely situated cultural groups can have significantly different traditional knowledge systems, at least when it comes to species used and their preparation and medicinal application. We assume that differences of cultural history and background in the two villages led to differences in the medicinal plant they use.

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