Pan African Indigenous Herbal Medicine Technology Tranfer

PAN-AFRICAN_ INDIGENOUS_HERBAL_MEDICINE_TECHNOLOGY_TRANSFER
BLACKHERBALS.COM
PAN-AFRICAN INDIGENOUS HERBAL MEDICINE
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
Nakato E. Joel-Lewis, Kiwanuka R.G. Lewis
African Traditional Herbal Research Centre
RGL Enterprises Intl / Blackherbals at the Source of the Nile UG Ltd
P.O. Box 29974, Kampala
Uganda, East Africa
Email: [email protected]
Introduction
African Traditional Medicine is a body of knowledge that has been developed and accumulated by
Africans over tens of thousands of years. It is associated with the examination, diagnosis, therapy,
treatment, prevention of, or promotion and rehabilitation of the physical, mental, spiritual or social
wellbeing of humans and animals. Despite numerous attempts at government interference, both foreign
and domestic, this ancient system of healing continues to thrive in Africa and practitioners can be found
in many parts of the world.
African Traditional Medicine is holistic in approach; that is, processes of the physical body, mind,
emotions and spirit, work together in determining good health or ill health. The equation of good or ill
health also includes the interaction and relationship between nature, the cosmos, and human beings.
Practitioners of African Traditional Medicine must have in-depth knowledge of all the parts of this
equation.
Practitioners of traditional African medicine are able to cure a wide range of conditions, including
cancers, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), malaria, psychiatric disorders, high blood
pressure, cholera, dysentery, infertility and most venereal diseases. Other applications include epilepsy,
respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and asthma, digestive diseases such as ulcers and gastroenteritis,
eczema, hay fever, anxiety, depression, benign prostate hypertrophy, urinary tract infections, diabetes,
gout, diarrhea, and healing of wounds and burns just to name a few.
Under colonial rule (both on the African continent and in the Diaspora), many European nations
considered traditional healers to be practitioners of witchcraft and outlawed them for that reason. In some
areas of colonial Africa, attempts were also made to control the sale of traditional herbal medicines.
More recently however, there is expressed interest in integrating traditional African medicine with the
continents national health care system.
In many developing countries and in Africa as a whole, traditional healers are the major health labor
resource. An estimated 80% of the population receives its health education and health care from
practitioners of traditional medicine. They are knowledgeable of the culture, the local languages and
local traditions.
Plants also play an important part in the health of African people. They are a staple part of their diet.
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Supplementary foods to improve health and herbal remedies are used to prevent and cure diseases.
Methods of indigenous healing throughout the world commonly use herbs as part of their tradition.
Early humans, out of Africa, took with them the knowledge of medicinal herbs and adapted it to the local
environment. Recent studies have revealed that the knowledge of ancient Egyptian medicine science has
its origins in inner Africa, to be more exact, Central and West Africa. This medical knowledge also has
formed the basis for Western allopathic medicine, as it is widely known that the Greeks borrowed very
heavily from Egypt. However, the continued use by African traditional doctors of medicinal herbs,
animal products and practices known to the ancient Egyptians suggests sustained scientific and religious
interaction in the past.
The Egyptians were writing medical textbooks as early as 5,000 years ago. This indicates not only a
mature civilization but also a long period of medical development. Out of the hundreds and thousands of
medical papyri that must have been written, only 10 have come down to us, the most important being the
Ebers and Edwin smith papyri. These 10 papyri form the basis of most of what Egyptologists know about
Egyptian medicine. It has affirmed, however, that much of the training and instruction of the priest must
have been orally transmitted, as it is in the rest of Africa. It is likely, therefore, that we have only a partial
grasp of the true scope of Egyptian medical knowledge. Moreover, like their counterparts in the rest of
Africa, the Egyptian priest-physicians often kept their best knowledge secret and like all African peoples,
the Egyptians had a large material medica, using as many as 1000 animal, plant, and mineral products in
the treatment of illness.
One of the consequences of the Tran-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Maafa, is that African Traditional
herbal medicine is now found throughout the New World. In spite of the diversity of source regions,
certain fundamental features characterize most African/American/Caribbean healing traditions. These
include theories of causation related to the spiritual realm, the capacity to identify symptoms associated
with specific diseases, and the ability to prescribe culturally acceptable treatments.
In promoting survival, cultural identity, spiritual assistance and resistance, the ethnobotanical knowledge
of New World Africans laid the foundation for the rich traditional healing system still practiced in the
Caribbean to this day.
The focus of this paper is to display the role of African indigenous herbal medicine in the survival of
enslaved Africans in the New World and the technological transfer of this and related African
technologies to the Americas and the Caribbean during the period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
The Slave Trade
The transatlantic slave trade was the trading, primarily of African people, to the colonies of the New
World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It began from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Most
enslaved people were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to North and South
America and the Caribbean to labor on sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco and cotton plantations, in gold and
silver mines, in rice fields, or in houses to work as servants, blacksmiths, artisans, etc. The shippers were,
in order of scale, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the North
Americans.
The word '''Maafa''' (also know as the African Holocaust) is derived from a (Kiswahili) word meaning
disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy. The term today collectively refers to the Pan-African study
of the 500 hundred years of suffering of people of African heritage through slavery, imperialism,
colonialism, oppression, invasions and exploitation.
The African Holocaust was the greatest continuing tragedy the world has ever seen. It was also the most
impacting social event in the history of humanity. It reduced humans with culture and history to a people
invisible from historical contribution; mere labor units, commodities to be traded. From the Maafa, the
racial-social hierarchy was born which continues to govern the lives of every living human where race
continues to confer (or obstruct) privilege and opportunity. In the 21st century, the legacy of enslavement
manifests itself in the social-economic status of Africans globally. Without a doubt Africans globally
constitute the most oppressed, most exploited, most downtrodden people on the planet, a fact that
testifies to the untreated legacy of Slavery.
It is estimated that 40-100 million people were affected by slavery via the Atlantic, Arabian and TransSaharan routes. Many died in transport, others died from diseases or indirectly from the social trauma left
behind in Africa. The Atlantic system took a terrible toll in African lives both during the Middle Passage
and under the harsh conditions of plantation slavery. Many other Africans died while being marched to
African coastal ports for sale overseas. The overall effects on Africa of these losses and other aspects of
the slave trade have been the subject of considerable historical debate.
White historians will say that most deaths in the Middle Passage were the result of disease rather than
abuse. The trauma of being enslaved and separated from country, culture and love ones can certainly be
considered a form of mental abuse and would certainly have contributed to the mental illness exhibited
by many of the captive Africans.
However, dysentery, spread by contaminated food and water, did cause many deaths as did malaria and
yellow fever. Other slaves died of contagious diseases such as smallpox, leprosy and yaws, carried by
persons who infections were not detected during medical examinations prior to boarding. Such maladies
spread quickly in the crowded and unsanitary confines of the ships, claiming the lives of many slaves
already physically weakened and mentally traumatized by their ordeals.
At the height of the slave trade between 1650 and 1900, 10.2 million African slaves arrived to the
Americas and the Caribbean from the following African regions in the following proportions:
West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta): 20.2%
Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Cote d' Ivoire): 10.4%
Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia): 4.8%
Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar): 4.7%
Upper Guinea (Guinea Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%
Windward Coast (Liberia and Cote d' Ivoire): 1.8%
The different ethnic groups, brought to the Americas, corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in
the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. The ten most
prominent were:
The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
The Mand speakers of Upper Guinea
The Wolof of Senegal and The Gambia
The Chamba of Cameroon
The Makua of Mozambique
Slave Plantations in the New World

The West Indies was the first place in the Americas reached by Columbus and the first part of the
Americas where native populations collapsed. It took a long time to repopulate these islands from
abroad, but after 1650 sugar plantations, African slaves and European capital made these islands a major
center of the Atlantic economy. In the 1600s English colonization societies founded small European
settlements on Montserrat, Jamaica, Barbados and other Caribbean islands, while the French colonized
Martinique, Guadeloupe and Haiti, producing tobacco and sugar. The Portuguese had introduced sugar
cultivation into Brazil from the islands along the African coast after 1550. By 1600 Brazil was the
Atlantic worlds greatest sugar producer. In the 1800s Haiti had surpassed Brazil as the greatest
producer of sugar and Jamaica surpassed Barbados as the English most important sugar colony.
Enslaved Africans in the United States produced tobacco, cotton, indigo and rice. Africans who arrived
in Carolina and Georgia sometimes referred to as Gullah/Geechee, brought with them attributes of
biology, botany, culture, and language that reflected their homeland.
On most islands, 90% or more of the inhabitants were slaves. The average slave lived seven years.
Although the large proportion of young adults in plantation colonies ought to have had a high rate of
natural increase, the opposite occurred. Poor nutrition and overwork lowered fertility. Life expectancy
for slaves in the 19th century Brazil was only 23 years of age for males and 25.5 years for females. An
opinion common among slave owners in the Caribbean and in parts of Brazil, held that it was cheaper to
import a youthful new slave from Africa than to raise one to the same age on a plantation. In the Dutch
colony of Surinam, 300,000 Africans arrived between 1668 and 1823, but scarcely 50,000 descendants
survived at the end of that period.
The harsh condition of plantation life played a major role in shortening the lives of slaves, but again the
greatest killers were disease and malnutrition, especially to children under five. Only slave populations in
the healthier temperate zones of North America experienced a natural increase, those in tropical Brazil
and the Caribbean had a negative population growth. Such high mortality greatly added to the volume of
the Atlantic slave trade, since plantations had to purchase new slaves every year or two just to replace
those who died.

The additional imports of slaves to permit the expansions of producing-plantations meant that the
majority of slaves on most West Indian plantations were Africa-born. As a result, African religious
beliefs, patterns of speech, styles of dress, adornment and music were prominent parts of West Indian
life.
In Latin America the captive labor force was also dominated by slaves born in Africa. In northeastern
Brazil, Yorubas predominate at the close of the slave trade, but earlier the region had seen imports from
nearly every slave source. In Rio de Janeiro, even after three centuries of sustained slave traffic, more
than 73 percent of the 1832 slave population was African born. Although Rio de Janeiro was dominated
by Bantu-speakers from Angola and the Congo, almost all other groups were represented. Coastal South
Carolina witnessed the arrival of most BaKongo people from the Congo and Angola, but the
Senegambians were also well represented.
Included among the ranks of these newly arrived laborers were priests, magicians, and herbalists, who
frequently retained, even as slaves, a measure of their previous status. This, in turn, facilitated the
survival of a social hierarchy necessary for a shaman class and reinforced the collective knowledge of
African ethnomedicine and its epistemology, among the resident Black populations. By contrast, North
America received only half a million Africans during the entire slave trade, and witnessed minimum
survival of their ethnomedical system.
Given the harsh conditions of their lives, it is not surprising that slaves in the New World often rebelled.
Because they believed rebellions were usually led by slaves with the strongest African heritage,
European planters tried to curtail African cultural traditions.
In the British West Indies, African herbal medicine remained strong as did African beliefs concerning
nature spirits and witchcraft. Maroon communities consisting of runaway slaves were especially
numerous in the mountainous interiors of Jamaica, Hispaniola, the Guianas, and Brazil. Maroon
societies, such as those founded in Jamaica and Brazil acted as foci for the retention of African cultural
beliefs and as symbols of resistance to white authority. But by the 1760s, African traditional religion was
outlawed in Jamaica and in Guadeloupe ordinances forbade any use of plants by Africans, whether for
medical or spiritual ends.
The European conquest and colonization of the Americas was achieved with the exchange of Old World
and New World diseases, ethnomedical systems and plant-based pharmacopoeias. Neglect by slave
owners forced enslaved Africans to tend to their own medical problems. Firmly established in colonial
times, African-based medicine, spirituality and their associated plant pharmacopoeias persisted and
thrived in the Americas and the Caribbean.
African Ethnomedicine and Epistemology
African ethnomedicine and epistemology is firmly based in the healing power of the plant realm. Most
healing rituals and ceremonies involve the use of leaves, roots, barks, or plant reproductive structures.
The pharmacological treatment of disease began long ago with the use of herbs. A useful concept for
plant screening, long practiced in Africa, is any species with morphological features similar to human
body parts are believed to be effective agents in treating those respective ailments.
An alternative method for identifying potentially useful species is reported among the Yoruba and their
New World descendants. While mounted by one of their guardian deities, devotees suddenly bolt into the
forest and collect hitherto unknown plants as directed by whatever spirit possesses them. Species
collected this way enter into that persons material medica.
There are examples of many Europeans relying on traditional herbal cures administer by enslaved people
who in turn rejected the main European treatments of the time, which included bleeding and purging.
Africans often used their own traditional remedies to treat diseases they were already familiar with.
A wide range of plants such as aloes, okra and even cotton, was used to treat all sorts of illnesses such as
water retention, piles and venereal diseases and to heal wounds. Herbal remedies were used against
diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, smallpox and worms.
Along with China and India, west-central Africa represents one of the worlds most developed
ethnomedical traditions. European slavers repeatedly noted the skills of Africans in effecting cures with
plants and the expertise of specific ethnic groups such as the Fulani, Yoruba, Dahomean and Ashanti,
who were regarded as especially skilled with herbal medicines. Although elements of various African
healing traditions survive, wherever Yoruba and Dahomean slaves were present in sizable numbers, their
cosmology and ethnomedical system came to predominate.
In the use of plants, African practices differed dramatically from those favored by Europeans. Herbal
treatments were often prepared from living plants, rather than the dried concoctions favored in white
medicine. Vitamin-rich greens formed a central component of the diet of New World Africans, and roots
and herbs made into infusions (bush teas) remain to this day central to the traditional cures of the
Caribbean. West Africas rich tradition of using bush or herbal teas and greens for both food and
medicine was the source of their continuing importance in the African Diaspora. In West Africa, the
leaves of at least 150 species of plants are used as food, with 30 cultivated and over 100 collected
gathered in the wild.
These herbal cures stood in sharp contrast to the invasive treatment of venesection, cupping, blistering,
purging and leeching practiced by Europeans during the plantation slavery era. While such techniques
have largely vanished, African herbal remedies endure to this day in the Caribbean folk healing system.
The survival of an African ethnomedical and epistemological tradition results in part from its capacity to
deliver both physical cures as well as psychological solace to New World Africans. Plants native to the
tropics and to Africa played a direct role in healing diseases whose origins are attributed to a physical
and spiritual (holistic) origin.
New World Africans also recognized genera whose attributes were known in Africa. The genus
Strychnos spp., for instance, served as a poison throughout the Black Atlantic. Rauwolfia spp., which
acts as a tranquilizer, was commonly used in Africa as well as by diasporic populations in the Caribbean.
Euphorbia spp., which provided relief from colds, indigestions and pain are found in traditional
pharmacopoeias of both areas.
Brazil, which absorbed more than 4 million African immigrants, retains African religious and medical
systems so orthodox that, until recently, Nigerian priests undertook pilgrimages to Brazil to rediscover
ceremonies long forgotten in Africa. With a total of approximately five million slaves imported, the
Spanish Caribbean exhibits magico-religious ceremonies scarcely different from those in Africa.
Africans also used inoculation as a form of prevention for diseases such as yaws. Yaws is an infectious
tropical disease caused by a spirochete bacterium Treponema pertenu. It enters through cuts in the skin,
causing a large ulcer at the point of infection and multiple ulcers on the body. It also affects the joints
and the bones. Yaws infects many Africans in Africa and the Americas and is most common in areas of
poverty, poor sanitation and overcrowding. A closely related bacterium, Treponema pallidum causes
syphilis.
Of further interest is the centuries-old practice of small-pox vacillation, which is carried out all over
Africa. During an epidemic, material from the pustule of a sick person is scratched into the skin of
unaffected persons with a thorn. In the majority of instances, there is no reaction and the persons
inoculated are protected against smallpox. In some cases, the inoculation will produce a mild, non-fatal
form of the disease which will also confer permanent immunity. Centuries before Jenner (Father of
Immunology), Africans had devised an effective vaccination method against smallpox.
African Traditional Plant Knowledge
There is little attention to African botanical transfers and the role of New World Africans in establishing
the continents native plants elsewhere. The emergence of three centers of plant domestication in subSahara Africa (two in West Africa) added more than 115 endemic species to the global food supplied
while laying the foundation from an ongoing process of experimentation and crop exchanges with other
Old World societies. Enslaved Africans and free maroons continued this process in the Caribbean.
It is often forgotten that the vanishing Amerindian population of the Caribbean was replaced with forced
African migrants who originated in tropical societies. Research attention has yet to elucidate how New
World Africans drew upon their knowledge of tropical botanical resources for food, healing, cultural
identity and survival.
West Africa and the New World, although separated by several thousand miles of ocean, shared some
plant species before colonization. Slaves landing on Caribbean shores would have recognized many of
the plants they encountered. Newly arrived shamans continued to employ the species as they had done in
Africa. The foundation in tropical botanical knowledge provided Africans the critical knowledge for
shaping Afro-Caribbean plant resources.
With the exception of the coffee plant and the oil palm, Europeans were not much interested in plants of
African origin. While these two valued tree species would become plantation crops in the Caribbean,
most plants indigenous to Africa depended upon New World Africans for their establishment, as whites
did not consume them.
Several factors, including soil exhaustion and deforestation, altered the balance of the ecology of the
West Indies. By the 18th century, nearly all of the domesticated animals and cultivated plants in the
Caribbean were ones that Europeans had introduced.
Europeans also introduced new food plants to the region. Of these, bananas and plantain from the Canary
Islands were a valuable addition to the food supply; and sugar and rice formed the basis of plantation
agriculture, along with native tobacco. New World foods also found their way to Africa. The white
potato, cassava and maize moved across the Atlantic to Africa.
African domesticates, important in Caribbean cuisines, include the akee apple (Blighia sapida), wild
spinach or pigweed (Amaranthus hybridus, Amaranthus spp.) that give calalu its distinctive flavor, along
with bitter leaf (Vernonia spp.) and Brassica spp., the greens favored in Diaspora dishes. Other African
introductions include the baobab (Adansonia digitata) and the kola nut (Cola acuminate, C. nitida) a nonalcoholic stimulant with medicinal properties.
Most West African cultivars traditionally served both food and medicinal purposes. Grains, fruits and
tubers sustained the body while leaves, barks and roots from the same plants, healed it. Because so many
cultivars also served as medicinals, introduction of Old World food plants to feed the growing slave
populations supplied Africans with a familiar assortment of medicinals. Common species like lemon,
originally used in Africa only for it curative properties, was being cultivated and used medically in Brazil
by 1549.
By the early 1700s, African cola nut served as food and medicine for Jamaican slaves. The Africans use
of okra, both as a staple and to induce abortion had been observed in the mid 18th century in Guyana.
Other early introductions of medicinal food crops included winged yam, pigeon pea, sorghum, oil palm,
watermelon, akee and black-eyed peas.
Carried aboard slave ships, African plants contributed to survival, health and economy in the Caribbean.
The journey across the Middle Passage introduced African grasses possibly for bedding and as fodder for
cattle. Guinea grass was reported in Barbados in 1684 and introduced to Jamaica in 1745. Many crops,
given to the enslaved aboard the slave ships, also provided the means for New World Africans to
establish these plants in subsistence plantation fields and their dooryard gardens. These include African
rice (Oryza glaberrima), yams (Dioscorea cayensis, D. rotundata), cow [black-eye] peas (Vigna
unguiculata), pigeon (Congo) peas (Cajanu cajan), melegueta peppers (Aframomum melegueta), palm oil
(Elaeis guineensis), sorrel/roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), okra (Abelmosclus esculentu), sorghum
(Sorghun bicolor), millet (Pennisetum glaucum, Eleusine coracana), the Bambara groundnut (Vigna
subterranean) and mangoes (Mangifera Indica).
One African plant, the Castor bean (Ricinus communis) was used for lamp oil, medicine and even as a
hair tonic. Prominent African medicinal plants introduced during the transatlantic slavery include
(Momordica charantia) cerasse, (Kalanchoe integra), leaf of life, (Phyllanthus amarus) carry-me-seed,
(Leonotis nepetifolia) leonotis, (Cola acuminate) kola nut and Corchorus spp) broomweed.
The curative value of Kalanchoe is reflected in its common names long-life and never-die, while
maiden apple or the African cucumber (Momordica charantia) ranks as the single most important
medicinal of African origin in the Black Atlantic. It is used as an abortifacient, to treat snakebite, pain,
high blood pressure and as an anti-inflammatory for rheumatism and arthritis. Another Old World plant
esteemed for healing among population of the African Diaspora is Abrus precatorius, a venerable south
Asian ayurvedic medicine that had already diffused to the African subcontinent from India long before
the onset of the transatlantic slave trade. Used as a febrifuge and expectorant by Caribbean diasporic
populations, Abrus precatorius remains an esteemed herbal remedy throughout the Black Atlantic.
Other plants of African origin established in the Caribbean material medica are wrongly attributed to an
Asian origin, thereby obscuring the African floristic contribution to regional folk pharmacopoeias.
Tropical Old World plants formed part of an ancient history of exchanges between Africa and Asia
(notably, with India and China). Tamarind (Tamarindus indica), castor bean (Ricinus communis), and
okra (Abelmoshus esculentus) provide examples of crops that originated in Africa and diffused to Asia
between one and three thousand years ago. Other African domesticated plants, such as sorghum
(Sorghum bicolor) and millets (Pennisetum glaucum, Eleusine coracana) became the subjects of intense
plant breeding in India thousands of years before returning again to Africa as new varieties.
Still other plants of Old World origin were long established in Africa prior to their dissemination across
the Atlantic by slave ships. These include mustard green and kale, introduced from the Mediterranean,
and sesame (sim-sim), originally of Asian origin but so long used in Africa that it bears the name benne
which became the plants name in the U.S. south.
Plant exchanges between India and Africa by maritime and overland routes had been underway for
millennia before Europeans began enslaving Africans in the fifthteen century. Taro (Coloasia esculenta),
lime (Citrus aurantifolia), the luffa sponge (Luffa spp.), an edible green (Celosia argentea) and banana
and plantain (Musa spp.) offer examples of Asian crops that diffused to Africa in prehistory. The
significance of many Asian medicinals in Afro-Caribbean folk medicine began with their previously
established value to Africans long before the wave of Asian and Chinese immigration to the Caribbean
that dates to the 19th century.
Even the medicinal use of some Native American species, after being naturalized in Africa, diffused to
the New World with the slave traffic. American tobacco had arrived and was probably being used
medicinally in Africa by the 1600s. During the late years of the slave trade, Africans arriving in
Venezuela introduced healing rituals with tobacco that were uniquely African. Similarly, the South
American peanut was carried by the Portuguese to Africa and incorporated into the African ethnomedical
systems; it made its way to the Caribbean as a food and a medicine for captive laborers.
One hundred and eighty-six plant families and almost 700 genera are common to Africa and South
America. A mid-20th century survey of the West Indies reported that 20% of the species were aliens, that
the majority was from Old World, and that most had arrived during early colonization.
Transplanted African laborers recognized and used not only a large number of their native food plants
but also a variety of medicinal weeds. Exotic plants that have retained parallel African and AfricanAmerican medicinal value include hollow stalk, a febrifuge, bitter melon as a febrifuge and purgative,
cow-itch vine as a vermifuge, chamber bitters as a diuretic, castor bean as a purgative and African spider
flower as a cure for earache.
African plants entered the Americas repeatedly over the 350 year period of the Atlantic slave trade in
which millions of Africans were delivered into bondage. Arriving aboard slave ships as food and
medicines, the plants were grown by New World Africans on plantation provision fields, dooryard
gardens, and subsistence plots. In this manner, more than fifty species native to Africa became a part of
the Caribbean botanical resources. An additional fourteen species of Asian origin but grown in Africa
since antiquity were also established.
There is as yet no systematic overview of the medicinal species of African origin that are widely used in
Caribbean pharmacopoeias. However, the dozens of compendia of herbal medicines now published for
the Caribbean and tropical West Africa offer a point of departure for the study of African plant cures,
traditionally valued by Black Atlantic populations.
Indigenous Traditional Herbal Medicine in Jamaica
In Jamaica, African traditional herbal medicine is still being practiced by the descendant maroon
populations as well as in other maroon societies all over the Caribbean and the Americas. The Jamaican
Maroons were enslaved Africans who fought the British for autonomy and retained much of their African
culture to include knowledge of medicinal herbs and their uses.
Columbus reached the island in 1494 and spent a year shipwrecked there in 150304. In 1534 the
Spanish colonial capital was established at Spanish Town. The Spanish enslaved many Arawak Indians;
most died from overwork and European diseases. By the early 17th century, no Arawak Indian remained
in the region. In 1655 a British expedition invaded Jamaica and began expelling the Spanish. However,
many of the Spaniards' escaped slaves had already formed communities in the highlands. Increasing
numbers also escaped from British plantations. These former slaves were called Maroons, a name
probably derived from the Spanish word cimarrn, meaning wild or untamed. The Maroons adapted
to life in the wilderness by establishing remote, defensible settlements, cultivating scattered plots of land
(notably with plantains and yams), hunting, and developing herbal medicines.
In the initial twenty-five years of British control, plantation labor in Jamaica was sourced from the older
British colonies of Barbados and St Kitts. Given the pattern of British sources of supply; the largest
single group of these slaves was drawn from among the Akan and Ga-Andangme peoples of the coastal
strip of present-day Ghana. However, from 1685 to the close of the seventeenth century, 40 per cent were
from Angola in West-Central Africa, and 30 per cent were Ewe-Fon from the area immediately east of
the Gold Coast, with the Ewe-Fon and Akan numbers increasing over the next half century.
Later, between 1792 and 1807, approximately 83 per cent of the slaves came from the Bight of Biafra
and Central Africa, compared to 46 per cent from these two regions over the entire history of the slave
trade to Jamaica. These two sources would have yielded peoples who were largely Igbo, Efik and Ibibio
from the Niger delta, generally referred to as "Moko/Moco/Mocho", and a range of Central African
ethnic groups generally referred to as "Congo". Even in the postslavery period, between 1840 and 1864,
about eight thousand Africans recruited as indentured labourers were brought into Jamaica. The majority
were "Congo", "Igbo" and "Nago" or southwestern Yoruba.
The mainstream of Jamaican contemporary folk medicine is an unbroken continuity from Africa through
plantation slavery. Folk medical knowledge was part of the total cultural package of interacting elements
brought by slaves from Africa. It was the kind of cultural item that existed in the minds of Africans and
was not likely to be lost during the Middle Passage.
Early works on health care in Jamaica identify yellow fever, smallpox, tuberculosis, venereal diseases,
remittent fever, gout, yaws, rheumatism, typhoid, dropsy, dirt-eating, and worms, among others, as major
illnesses that plagued the island inhabitants.
A slave's life in Jamaica, like everywhere in the New World, was brutal and short. The number of slave
deaths was consistently larger than the number of births. As slave traffic and European immigration
increased over time, the island's population grew with slaves, accounting for more than half of the total
population.
In Jamaica, important practitioners in the African medical system, such as medicine men and diviners,
were brought over in the trade and were able to recreate and re-establish their roles and functions in the
New World.
One route to the acquisition of these roles and functions was the hereditary one, both in Africa and, to
some extent, in Jamaica: mothers passed on knowledge of childbirth to their daughters, and fathers
passed on the ability and practice of occult healing to sons. Both in Africa and Jamaica, medicine men
and other practitioners received their calling in dreams, visions and visitations from the spirits.
For example, according to Dr. Ogundele (2007), the Yoruba in Africa considers ethnomedicine as an
important part of a childs education. Every Yoruba child, as from about the age of eight years begins to
learn in an informal way, the names of local plants as well as their uses. This is in terms of therapeutics
and nutrition. Early childhood education in indigenous medicine applies basically to the rural people,
who constitute the majority of the population. Every opportunity is turned into a teaching affair by the
parent of the child. This kind of environmental consciousness is the foundation of sustainable health care
in Yoruba land. Not only does the parent or a senior person teach the child about medicinal plants, he
also gives instructions on the time of the day a plant can be obtained from the forest. This is an aspect of
the Yoruba ancient knowledge of plant behaviour or botany that the contemporary people hardly
appreciates, because of the impact of Western education on them. Rural children in the Jamaica received
the same type of education.
The assumption that Jamaican folk medicine is based historically on African folk medical practices may
therefore be valid. If the conditions of slavery inhibited or prevented the practice of certain aspects of
African culture, it could be argued that in the case of medical practices they encouraged, required and
allowed slaves to rely on their own devices to heal themselves. There is also evidence that even when
some medical facilities were provided, slaves had more confidence in their own therapeutic devices.
Medical practices may be one of those rare areas of African culture whose survival and continuity in the
New World were enhanced by the condition of slavery.
Slaves relied on tested and proven practices that they had known in Africa. Some flora and fauna
common to both Africa and Jamaica, would have been recognized and used in well-established ways by
slaves in Jamaica. Even if one opposes the Africanist hypothesis of Jamaican and Afro-American culture,
or subscribes to the cultural deprivation hypothesis (that is, that Africans were stripped of their culture
or were unable to practise herbal medicine because of their ethnic diversity and the unfavourable
conditions of slavery), it should not be difficult to accept that concepts of causation and therapeutic
alternatives such as prayers, botanicals, etc., were part of the knowledge brought and retained by
Africans, and transmitted to successive generations. The cultural baggage brought by slaves from
Africa is indispensable in accounting for the character and persistence of folk medicine in contemporary
Jamaica.
The Maroons of Jamaica and elsewhere can be credited with many achievements. They became the
frontline fighters in the struggle against slavery in all its various forms. Before any known struggles for
independence in the New World, Maroon communities had developed strong ideas and strategies of selfsufficiency, self-help and self-reliance and fought with great skill and courage for the right to self
determination. Also, the communities managed to unite people who had come from diverse backgrounds
and regions of the world, speaking different languages and practising diverse customs and traditions.
African traditions featured prominently in the formation and transformation of the ways of life of these
groups throughout the entire period of their struggle.
Results of a Comparative Study of Jamaican Medicinal Plants and Possible Sources
Table I is a preliminary comparison of 50 medicinal plants in the Jamaican pharmacopoeia that coincide
with the online databases of medicinal African plants, Metafro Infosys (PRELUDE) and the Plant Resources
of Tropical Africa (PROTA). Emphasis was placed on the similarities in the usage of these indigenous plants
and their possible sources in Africa. The data obtained on the sources and uses of these plants come
strictly from published sources.
Our objective was to determine if the knowledge and source of indigenous Jamaican medicinal plants
could be linked by source to regional areas in Africa that would have been used by enslaved Africans.
Given the details from where and what areas African slaves were taken, gives us some indication of the
amount of medical knowledge and ways of knowing enslaved Africans brought with them to the New
World.
This preliminary study shows some interesting details. Nearly all of the plants chosen agree with the
usage and source data obtained on west, central African countries involved in the Slave Trade. Of the 50
medicinal plants and food, 24 are of African origin; four from new world sources; and eight from old
world sources. Many of these show similar uses both in Africa and in the New World. Six of the African
plants were not listed in any of the databases for Jamaica, however of these, three are listed in a Haitian
pharmacopoeia.
Also shown are six pan-tropical plants and their uses that are common to Africa, Jamaica, the Caribbean,
and South America. Eight of the plants are listed as biblical species mentioned in the Bible and show
similar uses wherever they appear.
According to Sheridan, 1985, modern studies of medicinal plants common to Africa and the West Indies
show that about 60 out of 160 specimens of medicinal plants in Jamaica are known to have been or
continue to be used in Africa.
A comprehensive study by Mitchell et al, 2006 (University of the West Indies), lists a review of the
medicinal plants in Jamaica collected from postgraduate theses, articles and technical reports beginning
in 1948 thru 2001. Jamaica has 2888 known species of flowering plants that are native or fully
naturalized. Of these, 784 species (27.2%) are endemic to Jamaica. The study lists 334 plants species
growing in Jamaica that have been identified as having medicinal qualities. Out of these, 193 plant
species (55%) have been investigated for their bioactivity against human or plant pathogens, and/or for
possible pharmacological or physiological actions.
Many of the plants used in the Jamaican folk medicine and found to have medicinal and agricultural
potential, are not endemic to Jamaica. Of the 334 identified medicinal plants growing in Jamaica, 31
were endemic (9.3%); another 12 have a restricted distribution range to the Caribbean, 50% were
restricted to the Americas while 37% are found throughout the tropics.
A more in-depth study is needed on the origin of medicinal plants and knowledge of their uses by
enslaved Africans in the New World, to add to the growing body of plants used for medicinal purposes in
Africa.
Conclusions
Indigenous medical practices are as old as the time of the emergence of the earliest man. These practices
involved experimenting with different plants and to a less degree, animals with a view to determining
whether or not they had therapeutic value. This serves as a basis for ensuring good health for a
community. Much information about ethnomedicine is documented orally. Every environmental set-up,
had numerous plants with chemotherapeutic values that mankind can use to treat a wide range of diseases
including illnesses at any point in time.
The continuing use of African ethnomedicine and epistemology in the Caribbean and the Americas
demonstrates a successful technological transfer of African traditional herbal medicine during and after
the transatlantic slave trade. For millions of descendants of enslaved Africans, it is still the healing
method of choice and sometimes the only method that exists. African traditional herbal medicine is also
more conducive to the health of melanated people.
Like traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine of India, African traditional herbal
medicine is plant-based. It has been around for thousands of years before the use of Western medicine
and provided the foundation for all three. The African continent has now over a billion people. In times
of war and environmental disasters, the health of African people everywhere needs to be secure. This
means that on the continent, regulatory measures should be put in place to ensure all Africans have
adequate healthcare, independent of outside sources, based on culture. These plants can be cultivated,
collected and conserved; healing methods can be standardized and taught to practicing herbalists as
reliable and reproducible methods for various diseases.
Much information in Africa has been lost over several centuries, but fortunately that which has been lost,
can systematically be retrieved from adequate sources of authentication found in former slave colonies in
the New World. (June 2010)
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank and acknowledge our children and our families in Africa, Canada, Jamaica, and the
USA for their love, patience and understanding.
TABLE 1. USES OF MEDICINAL PLANTS COMMON TO AFRICA AND JAMAICA
TAXON
Alliaceae (Liliaceae)
Allium sativum L. (Garlic)
B+++
AFRICA+
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco,
Tunisia, Sudan, Benin, Nigeria,
Kenya, DRC, Ivory Coast,
Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia
USES+
Medicine
JAMAICA ++
Medicine
DRC, Angola, Nigeria, Togo,

Food, Medicine
Amaranthaceae
A. hybridus L. sp. hybridus/A.viridis Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda,
Rwanda, Ethiopia
L. - A
CAR, Nigeria, Benin, Congo,
Food, Medicine
Anacardiaceae
Anacardium occidentale L. (Cashew) - Guinea, Angola, Mali, Ghana,
Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania,
NW
Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Mozambique
Food, Medicine
Mangifera Indica L. (Mango) - OW Sub-Sahara Wide
Benin, Congo, Togo, Ivory Coast,
Annonaceae
Senegal, Cameron, Guinea, CAR Food, Medicine
Annona muricata (Soursop) - NW
Annona Squamosa L (Sweetsop)- NW Sierra Leone, Angola, Ethiopia,
Reunion, Seychelles, Mauritius,
Comoros, Madagascar,
Nigeria, Benin, Mali, Congo, Togo, Poison, Medicine
Apocynaceae
Ivory Coast, CAR, DRC, Burkina
Rauwolfia vomitoria Afzel. - A
Faso, Sierra Leone, Cameroon,
Senegal, Tanzania
Catharanthus roseus (L.)
Sub-Sahara wide
Medicine
(Vinca Rosa) Madagascar A
Angola, Ethiopia, South Africa,
Medicine
Asteraceae (Composite)
Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda,
Artemisia Spp. - PT
Kenya, (East Africa)
Bidens pilosa L. - PT
(Spanish Needle)
Vernonia spp - PT
Bombacaceae
Adansonia digitata L- A
(Baobab)
Boraginaeae
Heliotropium indicum L. A
Brassicaceae
Brassica oleracea L. (Cabbage,
Brussel Sprouts) - OW
Congo, Comoros, Mauritius, Ivory Food, Medicine,

Coast, Nigeria, Uganda, DRC,
Ritual
Burundi, Angola, Tanzania,
Rwanda, Madagascar, Ethiopia,
Kenya, CAR, Burkina Faso,
Reunion, Cameroon, S. Africa,
Gabon
DRC, Angola, CAR, Ivory Coast, Food, Medicine
Burundi, Tanzania, Burkina Faso,
Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, S. Africa,
Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritius
Benin, Niger, Togo, Nigeria, Mali,
Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Food, Medicine,
Angola, Congo, CAR, Ghana,
Fibre
Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry,
Burkina Faso, Sudan, Zimbabwe,
DRC, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia,
Somali, Malawi, S. Africa,
Mauritania, Madagascar
Seychelles, Benin, Nigeria, Togo,
Mauritius, Ivory Coast, DRC,
Medicine
Madagascar, Senegal, Tanzania,
Guinea, Guinea Conakry, Mali,
Gabon
Morocco, Angola, Kenya, S. Africa
Food
Food, Medicine
(Calaloo)
Food, Medicine
Food, Medicine
Food, Medicine
Rauwolfia
Serpentinea
Listed in Haiti
Pharmacopoeia
Medicine
(Periwinkle)
Medicine -No
species recorded
garden plant,
(Garden Bitters)
Food, Medicine
Food, Medicine
Vernonia acumiata
Vernonia pluvalis
Endemic
Listed in Haiti
Pharmacopedia as
Medicine, Food
Medicine
(Scorpion weed)
Food
Caricaceae
Carica Papaya L. NW
(Papaw)
Commelineae
Commelina diffusa Burm. - PT
Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Togo,

Mauritius, DRC, Cameroon, Mali, Food, Medicine
Ghana, Ivory Coast, Zambia,
Gabon, Angola, Sierra Leone,
Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Senegal,
Guinea, CAR, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda,
Burundi, S. Africa, Madagascar,
Reunion, Seychelles, Comoros
Congo, Ivory Coast, DRC, Angola, Medicine
Uganda, Burundi, Mauritius
Benin, Comoros, Burundi, Kenya, Medicine

Uganda, DRC, Tanzania, Somalia
Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Ivory
Medicine
Crassulaceae
Bryophyllum pinnatum (L. f.) Oken - Coast, DRC, CAR, Burkina Faso,
Mali, Cameroon, Sierra Leone,
A
Senegal, Guinea, Uganda,
Tanzania, Rwanda, Madagascar,
Kalanchoe pinnatum syn.
Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius,
Reunion
Morocco, Nigeria, Benin, Niger,
Cucurbitaceae
Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Mali, Senegal, Chad, Congo, CAR, Food, Medicine
Angola, Tanzania, S. Africa,
Nakai A; B+++
Botswana (Kalahari), Zimbabwe
(Watermelon)
Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Medicine, Ritual
Tunisia, Benin, Congo, Togo,
A B+++
Nigeria, Madagascar, Angola,
(Calabash)
Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe,
Mauritius, CAR, Senegal, DRC,
Reunion, Kenya, Rwanda
Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Togo, Ivory Medicine
Momordica Charantia L. A
Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana,
DRC, Cameroon, Senegal, Burkina
Faso, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Comoros
Congo, DRC, CAR, Rwanda,
Dioscoreaceae
Benin, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast,
Food, Medicine
Dioscorea spp. - A
Gabon, Senegal, Nigeria, Burundi,
(Species of Yam)
Cameron, Angola, Tanzania,
Zimbabwe, Uganda
Medicine, Ritual
Eurphorbiaceae
Comoros, Ivory Coast, Gabon,
Jatropha Curcas L. - PT
Uganda, Ghana, Madagascar,
(Physic Nut)
Burundi, DRC, CAR, Sudan,
Angola, Guinea Conakry, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania, Burkina Faso,
Senegal, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia,
Mali, Cameroon, Mauritius,
Guinea, Kenya, Reunion, Niger,
Somalia, S. Africa
Commelina Africana - A
Food, Medicine
Medicine
(Water Grass
Not Listed
Medicine
(Leaf of Life)
Food
Listed in Haiti
Pharmacopedia as
Ritual, Medicine
Medicine
(Cerasse)
Food, Medicine
Medicine
Phyllanthus amarus Thonn. A

Comoros, Ivory Coast, Uganda,
Ghana, Tanzania, Mauritius,
Reunion, CAR, Cameroon
Medicine
Morocco, Algeria, Chad, Nigeria, Medicine, Poison,

Burundi, Sahel, DRC, Kenya,
Ritual
Niger, W, Africa, Rwanda,
Zimbabwe, S. Africa, Mali,
Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritania,
Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Senegal
Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Niger,
Fabaceae-Caesalpinoideae
Medicine
Cassia occidentalis L. (Senna) - NW Togo, Ivory Coast, Mali, CAR,
Equatorial Guinea, DRC, Ghana,
Cameroon, Angola, Guinea, Chad,
Gabon, Senegal, Sudan, Kenya,
Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania,
Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia,
Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritania,
Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius
Tunisia, Niger, Benin, Congo,
Food, Medicine
Fabaceae-Caesalpinioideae
Tamarindus indica L. (Taramarind) - Togo, CAR, Ghana, DRC, Nigeria,
Ivory Coast, Senegal, Angola,
A
Sudan, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso,
Sierra Leone, Chad, Uganda,
Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania,
Zimbabwe, Comoros, Madagascar,
Seychelles, Mauritius
Medicine, Ritual
Fabaceae-Papilionaceae
Niger, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali,
Abrus precatorius L. - OW
CAR, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC,
Kenya, Senegal, Burkina Faso,
Guinea, Cameroon, Burundi,
Angola, Gabon, Mauritius,
Reunion, Seychelles, Comoros,
Madagascar
Food for Fodder
Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp - A
DRC, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Medicine
Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Rwanda,
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Senegal,
Gabon, Reunion, Coromos,
Mauritius, Madagascar
Benin, Congo, Togo, Uganda,
Medicine
Lamiaceae (Labiate)
Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Tanzania,
Hyptis Suaveolens L. Poil - PT
Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Spikenard
Senegal, DRC
Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda,
Medicine
Leonotis nepetifolia(L) R. Br. A
Uganda, Ivory Coast, Nigeria,
Sudan, Tanzania, Chad, Gabon,
Madagascar, Seychelles
Ricinus communis L A; B+++
(Castor Oil Plant)
Medicine
(Carry-me-seed)
Medicine
Medicine
(Dandelion)
Food, Medicine
Medicine
(Red bead vine)
Food
(Gungo Peas)
Medicine
Medicine
(Christmas
candlestick)
Ocimum basilicum L OW
(Sweet Basil)
Lauraceae
Cinnamomum cassia Lour.; B+++
Cinnamomum Zeylanicum
Liliaceae
Aloe vera L B+++
Loganiaceae
Stychons spp - PT
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Medicine, Food

Tunisia, Benin, Togo, Nigeria,
DRC, Cameroon, Burundi, Ivory
Coast, CAR, Congo, Angola,
Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya, Senegal,
Uganda, Burkina Faso, Guinea
Conakry, Gabon, Sierra Leone,
Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles,
Madagascar, Reunion
Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali,
Medicine
Morocco
Burkina-Faso, Mali, Senegal,

Kenya, Tanzania
DRC, Angola, Congo, Cameroon,
Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina
Faso, CAR, DRC, Tanzania
Morocco, Benin, Togo, Nigeria,
Malvaceae
Abelmoschus esculentus(L.)Moench Niger, Ghana, Madagascar, Ivory
Coast, Congo, Angola, Sierra
(Okra) - A
Leone, DRC, CAR, Burkina Faso,
Gabon, Zimbabwe, Senegal,
Mauritius, Cameroon, West Africa
(Fulani-Fula)
Benin, Congo, Togo, Angola,
Hibiscus sabdariffa L - A
Sudan, Senegal, CAR, Mali,
Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia,
Tanzania, Guinea Conakry,
Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger,
Uganda
Congo, Sierra Leone, DRC,
Gossypium spp. (Cotton) A
Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mali, W.
B+++
Africa, South and East Africa,
Guinea Conakry (Fouta-Djallon)
Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Equatorial
Poaceae (Graminae)
Cymbopogon citratus (D.C.) (Lemon Guinea, Ghana, DRC, Angola,
Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Senegal,
Grass/Fever Grass) - OW
Mali, Cameroon, CAR, Tanzania,
Gabon, Uganda, Seychelles,
Mauritius, Madagascar
Oryza sativa L.
Morocco, Congo, Sierra Leone,
Ehtiopia, DRC, Rwanda,
Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion,
Guinea Conakry (Fouta-Djallon),
Oryza glaberrima steud (Rice) - A
W. Africa
Ethiopia, Congo, Rwanda, Kenya,
Rubiaceae
Burundi, DRC, Uganda, Mauritius,
Coffea Arabia L (Coffee) -A
Madagascar, Reunion
Medicine, Food
Poison
Medicine
(Cinnamon)
Medicine
(Sinkle Bible)
Not Listed
Food, Medicine,
Food
Medicine, Food,
Fiber,
Food, Medicine
(Sorrel)
Medicine, Fiber
Medicine, Fiber
Medicine
Medicine
Medicine, Food
Food
Medicine, Food
Ritual
Food
Food, Medicine
Rutaceae
Citrus aurantifolia (Christmas) Single
(Lime) OW
B+++
Sapindaceae
Blighia sapida KD. Koenig - A
Cardiospermum halicacabum L - A
Solanceae
Datura Stramonium L.- OW
(Jimson Weed)
Solanum nigrum L. - OW
(Black Nightshade)
Capsicum frutescens L. NW
Sterculiaceae
Cola acuminate (P. Beauv) Schott &
Endl (Kola Nut) A
C. nitida (Vent) Schott&Endl (Syn.)
Morocco, Nigeria, Benin, Congo,

Togo, Comoros, Uganda, Gabon, Food, Medicine Food, Medicine
Madagascar, Mali, Angola,
Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania,
Burkina Faso, Mauritius, DRC,
Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon,
Kenya, Niger
Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Gabon,
Medicine, Food Food, Medicine
So Tom and Prncipe, Benin,
Poison
(Akee)
Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria,
Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
Benin, Togo, DRC, Mali, Kenya, Medicine, Fodder, Not Listed
S. Africa, Uganda, Burundi, Sudan, Food
Tanzania, Ethiopia, Angola,
Ritual
Rwanda, Guinea Conakry, Chad,
Gabon, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Reunion, Seychelles, Comoros
Tunisia, Benin, Nigeria, Togo,
Medicine, Ritual Medicine
DRC, Cameroon, Angola, Uganda,
Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda
Tanzania, S. Africa, Madagascar,
Mauritius
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Food, Medicine Medicine
Tunisia, Somalia, Sudan, Benin,
Ritual
Nigeria, Niger, Togo, Ivory Coast,
DRC, CAR, Uganda, Kenya,
Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda,
Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone,
Cameroon, Zimbabwe, S. Africa,
Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso,
Gabon, Madagascar, Reunion,
Comoros, Mauritius
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Food, Medicine Food, Medicine
Tunisia, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria,
(Bird Pepper)
Benin, Congo, Togo, Mali,
Uganda, Kenya, Burundi,
Tanzania, DRC, CAR, Angola,
Cameroon, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, Senegal, Gabon, Ivory
Coast, Sierra Leone, Chad,
Medicine, Food, Food, Medicine
Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ritual
(Bissy)
Angola, Burkina Faso, CAR, DRC,
Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau,
Guinea, Cameroon, Madagascar
Morocco, Nigeria, Congo, Togo, Medicine, Food,

Zingiberaceae
Aframomum melegueta K Sschum -A Ivory Coast, Mali, Benin, Gabon, Ritual
Ghana, DRC, Angola, Cameroon,
Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso
A = Africa; B = Biblical; NW = New World; OW = Old World; PT = Pan Tropical
Not Listed
+ = Metafro Infosys Database (Prelude), Emphasis on Central African plant sources

= Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA)
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Asprey, G.F., Phyllis Thorton, Medicine Plants of Jamaica, Parts I & II, West Indian Medical Journal,
2(4) & 3(1), 1954.
__Medicine Plants of Jamaica, Parts III & IV, West Indian Medical Journal, 4(2) & 4(3), September 1955.
+++ = Duke, James A., Dukes Handbook of Medicinal Plants of the Bible, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
2008.
Carney, Judith A., African Traditional Plant Knowledge in the Circum-Caribbean Region, Journal
of Ethnobiology 23(2): 2003, pp.167-185.
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Pan African Indigenous Herbal Medicine Technology Tranfer

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PAN-AFRICAN_ INDIGENOUS_HERBAL_MEDICINE_TECHNOLOGY_TRANSFER

Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Cote d' Ivoire): 10.4%

Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia): 4.8%

Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar): 4.7%

Upper Guinea (Guinea Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%

Windward Coast (Liberia and Cote d' Ivoire): 1.8%

The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire

The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)

The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola

The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria

The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria

The Mand speakers of Upper Guinea

The Wolof of Senegal and The Gambia

The Chamba of Cameroon

The Makua of Mozambique

Slave Plantations in the New World

those who died.

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (12 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

DRC, Angola, Nigeria, Togo,

Congo, Comoros, Mauritius, Ivory Food, Medicine,

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (13 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Togo,

Benin, Comoros, Burundi, Kenya, Medicine

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (14 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

Phyllanthus amarus Thonn. A

Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Togo,

Morocco, Algeria, Chad, Nigeria, Medicine, Poison,

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (15 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Medicine, Food

Burkina-Faso, Mali, Senegal,

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (16 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

Morocco, Nigeria, Benin, Congo,

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (17 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

Morocco, Nigeria, Congo, Togo, Medicine, Food,

+ = Metafro Infosys Database (Prelude), Emphasis on Central African plant sources

Links - Black Connections

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Ask the Experts

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (19 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

http://www.blackherbals.com/pan_african_indigenous_herbal_medicine_technology_transfer.htm (20 of 20) [8/23/2010 10:43:20 AM]

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