Ethnochemistry and Ethnomedicine of Ancient Papua New Guineans and Their Use in Motivating Students in Secondary Schools and Universities in PNG

Abstract

For more than 50,000 years of Papua New Guinea's human history, Papua New Guineans have been making significant contributions to Science, particularly in the fields of Chemistry and Medicine. However, because of the absence of any written language for over 800 dialects, the information has not been recorded and the contributions of ancient Papua New Guineans have largely gone unnoticed and unrecognized. However, during the past 40 years, some researchers, Holdsworth[1], Woodley [2], Timi[3], Dindi [4], Rai[5] have conducted scientific studies on medicinal plants in PNG which probably would have been used by ancient Papua New Guineans to treat deceases. Identification of the plants were carried out with the help of villagers initially and then with botanists and chemists Papua New Guinea. Chemical characterization was carried out by chemists in Papua New Guinea. Nine years ago, the author was able to introduce a Unit in the Grade 11 and 12 Chemistry Syllabus under the title 'Traditional Chemical Practices' which consists of traditional chemical and medicinal activities. Similar units had been introduced at undergraduate level in the University of PNG 7 years ago. Already there is evidence that the learning of what their ancestors had discovered and used has been an inspiration to students, and can stress the importance of learning modern scientific principles and methods to build on what their forefathers had done. This paper summarizes some of the scientific contributions of ancient Papua New Guineans, and endeavours to show how the studying of them at school and university levels may have influenced students to join chemical and medical streams at universities and encouraging first year undergraduates to take up chemistry in later years.