Abstract
Arunachal Pradesh, the easternmost part of India, is endowed with diverse natural resources and inhabited by a variety of ethnic groups that have developed skills to exploit the biotic resources of the region for food and medicines. Information on animals and animal parts as components of folk remedies used by local healers and village headmen of the Nyishi and Galo tribes in their respective West Siang and Subansiri districts were obtained through interviews and structured questionnaires. Of a total of 36 vertebrate species used in treatments of ailments and diseases, mammals comprised 50%; they were followed by birds (22%), fishes (17%), reptiles (8%) and amphibians (3%). Approximately 20 common complaints of humans as well as foot and mouth disease of cattle were targets of zootherapies. Most commonly treated were fevers, body aches and pains, tuberculosis, malaria, wounds and burns, typhoid, smallpox, dysentery and diarrhoea, jaundice, and early pregnancy pains. Very few domestic animal species (e.g., goat and cattle) were used zootherapeutically. More frequently it was wild animals, including endangered or protective species like hornbill, pangolin, clouded leopard, tiger, bear, and wolf, whose various parts were either used in folk remedies or as food. Some of the animal-based traditional medicines or animal parts were sold at local markets, where they had to compete with modern, western pharmaceuticals. To record, document, analyze and test the animal-derived local medicines before they become replaced by western products is one challenge; to protect the already dwindling populations of certain wild animal species used as a resource for the traditional animal-derived remedies, is another.
Highlights
Scientific research is revealing an ever increasing number of links between biodiversity and human health, in terms of food resources or food security, and with regard to materials to treat and cure diseases
In traditional Chinese Medicine more than 1500 animal species have been recorded to be of some medicinal use [13,14]
Alves [18] conducted a study to review traditional treatments of a variety of ailments in North-East Brazil and recorded 250 animal species used in this context and Alves et al [19] reported that at least 165 reptile species were used in traditional folk medicines around the world
Summary
Scientific research is revealing an ever increasing number of links between biodiversity and human health, in terms of food resources or food security, and with regard to materials to treat and cure diseases. But restricted to the adjoining areas of the wild life sanctuary of Mount Abu, 24 animal species were reported to be of medicinal use [21] Their investigation highlighted the variety of zootherapeutic uses among the tribes of India, especially those of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, parts of Assam and Nagaland. The increasing relevance of ethnobiological knowledge across the globe and, on the other hand, the danger of losing this information before it can be properly documented, prompted us to embark on this study to record to what extent members of the Nyishi and Galo tribes of Arunachal Pradesh in the northeastern part of India make use of animals and their products in treatments of common ailments and diseases. In order to obtain an idea on how widespread and common the particular zootherapeutic knowledge was, we decided, as with our earlier study [34] to only accept into our list animals and their products when at least 40% of the respondents answered in the same way
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