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Contributions to the study of Tibetan medicine
Piante medicinali del Tibet. Un antico manoscritto di scienza della guarigione (Tibetan Medicinal Plants. An Ancient Manuscript of the Science of Healing) presents the translation from Tibetan into Italian of an ancient manuscript devoted to
Le piante medicinali nella scienza della guarigione tibetana
Plant Knowledge among Tibetan Populations
During spring and summer 1998 at the clinic of the Tibetan refugees' settlement of Dhorpatan (Baglung District, central Nepal) the authors conducted a field study on Tibetan pharmacology and materia medica. Moving to an unfamiliar environment, learned practitioners of Tibetan medicine on the basis of their experience and through the analysis of various plant and environmental features are able to identify the materia medica of the region. This is the case of Dhorpatan, where at the beginning of the 1990s a Tibetan doctor coming from Khyungbo (east Tibet, China) selected the plants that can be employed in therapeutics. As far as the identification criteria are concerned, our field data show that the evaluation of plant morphology is only the first step of the identification process. In fact our informant takes into consideration plant taste, scent and environment of growth, stressing that these features are crucial to assess plant therapeutic properties. Owing to the isolation of the area and to the difficulty of getting all the drugs required, compromises on the identification have to be made. This implies the selection of a few plants that do not have the best therapeutic properties and are substitutes of low quality. The comparison between the botanical identification of the plants selected in Dhorpatan and the ones described in a modern Tibetan pharmacopoeia showed a significant similarity.
BACKGROUND: This paper aims to present the author's field research data on wild food plant use in Tibetan regions. It provides a general perspective on their significance in past and present Tibet, and examines the concept of wild edible plants as medicinal plants. The fieldwork was conducted in Dhorpatan (Nepal, May-August 1998), Lithang town and surroundings (Sichuan, China, April-September 1999, May-August 2000); Southern Mustang District (Nepal, July-August 2001); and Sapi (Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, India, July 1995, August 2005).METHODS: The research was conducted with 176 informants. The methodology included ethnographic research techniques: participant observation, open-ended conversations, semi-structured interviews, and studies of Tibetan medical texts. The author worked in the field with Tibetan colloquial and written language.
RESULTS: The 75 total wild food plants and mushrooms belong to 36 genera and 60 species. 44 specimens are used as vegetables, 10 as spices\condiments, 15 as fruits, 3 as ferments to prepare yoghurt and beer, 5 as substitutes for tsampa (roasted barley flour, the traditional staple food of Tibetan people), 4 as substitutes for tea, and 3 to prepare other beverages. Data from Lithang, which are more representative, show that among 30 wild food plant species exploited, 21 are consumed as vegetables, 5 as spices, 4 as fruits, 3 represent substitutes for roasted barley flour, 2 substitutes for tea, and 1 is used as fermentation agent.
CONCLUSION: Tibetans have traditionally exploited few wild food plants. These mainly compensate for the lack of vegetables and fruit in traditional Tibetan diet, notably among pastoralists, and are far more important during famines as substitutes for roasted barley flour. Today few wild food plants are regularly consumed, less in the main towns and villages and moreso in remote areas and among pastoralists. Younger generations from towns have almost lost traditional botanical knowledge. Owing to modernisation and globalisation processes, many local people have specialised in collecting natural products increasingly demanded in China and abroad. Tibetan people strongly benefit from these activities. Tibetan medicine sees diet as a way of curing diseases and medical treatises describe therapeutic properties of several wild food plants that Tibetans nowadays consume.