Medical ethnobotany of Chorote indians and comparison with the one of Criollos of Semiarid Chaco, Argentina

Abstract

Present medicinal plant uses of the Chorote indians of Semiarid Chaco, is identified here. Sixty nine (69) plant species, 2 fungi species and 1 lichen with 194 medicinal uses, are recorded. A low proportion of medicinal uses regarding total ethnobotanical data (15 %), is highlighted. More than a half of such plant uses (52 %) were found identical from those recorded for their Criollo neighbours, concluding that these practices would have been incorporated as a kind of cultural loan. Chorote’s pharmacopoeia would have been very reduced in the past owned to the shamanistic nature of their traditional medicine, in which medicinal plants would not have played a significant role. Among Chorote’s medicinal plants Achatocarpus praecox, Cleistocactus baumannii, Echinopsis rhodotricha and Funastrum
clausum, could be quoted. Ninety Chorote’s strictly plant remedies could be counted, mainly as antiemmenagogic; antidiarrheic, for coughs and as cicatrizant.