Healing Practices of Amazonian Indians

Scientists and pharmaceutical houses today are all looking for interesting leads about plants which have the potential to be developed into drugs. Recent success in the discovery of an anti-malarial drug, artemesenin from the plant quing hao tsu in China and anti-cancer drug from the Pacific yew tree bark in the US has spurred this research.

Sometimes these leads are obtained from old books and writings of explorers, missionaries and anthropologists. Artemesenin was first described in an ancient Chinese book by Ye Hong. One book which contains fascinating information about plants used for healing by the Amazonian Indians called Witch Doctor’s Apprentice, was written by a Harvard anthropologist, Nicole Maxwell. She spent months travelling through and living in the Amazon jungles. Unfortunately, this book is not generally available. Some of the cures seen by this trained anthropologist are described below.

To extract teeth painlessly, the Indians would collect the sticky resin from a tree which is known as incira and put this into the cavity of a decaying tooth. The tooth would than fall off. The tree has been identified as the Chlorophora tinctoreal gaud. Our researchers in dentistry would be interested in this plant.

Burns were treated by the bark found just under the brown outer skin of the manioc tuber plant. The name of the plant is yucca – the sweet manioc – known as Manihot dulcis. It is the sweet manioc which should be used, not the bitter manioc, which is toxic. Maxwell reported that no Indian she saw, had suffered from acne. If a pimple appeared on the face, a poultice of the vine known as plukentia was immediately applied on the pimple, which then disappeared. Father Laurencio Quintana, a Franciscan father attached to the church in Conanmana, a small town on the Ucayali river which flows into the Amazon from the south, described to the writer the medicine used for treating arthritis. The roots of a large shrub known locally as hiporuru were used for this. To the shavings of the roots was added the crude rum used throughout Peru called aguadienta. The mixture was left for one month after which, wild honey was added to it. Once ready, this combination was used to treat even the most severe cases of arthritis. The plant has been identified as alchornia which is one of the euphorbia family.

A plant commonly known in Peru as chanca piedra is used for expelling stones from the kidney. The preparation is taken like tea. The plant is phyllanthus. The name of the plant describes its action – chanca means break, while piedra means stone. To stop bleeding from any part of the body, the sap of the plant croton salutaris is used. An ounce of the sap of this plant is drunk to stop haemorrhage.

There is a wealth of valuable information in the book put together after careful observation by Nicole Maxwell. Unfortunately, it was published in the 1960s, a time when interest in medicinal plants was at its lowest. Today it has been realised that the study of plants would probably provide us some medicines for the future. One hopes that the plants used by the Amazonian Indian for healing illness will not be forgotten in this resurgence of interest in plants which heal.