As plantas de cura do Povoado de Lages, Porto de Pedras - AL

Abstract

The use of plants by human populations is as old as their own history and knowledge of the therapeutic properties of plants is one of the oldest medical practices of mankind, having orally one of its main means of transmission. The municipality of Porto de Pedras, is located in the microregion of the North Coast of the state of Alagoas, is formed by the administrative center and the rural zone composed by the villages of: Tatuamunha; Palmeira; Lages and Curtume. In the village of Lages the use of medicinal plants is a widespread practice among the population who seek in the local flora the means to treat their health problems, and there are particular situations in which the improvement is reached from consultations with healers and healers. Thus, the general objective of the research consisted in an ethnography about the relationship of the community of Lages with the environment through the use of botanical species in healing processes, in which it was possible to approach and describe how the knowledge transmission process occurs in this population on the use of these plants (Chapter 2) and carry out an ethnobotanical survey of the plants used in these processes, described in Chap. 3. For this survey two different scripts were conducted in the form of open questionnaires. Questionnaire 1 was directed to the specialists (people with a better knowledge about the use of plants) and questionnaire 2 was sent to the population of the village, totaling 107 interviews (seven with specialists and 100 with the population). From the ethnobotanical survey were identified a total of 123 plants, which had their local and taxonomic identification, the description of their parts used (root, rhizome, bulb, bark, leaves, flowers, fruits, etc.), the forms of use (tea, licker, plaster, juice, bath, etc.) and its indications (belly pain, flu, high blood pressure, bad eyesight, etc.), where it was possible to identify utilitarian redundancy regarding the evils treated, in the choice of plants used (Table 5). This knowledge has a rather conservative transmission, where the mother (vertical form of knowledge transmission), appears as the major responsible for this process.