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+Model JEP-4492; No. of Pages 13 ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Ethnopharmacology xxx (2006) xxx–xxx Knowledge and use of medicinal plants by people around Debre Libanos monastery in Ethiopia Tilahun Teklehaymanot ∗, Mirutse Giday, Girmay Medhin, Yalemtsehay Mekonnen Aklilu Lemma Institute of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Received 23 May 2006; received in revised form 26 September 2006; accepted 19 November 2006 Abstract The study was conducted around Debre Libanos monastery from October 2005 to June 2006. A total of 250 villagers, 13 monks and 3 nuns were interviewed using semistructured questionnaire on the knowledge and use of medicinal plants. The informant consensus factor (ICF) and the fidelity level (FL) of the species were determined. Eighty medicinal plant species were reported. The average medicinal plant reported by a female is 1.67 ± 0.33 and a male is 5.77 ± 0.71 with significant difference between them (α = 0.05, p = 0.023). The ICF values demonstrated that local people tend to agree more with each other in terms of the plants used to treat ‘Mich’ and headache (0.69) and intesti- nal illness and parasites (0.68) but a much more diverse group of plants are cited to treat problems related to rabies (0.14) and unidentified swelling and cancer (0.11). The FL values are also similar to ICF values. The knowledge of the villagers close to the monastery is found to be higher than those distant from the monastery and the correlation between Abichu and Telaye (r = 0.970, α = 0.05, p = 0.001), and Zegamel and Doreni (r = 0.745, α = 0.05, p = 0.027) is significant indicating the relationships between the number of plants reported by the informants and the distance from the monasteries to the villages. This study was not able to determine the knowledge difference between the villagers and the monastery dwellers because the monks and nuns were not willing to give information on the knowledge and use of medicinal plants. This may result in the long run in loss of local knowledge in the surrounding area and the country at large for preparation of pharmacologically effective remedies. © 2006 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Keywords: Ethnobotany; Medicinal plants; Monastery; Traditional knowledge; Ethiopia 1. Introduction until the other wasted away and dropped off. Tekle Haymanot’s cave can still be seen and its holy water is a focus for pilgrims The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, an indigenous and integral (Merahi, 2001). Church of Africa is one of the oldest Churches in the world, if In Ethiopia, knowledge of traditional medicines is based not the oldest one. According to Pankhurst (1990), the Ethiopian on oral tradition or medico-magical and/or medico-spiritual Orthodox Church encompasses some 15,000 churches and over manuscripts (Pankhurst, 1990; Abebe and Ayehu, 1993; Abbink, 800 monasteries all over the country. Monasteries are refuges 1995). The old Gee’z manuscripts that are found in monasteries for old Gee’z manuscripts, which contain lists of traditional are the first known traditional pharmacopoeia that dates back to medicinal plants. the 15th century (Abate, 1989; Pankhurst, 1965, 1990). In most Debre Libanos is one of the monasteries founded in the 13th cases, the traditional herbalists in the northern part of the coun- century by Saint Tekle Haymanot. There is a small cave near try are from the churches and monasteries. The knowledge from the church where he is said to have stood for 7 years on one leg, these herbalists is passed secretively from one generation to the next either through words of mouths or their descendants inherit the medico-spiritual manuscripts. ∗ Corresponding author at: P.O. Box 56478, Ethiopia. Tel.: +251 112 763091; Ethiopia has about 800 species of plants that are used in the fax: +251 112 755296. traditional health care system to treat nearly 300 mental and E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Teklehaymanot). physical disorders. Traditional medicine still remains the main 0378-8741/$ – see front matter © 2006 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2006.11.019 Please cite this article in press as: Teklehaymanot, T. et al., Knowledge and use of medicinal plants by people around Debre Libanos monastery in Ethiopia, Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2006), doi:10.1016/j.jep.2006.11.019 +Model JEP-4492; No. of Pages 13 ARTICLE IN PRESS 2 T. Teklehaymanot et al. / Journal of Ethnopharmacology xxx (2006) xxx–xxx resource for a large majority (80%) of the people in Ethiopia for 2.2. Knowledge and use of medicinal plants survey treating health problems (Abebe and Hagos, 1991; Debella et al., 1999; Addis et al., 2001) and a traditional medical consultancy Villagers, monks and nuns were interviewed using semistruc- has a much lower cost, including the consumption of the medic- tured questionnaire (Martin, 1995) on the knowledge and use of inal plants required than modern medical attention. Ethiopian medicinal plants. The consent of the informants was asked to traditional medical system is characterized by variation and is give their knowledge about the plants they use against a disease, shaped by the ecological diversities of the country, socio-cultural the plant parts, the method of preparation of the remedy, details background of the different ethnic groups as well as historical of administration, the dosage and how knowledge is passed from developments which are related to migration, introduction of for- elders to younger generation in the family or in the community. eign culture and religion. Previous studies showed the existence The field surveys in the study area were undertaken from Octo- of traditional medical pluralism in the country (Pankhurst, 1965, ber 2005 to June 2006. The informants were selected randomly 1990; Slikkerveer, 1990; Abebe and Ayehu, 1993; Vecchiato, and no appointment was made prior to the visits. Specimens of 1993). the reported medicinal plants were collected and voucher speci- In recent years, folk medicine is no more an attraction to the mens were deposited at the herbarium of Aklilu Lemma Institute younger generation and many young people migrate to urban of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University. areas for education and job opportunities. As a consequence, only the elder people possess the knowledge of herbs and it is 2.3. Data analysis estimated that only a handful of people are able to use the tra- ditional remedy to treat illness. Thus, the traditional knowledge The reported remedies and aliments were grouped into 10 cat- is rapidly eroding. In addition, there is a lack of ethnobotanical egories based on the information gathered from the interviewees. survey carried out in most parts of the country. For these reasons, The categories were ‘Mich’ (febrile disease characterized by the documentation of the traditional uses of indigenous plants is fever, headache, sweating, Herpes labialis, and muscle spasm), important to preserve the knowledge. The purpose of this study headache, intestinal illness and parasites, stomach illness and is to investigate the knowledge and traditional uses of medicinal ‘Megagna’ (unidentified gastrointestinal disorder), skin infec- plants by the people around the monastery, and the knowledge tion and external injury, snake and viper bite, malaria, sensorial transferred from the monastery to the surrounding areas. system, internal diseases and respiratory infection, evil eye and setan beshita (devil illness), rabies, and undefined swelling (non- infectious or infectious swelling) and cancer. The informant 2. Materials and methods consensus factor (ICF) was calculated for each category to iden- tify the agreements of the informants on the reported cures for 2.1. Description of the study area the group of aliments. The ICF was calculated as follows: num- ◦ ◦ ber of use citations in each category (n ) minus the number of Debre Libanos monastery (9 72 N, 38 87 E) is located ur species used (n ), divided by the number of use citations in each 105 km north of Addis Ababa on the road to Bahir Dar. It was t category minus one (Heinrich et al., 1998). established in the 15 Century a.d. and currently 650 monks and 230 nuns live in the monastery. The villages, around Debre nur − nt ICF = Libanos monastery, visited during this survey were Abichu, nur − 1 Doreni, Debre Libanos, Telaye, and Zegamel. The main occu- The fidelity level (FL), the percentage of informants claim- pation of the villagers is mixed farming. There is only one rural ing the use of a certain plant for the same major purpose, was clinic at Debre Libanos and the distance from the clinic to the vil- calculated for the most frequently reported diseases or ailments lages varies from 30 min to 4 h on walking. Doreni and Zegamel as: are about 30 min, Telaye is 2–3 h and Abichu is 4 h walk from N the monastery (Fig. 1). = p × FL (%) N 100 where Np is the number of informants that claim a use of a plant species to treat a particular disease, and N is the number of informants that use the plants as a medicine to treat any given disease (Alexiades, 1996). 3. Result 3.1. Knowledge of informants In this study, a total of 250 people from five villages (N = 50) were interviewed. Out of these, 47 are women and it seems that they have less knowledge than men on traditional medicine. Fig. 1. Location of Debre Libanos in Ethiopia. The average medicinal plant reported by a female is 1.67 ± 0.33 Please cite this article in press as: Teklehaymanot, T. et al., Knowledge and use of medicinal plants by people around Debre Libanos monastery in Ethiopia, Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2006), doi:10.1016/j.jep.2006.11.019 +Model JEP-4492; No. of Pages 13 ARTICLE IN PRESS T.