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Plant Knowledge of the Shuhi in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China1

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Plant Knowledge of the Shuhi in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China1 29006_U01.qxd 3/7/06 10:02 AM Page 3 Plant Knowledge of the Shuhi in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China1 Caroline S. Weckerle, Franz K. Huber, Yang Yongping, and Sun Weibang Weckerle, Caroline S. (Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Heilong- tan, Kunming 650204, China, and Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Zolli- kerstrasse 107, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland; Tel: 0086 871 521 22 74; email: weckerle@ ethnobot.ch, [email protected]), Franz K. Huber, Yang Yongping, and Sun Weibang (Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Heilongtan, Kunming 650204, China; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. cn). Plant Knowledge of the Shuhi in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China. Economic Botany 60(1):3–23, 2006. The Shuhi are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group of around 1,500 people living exclusively in the Shuiluo Valley, southwest China. We docu- mented their plant knowledge concerning wild collected species, and analyzed food, medi- cine, and ritual uses. Overall, uses, collection sites, and use frequencies of 136 plant species were documented. The plants were divided in fodder (46 spp.), food (43 spp.), medicine (27 spp.), ritual plants (20 spp.), fuelwood (17 spp.), plants used for construction (8 spp.), orna- mentals (2 spp.), and “others” (34 spp.). Food plants mainly consist of fruits and leafy veg- etables, and the uses are comparable with those of other ethnic groups in the area. Knowl- edge about medicinal plants is relatively limited, since traditional Shuhi healers use ritual and other healing methods instead of medicinal plants. Ritual plants play an important role relative to human well-being. Villagers and ritualists use them to keep the environment clean of malevolent spirits and to maintain a good relationship with the deities. All habitats, from the dry shrub vegetation at the valley bottom up to the alpine shrub, are used for plant collec- tion, but 87% of all species are collected in the near vicinity of the villages around the fields and in the dry shrub vegetation. Finally, we postulate two main factors influencing wild plant use among the Shuhi: cultural values and accessibility. Key Words: Ethnobotany, food plants, medicinal plants, ritual plants, Shuiluo Valley, Tibeto- Burman. The Hengduan Mountains region is well high medicinal plant diversity (Wang et al. known for its biological diversity and its cul- 1995; Morell 2002). The Hengduan Mountains tural richness. It is situated at the Himalayan region belongs to the eastern part of “Ethnic foothills of southwest China, spanning south- Tibet” (Baumer and Weber 2002:17–18). For west Sichuan, northwest Yunnan, and part of several thousands of years, the area has been in- eastern Tibet. Mountains reach altitudes of habited by a large number of ethnic groups with 7,500 m while networks of streams and rivers, distinct and different languages, customs, and including the Mekong, Salween, and Yangtze, land management practices (e.g., Hsu 1998). dissect innumerable valleys. The region is one Current ethnobotanical studies in the Sino- of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots as iden- Himalayan area (including northern Nepal and tified by Conservation International (Myers et India) concentrate on nontimber forest prod- al. 2000; Olson and Dinerstein 2002). It is one ucts, mainly medicinal plants and their local of the richest temperate floristic areas in the uses and exploitation, as well as the resulting world, harboring 3,500 endemic species with impacts on the environment (see Kala 2000; Saxena et al. 2001; Ghimire, McKey, and Aumeeruddy-Thomas 2005). There are few En- 1 Received 16 October 2005; accepted 12 Novem- glish articles dealing with current ethnobotan- ber 2005. ical research in the Hengduan Mountains. Most Economic Botany, 60(1), 2006, pp. 3–23. © 2006, by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A. 29006_U01.qxd 3/7/06 10:02 AM Page 4 4 ECONOMIC BOTANY [VOL. 60 Y a ng M tz ek e on g Hengduan SICHUAN Salw Mountains ee Beijing n Chengdu S CHINA TIBET h R u i i v l e u r o Kunming YUNNAN 0 100 200km Fig. 1. Location of the study area in southwest China. research has been conducted in NW Yunnan ical studies are urgently needed to document (see Pei, Li, and Yin 1996; Long et al. 2003; the present knowledge and to provide a baseline Huang, Pei, and Long 2004; Salick et al. 2004). for future analysis regarding knowledge and use Pei, Li, and Yin (1996) and Huang, Pei, and changes. This study aims to document the tradi- Long (2004) document medicinal plant uses. tional knowledge of the Shuhi concerning wild The former study concentrates on local mar- collected plant species, and to analyze food, kets, whereas the latter documents local uses medicinal, and ritual plant uses. among the Lisu people. Long et al. (2003) Wild collected species as defined here are stress the various uses of the lacquer tree (Toxi- plants which are not cultivated, i.e., which are codendron vernicifluum [Stokes] F.A.Barkley) not deliberately planted and managed by hu- in agroforestry systems, while Salick et al. mans. The term does include semicultivated (2004) investigate the correlation between use- plants, which are protected to some degree, ful plants and biodiversity along elevation gra- e.g., not consciously destroyed in agricultural dients. activities or fuelwood collection (see Berlin The present study has been conducted in a 1992:120). Shuhi community, a little-known ethnic group living exclusively in the remote Shuiluo valley, Study Area situated in the south of the Hengduan Moun- tains, southwest Sichuan. Only recently, in Geographical Aspects and Vegetation 2000, has the valley been made accessible by The Shuiluo Valley in the Sichuan Province road. As a consequence, acculturation pressures is situated in the south of the Hengduan Moun- are increasing, and the lives of its inhabitants tains, ca. 28° N and 101° E, at an elevation of are rapidly changing. Other than a linguistic 2,000–6,000 m. The Shuiluo River, a tributary study (Sun 1990) and two articles about tradi- to the Yangtze River, is approximately 150 km tional utilization of Juglans regia L. and long (Fig. 1). Southwest monsoon from the In- Hordeum vulgare L. (Weckerle et al. 2005a, dian Ocean strongly influences the climate, re- 2005b), no ethnological or ethnobotanical re- sulting in a rainy season from June to October search articles have been published on the and allowing tropical vegetation to reach almost Shuhi. Since acculturation processes are often 29° north latitude (Wang et al. 1995). The an- accompanied by a loss of indigenous plant nual rainfall in the Shuiluo valley ranges from knowledge (e.g., Benz et al. 2000), ethnobotan- 400 to 1,000 mm (unpublished data, Wang 29006_U01.qxd 3/7/06 10:02 AM Page 5 2006] WECKERLE, ET AL.: SHUHI PLANT KNOWLEDGE 5 1961). The vegetation types can be divided into with one-third to one-half of randomly selected a dry to semidry valley bottom characterized by households in the other villages and hamlets: shrub vegetation (2,000–2,400 m), subtropical Xiwa (9), Dongla (6), Pingweng (11), and Mi- mixed pine and oak forests (2,400–3,500 m), anbang (7). Data were collected through semi- temperate and cold-temperate mixed conifer structured interviews with both male (34) and forests (3,500–4,400 m), and alpine vegetation female (29) informants, including extended (above 4,400 m; Handel-Mazzetti 1921). open-ended interviews with the village leaders and persons chosen based on recommendations Ethnographic Background of villagers. Interviews were carried out in Chi- The Shuiluo Valley is inhabited by five nese or the local language with the assistance different Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups living of translators. Usually one or two “main” inter- close together but separated by their languages: viewees were questioned, although often other the Gami-Tibetans, Pumi, Shuhi, Moso, and people were around and participated in the dis- Naxi. The first three, summarized officially as cussions. The “main” interviewees were 20–70 Tibetans (Chinese: zangzu), are in the majority years old, with an average age of 43. with about 4,500 inhabitants. Around 1,500 of The semistructured interviews covered the them are Shuhi people, living exclusively in the socioeconomic situation (family background, Shuiluo valley. The Naxi comprise about 400 age, income, education, etc.) as well as knowl- and the Moso about 300 inhabitants (Ma Shuji edge of traditional plant use, health care, and 1996, personal communication). The kinship of healing practices, traditional and recent. Since the Shuhi to other ethnic groups is unclear, but it was generally difficult to get extensive infor- is the subject of recent ethnological studies in mation on plant use during the interviews, the area (Weng 2005, personal communication). walks in the area (through fields and shrub veg- The ethnic groups usually live in confined etation) with key informants were conducted, settlements with 20–30 scattered buildings or, which often triggered their recognition of use- more rarely, in hamlets with more closely ful plants. In Lanman village, extensive work arranged houses. All ethnic groups rely on sub- with two key informants also included the dis- sistence agriculture with crop rotations and two cussion of randomly collected plants. All infor- harvests per year. Both the Shuhi and the Moso mation received from key informants was are paddy farmers and are settled near the val- cross-checked with at least two additional in- ley bottom between 2,000–2,400 m. The other formants. groups cultivate mainly wheat, barley, and corn, Besides interviews we also collected plant and tend to live at higher elevations, especially use information (including local names) by in- the Gami and Pumi.
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