Ginger: An Introduced Foreign Species and Its Recognition as a Traditional Medicine Plant by the Peruvian Awajun Populations

Canepa R.; Sihuay M.; Mendive F.; Wajai E. · Socio-Ecological Systems and Decoloniality: Convergence of Indigenous and Western Knowledge (2023) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-15097-5_15

Resumen

In the Peruvian Amazon, the Awajun indigenous populations have treated diseases traditionally through the consumption of medicinal plants and consultations with healers. Even though these traditional medicinal treatments are declining since the introduction of modern medicine into the Awajun ambit, the use of traditional medicinal plants is still applied by these populations, and Awajun women, especially the elderly, are playing a vital role in preserving and transferring the remaining ecological traditional knowledge to the coming generation. Among all the medicinal plants still applied by these populations, ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) has played an important role in the health of these Awajun groups since its introduction (eighteenth century), leading even to replace native plants due to its effectiveness, and becoming the most recognized medicinal plant in the Awajun culture so far. Among all its benefits, various authors converge that ginger is considered the medicinal plant most used in childbirth and post-childbirth, or in regulating fertility in these indigenous groups. This chapter makes a compilation of different traditional uses of ginger in Awajun communities, where some of them are validated with current and promising scientific findings such as the ginger variety, Bukuchap ajeg, to reduce the menstrual flow ceases during dysmenorrhea or Akap ajeg to alleviate the different types of colic, including menstrual pain. In addition, we introduce Elsa Wajai Ampush, an Awajun traditional knowledge holder, who explains to us her interaction with this plant and its applications in different medicinal purposes besides fertility matters. Therefore, we propose to explain how this introduced plant species, ginger, has been rooted culturally in the Awajun populations so far due to its importance in health purposes that science is advancing in proving. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.