Using Measurable Indices to Evaluate the Cultural Importance of Socio-religious Plants: Comparative Data from the Three States of India

The aim of the present study is to do the balancing between the science and cultural practices in an increasingly complex developing society and policy on the traditional knowledge landscape. Various quantitative indices are proposed to determine the cultural importance of socio-religious and ethnobotanically valuable plants as a tool for the evaluation of cultural heritage. These indices were applied to an ethnobotanical, sociocultural survey of plants and plant parts traditionally used and consumed in the selected study area. Selected plants were grouped into seven use categories for further analysis. The cultural value index (CV), use value index (UV), the relative frequency of citation (RFC), relative importance (RI), and cultural importance index (CI) were calculated for different plant species cited by 45 informants in different traditional societies from the studied states. The calculated values of the cultural importance of plants through diverse indices generated interesting variations from three regions of India. There were eight common species through all the three states. Among these eight species Butea monosperma shows the highest values from Rajasthan and Ziziphus jujube shows the lowest values from Gujarat region. While Nelumbo nucifera, Vigna mungo, and Nymphaea lotus were also portrayed high calculated values in the CI, RI, and CVs. The combined use of these indices makes it possible to quantify the role which has given to a particular plant within a specific culture in one or many festivals in general or religious rituals.

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Folk medicines of Bafra (Samsun-Turkey)

Turkish Journal of Biochemistry ◽

10.1515/tjb-2017-0172 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 42 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Elif Karcı ◽

İlhan Gürbüz ◽

Galip Akaydın ◽

Tuğba Günbatan

Keyword(s):

Relative Frequency ◽

Folk Medicine ◽

Use Value ◽

Ethnobotanical Knowledge ◽

Gradual Reduction ◽

Quantitative Indices ◽

Cultural Importance ◽

Informant Consensus ◽

Importance Index ◽

Cultural Importance Index

AbstractObjective:In this study, determination and documentation of folk medicines that are being used by indigenous people in Bafra was aimed.Materials and methods:Scientific trips were organised to the region and folk medicines were identified by interviewing individuals which have knowledge of folk medicine. One hundred and fifty-five plant samples were collected during the study. Obtained data were statistically analysed by using four quantitative indices; “informant consensus factor”, “use value”, “relative frequency of citation” and “cultural importance index”.Results:Fifty-three genera and 62 taxa belonging 33 families were recorded to be used in the treatment of different diseases. The usage of five species (Conclusion:Once again, the present investigation has highlighted the gradual reduction in the use of folk medicines, and ethnobotanical knowledge has been falling into oblivion rapidly. Therefore, ethnobotanical inventory surveys should be undertaken throughout Turkey before this important cultural heritage becomes lost.

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Woody species associated with coffee production systems in southern Colombia

Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas ◽

10.22267/rcia.213802.155 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 4-16

Author(s):

Héctor Ramiro Ordoñez-Jurado ◽

Marbel Cerón ◽

Dayana Lizeth Martinez O

Keyword(s):

Production Systems ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Floristic Composition ◽

Woody Species ◽

Well Being ◽

Cultural Importance ◽

Importance Index ◽

Family Economy ◽

Cultural Importance Index ◽

Productive Systems

In the coffee zone of the town La Unión- Nariño, native or introduced trees are associated with the productive systems of the farms, mainly because they provide shade for coffee crops, where particular aspects such as species biodiversity and silvicultural management are unknown. With the aim of knowing the woody species of common use and the cultural importance, a semi structured survey was applied to 100 coffee growers who were selected at random and aleatorily distributed in three altitudinal ranges: (m.a.s.l.): I (<1500), II (1500-1800) and III (> 1800). Species richness was determined for each chosen range; for diversity between ranges, the Jaccard Index (JI) and the Cultural Importance Index (CI) were used. The latter was determined by adding up the intensity of use (IU), frequency of citation (FC), and use value (UV). In the three altitude ranges evaluated, 59 tree species were found. These were distributed in 32 botanical families and 46 genera. The fabaceae family was the most representative, followed by rutaceae, myrtaceae and bignoniaceae; 45.8% of the species were introduced. Among the altitudinal ranges, a low degree similarity was found; ranks I and II shared 24 species, which is equivalent to 33.8% of their floristic composition. As for ranges I and III, they had an even lower degree of similarity: 24.2%; only 17 species were shared. The species I. densiflora had the highest percentage of CI, with 32.92%, followed by C. sinensis with 31.98%; then the species T. gigantea and P. americana with 30.49% and 26.27% respectively. These species were of great importance to coffee growers due to the positive impact they have on the family economy and their contribution to the environmental well-being of production systems.

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Variability between socio-cultural groups and generations of traditional knowledge of the use of Euphorbia poissonii Pax in Benin

Asian Journal of Applied Sciences ◽

10.24203/ajas.v8i3.6194 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Gbodja Houéhanou François GBESSO ◽

Jhonn Logbo ◽

Jacques Evrard Charles Aguia Daho

Keyword(s):

Scientific Basis ◽

Cultural Groups ◽

Scorpion Sting ◽

Individual Interviews ◽

Cultural Importance ◽

Importance Index ◽

Cultural Importance Index ◽

Medicinal Use ◽

The Relationship ◽

Derivatives Of

This study was conducted in the Municipality of Savalou to assess endogenous knowledge related to the use of Euphorbia poissonii in the Mahi and Nago ethnic groups. The survey was conducted through individual interviews with 112 people. The Relative Frequency, the Use Value, Fidelity and Cultural Importance index were used to assess the importance of each use. Correspondence analysis (CA) was used to describe the relationship between the categories of use and ethnicities and between the parts used of the plant and the ethnics groups. The analysis showed that the plant, Euphorbia poissonii, falls under three levels of major medicinal use, including: medicinal use of the stem, sap and leaf, which is the most common practice of the Mahi sociocultural group (UV=1.58) like Nago (UV=1.35). It helps to effectively treat measles (FL=23.08), incurable wounds (FL=22.30) and scorpion sting (FL=22.30). Powder, infusion and decoction are the forms of preparation of the products most used by the skin. The two socio-cultural groups all hold and effectively various knowledge of the use of different derivatives of the plant. The importance and increasing use of Euphorbia poissonii puts this plant under various pressures and threats from the population and it has no conservation measures to this day. Finally, this study not only alerts but also provides a scientific basis to define strategies for the conservation and protection of this neglected species.

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Ethnobotany and Agrobiodiversity: Valuation of Plants in the Homegardens of Southwestern Uganda

Ethnobiology Letters ◽

10.14237/ebl.9.2.2018.503 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 90-100 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Cory W. Whitney ◽

Joseph Bahati ◽

Jens Gebauer

Keyword(s):

Traditional Knowledge ◽

Food System ◽

Agroforestry Systems ◽

Quantitative Ethnobotany ◽

Conservation Movement ◽

Cultural Importance ◽

Importance Index ◽

Cultural Importance Index ◽

Southwestern Uganda ◽

High Diversity

Homegardens are species-rich agroforestry systems with a high diversity of associated traditional knowledge. These systems are an important part of food security for rural marginalized poor around the world, particularly in the humid tropics. Despite the high diversity and cultural importance, little is known about the livelihood-relevant plant diversity contained in the homegardens of southwestern Uganda. Here we employ the quantitative ethnobotany indices use reports (UR) and the cultural importance index (CI) to describe the importance of plants and plant types in the region’s homegardens. Data is based on inventories of 102 homegardens in the Greater Bushenyi from 2014 and reveals 225 useful plant species in 14 different use categories with 3,961 UR, 54% for food, 15% for economic uses, and 11% for medicine. The findings highlight the importance of homegarden plants for subsistence farming households and indicate that they are important places for conservation of botanical agrobiodiversity that should be considered part of the conservation movement in Uganda. Efforts to conserve both botanical and food system diversity in the extremely rich but rapidly deteriorating regional socio-cultural and ecological systems should consider homegardens for their role in conservation of plants and preservation of traditional knowledge.

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Religion and old age

Ageing and Society ◽

10.1017/s0144686x97006776 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 101-110 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

GRACE DAVIE ◽

JOHN VINCENT

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Old Age ◽

Turn Of The Millennium ◽

Human History ◽

Religious Rituals ◽

One Stage ◽

Traditional Societies ◽

The Life Course ◽

Crucial Part ◽

Over Time

The interconnections between religion and old age are complex; the more so given that the concept of age itself has – for a large part of human history – been determined by religious understandings of life. In traditional societies, religion played a crucial part in structuring the transitions between one stage of the life and the next and in defining maturity and fulfilment. And up to a point it still does: in Western societies at the turn of the millennium the association of religious rituals with key moments in the life course – birth, adolescence, marriage and above all death – remains widespread. Such interconnections change over time, however; they also vary from place to place.

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Cultural Ecology and Cultural Critique

Arts ◽

10.3390/arts8040166 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 166 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rowan Bailey ◽

Claire Booth-Kurpnieks ◽

Kath Davies ◽

Ioanni Delsante

Keyword(s):

Cultural Production ◽

Cultural Policy ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Cultural Value ◽

Cultural Critique ◽

Think Tank ◽

Place Studies ◽

Arts And Humanities ◽

The Arts ◽

Policy Information

In 2015, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) commissioned John Holden, visiting professor at City University, London, and associate at the think-tank Demos, to write a report on culture as part of its Cultural Value Project. The claim within the report was to redirect culture away from economic prescriptions and to focus on ecological approaches to ‘value’. Holden considers the application and use of ecological tropes to re-situate culture as ‘non-hierarchical’ and as part of symbiotic social processes. By embracing metaphors of ‘emergence,’ ‘interdependence,’ ‘networks,’ and ‘convergence,’ he suggests we can “gain new understandings about how culture works, and these understandings in turn help with policy information and implementation”. This article addresses the role of ‘cultural critique’ in the live environments and ecologies of place-making. It will consider, with examples, how cultural production, cultural practices, and cultural forms generate mixed ecologies of relations between aesthetic, psychic, economic, political, and ethical materialisms. With reference to a body of situated knowledges, derived from place studies to eco-regionalisms, urban to art criticisms, we will consider ecological thinking as a new mode of cultural critique for initiating arts and cultural policy change. Primarily, the operant concept of ‘environing’ will be considered as the condition of possibility for the space of critique. This includes necessary and strategic actions, where mixed ecologies of cultural activity work against the disciplinary policing of space with new assemblages of distributed power

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Effect of species, plant part, and season of harvest on n-alkane concentrations in the cuticular wax of common rangeland grasses from southern Africa

Australian Journal of Agricultural Research ◽

10.1071/ar00032 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 52 (9) ◽

pp. 875 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

D. G. Smith ◽

R. W. Mayes ◽

J. G. Raats

Keyword(s):

Southern Africa ◽

Diet Composition ◽

Common Species ◽

Flower Head ◽

Grass Species ◽

Wet Season ◽

Reliable Technique ◽

Plant Parts ◽

Plant Samples ◽

Whole Plant

The use of plant alkane concentrations to measure diet composition of herbivores has been shown to be a reliable technique in animals grazing temperate, sown pastures that contain a relatively small number of plant species. There is potential to develop this technique for use with free-range animals foraging upon species-rich rangeland. In order for the technique to be effective, the alkane concentration patterns (ACP) of the component species of the diet must be distinct from one another. Common species of grasses from southern Africa were analysed for their alkane concentrations in order to evaluate the use of the alkane technique for measuring diet composition under complex rangeland conditions. The alkane profiles were determined in different plant parts from 40 grass species gathered during the wet season and 23 gathered during the dry season. Statistical analysis, using ANOVA, showed that there were highly significant differences (P < 0.001) in the C 25, C 27 , C 29 C 31 , C 33 , and C 35 alkane concentrations between flower head and stem during both the dry and wet seasons. Similar statistical differences were apparent in the C 25 , C 27 , C 29 , and C 31 alkane concentrations of leaf and stem during both seasons; differences in C 33 and C 35 concentrations were significant but at a lower level (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively). Differences in C 25 , C 27 , and C 29 alkane concentrations between flower head and leaf were only significant (P < 0.001) during the wet season. Statistical differences (P < 0.001) between whole plant samples obtained in different seasons were due to changes in the proportion of flower head, leaf, and stem. Cluster analysis often showed less similarity between plant parts of the same species than between whole plant samples of different species. It was concluded that ACPs measured in the selected species were probably too similar and thus, plants could not be identified using the alkane technique. However, it was possible to use the alkane technique to determine the proportions of flower-head, leaf, and stem in the diet.

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Traditional Therapies Used to Manage Diabetes and Related Complications in Mauritius: A Comparative Ethnoreligious Study

Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine ◽

10.1155/2016/4523828 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2016 ◽

pp. 1-25 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

M. Fawzi Mahomoodally ◽

A. Mootoosamy ◽

S. Wambugu

Keyword(s):

Scientific Information ◽

Traditional Healers ◽

Morinda Citrifolia ◽

Diabetic Patients ◽

Religious Groups ◽

Active Metabolites ◽

Importance Index ◽

Cultural Importance Index ◽

Traditional Therapies ◽

Pharmacologically Active

Religious communities from Mauritius still rely on traditional therapies (TT) for primary healthcare. Nonetheless, there is still a dearth of scientific information on TT used by the different religious groups to manage diabetes and related complications (DRC). This study aimed to gather ethnomedicinal knowledge on TT used by the different religious groups against DRC. Diabetic patients (n=95) and traditional healers (n=5) were interviewed. Fifty-two plant species belonging to 33 families and 26 polyherbal formulations were documented to manage DRC. The most reported DRC was hypertension (n=36). Leaves (45.2%) and juice (36%) were the most cited mode of preparation of herbal recipes. Plants which scored high relative frequency of citation wereCitrus aurantifolia(0.55) andMorinda citrifolia(0.54). The cultural importance index showed thatOcimum tenuiflorum,Cardiospermum halicacabum,Camellia sinensis,andOphiopogon japonicaswere the most culturally important plants among Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist community, respectively. Hindu and Muslim community showed the highest similarity of medicinal plants usage (Jaccard index = 95.8). Seven animal species distributed over 4 classes were recorded for the management of DRC. Plants and animals recorded as TT should be submitted to scientific studies to confirm safety and efficacy in clinical practice and to identify pharmacologically active metabolites.

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The Gayonese Culture of Marriage System: The Islamic Law Perspective

SAMARAH Jurnal Hukum Keluarga dan Hukum Islam ◽

10.22373/sjhk.v5i1.9257 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 108

Author(s):

Ridwan Nurdin ◽

Muhamad Yusuf ◽

Syarifah Sharah Natasya

Keyword(s):

Cultural Values ◽

Islamic Law ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Family Resilience ◽

Cultural Value ◽

Community Leaders ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

The Family ◽

The World

This research explores the Gayonese culture of marriage through an analytical view of the Islamic law. There has been a shift in marriage system in the Gayonese society, in which the Juelen and the Angkap, the two formerly known systems shifted to Kuso Kini. This is an empirical research using the law historical approach to allow the author restropectively explore the construction of law and its shift from time to time. The data was gathered through an in-depth analysis of the literature and semi-structured interviews of the community leaders. The findings suggest that marriage systems are shifting and the Gayonese communities do not problematize this transformation. In fact, they are not in the position to force their children to adopt both the Juelen and the Angkap marriage system. This is so, since most communities in the present times prefer Kuso Kini marriage system to the other two. The Kuso Kini marriage system gives freedom for spouses to decide where they should stay, either with their parents or find their own living. This shift in marriage system is the result of cultural intermingled, in which some non-Gayonese migrated to the Gayonese Island and brought with them their own cultural values. The same is true to the Gayonese communities migrating to places beyond the Gayonese Island. It is therefore believed that a shift in marriage system is a must as the world today allow people across different cultural values to integrate with each other. The integration for sure gives changes to a certain cultural value. However, changes in cultural practices do not result in cultural-religious clashes. In fact, it is expected that the changes contribute to the family resilience and the marriage cultural system, the Kuso Kini, prevails.

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Ecological Distribution of Protosteloid Amoebae in New Zealand

10.7287/peerj.preprints.136v1 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Geoffrey Zahn ◽

Stephen L. Stevenson ◽

Frederick W. Spiegel

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

New Zealand ◽

General Pattern ◽

Common Species ◽

Ecological Distribution ◽

Plant Parts ◽

Wide Range ◽

The World ◽

Different Types ◽

Study Sites

During the period of March 2004 to December 2007, samples of aerial litter (dead but still attached plant parts) and ground litter were collected from study sites representing a wide range of latitudes (34° S to 50° S) and a variety of different types of habitats throughout New Zealand (including Stewart Island and the Auckland Islands). The objective was to survey the assemblages of protosteloid amoebae present in this region of the world. Twenty-nine described species of protosteloid amoebae were recorded, along with the heterolobesean acrasid, Acrasis rosea. Of the species recovered, Protostelium mycophaga was by far the most abundant and was found in more than half of all samples. Most species were found in fewer than 10% of the samples collected. Seven abundant or common species were found to display significant preferences for aerial litter or ground litter microhabitats. There was some evidence of a general pattern of a decrease in species richness and diversity with increasing latitude and precipitation and elevation.

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