The People-Plant Potion

The Pandemic Pause Potential

The year 2020 has created a tumultuous situation that has pushed us into our homes. The times are different. Despite the hardships and life challenges, these times have granted us a ‘Pandemic Pause’, which has given us a rare opportunity: to reflect constructively and understand how far we have progressed to protect and sustain a healthy life.

Critical realisations have come to light such as the importance of medical sciences and investments in medical research. A potential question in this context is whether medical sciences, assisted by existing or newer design fields such as landscape architecture, can formulate an environmental matrix as a base to help research platforms. Landscape architecture in conjunction with medical sciences holds the potential to reform the base of research and link local lives with it, creating new engagements in biological sciences as well.

The ‘Pandemic Pause Potential’ can definitely be tapped and converted into a useful resource for modern health. The example in this article is of a remote hotspot of ethnobotanical knowledge in the heart of the North Western Ghats in Maharashtra, India, which has the capability to form a potion, i.e. frame a platform for research and further experimentations.

Ethnobotany in Purushwadi

In simple words, ethnobotany refers to the plant-based knowledge that is prevalent across diverse indigenous communities, which employs multiple usages of plants, be it cultural, religious, medicinal or art-based. This knowledge is deeply woven into their traditions and has been passed on through generations in many parts of the world.

Purunchwadi (poora-ooncha-wadi = a village geographically located at a higher elevation), now called Purushwadi, is an extremely remote village in the North-Western Ghats, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the ‘hotspots’ of biological diversity in the world. Various tribal communities such as the Thakars, Irulas, Soligas, Warlis and Kolis belong to the ghats and their beliefs and customs are still intact. Worshipping nature and aboriginal deities are linked to respecting nature and living with it harmoniously.

The village is known for the festival of fireflies owing to the millions of fireflies that it hosts during a short pre-monsoon season. The introverted village has opened its arms to tourists, local and distant, from the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. This surge in tourism has generated new fields of employment for the villagers like homestays, camping, displaying local rural practices and advertising the village of fireflies. This has given the villagers who were hitherto ‘of urban aspirations’, a platform to interact with city dwellers.

The ‘Pandemic Pause Potential’ can definitely be tapped and converted into a useful resource for modern health

Pointing across the road at a rock with saffron kumkum (a pigment used by people to mark the foreheads of Gods or humans, usually saffron or red in colour) smeared all over it, Dutta dada, a tourist guide working under an NGO, whom our group met, claimed, “There lies a devta (god); if you suffer back pain and rub your back against it, you will be healed.” Revered as a healing rock, it is believed to embody powers. “That behada (Terminalia bellerica, a native forest tree) behind it is used for curing stomach aches…” adds Dutta. “Its bark is home to fireflies and it cures asthma and toothaches as well.” Every plant that he stumbles on along the muddy trails, hilly tracks and the field peripheries is a potential medicine, be it a root or any part of the shoot.

I recall a chapter from my English Course book of Class 7, by Sudha Murthy, in which an old tribal man sympathetically rejected the idea of humans owning the lands, but embraced the land as they belonged to it. That chapter ended with a question mark, “Who is more civilised – the wisened old man in the forest or those of us with our fingers on the pulse of the Internet?” I remembered this as I observed Anil, the boy who lived with his parents at our arranged homestay, carrying a mobile phone and trying to surf the Internet through the low, often disrupted signals in the village.

The people of Purushwadi are aware of the medicinal properties of most of the plants they see around them and the ones they nurture in their backyards and fields. But their continuous and progressive exposure to modernisation with each new generation may result in the extinction of this rich heritage of knowledge unless it is formally documented. According to various reports and studies done in the Akole Taluka (administrative region) in which Purushwadi lies, the common ailments present in the area are jaundice, asthma, mouth ulcers and toothaches. Snake bites are also common and they are known to use various plants to treat it. Since the nearest hospital is in the next village, Maveshi, which is three kilometres away from Purushwadi, this ethnobotanical knowledge which the Mahadev Koli tribe possesses, becomes key during emergencies. So, here’s the question: Can this earned-cum-learned heritage of ethnobotanical knowledge, which has been passed on by word of mouth be conserved and given shape through landscape design for future engagement with medical/biological sciences?

The people of Purushwadi are hardworking and always ready to help their village prosper. Under the Terminalia Chebula tree, layers of stones, as totems, have been assembled to denote the good deeds done for the village by certain local families over the past 100 years. And the tradition continues even today. Although the villagers welcome any change for the welfare of their society, they remain sensitive towards nature and natural resources. They survive the harsh undulating terrains, forage and cultivate food for sustenance in an otherwise hostile setting and protect and nurture one another as well as the forest and the hills that surround them.

With children of successive generations opting to leave the village for better education, the traditional ecological knowledge is headed for extinction. A formalisation of this valuable heritage resource will surely highlight its importance, which when recognised can act as a base for research and development.

Designing through Guilds

A guild is usually defined as an association of people working towards a common goal. But the idea of a guild in a design can further be extended towards various natural typologies such as flora, fauna or landmarks existing in a region. Such rural guilds and their interaction with urbanity can reinforce the concept of integrity in the foundation of knowledge platforms. For example, certain plants which are known to tribals that hold medical importance can be brought together so as to form a medicinal guild. Such guilds can be designed keeping in view the compatibility of various plant forms and their habits or needs. A space which is designed solely for such purpose also increases its value from a multi-functional perspective.

The diverse ethnobotanical heritage of the tribe lies scattered in the matrix of the intangible land and its associations. This guild can strengthen those scattered points in the matrix bringing this ancient verbal wisdom into spaces together, which can quantify and conserve the knowledge as well. On several permutations and combinations of plant species, which respond to various ailments and hold cultural significance, landscape design can lead to the formation of such medicinal guilds. The design can likewise be programmed to cater to the growth of plant guilds depending on their habits (e.g. sun loving leguminous crops under a tree until the trees attain maturity. After the trees attain maturity and begin to cast shade, the understorey vegetation can be changed into a shade-loving plant variety).

The design becomes more functional when locals participate in the same. Further, usage of local dialects while forming the plant guilds in design help in the cognition of various plant communities by the villagers. For example, a certain plant guild may comprise of Cochlospermum religiosum (‘Gogal’ in the native Marathi; a tree known for its yellow flowers used in religious offerings and for treating asthma and mouth ulcers) and Curcuma caesia (‘Kaali Haldi’) under the tree. It may be called ‘Pavila Sangh’ where Pavila means yellow and Sangh means guild. It is crucial to understand which tree to plant and what to plant under a particular tree to form guilds.

The people of Purushwadi are aware of the medicinal properties of most of the plants they see around them

Landscape and Medical Science: Methods to evolve with nature

Plants can be explored from the lens of medical sciences, cultural aspects and conservation approaches. Where natural ecosystems are facing immense challenges to thrive in the relationship with humans, the human-nature relationship needs to seek a balance. Ethnobotanical knowledge, or traditional ecological knowledge, can create a model for managing ecosystems, which links the aspiring medical students with interesting narratives about ecology, biology as well as cultural aspects of nature. This knowledge has a genuine role to play in redefining the 
health of the next generation in the face of any health crisis such as the pandemic we are experiencing today. Exposure to intangible aspects through research and building education platforms for the same can enhance as well as evolve people’s perception towards traditional knowledge centres.

Heritage by its very definition refers to the features belonging to a particular society, such as traditions, customs, languages or buildings, created in the past and still holding value. Heritage is not necessarily a tangible aspect and hence conserving an intangible heritage is a challenge today. Ethnobotanical knowledge is one such example of intangible heritage, which dives down deep into providing solutions from the past to the problems of the future.

Landscape ‘inserts’ in the form of medicinal guilds can be the potion that helps extend the frame of educational bodies to develop a hybrid platform for research in the field.

Epilogue

An example from Purushwadi indicates 
the presence of such concentrations of traditional ecological knowledge throughout the globe, hinting at a promise to evolve the nature of engagement between medical science and conservation of ecosystems. Human advancement plays a crucial role in carrying forward the valuable pieces of such knowledge and ameliorate the flexibility in the subjects of scientific, technological and design experiments.

All Images Courtesy: LAr. Dhwani Pokar