KUERIMA, Panama — Once you’re within the Ngäbe-Buglé Indigenous territory in western Panama, the vegetation of the rainforest grows thick and signs of industrial development are scarce. Dirt roads wind up muddy jungled hills to wooden homes with palm-thatched roofs, and the women of the group can be seen carrying babies on their backs in straw bags made of vegetable fibers called chácaras or krä. Unknown to many outsiders visiting this scene of lush green life, they’re also surrounded by medicine for pregnant women. The culture of Ngäbe-Buglé is ancient and enduring, and the group has maintained its traditions for generations. Birthing rituals among the Ngäbe-Buglé are particularly sacred, and for centuries women have used traditional medicines — from trees, herbs, roots and leaves endemic to the region — to ease pains and assist with complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Often administered by a midwife or traditional medicine doctor, expectant mothers receive multiple natural remedies, usually consumed in the form of teas or liquids, that represent a fundamental custom of the group’s culture. However, there’s a growing concern within the group that the availability and knowledge of the curative properties of the plants used in childbirth will soon be lost. Deforestation, large-scale crop harvests, climate change and the increasing influence of Western medicine are altering the 7,000-square-kilometer (2,700-square-mile) landscape of the Ngäbe-Buglé territory and threatening long-standing traditions. It’s for this reason that an organization of midwives and traditional medicine doctors, known as the Ngäbe Association of Agents of Traditional and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Article by:
This story first appeared on Mongabay
South Africa Today – Environment
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
