Traditional medicine is still practiced by
tribal aborigines in central and northern Australia and this knowledge is now recorded. Traditional medicine is still practiced by
tribal aborigines in central and northern Australia and this knowledge is now recorded.
It was determined that the data for this aboriginal pharmacopoeia would be based not on literature searches, but on direct verbal communication from aboriginal community advisers. Each aboriginal adviser or tribal advisers would be acknowledged as the originators of the data.
At one stage, all members of the aboriginal family knew their medicinal plants, their location and structure and their values. The knowledge of plants that they committed to memory was both vast and essential for their survival. The ritual for collecting leaves, seeds, roots, pods or bark is associated with traditional Aboriginal ownership of the country in which the plants grow.
Leslie Freeman, Herberton, Australia
References
Picture from The Down Under Collection Delux, New Horizons, Armidale, Australia, 1995.