MEDICAL ETHNOBOTANY OF ÑUU SAVI COMMUNITIES IN GUERRERO MOUNTAIN, MEXICO

Abstract

The Ñuu Savi or Mixtecos have a great wealth of ancestral knowledge about the use of plants, which have contributed to solving their different health problems. However, there is little information on employment by the inhabitants of this original group in different contexts. The objective of this work was to analyze the degree of similarity of the plant species used as medicine and the diseases present in the Ñuu savi communities, located in the Mountain

region of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, considering some urbanization variables related to the proximity to the largest city in the region (Tlapa de Comonfort). Questionnaires were applied to 67 family units, in addition botanical collections were made from May to September 2018 of the species indicated by the residents as medicinal. The similarity of the species and diseases between the communities was estimated using the Jaccard index, in addi- tion to the frequency of mention and the value of relative importance. A total of 104 species of medicinal plants were registered for the three communities, belonging to 46 families, being the richest Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Lamiaceae. The community with the best access to the city presented the greatest number of medicinal species. The similarity of medicinal plants (34%) and diseases (38%) was greater among the closest communities. The communities studied show a certain similarity in the use of medicinal plants; However, each of them has its own particularities related to the environmental and social conditions of each of them.