A survey of ethnobotanical research in southern Africa

Existing ethnobotanical information for southern Africa is scattered through anthropological, medical, botanical and other books and journals, making the task of getting at the information fairly difficult. The object of this paper is to provide a unified bibliography on the subject and to review the state of knowledge of ethnobotany in southern Africa as reflected in publications, unpublished manuscripts and museum and herbarium holdings. Those aspects of ethnobotany most needing attention are identified. The information is reviewed on a subject basis.


INTRODUCTION
Ethnobotany was defined as early as 1895 as the study of 'plants used by primitive and aboriginal peoples' (Ford, 1978, p. 33).This encompasses an enormous field of research.Ford has defined the limits of this field on the basis of three objectives.
1. to identify plants that have uses 2. to discover how people classify, identify and relate to these plants 3. to examine the reciprocal interactions of plants and people.
Most of the ethnobotanical work done in southern Africa satisfies only the first of Ford's objectives, although there is some that satisfies the second and even the third.
The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge of ethnobotany in southern Africa as reflected in publications, unpublished manuscripts, museum and herbarium holdings.Ethnobotanical research has been carried out by missionaries and explorers, botanists, medical people and anthropo logists, hence the published information is found in a variety of books and journals.The peoples covered by this review are the indigenous peoples of southern Africa: the San (Bushmen), the Khoi (Hottentots) and the Bantu -the latter comprising the South Sotho, North Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, Cape Nguni, Swazi, Transvaal Ndebele, TsongayTonga, Venda, Ambo, Herero and Mpukushu.
The uses of plants will be reviewed under the following headings: food; medicine; magic, ritual and customs; building; household utensils and implements; musical instruments; and firewood and firesticks.
•Botanical Research Institute, Department of Agriculture, Private Bag X101, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.

FOOD
Early records of plants used for food and drink by the Khoi and Bantu of the Cape occur occasionally in the journals of travellers such as Burchell (1822), Campbell (1822) and Chapman (1971).For Kaffraria (Eastern Cape) Kay (1833) and Ayliff (1858) noted commonly used plant foods. Mayr (1906) describes some of the food plants of the Zulu.Subsequently, up to the middle 1950's, accounts of both cultivated and wild foods appeared.Beer-and wine-making are described by Fox (1938) and Turner (1909).The food uses of particular species are discussed by MacCrone (1937), Van der Bijl (1921) and Watt (1926).Anthropological mono graphs also include some information; Junod (1962) mentions some Tsonga food plants and Stayt (1968) some Venda food plants.
The general diet of various peoples was also studied; of note is the work on the South Sotho (Ashton, 1939), the Swazi (Beemer, 1939) and the Zulu (Bryant, 1939).
The National Herbarium, Pretoria, includes many collections of edible plants with notes on their use.This information has recently become available as a result of the computerization of the Herbarium.Some of this information has not yet been published, such as that collected by Rodin (Ambo), Hemm (Venda), Barnard and Mogg (North Sotho).Other information, like that collected by Gerstner (Zulu), Miller (Tswana), Story and Maguire (San), has been at least partially used in reports and publications.
In summary -the gathering of wild food plants by the hunter-gatherer San has been well studied.The traditionally cultivated crops and wild plants collected as supplementary foods of the Zulu, Cape Nguni, South Sotho and North Sotho are also relatively well recorded.For the Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Herero and Owambo less is known.Except for the records of early travellers and one recent piece of work, little is known of Khoi food plants.Nothing has been recorded for the Transvaal Ndebele.

MEDICINE
The recording of the medicinal uses of plants began early at the Cape.Thunberg (no date) and Lichtenstein (1928), while on their travels, noted uses of medicinal plants.In 1795 Berg, a student of Thunberg, defended a dissertation on African medicinal plants (Berg, 1799).Pappe's 'Florae Capensis Medicae Prodromus', first published in 1850 collates all the scattered notes of Lichtenstein and Thunberg, adding also later information, derived mostly from the manuscript notes of a Dr MacKrill who collected information on medicinal plants during the period 1814-1816 (MacOwan, 1897).Burchell (1822), Kay (1833) and other travellers and explorers also recorded Khoi, Cape Nguni and Tswana medicinal uses of plants.A major nine teenth century contribution is that of Smith (1888) on the medicinal plants of the eastern Cape.
Twentieth century research can be divided into two phases, with the appearance of the second edition of Watt & Breyer Brandwijk (1962) as the watershed.During the first period many articles were published, mostly in scientific and medical journals, dealing with various aspects of medicinal plants, including: analyses of chemical composition and pharmacological action (Brandwijk & Watt, 1925;Frost, 1941;Jamieson, 1917;Lewis & Gibbs, 1921;Stephen-Lewis, 1936;1938); poisonings due to the administration of medicines (Gordon, 1947;Juritz, 1915;Sapeika, 1944); and many general notes on plant-derived medicines.The latter include accounts of Tsonga medicinal plants (De Almeida, 1930), Zulu (Bryant, 1966;Mayr, 1906), Khoi (Dornan, 1924;Laidler, 1928), Ambo (Loeb, 1956), Tswana (Lebzelter, 1933), Ndebele (Watt & Van Warmelo, 1930) and South Sotho medicinal plants (Laydevant, 1933(Laydevant, , 1939(Laydevant, , 1943;;Watt & Breyer Brandwijk, 1927a;1927b;1928). Schapera (1930) ) recorded the use of 10 plants for protecting and healing cattle.Several anthropologi cal works published in that period contain fairly good records of medicinal plant uses, for example, Ashton's (1952) word on the South Sotho, Junod's (1962) on the Tsonga, Mayr's (1906) on the Zulu and Stayt's (1968) on the Venda.Some botanical works also contain useful information (Miller, 1948;Phillips, 1917).Annotated checklists of plant names in the various languages also have notes on medicinal uses of plants.An example is Gerstner's (1938)  The latter two people made the most important contribution to the study of medicinal plants in southern Africa.Besides producing several articles and making an extensive collection of medicinal plants, they collated all that was known on the subject up to 1932 in the 'Medicinal and Poisonous plants of Southern Africa '. In 1962 this was succeeded by the monumental revised and expanded second edition (Watt & Breyer Brandwijk, 1962).
Since then, there has been continued interest in medicinal plants.Tswana medicinal plants have been studied by Teichler (1971aTeichler ( , 1971b) ) and Reynecke (1971).This latter piece of work is a detailed account of medicine and magic, including much information on medicinal plants, their uses and preparation.A large collection of medicinal plants was made by Reynecke.This collection is housed in the National Herbarium.
Jacot Guillarmod (1971) includes in the list of plant uses in 'Flora of Lesotho' a large number of plants used for medicinal purposes by the South Sotho.North Sotho medicinal plants have been recorded by Mónnig (1967) and Hanekom (1967). Rose (1972(a)) has recorded the use of some Senecio species as medicines and Ngubane (1977) gives a few examples of medicinal plants and their preparation. Liengme (1981) includes a number of plants used medicinally by the Tsonga.Some Herero medicinal plants are discussed in Malan & Owen-Smith (1974).
Two recent collections of medicinal plants in the National Herbarium are those of R. J. Rodin (Ambo) and J. W. Snyman (Tswana).
In general, the medicinal use of plants of most of the cultural groups has been reasonably well studied, particularly that of the Zulu and South Sotho.The Venda, Tsonga and North Sotho of the Transvaal and the Swazi warrant some research.Two groups for whom very little is known regarding medicinal plants are the Khoi and San.
Other aspects of plant utilization have received far less attention than these first two.

MAGIC, RITUAL AND CUSTOMS
Although not always clearly separated from medicinal uses, magical uses are here dealt with as a different aspect of plant use.Magic trees of the Bantu are dealt with by Friede (1956) and Watt (1956), and plants used in Cape Nguni magical charms are touched on briefly by de Jager (1963) and de Lange (1961).Rituals often involve the administration of magic medicines and some of these are recorded for the Tsonga (Johnston, 1972), the South Sotho (Laydevant 1932;1939), the Ambo (Loeb, 1955) and the Tswana (Schapera 1932).Other ritual uses of plants are mentioned very briefly in Kuper (1944) and Schoeman (1937) (Swazi) and Willoughby (1905) (Tswana).Rainmaking ceremonies involve plants, too (Dornan, 1929;Schapera, 1971).Specific plants are customarily associated with twins, as recorded by Cook (1927) for the Cape Nguni and Dornan (1932).There are also a few records of sacred plants in the literature.Dicke (1926) discusses a Venda sacred plant; Laydevant (1946) Sotho sacred plants.Customs protecting trees are discussed by Ferreira (1948).Some of the sources referred to under medicinal uses also include information on magical uses of plants, e.g. Jacot Guillarmod (1971), Gerstner (1938), Miller (1952), Reynecke (1971) and Stayt (1968).

BUILDING
In a compilation of records on Cape Nguni (Xhosa) settlement, Shaw & Van Warmelo (1972) include a few references to plant materials used in building huts, fences and stockades.Many of the early accounts included in the compilation only describe these structures and sometimes give the building materials as 'wood' or 'grass'.
The few other records that exist include a detailed account of the materials used to build a dome shaped grass hut in Natal (Knuffel, 1973), a discussion of Tswana thatching grasses (Van Voorthuizen & Odell, 1976), accounts of Tswana building (Van Voorthuizen, 1976;Snyman, 1977) and Malan & Owen-Smith's (1974) notes on Herero building.Some botanical sources contain relevant information, e.g.Palmer & Pitman (1972).R. J. Rodin's Owamboland collection, housed in the National Herbarium, includes plants used in building.

Hunting and fishing equipment
The hunting equipment of the San is to a large degree made from plant materials and some of these are discussed in a number of publications on San subsistence ecology (Lee, 1965;1972;Silberbauer, 1965Silberbauer, , 1972;;Steyn, 1971;Story, 1964;Tanaka, 1976) and also briefly in Dornan (1975).Plants providing arrow poisons have long attracted the attention of researchers and records of these are well documen ted in Shaw, Wooley & Rae's (1963) review of San arrow poisons.
For the Bantu, there are a few references to the use of plants for spears and knob-kieries in the standard anthropological works (e. g. Junod, 1962;Mónnig, 1967;Stayt, 1968).Herero weapons are included in Malan & Owen-Smith (1974).Fishing equipment of southern African people in general is discussed by McLaren (1958).Tinley (1964) gives a detailed account of plants used to manufacture Tonga fishing equipment.Trees used for making canoes in the Okavango Delta are listed by Larson (1975).

Baskets and mats
Some plants used for mats and basketry are mentioned in anthropological works, but more often than not the materials are only identified as 'grasses', 'lianas' and 'reeds '. Gerstner (1938) lists some plants used by Zulu, as do McLaren (no date), Steer (1980) and Grossert (1968), who also discusses some taboos regarding these plants.Shaw & Van Warmelo in their review of Cape Nguni crafts list some of the plants used in basketry.A few basketry-plants used by the Tswana are mentioned by Lamprecht (1976); some used by the Tsonga are given in Liengme (1981); whilst Malan & Owen-Smith (1974) includes some Herero basket-plants.Jacot-Guillarmod's (1971) 'Flora of Lesotho' contains considerable information on this aspect of plant use.
There are a few collections in the National Herbarium; two important ones being those of W. G. Barnard (North Sotho) and R. J. Rodin (Ambo).Miss E. M. Shaw of the South African Museum has been studying basketry for many years and has collected a lot of information on plant materials used.

Wooden utensils and implements
Malan & Owen-Smith (1974) give a good deal of information on the various woods used for household purposes by the Herero.Ferreira (1928) and Van Voorthuizen (1976) mention a few woods used by the Tswana; Gerstner (1938) (Kirby, 1932(Kirby, , 1934(Kirby, , 1943)).In a paper on reed flute ensembles (Kirby, 1933) he discusses the taboos and rites involved in the cutting and making of Venda bamboo flutes.Van Warmelo (1932)

FIREWOOD AND FIRESTICKS
This aspect of plant utilization is often overlook ed.There are some references to woods avoided as firewood for various reasons (Ferreira, 1949;Friede, 1953) and a few to woods used, and even preferred, as fuel (Snyman, no date; Malan & Owen-Smith, 1974;Jacot Guillarmod, 1971;Best, 1979;Liengme, 1981) . De Vaal (1942) mentions a few woods used by the Venda for iron-smelting.Woods used to start fires (fire-sticks) by the Herero are given in Malan & Owen-Smith (1974).Friede (1979) has gathered together numerous scattered records of fire-sticks.

SUMMARY OF USES
Medicinal and food plant uses of most of the indigenous peoples have been, on the whole, well documented.An exception are the Khoi, for whom little has been recorded since the early travellers in the Cape like Campbell and Burchell.Some magic, ritual and customary uses of plants of a number of the cultural groups have been recorded, but no one group has been well researched, except perhaps, the Tswana.
Plants used in all the various aspects of the material culture of the different peoples are, in general, poorly researched.Some plants used in building, basketry, wooden utensils and household implements, musical instruments and various other uses like dyes and cosmetics are recorded for most of the cultural groups; but there are few substantial accounts of these.

FOLK TAXONOMY AND PLANT LORE
Many plant names in the various languages have been collected.These are generally incorporated in the various dictionaries (e.g.Cuenod, 1976;Doke & Vilakazi, 1964;Van Warmelo, 1937) or are published in botanical works (e. g. Compton, 1966;Jacot Guillarmod, 1971).Several lists of vernacular plant names have also been published on their own (e.g. Beyer, 1920;Gerstner, 1938;Paroz, 1962).There are also unpublished lists of names (Henkel, Tait & Edwards, no date;Baumbach, 1966;Snyman, no date).A computer search of the National Herbarium data bank has produced a large pile of print-out that still has to be looked through.
There have been few studies of the principles of plant classification and naming. Junod (1962) has a short discussion of Tsonga classification and Malan & Owen-Smith (1974) touch on Herero folk taxonomy.
A detailed account of folk botany and plant lore of the !Ko San is given in Heinz & Maguire's (no date) paper on !Ko ethnobiology.They discuss not only nomenclature and taxonomy but also recogni tion of plants and conceptualization of botanical phenomena.

MAN-PLANT INTERACTIONS
In their account of Herero ethnobotany, Malan & Owen-Smith (1974) discuss some of the effects of plant utilization by man on the environment.This is the only account of this aspect of ethnobotany.There are at present two projects being undertaken on wood utilization and its effects -one amongst the Tsonga of north-eastern Transvaal and the other amongst the Zulu of northern Natal.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The primary focus of ethnobotanical research in southern Africa has been on identifying plants that have uses, with the concomitant recording of the vernacular names of these plants.This review has shown that it is only medicinal and food uses of plants that have been well-studied, and that all other aspects of plant use require additional research.This is not to say that there is nothing new to learn regarding medicinal and food plants -the diversity of both vegetation and peoples in southern Africa implies a potentially vast amount of information to be recorded.
Of the aspects of plant use requiring research, it is the many and diverse uses of wood that most need investigation; for example woods used in traditional musical instruments need to be recorded, since these are rapidly being replaced by instruments made of materials other than wood, or by modern instru ments.
Those peoples for whom little is known regarding plant use are the Swazi, Transvaal Ndebele, Mpukushu (of the Okavango Delta) and the Khoi.The latter are, fortunately, now the subject of a research project by anthropologists at Stellenbosch University.The other three abovementioned cultu ral groups need considerable research.Continued recording of plant uses is, of course, also desirable for the other, better-studied, cultural groups.Projects at present being undertaken in Botswana and the northern coastal plain of Natal will greatly augment our knowledge of Tswana and Tonga plant utilization respectively.
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