Aportes al conocimiento sobre los saberes ancestrales de la comunidad raizal: las plantas en el distrito capital, complemento al fortalecimiento de la etnobiología desde el Jardín Botánico de Bogotá José Celestino Mutis

Abstract

The knowledge of the ethnic and peasant communities of the country is of vital importance because said knowledge, in addition to being extensive and substantial, is built through the daily practices carried out by the communities and is acquired and/or inherited through oral tradition. This research was developed through the compilation and registration of the ancestral knowledge of the Raizal community regarding the plants that are used in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina and in the City of Bogotá, in addition to knowing how they have been seen affected and/or transformed their ancestral practices around them in the city. For approximately 60,000 years, human beings have used plants not only in their diet but also as a healing element, finding in their exploration of the plant world that some plants, in addition to being edible and/or poisonous, helped them relieve various discomforts. , such as joint pain, or even helped them accelerate the digestion process (Rivera, 2007), thanks to the medicinal and/or healing virtues of plants, it has been possible to control and/or cure different diseases, a practice in which communities ethnic groups of the country play a very important role, because, thanks to the observation of the different effects that plants have on the body, they make a classification of their uses. Likewise, through the transmission of knowledge acquired in the field of traditional medicine, they allow its conservation and the ancestral practices linked to it over time. It is also highlighted that the plants, in addition to presenting various medicinal properties, are an accessible resource for ethnic communities that have been affected by difficult access to medical establishments, either due to distance or economic resources (Cosme, 2008). Although traditional medicine is vital in communities, plants have been used throughout history in countless daily activities such as food, making crafts, building homes, among others, this is why ethnobotany plays a fundamental role in the knowledge of different ethnic communities around plants, being responsible for studying the interrelationship between communities and plants (Ford, 1978; Martin, 2001; Gómez-Veloz, 2002; cited by Oliveira et al., 2005), taking into account various areas such as botany, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, anthropology, linguistics, history, among others (Alexiades, 1996a; Martin, 2001; cited by Oliveira et al., 2005).