Variability of Plant Knowledge concerning Vernacular Names of Plants and Their Uses among Adult Baka Hunter-gatherers in Cameroonian Rainforests

Abstract

This paper examines the characteristics of “folk knowledge” and reports a specific relationship between nature and a group of human beings by focusing on individual differences with respect to plant knowledge among the Baka hunter-gatherers in Cameroonian rainforests. An analysis of individual differences in relation to plant knowledge, in terms of the vernacular names of plants and their different uses, demonstrated that Baka adults generally knew the common vernacular names of plants and shared a similar knowledge of plants used for food and in material culture. However, they had widely varying knowledge of both the quantity and quality of medicinal plants. An analysis of the acquisition of medicinal plant knowledge showed that the Baka acquired knowledge of medicinal plants from their parents and other family members when they or their children became sick. This suggested that the medicinal plant knowledge of Baka adults reflected individual and family medical histories. The high degree of agreement on vernacular plant names is due, in part, to the importance of plants in Baka life and culture as well as to the sharing of plant names through daily social communication. They share knowledge of plants used for food and in material culture because they share evaluations of the material properties of plants used for these purposes, and they have numerous opportunities to share this knowledge such as when sharing food and tools in their social life. By contrast, evaluations of effects of medicinal plants are not commonly shared and the Baka have less opportunity to share medicinal plant knowledge in their social lives because they use medicinal plants mainly within the family. This tendency might account for the wide variability in medicinal plant knowledge among the Baka.