Abstract
The Modjadji area, home of the Balobedu (Lobedu people), is an important tourist attraction in southern Africa. Two major tourist sites in the region include the Modjadji Nature Reserve (home of the endemic Modjadji cycads) and the Modjadji kraal (home of the rainmaker Queen Modjadji). The rich culture of the Balobedu has received attention in publications, firstly by Krige (1940), Krige and Krige (1943, 1980), Cartwright (1974) and more recently by Motshekga (2010). However, the ethnobotanical knowledge of this cultural group has received very little attention, and it has remained poorly documented in the scientific literature. Of the above-mentioned ethnographical studies, only the study by Krige (1940) included limited information on Lobedu indigenous plant use, focusing mainly on the medicinal and magical plants utilized by the people for physical and spiritual healing purposes. Krige and Krige (1943) compiled a list of plant species used by the Balobedu for craftwork purposes back in the 1930’s. The list was later reviewed and updated by Davison (1954) by making a comparison with the plant species which were used for the same purposes in the 1970’s. The vernacular names and medicinal uses of 76 plant species were recorded by Krige (1940) for the Balobedu of the Modjadji area. This data provided an opportunity to compare the historical data with contemporary data and to assess the extent to which the knowledge has changed over eight decades. As a result, the aim was a first comprehensive quantitative ethnomedicinal study of the Modjadji area, since the establishment of the Modjadji Kingdom over two centuries ago. The study was done using the Matrix Method, with the Vhavenda visual aid (flip-file) used by Magwede (2018) but enriched with photographs of 37 species from Krige’s (1940) list that was not originally included. This modified flip-file was used to conduct ethnobotanical interviews with eight participants in each of three villages of the Modjadji area, namely Ga-Matipane, Khetlhakoni and Medingen. These villages represent the same study area as that of Krige (1940). The knowledge of the 24 participants was captured in a matrix and two ethnobotanical indices, the Ethnobotanical Knowledge Index and Species Popularity Index, were later calculated, and the relative importance of the species were determined. This resulted in the first comprehensive inventory of the Modjadji area, comprising 216 plant species, 495 Khelobedu vernacular names and 536 medicinal and magical use-records. The recorded plant species, vernacular names and medicinal uses were subjected to comparisons. The first comparison analyzed the similarities and dissimilarities between the historically recorded data and the contemporary data obtained in this study. The purpose was to determine if the historically recorded vernacular names and medicinal uses are still in use today and if the knowledge was preserved and passed down from generation to generation. The comparison proved that the historically recorded v Balobedu plant use knowledge faded drastically in the past eight decades. The list of Krige (1940) included 69 identifiable plant species with 76 vernacular names and 105 medicinal and magical uses. The contemporary data for these species show that only 10 of the species (ca. 15%) and 11 use-records (ca. 10.5%) (out of the total of 135 contemporary medicinal and magical use-records for these species) agree with the 105 uses of the historical data. This means that 58 of the species are apparently no longer used and that 94 medicinal and magical use-records for species in Krige’s (1940) list are reported for the first time. The results showed that the Balobedu medicinal and magical plant use knowledge reported by Krige (1940) has faded and that the people apparently no longer use the majority of the species and have also found new uses for the few species that are still used. In contrast, 34 contemporary vernacular names (ca. 45%) agree with the 76 historical names, showing that vernacular names are more conservative and less subject to change. The second comparison was done to find out if the newly recorded vernacular names and medicinal uses are unique to the Balobedu or if they were copied from the surrounding cultural groups. As a result, the 419 vernacular names and 431 medicinal uses that were recorded for the 196 plant species (i.e., excluding the historical data) were compared with the published data for the Vhavenda (Magwede, 2018; Magwede et al., 2019), Bapedi (Mogale, 2018; Mogale et al., 2019) and Vatsonga (Liengme, 1983). Of the 419 vernacular names in the Balobedu inventory, 349 (ca. 83%) are unique to the Balobedu, and only 34 (8%) are shared with the Vhavenda, nine (2%) with Vatsonga and five (ca. 1%) with the Bapedi studies. In terms of the uses (both for spiritual and physical healing), of the 431 contemporary medicinal and magical uses recorded, 343 (80%) are unique to the Balobedu, and only 62 (14%) are shared with the Vhavenda, five (ca. 1%) with the Vatsonga and eight (ca. 2%) with the Bapedi. These results showed, for the first time, that the Balobedu have their own unique medicinal plant culture, with only negligible influences from the surrounding cultures. This study focused on four hypotheses. Hypothesis 1: Balobedu indigenous plant use knowledge has been poorly documented in scientific literature. This hypothesis cannot be rejected, because the number of recorded Balobedu medicinal and magical plant species increased from 69 to 216. Hypothesis 2: The species, vernacular names and traditional uses of Balobedu medicinal plants, as recorded by Krige (1940), have remained unchanged and still represent the essence of Balobedu medicinal ethnobotany. This hypothesis is rejected, because only a small number of species, vernacular names and traditional uses recorded by Krige (1940) are still evident in contemporary Balobedu ethnomedicine. Hypothesis 3. Lobedu ethnomedicine is most similar to Venda ethnomedicine. This hypothesis cannot be rejected, because the percentage overlap between species, vernacular names and uses was the largest (albeit still very limited) for the Venda culture and much less for the Pedi and Tsonga cultures. Hypothesis 4. Balobedu medicinal ethnobotany differs from those of surrounding cultures and represents a distinctive healing system...
M.Sc. (Botany)