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The bus drove along the winding, narrow road in a remote region of northeastern Brazil, stirring a brown cloud behind it, a mix of diesel fumes and earthen pavement that had not seen a drop of rain for many months. We were in an area known as Lima Campos, in the state of Maranhao, surrounded by a sea of tall palms, locally called babassu. In a tropical forest in this part of the world, babassu palms grow among the taller, more verdant vegetation, spilling seeds into the ground, where they can remain for decades without germinating. After the natural forest cover is destroyed by clearing for pasture, the seeds of babassu spring to life, completely dominating the landscape and prohibiting the emergence of most types of trees from the soil. Over a few decades, the palms grow to 50 to 75 feet or more, spreading their seedlings in an ever-expanding range. In fact, the formation of a babassu woodland is so completely overpowering that it has given rise to a new ecological term— the oligarchic forest—meaning a habitat dominated by only a few species. This plant is locally known as the “tree of life” because local people put it to so many uses. Its leaves provide shade for grazing animals and are cut to thatch houses. The base of the leaves can be shredded into a cottony mass and its sap squeezed onto open bleeding cuts. Immediately its styptic properties close wounds and stanch blood flow. The stems of this palm are tough and can be made into timbers for bridges. But by far, the fruit is the most valuable part of the babassu. Produced by the thousands on each tree, the fruit is about the size of a lemon and has the appearance of a small coconut. The fruit is collected as it falls from the tree and is processed by hand. The quebradeiras, a term referring to the women who break open the fruit, sit on the ground supporting an upturned axe head with their legs. They hold the fruit on the blade with their hands and tap it with a small wooden bat. When properly split, the fruit cracks in half and the oil-rich kernel can be extracted. These kernels are processed into an oil similar to that from the coconut. The oil can be extracted on the farm or the kernels sold to middlemen who transport them to processing factories in the larger cities of the northeast. The shells of the babassu are carbonized, mostly in small pits close to where they are cracked, and turned into the charcoal used for cooking in most rural households in this impoverished region. The charcoal is rather remarkable in that it has a higher energy content with a lower yield of pollutants than mineral coal. But these are only a few of the uses of the tree of life. Because of these many properties, our research group, based at The New York Botanical Garden, had been studying and domesticating this species in collaboration with the Brazilian government since the late 1970s. Our purpose in coming to Lima Campos today was to visit the babassu forest, to show a distinguished group of international palm scientists our research site, and to develop a network of collaborators who might help to study this plant in other locations. A few hours into our bus ride, we passed a quebradeira, a solitary woman sitting along the road, cracking a large pile of babassu fruits, and tossing the oleaginous kernels into her basket. “Stop!” one of the scientists in the group shouted. “Look at what she is doing.” The bus lurched to a quick halt, and a dozen men from many countries, garbed in their national costumes, furiously piled out of the vehicle and gathered around the rather surprised young woman. Each man quickly opened his knapsack and pulled out his silver movie camera with its long lens and trigger handle—it was the early 1980s, before the advent of the video camera. Raimunda, as the woman was called, found herself completely surrounded on all sides by a group of strange men, speaking a language she did not understand, aiming their cameras at her. As each person intently looked through the viewfinder, the movie cameras whirred in This series of essays explores lessons and observations from fieldwork that might be of interest to the integrative medical community. In this context, the authors discuss “new” or less celebrated botanical medicines and unique healing practices that may contribute to the further development of contemporary integrative medical practices. Perhaps this column can facilitate an appreciation for our own roots and those of other cultures, before such ancient wisdom disappears forever.
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