Resumo

ENRIQUEZ VAZQUEZ, Patricia; MARIACA MENDEZ, Ramón; RETANA GUIASCON, Óscar Gustavo  e  NARANJO PINERA, Eduardo Jorge. Medicinal use of wild fauna in los altos de Chiapas, Mexico. INCI [online]. 2006, vol.31, n.7, pp.491-499. ISSN 0378-1844.

In countries with a large biological and cultural diversity, like Mexico, there is ample knowledge and utilization of biological resources by different human groups. However, few studies are devoted to medicinal fauna, even though animals have been used in medicine for several centuries. Given the limited information available, the main goal objective of the present work was to learn about the animal species being used in order to cure diseases and ailments, and the way they are being used, by two of the most representative indigenous groups in the State of Chiapas: tsotsiles and tseltales, both concentrated in the region of Altos. Aided by images of animals from the region, 368 semi-structured interviews were carried out with local inhabitants of >30 years of age. A total of 74 animal species and 36 different parts or products of these animals were found to be used for treating one or more of 128 different diseases or ailments, from a simple headache to a cancer or AIDS. Diversity values for the medical use of each animal species (VDM), for the number of species used for every illness (VDE) and for the parts or products used from each animal (VDPA) were estimated. The animals most widely used with medicinal purposes are tlacuache (Didelphys sp.), armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) and zorrillo (Mephitis macroura), with VDM >0.23 each. The most widely used parts are whole animal, meat and fat.

Palavras-chave : Etnomedicina ; Etnozoología ; Fauna Medicinal ; Tseltales ; Tsotsiles .