Cosmovisión andina relacionada al uso de plantas medicinales, Sayausí – Cuenca 2016

Abstract

Despite the urbanization of the last 20 years, Sayausí still maintains ancestral Andean customs such as the use of medicinal plants, a preventive and therapeutic resource in health. Objetive: To determinate the principles of the Andean worldview and relate them to the management of medicinal plants in Sayausí. Method: It is a qualitative descriptive study of a narrative type with an intercultural approach. The use of medical plants was investigated under the postulates of the Andean worldwide. Five wise men of the ancestral medicine of the Sayausí parish were interviewed during the months of July and August in 2015. The theoretical basis for the analysis of the data: the narrative design, generating concepts and interpretations from the information obtained from the wise men. The techniques used were interviews. The Instruments were forms with open questions, recordings and photographs. The interviews were written using citations, codes and memos, which were processed with the Atlas program. The main categories were grouped according to taxonomies; the information was complemented with tables and figures. Results: The Andean sages explained in their own words the principles: relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity. In its rationality, everything worked as a holistic process, involving all the components of the universe. To heal with plants was a true ritual, including principles, plants, body and spirit. The plants had three main functions: healing, feeding and a sacred element. The ways to classify the plants were: gender, shape, color, and thermal state. The herb harvest, preparation and administration were the three stages of the healing process Conclusions: The Andean sages from Sayausí parish applied the principles of the Andean worldview both in practicing healing with medicinal plants and activities of their daily lives.