Snake bite and scorpion sting are major health hazards that lead to high mortality and great suffering in victims. The monopoly of snake bite healers is because they do not give information to the people, partly due to their unknown matria medica, and occult-mystical nature of their practice. Conservative sources of snake bite estimate that the number of accidents globally reach one million and more than 20,000 deaths, annually. In India alone, more than 200,000 cases of snake bite are reported and estimated 35,000 to 50,000 people die each year. In Kenya, it is estimated that only 19% of the annual 151 snake bite per 100,000 people were potentially of venomous snakes [1-3].

The ethnic and rural people of India have preserved a large number of traditional knowledge of medicinal uses of plants growing around them. The information on medicinal uses of the indigenous plants has been described after gathering it from local people, experienced aged rural folk, and traditional herbal medicine practitioners

The study site

Chhattisgarh State has a rich forest, covering 44% of the total geographical area of the state. Hence, Chhattisgarh has been declared as “Herbal State”, owing to its rich floral diversity and encompassing wealth of invaluable indigenous traditional knowledge base, inherent with tribal folk. Surguja district is located in the northern part of Chhattisgarh State of India. This district extends between south-eastern parts of Vindhyachal- Baghrlkhand region of peninsular India. It lies between 230° 37´25˝ to 240° 6´7˝ north latitude, and 810° 4´40˝ east longitude. The area of the district is 16030 sq. kms, while 8655 sq. kms area is under forest. This district is situated at the even land of Satpuda hill ranges. High ranges and hillocks have surrounded this district from all the sides. The district bears sandy soil in most of the parts; whereas, the black soil is also scarcely available.

The Odgi block of Surguja district is inhibited by the Cherwa and Pando tribes. The objective of this study is to assess the richness of ethnomedicinal plants species used by the Cherwa and Pando tribes in Odgi block of South Surguja Division, forest areas of Chhattisgarh, and the traditional medical practices of the people. The conservation of ethnobotanical resources and wild relatives of crop plants is vital for future breeding programme.

In the present study, 08 tribal villages in the Odgi block of Surguja district, Chhattisgarh, were surveyed to gather information of plants and plant products used by the tribes from July-August 2008. Information on medicinal plants, local name, plant parts used, and mode of administration for curing diseases, has been recorded. All the plants species are identified with the help of publishing flora [1,4,5].

The Cherwa and Pando tribes prepare paste, pills, powder, decoction, infusion, and aqueous extracts of medicinal plants, either singly or in combination with other plants and minerals. Data obtained from field survey are presented in table 1. In this study, 14 plant species belonging to 13 families have been recorded. Common health ailments in the study area are snake bites and scorpion sting, and the largest number of the remedies (10 remedies from 10 species) is used in snake bite ailments. On the other hand, 05 remedies are used in scorpion sting. Snake bite and Scorpion sting ailments are common problems of this area, particularly in rainy season. The data gathered from the Cherwa and Pando tribes, compared with the uses of those species are recorded in the work on medicinal plants in India [1,6-9]. The ethnomedicinal plants are arranged, giving information on botanical names, family, English name, local name and ethnomedicinal recipes, and also listed the name of traditional healers who have given such kind of information about snake bite and scorpion sting (Table 2).

Table 1: List of medicinal plants and their uses of treatment of different diseases by tribal people of Odgi block.

Table 2: List of medicinal plants and their uses of treatment of different diseases by tribal people of Odgi block.

In this, five snake bite patients have been interviewed for the confirmation of the treatment given by healers.

This study shows that knowledge and use of herbal medicine for the treatment of various ailments among Cherwa and Pando tribes is still a major part of their life and culture. They use forest plants, weeds, fruit plants, vegetables, ornamental plants, ferns, and many others as traditional medicine. The uses of mixtures of plant species in treatment of particular diseases are common in the other part of country [10,11]. Snake bites in rural areas are commonly treated with plant extracts [12,13]. In general the plant families Compositae, Fabaceae and Solanaceae are well represented in East African compendia. The frequent uses of leaves and roots are antivenin preparation is noted by Watt et al. and Bennett et al. [14,15]. The leaves and roots are the two major plant parts which are frequently used for the treatment of diseases by the local people. The results of the present study provide evidence that medicinal plants continue to play an important role in the healthcare system of this tribal community of Chhattisgarh, India.

We acknowledge the local communities of the South Surguja forest division for their ethnomedicinal knowledge. We also thank to the division forest officer and range officer of the Odgi block of Surguja district, Chhattisgarh, for providing facilities during field survey. Thanks also to the Managing Director, Chhattisgarh Minor Forest Produce Federation, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India, for providing herbarium for the identification of the plants.