Why study indigenous peoples and their medicinal use of plants?
Indigenous peoples are those descendants of the original inhabitants of a location. Non-indigenous people are those who are not ancient inhabitants of a place. Only the indigenous people will know the plants and their uses. The non-indigenes will likely use commercially prepared products, often based on the plants of their ancient home. Aspirin is based on a compound found in the bark of a willow tree found in Europe, the ancient home of those of European ancestry. Modern day European descendants have, by and large, forgotten how to produce healing compounds from plants.
