First Report on the Ethnopharmacological Uses of Medicinal Plants among Monpa Tribe Living in the Zemithang Region of the Arunachal Pradesh , Eastern Himalayas , India

The Himalaya is well known for high diversity and ethnobotanical uses of medicinal plants. However, not all areas of the Himalayas are well studied. In particular, studies on ethnobotanical uses of plants from the Eastern Himalayas are rare and lacking for many tribes. Past studies primarily focused on listing plants name and their traditional medicinal uses. However, studies on traditional ethnopharmacological practices on medicine preparation had not yet been reported in published literature from the Eastern Himalaya. In this study, we are reporting the first time ethnopharmacological used 24 medicines, their procedures of preparation and listed 53 plant species used for those medicines for Monpa tribe. Such documentations had not yet been done for other tribes in India. Our research demonstrates the urgent need to documents traditional medicine preparation procedures from the local healers before rapid cultural modernization forgets them in transforming country like India. This study should motivate national and international researchers to do more works on ethnopharmacology and bioprospecting.


Introduction
The Himalaya is rich with a high diversity of medicinal plant species [1].The culture of traditional healing of diseases using those plants is still prevalent among indigenous mountain communities in the Himalaya.Arunachal Pradesh, a state of the Republic Of India, is situated in the Eastern Himalayas.The entire state is a biodiversity hotspot with 5000 endemic flowering plant species as well as very high faunal diversity [1,2].Also, this state is the home to 28 major tribes and 110 sub-tribes and considered to be one of the most splendid variegated and multilingual tribal areas of the world [3].The traditional wisdom of healing among mountain tribal communities is orally transferred from one generation to next generation through traditional healers, spiritual gurus, and elderly or sometimes ordinary people.This traditional wisdom, if not properly documented, can be lost by rapid modernization and reformation among mountain communities in Arunachal Pradesh where traditional customary practices were often treated as a symbol of backwardness and unscientific particularly among educated and young people.However, plant-based traditional wisdom has become a recognized tool in the search for new sources of drugs and pharmaceuticals in modern medicine [4].The field based ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological survey can bring out many different clues for the development of drugs to treat human diseases [5].
Traditional uses of medicinal plants among Monpa tribe of Arunachal Pradesh were documented in past studies [2,6].Those studies commonly documented vernacular names of some plants, the traditional use of plants in the healing of different ailments, and sometimes described botanical and chemical properties of those plants.However, research on ethnopharmacology on how traditional healers of Monpa tribe in the Eastern Himalayas prepare drugs using different ratios of multiple species and their parts had not yet been done.This study aims to document traditional wisdom of drug making among Monpa people in Zemithang region of Arunachal Pradesh state, India.

Results
Our study was a notable departure from the previous studies from the area that mostly documented and described the use of plant parts in individual plant species.We recorded 53 plant species used as medicinal plants.We documented and described 24 ethnomedicines prepared for healing purposes from these 53 plant species (Table 1).These traditional medicines were most commonly used to heal a wide range of diseases such as arthritis, rheumatic pain, malaria, cough and cold, dysentery, etc.However, we recorded a description of medicines for more complicated diseases such as epilepsy (Pambrey), herpes (Bukbukpa-khaksa -chandongbra) and oedema (Darshek At the second stage of the research, ethnopharmacological information was collected from the high ranked Monks and traditional healers who live in Gompas and use to prepare medicine from plants for the healing of the tribal people.The basic information that was collected from these Monks and traditional healers are 1) plants needed to make medicine, 2) use of plant parts, 3) different ratio of plant use, 3) technique of preparation, 4) doses and prescription to the patients and 5) medicinal uses.The third stage of the research was carried out at the Resource Survey and Management Division of the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, India.The voucher specimens collected during fieldwork were used for the preparation of the herbarium.Taxonomical classification had done with the help of the Botany Division of the Forest Research Institute and identified plant specimens were confirmed with the herbaria of the same division.

Conclusions
We documented first time the vernacular names and ethnopharmacological preparations of Ethnomedicines among Monpa tribes.Past studies on ethnobotany in Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalayas, listed species wise use of medicinal plants.However, in reality, traditional healers use multiple species and plant parts for drug preparation.We have tried to report that and not only merely report the use of a specific plant.It is the main novelty of this study.Our study illustrates the complexity of medicinal drug preparations and traditional knowledge that passed through generation after generation.These ethnopharmacological documentations should motivate national and international researchers to carry further researches on pharmacology and bioprospecting.
Under ongoing warming of Himalayas, our study also highlights the needs to document the use of local flora and to develop sustainable strategies to conserve them before they are lost and knowledge are forgotten.

Name of Ethnomedicine (in Monpa tribal language of Zemithang dialect) Type of medicine Name of medicinal plants used for ethnomedicine Proportion of used plant parts Mode of preparation Medicinal use
nye putpoo) rarely found in past studies.Please see Table1for a detailed description of ethnomedicines.Table2provides the list of plant species used in ethnomedicine.List of 24 ethnomedicines used by Zeminthang Monpa people and associated medicinal plants documented in this study (1 bray = 900 gram).