Mingay Dakias lives hours from the nearest paved road, and many more hours than that from a hospital. He lives in the forested highlands of Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines.
Even without a nearby hospital, Mingay knows exactly where to find medicine. He looks to the leaves, roots and vines that grow wild around his community. He brews certain plants into teas to treat stomach aches and mixes others with coconut oil to treat wounds and rashes.
Mingay is 65-years-old, and a member of the Manobo-Dulangan Indigenous community. He was taught how to find medicines in plants by his father, who learned from the elders before him.
“For many common illnesses, these traditional remedies are really our first aid,” explains Mingay. “We usually rely on these treatments first and only go to the clinic or hospital when an illness becomes very serious.”
Like many Indigenous communities across the Philippines, the Manobo-Dulangan community relies on forest medicine for everyday health care. One example is alingatong, also called stinging nettle. This shrub has broad, hairy leaves that can sting, but when mixed with coconut oil, it creates an ointment for easing muscle and joint pain and skin conditions such as eczema.
“We use a wide variety of plants and their different parts to treat things like skin infections, stomachaches, vomiting, bowel problems, headaches and fevers,” Mingay tells Mongabay. “Most of these medicinal plants we gather from our mountains and forests.”
To protect the plants, the Manobo-Dulangan community harvests with care. “We only take what we need and make sure not to damage the plants so they can keep growing,” says Mingay. “We teach our younger community members where to find these plants and how to care for the forests and mountains that provide them, because we know that if we lose these places, we lose our medicine too.”
Krizler Tanalgo is a biology professor at the University of Southern Mindanao. His team studied how 34 Philippine Indigenous groups use plants for medicine. They documented 796 plant species used to treat 25 types of ailments.
“This kind of knowledge is so valuable yet easily lost,” explains Krizler. “We hope this effort can help bridge generations and keep this heritage alive.”
David Brown adapted this story for Mongabay Kids. It is based on an article by Keith Anthony Fabro, published on Mongabay News.
