J Ethnopharmacol. 1988 Jul-Aug; 23(2-3): 165-265.

[Plants and traditional medicine in southeast Madagascar]

Beaujard P.

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France.

This paper makes a first inventory of plants used by the medicine-men of the South-East of Madagascar (Tanala and Antemoro regions). The heirs - directly or indirectly - to an esoteric "moslem" knowledge which has been transmitted since the XVth century by the aristocratic islamized groups, the medicine-men are also the possessors of a knowledge which has been acquired by the autochthonous groups, that are said "masters of the earth" (commoners). Some divergences in the respective practices of the Tanala and Antemoro medicine-men seem to be connected with differences in the social structure and in the links between society and the environment.