Ethnobotanical uses, action strategies and cultural transmission of plant resources in the Maule Region, South Central Chile

Abstract

The aims of this research are a) to identify the main plant resources used by the community of the locality of Armerillo, their use and / or application; b) to establish the seasonality of such products and strategies developed by families of Armerillo for their availability and, c) to determine the main mechanism of transmission of local knowledge used by the community. The field work was developed in two phases, a first one, in which a survey was conducted with closed questionnaire supplemented with transects in the environment. In the second phase, in which in-depth interviews were carried out with those people who showed a greater knowledge regarding the attributes of the different products and mechanisms of transmission of the adverted knowledge. It is concluded that popular knowledge has revealed uses that had not been reported before for the species described for this sector. In the same way, some uses and attributes of some species were unknown to the surveyed population. The seasonality of the species is handled with the implementation of various techniques that make possible total or partial availability out of season. The main mechanism of cultural transmission is vertical, with the family being the main socialization agency. Besides, horizontal transmission is less important.