Ethnochemistry and Ethnomedicine of Ancient Papua New Guineans and Their Use in Motivating Students in Secondary Schools and Universities in PNG

For more than 50,000 years of Papua New Guinea's human history, Papua New Guineans have been making significant contributions to Science, particularly in the fields of Chemistry and Medicine. However, because of the absence of any written language for over 800 dialects, the information has not been recorded and the contributions of ancient Papua New Guineans have largely gone unnoticed and unrecognized. However, during the past 40 years, some researchers, Holdsworth(1), Woodley (2), Timi(3), Dindi (4), Rai(5) have conducted scientific studies on medicinal plants in PNG which probably would have been used by ancient Papua New Guineans to treat deceases. Identification of the plants were carried out with the help of villagers initially and then with botanists and chemists Papua New Guinea. Chemical characterization was carried out by chemists in Papua New Guinea. Nine years ago, the author was able to introduce a Unit in the Grade 11 and 12 Chemistry Syllabus under the title 'Traditional Chemical Practices' which consists of traditional chemical and medicinal activities. Similar units had been introduced at undergraduate level in the University of PNG 7 years ago. Already there is evidence that the learning of what their ancestors had discovered and used has been an inspiration to students, and can stress the importance of learning modern scientific principles and methods to build on what their forefathers had done. This paper summarizes some of the scientific contributions of ancient Papua New Guineans, and endeavours to show how the studying of them at school and university levels may have influenced students to join chemical and medical streams at universities and encouraging first year undergraduates to take up chemistry in later years. 1. I ntroduction Papua New Guinea is characterized by geological, ethnic and biological diversity. It contains approximately 6% of the world's biodiversity in 1% of the worlds land area. This allowed people of this country to use its flora and other resources to produce what they wanted. Although not widely documented and appreciated, medicine and chemistry have been associated with Papua New Guineans for thousands of years. They also have been using indigenous plants for treatment of diseases for thousands of years. The first medicinal plants recorded in Papua New Guinea were shown to the Russian botanist and explorer Miklouho- Maclay who lived on Coast of now Madang Province from 1871 and 1876. Many other traditional plants used as medicines have been since recorded by missionaries, visiting botanists and anthropologists. Several research projects in traditional medicine are currently being conducted at the University of Papua New Guinea, Institute of Medical Research and Wau Ecology Institute of Papua New Guinea.