Plant uses described during small group and individual interviews were systematized according to plant usage categories developed by Moerman (1998 19 233).
No significant difference was found regarding medicinal plant usage rates between students at the two universities, though there were differences noted in the reasons for usage.
The application of plant usage categories, while in some ways an imposition of the researchers' own logic, is an opportunity to examine medicinal plants per function rather than per species.
Most schools (6 out of 7) confirmed teaching Traditional African Medicine and the content included lectures from traditional healers about African cosmology, as well as discussions about medicinal plant usage for certain illnesses.
The largest plant usage categories (in terms of the number of plants that fall within them) are: gastro-intestinal aids (31 plants), dermatological aids (18 plants), kidney aids (15 plants), analgesics (13 plants), liver aids (13 plants), and hypotensives (ten plants).
This correspondence implies 1) that the diversity of knowledge within a specific plant usage category (as demonstrated by number of plants used for the same purpose) is indicative of the frequency of related medical conditions in the Pamirs, and 2) that medicinal plant knowledge is highly relevant to the health sovereignty of the Pamirs.
In addition, the regression coefficients of the PLS-DA model, which relates plant usage in Jamu as predictors and Jamu efficacy as response, can be helpful in determining which plants in the ingredients of Jamu are used as main ingredients, which contribute primarily to the medicines' efficacies, and which plants are used as supporting ingredients.
Functional profiles required for cover plant usages were also identified.
The resistance to describing plant usages did not relate to the teacher-cum-farmer's hesitance to share knowledge, as he was genuinely helpful and welcoming, but how knowledge manifests itself in day-to-day human ecological interactions.
