An Ethnobotanical Study on Chuangqing People of China based on the Herbal Market Survey on Dragon Boat Festival


 Background: Chuanqing People is one of the unrecognized ethnic groups in China, having unique cultural backgrounds and rich knowledge of traditional medicinal plants. The herbal market on Dragon Boat Festival plays an important role in inheriting the traditional medicinal knowledge of Chuanqing People. The aim of this study was to record the characteristics, current situation, and problems of medicinal plant usages of the Chuanqing People of China, to serve for the inheritance of traditional knowledge and the protection of biodiversity. Methods: The information was collected through key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews, and taxonomy identification; and then, results were compared with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and other ethnic medicines of Guizhou Province. Data were analyzed with Use Value (UV) and CI value. Results: A total of 102 species from 53 families and 92 genera were recorded, including Orchidaceae and Asparagaceae (6 species respectively), Berberidaceae and Compositae (5 species respectively), Apocynaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rosaceae, and Polygonaceae (4 species respectively) as predominate families. Moreover, 71 investigated human ailments were grouped into 12 categories. Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (34 mentions) were the most frequently mentioned in our study. The most frequently used species was Hedera nepalensis var. sinensis (Tobler) Rehder (UV & CI=0.288). Conclusion: The traditional herbal market during the Dragon Boat Festival is a hotspot of traditional medicinal plant knowledge of local people. However, urbanization threatens the inheritance of the local medicinal plant knowledge. The study highlights the traditional medicinal knowledge of Chuanqing People, which provides basic data for further research on botanical and conservation.


Introduction
Chuanqing People is the unrecognized ethnic group with the largest population in China. They live mainly in Nayong County and Zhijin County of Bijie City [1]. According to the documents of Guizhou local records and the consensus of the academic circles, the Chuanqing People are developed from the "native people -Li Minzi" [2]. The Chuanqing People believed in the "Wu Xian Shen" (The ve Gods who the rst name word is "Xian") and rmly thought that the "Wu Xian Shen" could protect them from the devil. Every family also set up the "Wu Xian Tan" to worship for generations [3]. The Nuo opera of Chuanqing People belongs to Wu Nuo It is the oldest dance of entertaining gods of Han nationality, which is used to worship gods and dance ghosts, drive away plagues and avoid epidemics, and express peace and auspiciousness.
from the aspect of expression form. The Nuo opera is to celebrate the birth of "Wu Xian Shen", also known as "Tiao Pusa" [4]. Totem worship is Mandrillus Sphinx. The most typical clothing is the women's clothes, the women like to divide their hair into the front, middle and back bunches, each tied with red silk thread, and then tied the three bunches together. They wear big hook rings on ears and dress cyan with blue ower clothes that the cyan to medium, blue to bottom, white cloth edge, and like to wear In modern society with the rapid development of transportation, the traditional culture of the Chuanqing People is also impacted by the wave of globalization. With the gradual aging of some traditional healers among the Chuanqing People, the young generation lack of understanding of the culture of CPM, and the inheritance of the culture of CPM is not valued. Sooner or later, it will disappear in the long river of history. However, the research on Chuanqing People's herbs is completely blank, and The traditional medicinal knowledge and experience of the Chuanqing People are disappearing rapidly. Therefore, it is urgent to explore, sort out, and inherit the national medicine with the characteristics of Chuanqing People, which is on the verge of being lost.
Based on the theory and method of ethnic medicinal botany, this research carried out a systematic investigation on the ethnic medicinal plants of Chuanqing People in Guizhou Province, to protect and inherit the treasure of this ethnic medicine as much as possible. This research work is helpful to enrich and develop the research content of ethnic medicine resources in the southwest of China and is also of great signi cance to explore and develop the colorful ethnic medicine culture within China.

Location of the study site
The study was conducted in Nayong County of the northwest of Guizhou Province and the south of Bijie City, located between105 ° 38 ′ 04 ″ E and 27 ° 05 ′ 54 ″ N (Fig. 1). It looks like a goat lying between Liuchong River and Sancha River, the southeast foot of the Wumeng Mountain system,. It covers an area of 2448 square kilometers because there is a Nayong River in the south of the county, which is named Nayong. It is an area with a wide karst landform, which is the transition zone from Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the Wumeng Mountain area. The highest altitude is 2476 meters, the lowest is 1050 meters, and the average altitude is 1685 meters. The mean annual temperature is 13.7 ℃, the mean sunshine time is 1346.3h, the mean annual precipitation is 1203.0mm, the annual sunshine time is about 1346h, and the average frost-free period is 268d. It has the characteristics of no severe cold in winter, no severe hot in summer, cool climate in summer and autumn, and Synchronization of Rain and Heat, belonging to a subtropical monsoon climate. A county is a multi-ethnic place located in the core area of the distribution of Chuanqing People. The traditional customs and habits of Chuanqing People are well preserved. The ethnic characteristics of traditional culture and medical knowledge are distinct and representative. The vegetation is luxuriant and the forest coverage rate is 47.05%. Nayong County is rich in biodiversity, surrounded by the provincial dove tree nature reserve of Nayong County, with the distribution of rare protected animals and plants such as Tetracentron sinense Oliv., Prionodon pardicolor, and Tylototriton kweichowensis, which is conducive to the investigation of medicinal ethnobotany and specimen collection [14][15]. This survey was conducted from June 2018 to June 2019 on the DBF. In this survey, 52 informants were investigated, of whom 33 were males and 19 were females, aged from 25 to 80 years old, with an average age of 56 years old. The medicinal materials were sold from 1 to 25 kinds by per informant, 90% of which were wild medicinal materials, mainly collected through self-collection. Key informant interviews, semistructured interviews, and free listing were used to obtain information about the age of the vendors, the name of the medicinal materials, the medicinal parts, the medicinal methods, the functions and indications, the sources and collection methods of the medicinal materials (Appendix.1.). After collecting the basic information, the medicinal materials were sold from the vendors and they were regarded as plant vouchers. The exsiccata was identi ed by Flora of China [16] and Flora of Guizhou [17]. The taxonomy identi cation of plant families and species followed the APG IV system [18] and The Plant List (2019) [19] was used to provide a uniform nomenclature after identi cation. All the voucher specimens were identi ed by Hong-Xiang Yin, associate professor of Chengdu University of traditional Chinese medicine. The voucher specimen were preserved in Specimen Center of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CDCM). At the same time, the collected plant information was compared with ChP [20] and QSTCMNM [21]. The ISCREP [22] of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was to search the collected medicinal plant.

Data analysis
The quantitative statistical indexes of ethnobotany were calculated by Excel 2010, including UV value and CI value. According to the International Classi cation of Primary Care (ICPC) [23], 71 diseases of Chuanqing People in Nayong County were classi ed into 12 categories. The Use Value (UV) of a medical plant species, a quantitative parameter that demonstrates the relative importance of species known by local people, was also calculated as follow: UV=U/V, where U refers to the number of mentions per species, and N means the number of informants [24]. Cultural importance index (CI) was used to indicate the spread of the use(number of informants) of each species as well as to determine diversity of uses.
was the total number of informants and NC was the total number of use categories. CI was the sum of the proportion of informants that mentioned each of the use categories for a given species. The higher CI value indicated the multiple uses of a species [25].

Age and gender structure of the master of medical knowledge
According to the investigation, the number of medicinal materials that were mastered by men is much higher than that of women (Fig. 2). We could see that there were 299 herbs provided by men, while only 128 kinds were provided by women. The number of herbs provided by women was less than half of that provided by men. Besides, there were no female vendors among aged 20-30, and the number of medicinal materials provided by male vendors is very small, only 10 kinds (Fig. 2). The knowledge of medicinal plants of Chuanqing People was mainly mastered by the middle-aged and older people, and the Chuanqing People who were aged from 31to 70 years old had the most knowledge.  (1.90%), owers (1.90%), stems (1.90%), aerial parts (1.90%) and others (6.65%) (Fig. 4). The proportion of using roots and whole plants as medicinal parts reached 60.95%, which was not conducive to the sustainable development of plants.

Medication methods
Twenty medicinal methods of Chuanqing People were recorded. Decoction (44.35%) was the most commonly used medical method, such as Disporopsis fuscopicta Hance, Verbena o cinalis L., Polygonum aviculare L.and so on. Followed by alcohol maceration (18.55%), bath (6.45%), cook with pork (5.65%), mash (4.84%), cook with chicken (3.23%), powder with boiled water (3.23%), steam with honey (3.23%), slice (2.42%), vinegar maceration (1.61%) and others (6.48%) (Fig. 5). For the Chuanqing People, most of the medicinal materials were used in the treatment of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue diseases. Also, there were some special medical methods for Chuanqing People, such as souping with glutinous rice and ring with eggs. (https://www.who.int/classi cations/icd/en/) [23], seventy-one investigated human ailments are divided into 12 categories by Chuanqing People on the herbal market of DBF (Table 1). Most medicinal materials were used to treat diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. This is because Nayong County had a humid climate and most of the people were engaged in agriculture, which leads to many diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, such as rheumatism and bruise. probably because they were widely distributed in the local habitat of Nayong County and relatively easy to obtain; Secondly, these plants might be more effective than other plants, so they were more popular in local communities. Last but not least, nourishing and rheumatism were the most common problems for Chuanqing People. The high demand for these herbs and their effectiveness might be the main reason for the high frequency of the herbal market on DBF.  (CPM). For instance, the root of Aconitum carmichaelii Debeaux is used to treat returning to the yang to save the rebellious in ChP and CPM. but different medical functions were documented in the three pharmacopeia standards, for example, Paeonol contains in Cynanchum paniculatum (Bunge) Kitagawa has an anti-in ammatory effect and is used to alleviate in ammation of gynecological diseases to a certain extent [26], Sanguisorba o cinalis L. has antibacterial and anti-in ammatory pharmacological effects and to some extent, it can be used to treat diarrhea [27], these usages are only reported in works of literature. Paris polyphylla Smith is used to treat the heart disease, but the Gleditsia sinensis Lam. can be used to treat bone pain and joint pain have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, the traditional medicinal plant knowledge of Chuanqing people, especially for those unique plants and usages, should be conserved immediately. shown the important role played by traditional medicine in modern society. However, with the impact of the modern lifestyle and the change of people's concept of medical treatment, traditional medicine has been severely damaged, especially the inheritance of the medical culture of some special ethnic groups. Therefore, it is the rst time to systemize the traditional herbal knowledge of Chuanqing People by ethnobotany method, which is of great signi cance to the arrangement and inheritance of the traditional herbal knowledge of Chuanqing People.

Conclusions
This is the rst study to document the traditional medicinal knowledge of the Chuanqing People from Nayong County, China. A total of 102 species from 50 families and 92 genera were recorded to treat 71 human aliments; these ailments were divided into 12 categories, showing the highest consensus (FIC) values for the disease of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. All kinds of plants with high UV was the most preferred species in the study site, these medicinal plants need more attention and further research. The results re ected a closer connection in comparison with ChP, QSTCMNM, and CPM. A total of 11 medicinal plants were recorded in the ISCREP.
A generation will grow old, but there will always be young people. The inheritance of traditional medical knowledge of Chuanqing People in Nayong County is still hopeful. Training relevant talents and maintaining local biodiversity may be a feasible solution to further protect and develop local traditional medicine knowledge.

Figure 1
The location of Nayong County, Guizhou Province, China The proportion of used parts of medicinal plants in herbal market of Dragon Boat Festival in Nayong