MTN 116:23-25 Presence of Sea Turtles in Traditional Pharmacopoeia and Beliefs of West Africa

seaturtle.org : MTN : ARCHIVES : Sign In

Marine Turtle Newsletter-Online

Presence of Sea Turtles in Traditional Pharmacopoeia and Beliefs of West Africa

Jacques Fretey¹, Gabriel Hoinsoudé Segniagbeto² & M’Mah Soumah³
¹UICN-France, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 26 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 75005 Paris, France (E-mail: jfretey@imatech.fr)
²Département Zool. Biol. Animale, Facultés des Sciences, Université de Lomé, BP 6057, Lomé, Togo (E-mail: h_segniagbeto@yahoo.fr)
³Centre National des Sciences Halieutiques de Boussoura, BP 3060 Conakry, Guinée (E-mail: m.soumah@caramail.com)

Traditional medicine has often used plants and animals, including sea turtles, as healing elements or other kinds of treatment (Alves & Rosa 2006). In Africa, medicine, religion, and beliefs are all parts of the same entity according to (Gilli 1987; de Surgy 1993). Healers are often fetishists. Their treatment methods are often well-kept secrets. During our extended work on sea turtle conservation in Western Africa over a number of years, we have collected information on the use of sea turtles in traditional healing or voodoo practices (Fretey et al. 2006). Our research on this topic was conducted in Togo, Benin, Guinea, and Cameroon (Fig. 1) with some difficulty and the information collected is still incomplete and fragmentary. We surveyed from 2000 to 2005 the fetish markets, and interviewed fishermen in coastal villages and some traditional doctors. We compiled information on the use of various sea turtle parts by local families and in pharmacopoeia in these countries, and supplemented it with information collected by us in other countries in the subregion (Fig. 1) as well as with records in the literature.

Figure 1. Countries in West Africa (dark grey) from where information was compiled on the use of sea turtles in traditional pharmacopoeia and their presence in local beliefs.

This work is certainly incomplete and preliminary. However, it makes us think about the need to define the role and use of sea turtle products, which is illegal according to national legislations, in traditional medical practices. Should these practices be completely prohibited? We do not know if their therapeutic powers are real or have simply a placebo effect. It would be interesting to determine if some of the sea turtle products used are truly effective. If they are effective, what should we do? Should we then profit from the large numbers of sea turtles accidentally killed by industrial trawlers or stockpiles of hawksbills scutes in Sao Tome and Principe by having traditional practitioners officially use them? Can we include these exemptions within conservation projects to respect traditional practices? This paper does not try to answer these questions, but simply does an inventory of African remedies that use turtle products (not always marine turtles) and the pathologies that they address Traditional practitioners appear to use the fat, the skull, crushed bones, the carapace (bony scutes and scales), the heart, the liver, and the blood for treatment of ailments. Several recipes, whose origin is lost in the past of each ethnic group, appear to be common and used for identical illnesses, all along the coast from Senegal to Cameroon (Fig. 1).

Fat, skull, bone, organs, and blood

Sea turtle fat has numerous uses. Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) fat is almost exclusively used in preparations and up to forty litres of oil can be extracted from a dead adult turtle exposed to full sunlight. It is used, either pure or mixed with honey, to treat convulsions and malaria (Togo), fever, fainting spells, liver problems and tetanus (Benin), as well as to induce vomiting (Togo, Bénin). In other African countries, sea turtle oil is used to treat traumas caused by shock. In the Loos Islands in Guinea, the fat is used to cure sprains and even to reduce fractures. Not far from there, in Senegal, the Sereer group uses it as a balm for massages that can cure fractures (Sabinot 2003). In the northwest and south of Cameroon, leatherback fat is applied to bruises. In the Neo community of Côte d’Ivoire, leatherback fat is applied to wounds in the mouth and to massage painful articulations (Fretey et al. 1999). In Benin, consumption of sea turtle meat is supposed to treat certain diseases like malaria or indigestion (Dossou-Bodjrenou et al. 1999).

Powdered skulls and bones are used in Togo against aches. If the fat of a python (Python sebae) is added, the skull powder becomes an ointment that helps relieve pains in the chest (Segniagbeto 2004). Carapaces are broken and crushed and mixed with honey, lemon juice, or with Senegal prickly ash (Fagara zanthoxyloides), a medicinal plant. These various mixtures are used to cure headaches, asthma and cardiac arrhythmia. According to Togolese coastal villagers, bones of sea turtles are effective for the skeletal and muscular growth of children. Therefore, some mothers add turtle bones daily to the baby’s bath water; it is believed that the power of the turtle (especially the leatherback) on the nesting beach, will be transmitted to the child through this practice (Segniagbeto 2004). Similarly, sea turtle bones are also used to treat children affected by rickets. A piece of bone, with a hole drilled through it is tied to the neck or the hip of the child. Sabinot (2003) described a similar practice in the Sereer community in the Palmarin region in Senegal, where hip problems are treated by wearing the last vertebra of the turtle around the waist with a string.

Among the Sereer, the enlarged front flipper claw of a green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is placed in the bag of seeds to guarantee a good harvest or used as a charm by soldiers. It is also tied around the ankle of the young child so that he learns to walk more quickly (Sabinot 2003).

In Benin, consumption of sea turtle meat is supposed to treat certain diseases like malaria or indigestion (Dossou-Bodjrenou et al. 1999). In the Sereer community (Fretey 1991; Sabinot 2003), fishermen use the heart of green turtles, boiled or grilled, as a remedy for heart diseases; the turtle liver is also used to treat the same diseases. Villiers (1958) reported that in the Lebu community from the peninsula of Cape Verde, people with heart problems wrap a piece of turtle heart in cloth and soak it in their drinking water. The genitalia of the male green turtle is dried in the sun and sometimes left to macerate for 24 hours in water and used as an aphrodisiac drink for men and bulls. Some men tie the dried penis to their waist with a cord for increased sexual power.

We collected information on the use of blood only in Guinea. It is sold in the markets in small bottles and is used to fight rheumatism and anaemia. The fresh blood of green turtles is ingested by asthmatic Sereer people to help with breathing. Fishermen sometimes spread fresh turtle blood at the bottom of their canoe to make their fishing profitable (Sabinot 2003). According to the French explorer Eustache de la Fosse in 1479, leprosy was treated in the Archipelago of Cape Verde by a diet of turtle meat and by rubbing the affected areas with sea turtle blood (Fretey 2001).

Acknowledgements: Our sincere thanks to all the traditional practitioners who answered our questions and shared secrets usually known only to those who have been initiated. Our thanks also to Manjula Tiwari who helped translate this paper from French.

ALVES, R.R.N. & I.L. ROSA. 2006. From cnidarians to mammals: The use of animals as remedies in fishing communities in NE Brazil. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 107: 259-276.

CARR, T., & C.L. CAMPBELL. 1995. A management strategy outline for marine turtle conservation in Ghana. Appendix I: Survey of the Sea Turtles of Ghana. Report to the Wildlife Department, Republic of Ghana, 23 pp.

DE SURGY, A. 1993. Les ingrédients des fétiches. Systèmes de Pensée en Afrique Noire, Paris 12 : 103-143.

DOSSOU-BODJRENOU, J.S., I. DAOUDA, E. AHOKPE, A. TEHOU, P. COUBEOU, A. MAMA, S. TCHIBOZO & J. MONTCHO. 1999. Premier aperçu et plan d’urgence de sauvegarde des tortues marines de la côte atlantique du Bénin. Agence Béninoise pour l’Environnement, Nature Tropicale ONG, 22 pp.

FRETEY, J. 1991. Statut de Dermochelys coriacea (Vandelli, 1761) au Sénégal. Bulletin de la Société Herpetologique de France 59: 28-35.

FRETEY, J. 1999. Suivi et conservation des tortues marines dans le site prioritaire de Campo-Ma’an (Sud Cameroun). Première phase : 1998-1999. Report for TROPENBOS/IUCN.

FRETEY, J. 2001. Biogeography and Conservation of Marine Turtles of the Atlantic Coast of Africa. CMS Technical Series Publication 6, UNEP/CMS Secretariat, Bonn, Germany, 429 pp.

FRETEY, J., A. AVUNDO, A. FORMIA, J. GOMEZ-PEÑATE & A. KOUADIO. 1999. Notes préliminaires sur les tortues marines de Côte d’Ivoire: éléments pour un programme national. IUCN Report, 14 pp.

FRETEY, J., G.H. SEGNIAGBETO, & M. SOUMAH, 2006. Présence des tortues marines dans la pharmacopée traditionnelle et les croyances en Afrique Occidentale. Proceed. IIe Congrès Conserv. Chéloniens, Dakar, Chelonii 4: 204-207.

GILLI, B. Heviesso et le bon ordre du monde. Lomé, éd. Haho. SABINOT, C. 2003. Tortues marines sur le littoral palmarinois (Sénégal): entre attentes internationales et cultures locales. DEA Thesis, Université Paris VII, 110 pp.

SEGNIAGBETO, H. 2004. Les formations végétales de bord de mer: sites de nidifications des tortues marines au Togo. DEA Thesis, Université Lomé. 51 p.

VILLIERS, A. 1958. Tortues et crocodiles d’Afrique Noire française. IFAN, Dakar, 15, 354 pp.