Comparative Study of Ethnomedicine Approach in Kutai Tribe at Loa Lepu Village and Muara Gusik Village, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

The villages of Loa Lepu and Muara Gusik are in East Kalimantan with different districts. The Kutai tribe in the two villages still use plants as medicine to treat various diseases. The existence of traditional elders in the two villages has an influence in traditional medicine. These different locations also have indications of differences in the utilization of medicinal plant species. This study aims to analyze the types of medicinal plants, as well as the processing and utilization of medicinal plants in the Kutai tribe in Loa Lepu Village and Muara Gusik Village. This type of research is participant observation research and qualitative and quantitative methods as well as purposive sampling and snowball techniques on 15 informants in the village of Loa Lepu and 15 informants in the village of Muara Gusik. The results showed that there were 70 medicinal plants which were divided into 39 families and spread to the Kutai tribe in Loa Lepu Village with 47 species and in the Kutai tribe in Muara Gusik Village as many as 41 species. The most widely used family in the two villages is Zingiberaceae. The highest use of leaves (32% of Loa Lepu Village and 23% of Muara Gusik Village), processing method is boiled (36% of Loa Lepu Village and 22% of Muara Gusik Village). It is this plant characterization that has the potential to be further investigated from the bioactivity found in the two villages.