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Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. By Mark Plotkin. Viking; 318 pages; $22
The Indian chief was of the opinion that the white man's medicine was strongest. When he had had malaria, the white man's bitter pills had cured him. The visitor asked him where the pills came from. The chief said they were made in America. The visitor said that, while that was true, the original medicine, and the knowledge of how it should be used, came from Indians far away, in a place called Peru. The chief considered this. At length, he decided that the visitor should be allowed to study with the shamans of the village, and learn how to use the plants of the forest.
That visitor, Mark Plotkin, had come to the village for several reasons. As an "ethnobotanist", he wanted to study the plants of the jungle, especially those that the Tirio Indians used. He wanted to find potential medicines that, like quinine, would benefit people far and wide. He wanted to make sure that,...