Peru, in recent times has been acquiring much attention and prestige in various fields, historical, archaeological, biodiverse or economic. All this is due to its privileged condition of being among the 12 countries with the greatest biodiversity in the world with vast natural reserves, including having a variety of medicinal plants that possibly exceed 4,000 varieties.

Also noteworthy, is the diversity of human groups that populated these lands, whose presence dates back to more than 12,000 years of human settlements of hunters, and gatherers, as evidenced by remains found in the caves of Lauricocha, Piquimachay, and Toquepala, found by archaeologists.

Archeological samples prove a long bio-social evolutionary process until the beginning of the sixteenth century: an expansive moment in which the Europeans arrived. It culminated in the taking and elimination of Tawantinsuyo, the largest Empire or civilization of South America or Empire of the Incas as we have known it.

Settlers, who settled in various areas of this territory, that today we know as Tallancas, Nazcas, Chimues, Huaris, Collas, Putinas, Ashanicas, Mascos and Incas, among others, developed their own technology and more than 150 domesticated products for the consumption of human beings.

I particularly believe that this mobility and establishment of such varied groups, is mainly due to the geographical conditions of this territory. That made it conducive to survive and change its condition from hunters, and gatherers to sedentary, established peoples that developed that today we know as pre-Hispanic cultures.

A territory as vast as South America, and particularly Peru, where 84 of the 117 life zones that exist in the world are located, created the ideal environment for a stable settlement and evolution, with various modes of adaptation to a unique nature in which they learned to live with it and from it.

It could be said that the varied and beneficial climate was the determining factor that allowed the development of stable agriculture, and fostered the great variety and diversity of fauna and flora, within which particularly in the flora, plant species with medicinal properties were developed, experienced by these settlers, both for their nutrition and to cure a variety of pathologies that they undoubtedly had to confront, throughout their evolutionary process.

This ecological variety and the lack of inclement weather defined this long evolutionary process of adaptation, since unlike other latitudes, it was not subject to drastic changes; that is, winters of extreme and prolonged temperatures with or other natural phenomena, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, which forced both animals and humans to continuous transhumance, allowing them to settle for longer periods in a certain area, giving them greater leisure time and developing their cultural creativity from the invention of tools for various uses, such as weapons and farming instruments along with different architectural solutions, observation of plants and their healing qualities and uses.

We know that all the world's cultures, in their early days, developed their own way of surviving and healing in a magical-religious symbiosis that today we would call psychosomatic, where many of these plants were prioritized for these purposes, as has been seen throughout history, which have left evidence of their uses, practices, and continuity, particularly in rural areas.

It is obvious that these therapeutic results were subject to the knowledge of those people who prepared their medicines for magical uses and rituals, highlighting among them the entheogenic plants that connected the individual with the divine world, for example, psychoactive [plants], to which we are returning again. From other perspectives, Peru is still a wide field for exploration and research.

It is within this great ecological and cultural variety described, that in 2018, distinguished professor and friend Dr. Jeff McCormack, ethnobotanical researcher, with curiosity and scientific knowledge, decided to carry out an ethnobotanical study in one of these enchanting inter-Andean valleys. [This was] specifically in the region called San Pedro de Cachora in the Apurimac Department, in the Peruvian Andes. [In this area] there is a marked contrast in geography that varies in climatic terms from an altitude of 2,000 to 4,500 meters above sea level.

The altitude difference allows for and creates a wide variety of flora and fauna, and still sustains human settlements that today call themselves "Peasant Communities," including those of Ttastapoyoncco, Queshuapampa, Huillcayoc, and Asil, which have developed beliefs, methods, and management of their own characteristics and use of their environment.

Jeff, with great sensitivity, and as an ethnobotanist, understood and investigated this connection between man and nature beyond simply searching for biochemical components in the use of these medicinal plants, finding that connection between man and nature, so strongly preserved in its inhabitants.

Thus, with the meticulousness of a laboratory researcher, professor Jeff McCormack dedicated himself to collecting oral information and photographing various plants existing in these varied ecological zones, classifying them according to their botanical characteristics, but above all, recovering information on their healing qualities and properties through the uses and forms of application described by his various interviewees, using oral information, which he presents and shares with us today in a clear manner in his book.

As a field companion, it was an honor and a reunion with nature and learning for me, having shared part of this research process, which I am sure not only contributes knowledge and richness of the natural and cultural aspects of this area to any student of these subjects, but also as a rescue and valuable gift to all the inhabitants of this Andean region and its new generations, who will know how to recognize and appreciate the immense natural and cultural wealth stored in their traditional knowledge, still current and little disseminated.

I also take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Ms. Marieta Romero Alvarez, a connoisseur and practitioner of herbal medicine and traditional medicine, who, in her bilingual capacity, was able to serve as data collector and translator for this research.

We extend our gratitude to Ms. Sofía Castañeda Medina, a native of the community, who, with knowledge and professionalism, supported the preparation and collection of data for this work.

Cachora, Peru,
January 20, 2023
Theo Paredes Yépez

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