The cultivation of the castor bean and the amba’y in Guarani communities of the Argentine Northeast, ethnobotanical approach of their history and cosmology

Abstract

This work studied the historical evidence of the cultivation of “amba’y”, Cecropia pachystachya (Urticaceae) in domestic areas of Guarani communities and its replacement by the castor bean or “ricino”, Ricinus communis (Euphorbiaceae), whose cultivation is a current practice. Information obtained on uses of castor bean and on the mythical origin of the amba’y is useful to achieve an etymological approximation to the name “amba’y” alternative to those previously proposed by León Cadogan