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Shanayoy Botanical Garden

Native Plants & Kamëntsá Ancestral Medicine

A Living Sanctuary of Mother Earth’s Healing

Herb Plants

The Ancestral Language of the Plants

This living archive was created to honor the ancestral knowledge of the Kamëntsá people, where each plant is not just a specimen — but a teacher, nurse, and guardian of the territory.

Here you will find over 80 native and medicinal plants, organized alphabetically (A–Z). Each entry includes the Spanish name, scientific name, and Kamëntsá name, along with its traditional uses, temperature, and part of the plant used in ancestral medicine.

You can search by name, use, or keyword in the bar above to explore the living memory of the plants.
Every name carries a story — a way of healing, a breath of the forest, and the wisdom of generations who learned to live in harmony with Mother Earth.

In the living memory of the Kamëntsá people, plants are not objects — they are teachers, nurses, and guardians of the territory.
From childhood, one learns to care: never put just any leaf in your mouth, for each species has its own spirit, function, and place.
Naming correctly is an act of healing — a plant’s name is born from its fragrance, its form, its habitat, and what it brings into balance within us.

As Andrés Juagibioy shares, “each plant is like a nurse; it knows something and heals something different, from its own space.”
In the Kamëntsá language, creating a name is not about joining long descriptions, but finding one single word that holds the plant’s essence (sometimes with suffixes like –isha).
Through language, medicine speaks again in its own voice, and the plant recovers its identity within the land.

This garden honors that ancestral tradition — to observe, to listen, to name with respect, and to care deeply.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Created in Reciprocity

This living project was made possible through the Reciprocity Fund of the Circle of Sacred Nature and OIOC partners, in devotion to the study of plant medicine and the preservation of ancestral knowledge for future generations.

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It continues our collective vision to establish a Transformation Laboratory — a space of learning, creation, and transmission of ancestral wisdom within the community.

We express our deepest gratitude to Taita Juan Chindoy and Mamita Clementina for their lifelong dedication to the plant medicines and for guiding the naming process, and to Andrés Juagibioy, who carries the living knowledge and bridges it through his ancestral laboratory, bringing the plants’ presence into the living Kamëntsá language.

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This effort is part of a broader vision to preserve the Kamëntsá language, along with its ancestral culture and traditions, as a legacy of memory, healing, and reverence for Mother Earth.

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