Messages from the Gods: A Guide to the Useful Plants of Belize

The causes and remedies in this book are not clear. Its more like a Research or an history book of the plants and what they were use for in ancient Mopan Maya.This is not Good book for you if you are looking for a Home remedy book for plants usage in Belize.The content are very useful if you have knowledge of the plants.

Messages form the Gods is one of the best ethnobotany volumes that has come out in a long time. The book is the result of the authors working for decades with healers in Belize, and has been in the making for almost 30 years. Both, the introduction to the local background and the participating healers, as well as the information on individual plants are meticulously researched and presented in a way that makes the information accessible both to the ethnobotanical expert and layperson. The whole volume is also a great example on how ethical ethnobotanical research should be conducted, how the knowledge of the local participants can be protected, and how such knowledge can be repatriated to the community itself. Congratulations to both authors to getting this volume to the public, and most importantly, the people of Belize.

Messages from the Gods: A Guide to the Useful Plants of Belize  So happy to have purchased this book. Very informative.

This is not read yet but I know the writer is a masterful herbal/holistic healer for many years.

heard about it on NPR great info.

This book is destined to become one of Belize's National Treasures, along with Declaration of Independence and the Belizean flag. School children and scholars alike far into the future will read this book for insights into one of the most interesting and complex aspects of Belizean cultural life.Arvigo and Balick labored for decades to document and record the ethnobotanical traditions which were at the time very close to disappearing just as urbanization and modernization were accelerating around the world. Through their tireless efforts to catalog every plant and every use by every healer they could find and making that information freely available to everyone, they have succeeded in preserving a whole culture. The book, "Messages from the Gods" is really an encyclopedia of all that is known about traditional and modern plant use in Belize.And it is much more. It contains a biographical sketch of the principal healers they worked with, amounting to a who's who of Belizean traditional knowledge. The biographies, told by the healers themselves in their own words and faithfully recorded by Balick and Arvigo are each a priceless document, recording the unique history, struggles and aspirations of Belizean society as a whole.The bulk of the book is a compendium of plant species and the myriad ways they are used for food, fuel, fiber, medicine, spice, worship and countless other uses. The preparation and application of each use are described in detail. The authors record how much and how often a particular plant should be used (as told to them by the healers). And as scholars of the finest order, each bit of knowledge is accompanied by a reference to a healer and a voucher specimen preserved in herbaria, principally the Belize National Herbarium and the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden, thereby enabling future generations to replicate and test their findings. Each species is accompanied by excellent photographs, showing important characteristic for identification, enabling amateur and expert alike to identify the hundreds of plants featured.Caught just in the nick of time, the authors have done a service to humankind by preserving Belizean plant knowledge passed down from shaman to student and mother to daughter through oral tradition from antiquity.

I absolutely loved this book. I live in Central America and I have been able to identify and use so many plants!!! It is a constant resource for me!!! Thank you!!!!!

A wonderful book for anyone interested in ethnobotany of Central America or even just a tourist in Belize or the surrounding countries. It contains excellent photos of each plant and their uses for various medical problems. The two authors worked with an elderly shaman for many years to perfect this tome and to preserve for posterity traditional knowledge that would have otherwise been lost. It will certainly be the best reference on this subject for decades to come.