Herbal bathing: an analysis of variation in plant use among Saramaccan and Aucan Maroons in Suriname.

Plant use in bathing was strongly influenced by study site and then by ethnicity, but less by bath type. As Maroons escaped from different plantations and developed their ethnomedicinal practices in isolation, there has been little exchange in ethnobotanical knowledge after the seventeenth century between ethnic groups. Care should be taken in extrapolating plant use data collected from one location to a whole ethnic community. Maroon plant use deserves more scientific attention, especially now as there are indications that traditional knowledge is disappearing.