Ethnobotany in the New Europe

People, Health and Wild Plant Resources

Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana, Andrea Pieroni, Rajindra K. Puri, Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana, Andrea Pieroni, Rajindra K. Puri

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781845458140
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Anthropologie

The study of European wild food plants and herbal medicines is an old discipline that has been invigorated by a new generation of researchers pursuing ethnobotanical studies in fresh contexts. Modern botanical and medical science itself was built on studies of Medieval Europeans' use of food plants and medicinal herbs. In spite of monumental changes introduced in the Age of Discovery and Mercantile Capitalism, some communities, often of immigrants in foreign lands, continue to hold on to old recipes and traditions, while others have adopted and enculturated exotic plants and remedies into their diets and pharmacopoeia in new and creative ways. Now in the 21st century, in the age of the European Union and Globalization, European folk botany is once again dynamically responding to changing cultural, economic, and political contexts. The authors and studies presented in this book reflect work being conducted across Europe's many regions. They tell the story of the on-going evolution of human-plant relations in one of the most bioculturally dynamic places on the planet, and explore new approaches that link the re-evaluation of plant-based cultural heritage with the conservation and use of biocultural diversity.

CHAPTER 1

The Ethnobotany of Europe, Past and Present

MANUEL PARDO-DE-SANTAYANA, ANDREA PIERONI AND RAJINDRA K. PURI

This book reports on an old and venerable discipline, the study of European wild food plants and herbal medicines, invigorated by a new generation of researchers pursuing modern ethnobotanical studies in new contexts. It offers new insights into the past and contemporary uses of wild plant resources, which despite decades in decline still play an important role for many rural communities. Recently, some of these wild plants and the practices associated with them have received renewed attention as symbols of local identities – or forms of intangible cultural heritage¹ – perceived to be under threat or as new resources for local economic growth. However, the future of these traditions is uncertain, as some are not practised any more and for others the resources themselves are under pressure due to continuing expansion and intensification of human environments. An important theme to emerge from these studies is the need for new theoretical and practical approaches that link the revaluation of plant-based cultural heritage with the conservation and use of biocultural diversity.

This book bridges biological and social science disciplines such as medicine, food science, human ecology, environmental science, history, anthropology and linguistics, and is intended to benchmark the development of the subject, for scientists and scholars active in the field, for those who make and implement policy, and generally for all those with an interest in biocultural diversity issues. Being at the interface of these various disciplinary perspectives, the researchers have made use of a variety of methods for obtaining information. Most of the data were provided by personal interviews and observations, but folk songs, historical texts, ethnographies and literature were also surveyed and analysed.

The authors and studies presented here reflect work being conducted in many European regions, including Portugal, Albania, Norway and Malta, and provide an overview of current ongoing field studies in Europe. Highlighting the rich diversity of cultural traditions still found here, the findings demonstrate both the common European heritage of folk knowledge on wild and cultivated plants and the diversity of local knowledge found across Europe's many areas. These studies tell the story of the ongoing evolution of human–plant relations in Europe, one of the most bioculturally dynamic places on the planet.

This dynamism derives in part from a long history of interaction among Europe's forty-five countries, city-states and principalities, which contain a quarter of the world's population living on less than 7 per cent of its land, but speaking 239 languages (Gordon 2005). Language groups are further subdivided into regional dialects, and the unique embedding of local cultural heritage and specific ways of perception and management of natural resources have generated myriad ‘senses of place’ (what in France is called ‘terroir’;² see Bérard et al. 2005). Europe's incredible diversity is in part due to the geographically fragmented nature of the continent – separated by high mountain ranges and seas, and with only rivers to unite particular regions – and the multiple historical trajectories of tribes, kingdoms, empires and nation-states that have been battling for control of regions, or indeed the whole continent, for thousands of years (Diamond 1998; Llobera 2004; Stacul, Moutsou and Kopnina 2005). Such geographical, linguistic and historical richness has led to a multitude of ecological conditions, agroecosystems, cultures and ethnobotanical traditions.

Europe is therefore considered a crossroads of civilization, where human migrations and displacements have played a major role not only today but also historically, and these exchanges of people have led to a constant exchange of ideas, customs and knowledge (Rietbergen 1998; Stacul, Moutsou and Kopnina 2005). These old population movements are reflected in many ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities which still survive today with their own characteristic knowledge systems, of which ethnobiological studies have investigated only a very few, such as the descendents of Greeks living in Calabria, Italy, investigated by Sabine Nebel and Michael Heinrich in chapter 8; the Albanian descendents/Arbëreshë of Lucania, also of southern Italy (Pieroni et al. 2002); and the old descendents of Romanian-speaking populations living in the Croatian northern part of Istria (Pieroni et al. 2003).

Ethnobotanical Studies in Europe: Past and Present

The history of the study of useful European plants dates back to ancient Greek times. One of the earliest works is De Materia Medica, published in AD 77 by the Greek surgeon Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, in which he compiled information about the use of six hundred plants in the Mediterranean. Later, from Medieval and Renaissance periods to the nineteenth century, scholars and explorers continued collecting and describing the indigenous uses of plants worldwide. For instance, the Swedish botanist Linnaeus, the founder of modern scientific botany, also published books such as Flora Lapponica, where he included not only plants of Lapland but also their local uses (Linnaeus 1737). Later, modern botanical and medical science itself was built on studies of Medieval Europeans' use of the food plants and medicinal herbs that graced the tables of both nobles and peasants (Atran 1990).

Since the nineteenth century, folklore studies in Central and Northern Europe have occasionally focused on traditional uses of plants (e.g., Marzell 1938; Butura 1979; Pettersson, Svanberg and Tunón 2001; De Cleene and Lejeune 2003; Allen and Hatfield 2004; Tunón, Pettersson and Iwarsson 2005) or the ethnolinguistics of useful plants (Marzell 1943; Borza 1968; Sejdiu 1984; Sella 1992; the last two referring to comprehensive works conducted in Kosovo and Albania, and North-western Italy, respectively).

While the development of ethnobiology and ethnobotany as interdisciplinary subjects is relatively recent in Europe, modern ethnobotanical studies focused on European territories have been growing very quickly, especially in southern European countries such as Italy and Spain. Moreover, the discipline is now turning its attention to long neglected regions such as the Balkans (Pieroni in chapter 2; Redzic 2006) and the East, including Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria (de Boer in chapter 5; Bernáth 1999; Kathe, Honnef and Heym 2003; Ploetz and Orr 2004; Šeškauskaitė and Gliwa 2006; Łuczaj and Szymański 2007).

Many researchers in this book have linked the present use of plants to their historical roots, usually by studying the continuity of popular plant names and uses in archival material and literature, but also more recently through historical linguistic analysis of popular names (Pardo-de-Santayana, Blanco and Morales 2005; Nebel, Pieroni and Heinrich 2006). For instance, Torbjørn Alm and Marianne Iversen's study of the history of the use of Rhododendron tomentosum Harmaja by Sami in Norway found continuity in vernacular names and medicinal uses from the early eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, with only a loss in use as a salt substitute (see chapter 13). The study of cognates to local plant names give us clues to the historical relationship between cultures, while the meaning of many plant names reveals their local uses and perceptions (Pardo-de-Santayana 2008). Sabine Nebel's comparison of names for edible greens among Grecanico speakers in Calabria (Italy) and Ancient and Modern Greek literature shows remarkable continuity of language and traditions. For example, Portulaca oleracea L. (purslane) is called andrácla in Gallicianò and andrakla in Greece. The uses of many of these wild plants are, in effect, living relics of ancient Greek culture (see chapter 8). Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana and Ramón Morales also use an historical-linguistic approach to link the Spanish use of plants known as manzanilla (chamomile) in drinking infusions back through the ages to Moorish practices in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and even further back to Dioscorides in ancient Greece (see chapter 14). Daiva Šeškauskaitė and Bernd Gliwa present a rare glimpse into Lithuanian ethnobotanical classification by tracing and indeed unravelling the origins of cognate local names for sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.), plane tree (Platanus spp.), black poplar (Populus nigra L.), guelder rose (Viburnum opulus L.) and sacred wreaths made from harvested rye. They demonstrate the value, and dangers, of using folk texts and ethnographic data, such as songs, riddles and children's verses, as ethnobotanical evidence for reconstructing the etymology and symbolic history of botanical nomenclature (see chapter 12). Timothy Tabone found that the Maltese shock/fright–jaundice syndrome seems to have resulted from syncretism of the South Italian mal d'arco and the Spanish susto, probably a legacy of the centuries when these territories were under Spanish control (see chapter 4).

Some researchers focus on the contemporary uses of wild plants, not just because of their continuity with past practices or re-emergence in new markets, but also because of their important dietary functions. In general, wild greens are nutritious due to their high content of minerals and vitamins (Ansari et al. 2005; Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2007). Maria Barão and Alexandra Soveral Dias (chapter 9) show that the consumption of common golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus L.) among poor farmers in Alentejo, Portugal, has a long history, also stretching back to ancient Roman times, and has now become popular among tourists. Underlying the use of this particular thistle, though, is the fact that it manages to maintain its high nutritional value regardless of the quality of the soils in which it grows. Local farmers have recognized this uniqueness and thus ignore all other thistles that grow in the area.

Other social aspects such as gender relations are also of special interest across Europe. Although deep knowledge of wild greens is said to be characteristic of women in many countries (Howard 2003), to gather and prepare thistles in Portugal is a man's work (Barão and Soveral Dias, chapter 9). A very unusual example is provided by Andrea Pieroni about women who become men in the Albanian Alps: in this archaic form of transgenderism there is convergence of the ethnobiological knowledge of ‘typical’ men, concerning fodder and ethnoveterinary plants, wild fruits, and the ethnobotanical knowledge of women, concerning weedy food and medicinal plants (see chapter 2).

One of the main goals of these newer ethnobotanical studies has been to document the dynamics of traditional knowledge about plants primarily gathered by rural communities. This is a key part of European biocultural heritage, which due to migration from rural areas and many deep social, economic and cultural changes since the last world war, in the West, and the break up of the Soviet Bloc, in the East, has suffered significant erosion. In fact, most young people today prefer the new ways of life, and their lack of interest in traditional plant use has led to a loss of this rich heritage (Pardo-de-Santayana and Gómez Pellón 2003; Pieroni 2003; Vallès, Bonet and Agelet 2004).

The Dynamism of the European Ethnobotanical Heritage

Europe's folk botany has always been dynamic and changing. Consider, for example, all the new plants and plant products introduced by explorers, traders and colonizers during the ‘Age of Discovery and Mercantile Capitalism’ (Crosby 1972). Many of these, such as the tomato, the capsicum, the potato and beans, have since achieved a kind of culinary keystone status for the cuisines of Europe, and at a more general level have come to symbolize these cultures (Fernández Pérez and González Tascón 1990). In spite of such monumental changes, many communities continued to hold on to old recipes and traditions, while others adopted and enculturated these exotic plants and remedies into their diets and pharmacopoeias in new and creative ways (Teti 1995; Nabhan 2004). Now, in the twenty-first century, in the age of the European Union (EU) and globalization, European folk botany is once again dynamically responding to changing economic, political and cultural contexts.

Widespread socioeconomic changes – modernization, industrialization, mechanization of agriculture – beginning in post-Second World War reconstruction across Europe, and following the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc in the east, have led to radical transformations in the lifestyle of rural societies (Abrahams 1996), which often relied on knowledge of plants to secure many of their basic needs (Gómez Pellón 2004). Accompanying this shift, from a rural, agriculturally-based, subsistence economy to a market-oriented one, has been a rapid erosion of ethnobotanical knowledge (Pardo-de-Santayana and Gómez Pellón 2003), and practices which many of the authors have described and endeavoured to explain for their particular field sites.

Some of this erosion is due to the simple fact that there are fewer farmers. Across Europe, pensions, tourism income and EU or member-state subsidies have become the main sources of income for rural regions (Pérez Díaz 1996–2003; López Pérez 2003; Psaltopoulos, Balamou and Thomson 2006). This has led to less dependence on wild plants for food and medicine, and also less direct contact with nature, so many of the species are not gathered any more, or at best only seldom. In fact, several of the plant-use traditions described in this book are no longer practised, or persist only in the memory of the elderly. Those who do still collect wild plants often have less time to do so and thus cannot range as far as their parents or grandparents might have in the past. Furthermore, many of the species once collected are now difficult to find due to modifications of habitat, such as watercress in Spain (Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum (L.) Hayek, syn: Nasturtium officinale R. Br. in W.T Aiton). Anja Christanell and colleagues discovered in Austria that species too labour intensive to process or difficult to find are usually rejected (see chapter 3). Exacerbating the problem is a concomitant rejection of communal social institutions that once bound local communities together and insured transmission of traditional botanical knowledge (Gómez Pellón 2004).

Changes in culture – shared beliefs, values and meanings of plants and plant traditions – are also responsible for changes in gathering practices, as when wild edible plants come to be considered as symbols of poverty or backwardness, often because of their import...