“I See the Grass Through the Mouths of My Animals” – Folk Indicators of Pasture Plants Used by Traditional Steppe Herders

Abstract

Why is a type of rangeland grass called “the soul of the Hortobagy steppe” by a local herder deemed to be of low value by range scientists? In this paper I examine how herders see wild forage and fodder plants “through the mouths of the animals,” what kind of indicators they use, and how these indicators affect folk taxonomy. I focus on the Poaceae and Cyperaceae families (grasses, sedges, and their relatives), underrepresented taxa in ethnobiological studies. The Hortobagy is a salt steppe with low predictability of rain and pasture conditions. I conducted participatory field work and interviews with 92 herders. Herders have a special term for the consumable biomass of a pasture/meadow, “mező.” They distinguished between 28 types of hay and 30 types of mező and listed 34 plant folk taxa as important forage or fodder. I documented 13 different grazing-related indicators (plant traits), including nutritional value, interannual variation, and resprouting ability. The seasonal change in grazing value was a k...