Abstract
BackgroundAn ethnobotanical field study on the traditional uses of wild plants for food as well as medicinal and veterinary plants was conducted in four Waldensian valleys (Chisone, Germanasca, Angrogna, and Pellice) in the Western Alps, Piedmont, NW Italy. Waldensians represent a religious Protestant Christian minority that originated in France and spread around 1,170 AD to the Italian side of Western Alps, where, although persecuted for centuries, approximately 20,000 believers still survive today, increasingly mixing with their Catholic neighbours.MethodsInterviews with a total of 47 elderly informants, belonging to both Waldensian and Catholic religious groups, were undertaken in ten Western Alpine villages, using standard ethnobotanical methods.ResultsThe uses of 85 wild and semi-domesticated food folk taxa, 96 medicinal folk taxa, and 45 veterinary folk taxa were recorded. Comparison of the collected data within the two religious communities shows that Waldensians had, or have retained, a more extensive ethnobotanical knowledge, and that approximately only half of the wild food and medicinal plants are known and used by both communities. Moreover, this convergence is greater for the wild food plant domain. Comparison of the collected data with ethnobotanical surveys conducted at the end of the 19th Century and the 1980s in one of studied valleys (Germanasca) shows that the majority of the plants recorded in the present study are used in the same or similar ways as they were decades ago. Idiosyncratic plant uses among Waldensians included both archaic uses, such as the fern Botrychium lunaria for skin problems, as well as uses that may be the result of local adaptions of Central and Northern European customs, including Veronica allionii and V. officinalis as recreational teas and Cetraria islandica in infusions to treat coughs.ConclusionsThe great resilience of plant knowledge among Waldensians may be the result of the long isolation and history of marginalisation that this group has faced during the last few centuries, although their ethnobotany present trans-national elements.Cross-cultural and ethno-historical approaches in ethnobotany may offer crucial data for understanding the trajectory of change of plant knowledge across time and space.
Highlights
Our ethnobotanical research in recent years has focused on a number of Bellia and Pieroni Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2015) 11:37 linguistic “isles” and cultural boundaries in mountainous areas of Italy and the Balkans; especially in the latter cultural region, we have observed the effect that religious affiliation has on the vertical transmission of folk plant knowledge, as it remarkably shapes kinship relations within multi-lingual and multi-religion communities [23]
In order to further assess the role that religion plays in shaping folk plant knowledge, we decided to investigate the local ethnobotany of the Waldensian community and that of their Catholic neighbours in the Western Alps, NW Italy
The collection of the young aerial parts of the following wild vegetables is still common in the study area: Borago officinalis, Primula spp., Nasturtium officinale, Lapsana communis, Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Rumex acetosa, Tragopogon pratensis, Urtica dioica, Silene vulgaris, Humulus lupulus, and Taraxacum officinale
Summary
Ethnobotanical studies of minority and diasporic groups are of crucial interest in contemporary ethnobiology to help identify those cultural and/or social factors which affect the perceptions and uses of plants and to understand how traditional plant knowledge evolves [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8].diverse analyses conducted in Europe during the last decade have pointed out that a broad range of factors influence the resilience of ethnobotanical knowledgeOn the other hand, the Alps have been shown to still represent an important reservoir of local, folk plant knowledge, both in touristic [17,18] and especially in “peripheral” valleys [19,20,21,22], which have been less affected by the mass tourism industry.Along these theoretical trajectories, our ethnobotanical research in recent years has focused on a number of Bellia and Pieroni Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2015) 11:37 linguistic “isles” and cultural boundaries in mountainous areas of Italy and the Balkans; especially in the latter cultural region, we have observed the effect that religious affiliation has on the vertical transmission of folk plant knowledge, as it remarkably shapes kinship relations within multi-lingual and multi-religion communities [23].In order to further assess the role that religion plays in shaping folk plant knowledge, we decided to investigate the local ethnobotany of the Waldensian community and that of their Catholic neighbours in the Western Alps, NW Italy. The Alps have been shown to still represent an important reservoir of local, folk plant knowledge, both in touristic [17,18] and especially in “peripheral” valleys [19,20,21,22], which have been less affected by the mass tourism industry Along these theoretical trajectories, our ethnobotanical research in recent years has focused on a number of Bellia and Pieroni Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2015) 11:37 linguistic “isles” and cultural boundaries in mountainous areas of Italy and the Balkans; especially in the latter cultural region, we have observed the effect that religious affiliation has on the vertical transmission of folk plant knowledge, as it remarkably shapes kinship relations within multi-lingual and multi-religion communities [23]. Waldensians represent a religious Protestant Christian minority that originated in France and spread around 1,170 AD to the Italian side of Western Alps, where, persecuted for centuries, approximately 20,000 believers still survive today, increasingly mixing with their Catholic neighbours
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