Folk Usage Research Articles

K. Hammer and G. Laghetti, 2006. Small Agricultural Islands and Plant Genetic Resources

During a 10 year period starting in 1994, the authors conducted a systematic exploration of the cultivated crop plants on Italian islands. The results of this joint Italian-German research program are presented in this book. The book consists of two major sections. The first 128 pages present brief information on geology, geography, geomorphology, ecology, history, demography, agriculture, native and cultivated flora of 45 Italian islands. Notes on additional islands or adjacent mainland are also supplied. This part is illustrated with 146 mostly coloured photographs of characteristic landscapes, typical plants, and various impressions from agriculture and horticulture. The information was gathered during numerous germplasm collecting missions and interviews with local experts including farmers, who preserved and utilized the genetic resources. In-depth information on typical landraces, such as their folk names and special usages, are provided for several crop types. The second part of the book presents chapters summarizing the germplasm findings and extracting information on genetic erosion and historical developments. A table listing the numbers and categories of collected germplasm together with some geographical and demographic information covering 30 islands is presented. A checklist for 180 typical island crop plants is presented and the diversity status of selected taxa is discussed. The authors used 255 references, to mostly botanical contributions, showing that a vast body of literature has been inspected for related information. The appendix lists Italian folk names of the typical crop plants, synonyms for the botanical plant names used and an index of the species names occurring in this book. This book has several functions. In the foreword L. Monti (IGV) stated that ‘‘Loss of cultural identity and of local genetic resources are processes that are intimately related.’’ Both issues are addressed in this book. The authors have given an example that comprehensive diversity research in crop plants goes beyond the technical aspects of collecting, preserving and studying useful, rare or threatened crop plant diversity. By providing broad information on the ecological and socio-cultural context of the collected material, the authors show parts of the complex dynamics which result in crop genetic diversity or uniformity. Such a broad approach, based on several years of systematic exploration, is rare these days. The book counteracts the loss of cultural identity, because it creates awareness for the underlying and ongoing processes, which can easily be overlooked by the people affected by A. Diederichsen (&) Saskatoon Research Centre, Plant Gene Resources of Canada, 107, Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N OX2 e-mail: diederichsena@agr.gc.ca

The Investigation of Euphorbiaceous Medicinal Plants in Southern China

Abstract The Euphorbiaceae is an extensive family of plants that includes about 300 genera and 5000 species and is mainly distributed in tropical areas. For a long time this family has been recognized and reported for its anti-cancer components, anti-hepatitis B components and carcinogenic factors. In the literature of ancient traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), 33 species of plants from 17 genera of Euphorbiaceae have been mentioned as medicines. We report here the results of our recent investigation. The locations under investigation were in Guangdong Province, Guangxi Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region and Hainan Province in southeastern China. There were 111 species within 35 genera of medicinal Euphorbiaceous plants reported, along with their folk usages. Among them, 17 species are used to treat snakebites. It was observed that most of the species within the Euphorbiaceae family contained toxic components. In fact, only a few species are employed as widespread medicines throughout China—most specie...

Pharmacological Activities of the Prenylcoumarins, Developed from Folk Usage as a Medicine of Peucedanum japonicum THUNB.

In connection with the chemical structure of coumarin 1 (a mixture of acetylangeloylkhellactone and acetyltigloylkhellactone), a compound isolated from Peucedanum japonicum THUNB., we synthesized eight coumarin compounds (3-10) and performed pharmacological studies on these nine compounds, as well as on another coumarin, praeruptorin A (= Pd-Ia) (2), a compound isolated from Peucedanum praeruptorum DUNN. We studied the effects of compounds 1-5 on isolated smooth muscle and of compounds 1-10 on the cardiovascular system. These compounds showed dose-related antagonistic effects on histamine- and Ca(2+)-induced contractions in smooth muscle and the potencies were in the order 2 greater than 1 greater than seselin (3) greater than xanthyletin (4) = 2.2.10-trimethyl-2H,8H-benzo[1,2-b: 3,4-b']dipyran-8-one (5). All the compounds except 7-geranyloxy-4-methylcoumarin (10) produced a dose-related increase in vertebral, carotid and femoral blood flow. Compounds 1, 5, and 4-methyl-7-(3-methyl-2-butenyloxy)coumarin (8) caused an increase in blood pressure, but 3 and 4 caused a slight decrease. Compounds 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 increased heart rate. Jatamansinone (6) and jatamansinol (7) caused only slight changes in blood pressure. All the compounds except 10 increased heart rate. Compound 1 also increased blood flow in the cerebral cortex. Thus, compound 1 was confirmed to have an inhibitory effect on contraction in isolated smooth muscle and an action increasing arterial blood flow. Among the compounds tested in this study, 3, as well as 6 and 7 synthesized on the basis of 3, showed actions similar to those of Ca2+ blockers and some compounds had papaverine-like activities.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Extemporaneous Oral Poetry in Central Italy

A TRADITION of improvized oral poetry is still relatively widespread in the rural areas of the Tyrrenic side of Central Italy.' This tradition, not very well documented in the specialized literature, is based on the metre of the classic Italian chivalric epic poems, an eight-line stanza called the ottava rima ('octave rhyme'), as a canvas for improvizing poetry, in what is usually referred to as canto a poeta or canto a braccio ('song by the poet' or 'by the arm').2 Extemporaneous poetic creation usually takes the form of a match between two poets set against each other, the contrasto a braccio ('contrast by the arm'), which might be performed in private, in rather rough wine inns called osterie, or in public, during the gara poetica, a true 'poetic contest,' where a dozen or so poets, convened from neighbouring villages, display their skills in front of a jury and an often numerous public. These contests are held in local halls or on a podium in the main square, as part of a feast or celebration of some kind, and they are very successful events, even if their complex and lengthy procedure would be at first quite impenetrable for an outsider. The octave used to be the dominant form of classical Italian epic poetry from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, and there is an immediate commonsense connection between the 'golden age' of the octave and what is observed today as little more than a relic. This connection is proudly underlined by contemporary poets, who seem to ignore almost all developments of Italian poetry posterior to the Late Renaissance or Early Baroque, but it is clearly contradicted by the changes which the octave underwent from the Renaissance courts to contemporary folk usage, that is a dramatic 'fall' in expressive potential as well as in sociological connotations. Today's practitioners of the octave tradition are usually peasant farmers, shepherds, bricklayers and labourers, craftsmen, artisans and peddlars, with little or no school education and a type of literacy rather in a class of its own. These poeti a braccio ('poets by the arm'), usually one per village, sometimes more, are generally considered to be minor local personalities, at once admired and mocked for their uncommon wits, their rhyming skills and their extraordinary mnemonic faculties, which allow most of them to retain by heart thousands of verses. For each of these poets, with a few exceptions, the performance in a public tournament is the goal of a lifetime's passion, which involves extensive study of the classical sources, contacts with other poets, oral exercise and written composition. Therefore, the poetry in octave produced in the contests can be considered as the tip of an iceberg of poetic tradition, both written and oral, so that extemporaneous oral poetry and classical written sources can be said to be the two ends

Trinidadian Folk Usage and Standard English: A Contrastive Study

(1970). Trinidadian Folk Usage and Standard English: A Contrastive Study. WORD: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 79-87.

Some considerations of on the usage of the father setting up a branch family

In order to study ultimogenitures and institiutions of the father setting up a brand family, we must study them quantitatively. It is not enough simply to illustrate them by a number of typical examples, but we must show how often these cases have occurred, and also how the inevidence has changed choronoligically.But quantitative and historical study of such a our problem as the institution of inheritance and succession inevitably has its limitation to the inadequancy of date The aim of this article is to show statistically how the institution of the father setting up a branch family has actually been put into practice and how the institution has changed chronologically in the hamlet of Watase, Hongu-cho (formerly Yo-mura), Higashimuro-gun, Wakayama-ken.In pursuing this aim, we relied chiefly on the census register-1872 through May, 1957, and also on the terrier and on our own field-work. To pursue our purpose we could not rely solely on the examination of the census register, as the census registration is so managed that it dose not contradict legally the institution of primogeniture.First we tried a static approach. We grasped the families, past and present, of this hamlet at seven point of time when the law of census registration changed. The families are comparatively small numerically and rather simple genearogically. Untill towards the end of the Taisho era, the majority were the two generation families, composed of a married couple and their unwed children, and there were few leneal three generation families excepting the families having only sons, This fact suggests that branch families had been established rather extensively. So far as the census register is concerned, it is only towards the end of the Taisho era or at the biginning of the Showa-era that the repression of the folk usage by the state law became prominent.Next we turned to the dynamic approach. From the time of the Jinshin census (the first census in Japan of 1872) to the present, the usage has continued to be current in this hamlet that the parents hand over their house and possesions to their eldest son and, moving to another house in the other children of theirs, set up a new family, although the census register tells us that the usage replaced by primigeniture at the beginning of the Showa era.Speaking of the stability of the genealogical families they are generally short lived, especially in the cases of the eldest son's families. Branch families are able to be more long lived.Collating the census register with the findings of our field-work, we come to the following conclusion : the substitution of primogeniture for the usage of father setting up a new family at the beginning of the showa-era is merely an apparent change, existing only in the text of census register, and actually that usage is still current in this hamlet.It is our purpose in this article to analyse examples of the father establishing a branch family in Watase and through the analysis to suggest the continueting of the said usage is due to the particular economic conditions of the mountain village.