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An ethnobotanical study on home gardens in a Transylvanian Hungarian Csángó village (Romania)

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Abstract

Due to their isolation and insufficiency of official medical care, the inhabitants of several Transylvanian “Csángó” farms in Romania have valuable archaic knowledge of plants. Such ethnobotanical data reported previously from different regions of the country are available only in Hungarian. Of the various ethnic groups constituting the Csángós’ culture the present study was undertaken to survey those living in the Úz-valley (Romania), focusing on the indigenous human ethnomedicine and ethnoveterinary practices of Csinód, a village in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains. The aim of the study was to summarize the occurrence and diversity of food, medicinal, ornamental and fodder plants, as well as herbal home remedies applied on a daily basis. In the summers of 2007–2009 altogether 85 plant taxa in 13 home gardens were registered, using free interviews with local terminology, concentrating on drug parts, use, origin of knowledge and peculiar magico-mythological procedures associated with the species concerned. Due to the obvious decrease in the villagers’ traditional knowledge the prevention of these data from disappearing has gained primary importance in an effort to preserve this heritage as an integral part of the folk medicinal system in Transylvania.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the kind help of the inhabitants of Csinód (Matild Erős, Gyula Ambrus, Erzsébet Fikó, Gábor Rusz, Veronika Tankó, Árpád Csillag, Gizella Györgyicze, Bokor Farkas, Veronika Fodor, Valéria Tatár, Mária Gerczuj, István Fodor, Irma Vaszi, Margit Nyírő-Tankó, Veronika Meggyesi, Antal Tímár, Anna Tankó, Károly Fodor, Angéla Ferencz, Csaba and Katalin Tímár), as well as for Tamás Grynaeus, Gábor Rébék-Nagy and Lajos Balogh for the plant identifications.

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Author notes

  1. Nóra Papp

    Present address: Institute of Pharmacognosy, University of Pécs, 2 Rókus street, Pécs, 7624, Hungary

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Pharmacognosy, University of Pécs, 2 Rókus street, Pécs, 7624, Hungary

    Ágnes Farkas

  2. Department of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology, University of Pécs, 2 Rókus street, Pécs, 7624, Hungary

    Kata Birkás-Frendl

  3. University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, 12060, Pollenzo, Italy

    Andrea Pieroni

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  1. Nóra Papp
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  2. Kata Birkás-Frendl
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  3. Ágnes Farkas
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  4. Andrea Pieroni
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Correspondence to Nóra Papp.

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Papp, N., Birkás-Frendl, K., Farkas, Á. et al. An ethnobotanical study on home gardens in a Transylvanian Hungarian Csángó village (Romania). Genet Resour Crop Evol 60, 1423–1432 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-012-9930-7

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