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Healing Animals, Feeding Souls: Ethnobotanical Values at Sacred Sites in Central Italy

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Abstract

Healing Animals, Feeding Souls: Ethnobotanical Values at Sacred Sites in Central Italy. Ethnobotanical knowledge is a fundamental repository of the values and applications of different plants. This knowledge is often related to spiritual beliefs and religious sites, where plants have been nurtured and conserved for their use in rituals and traditional practices. While this link is well known for different areas of the global south, it has hardly been investigated in relatively more secular and modernized Western contexts. Here, we use first–hand vegetation surveys and published records to examine the occurrence of ethnobotanical values at 30 Catholic shrines in Central Italy, and compare them with an equal number of non–sacred control sites. We ask this: to what extent is there an association of useful plants with sacred places in Italy, as found in other cultural contexts? We show that a greater number of useful plants are found at sacred sites. While this is mainly a consequence of the higher species richness of sacred sites, an association with plants used in animal husbandry is particularly evident, and likely related to the deep historical connection between sacred places and pastoralist traditions in Central Italy. Also, we show that there are significant variations in the distribution of old trees; the largest specimens are found at the center of sacred sites, while tree size visibly decreases away from the shrines. This indicates also that individual trees have been actively managed and conserved at sacred sites, probably driven by the symbolic values that old trees frequently embody.

Riassunto

Guarire gli Animali, Nutrire le Anime: Risorse Etnobotaniche nei Luoghi Sacri Naturali del Centro Italia. Il sapere etnobotanico è un fondamentale archivio degli usi e delle applicazioni delle diverse piante. Questo sapere è spesso collegato a credenze soprannaturali e a luoghi di culto, in cui queste piante sono conservate o coltivate per essere usate in rituali e altre pratiche tradizionali. Mentre un tale legame è ben noto per diverse aree del Sud del globo, esso è stato a mala pena investigato nei contesti più moderni e secolarizzati del mondo occidentale. In questo contributo, utilizziamo appositi rilevamenti floristici per esaminare la presenza di risorse etnobotaniche in trenta eremi e santuari dell’Italia Centrale, e istituire un paragone con altrettanti siti di controllo. Ci chiediamo: c’è un legame tra luoghi sacri e piante utili in Italia simile a quello rinvenuto in altri contesti geografici e culturali? Dimostriamo che il numero di piante utili è in effetti maggiore nei siti sacri che nei siti di controllo. Mentre questo è in larga misura una conseguenza della più elevata ricchezza di specie presente nei luoghi sacri, un’associazione con piante usate per pratiche veterinarie è particolarmente evidente, e verosimilmente legata al profondo legame storico tra luoghi sacri e pastorizia nell’Italia Centrale. Dimostriamo inoltre che ci sono variazioni significative nella distribuzione degli alberi vetusti: gli esemplari più antichi si trovano generalmente verso il centro dei santuari, mentre il diametro degli alberi diminuisce progressivamente allontanandosi dai luoghi sacri. Questo suggerisce che anche singoli esemplari sono stati oggetto di particolare cura e conservazione, probabilmente in virtù del valore simbolico che gli alberi vetusti spesso incarnano.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the people of Central Italy for their warm welcome and hospitality, and permitting us to conduct our research at their sacred places. Our gratitude also goes to Dr. Maria Adele Signorini for her invaluable advice on the study of local ethnobotanical knowledge, to Dr. Reto Nyffeler and the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich for support with species identifications, and to Dr. Marcus Hall, Prof. Andy Hector, and Prof. Bernhard Schmid for their precious advice and continuing support. Finally, we are thankful to three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which greatly improved this manuscript. Fabrizio Frascaroli was funded by the Research Foundation of the University of Zurich.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Fabrizio Frascaroli

  2. Department of Geography, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK

    Shonil Bhagwat

  3. School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Shonil Bhagwat

  4. WWF Switzerland, Zurich, Switzerland

    Matthias Diemer

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  1. Fabrizio Frascaroli
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  2. Shonil Bhagwat
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  3. Matthias Diemer
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Frascaroli.

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Submitted 17 March 2014; Accepted 8 October 2014

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Frascaroli, F., Bhagwat, S. & Diemer, M. Healing Animals, Feeding Souls: Ethnobotanical Values at Sacred Sites in Central Italy. Econ Bot 68, 438–451 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-014-9290-7

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