Traditional pharmacopoeias and medicines among Albanians and Italians in southern Italy: A comparison
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to compare the use of traditional natural remedies and healing practices in two small rural communities located in the Lucania region of southern Italy. One of the communities, Ginestra/Zhurë, is inhabited primarily by ethnic Albanians (called Arbëreshë), who immigrated to the region in the 15th century. The other community, Castelmezzano, is inhabited by autochthonous South-Italians. A detailed survey of the traditional1 ethnopharmaceutical means and food-medicines recorded in the two communities has been the primary topic of other papers (Quave and Pieroni, 2002, Pieroni et al., 2002a, Pieroni et al., 2002b, Pieroni et al., 2004a, Pieroni et al., 2004b).
Most studies on current Mediterranean folk pharmacopoeias, not being limited to historical literature-based perspectives (Afifi and Abu-Irmaileh, 2000, Lev and Amar, 2000, Lev and Amar, 2002, Lev, 2002, Said et al., 2002, Abu-Irmaileh and Afifi, 2003), have focused on the role of natural remedies (mainly medicinal plants) within a single cultural context (see for example in the last 4 years: Bonet et al., 1999, Guarrera, 1999, Guarrera, 2003, Tuzlaci and Erol, 1999, Yesilada et al., 1999, Agelet et al., 2000, Alvarez Arias, 2000, Ertug, 2000, Merzouki et al., 2000, Tuzlaci and Tolon, 2000, Agelet and Valles, 2001, Agelet and Valles, 2003a, Agelet and Valles, 2003b, Ballero et al., 2001, Jouad et al., 2001, Leporatti and Corradi, 2001, Sezik et al., 2001, Palmese et al., 2001, Tuzlaci and Aymaz, 2001, Eddouks et al., 2002, Camejo-Rodrigues et al., 2003, El-Hilaly et al., 2003, Pieroni et al., 2003), while only one work has recently tried a cross-cultural comparison among the traditional phytotherapeutic data (gathered from bibliographic resources) of Italy and Bulgaria (Leporatti and Ivancheva, 2003). On the other hand, detailed medical-anthropological surveys on ritual magic-healing practices in this area have been very rarely conducted (Kemp, 1935, De Martino, 1959, Kerewski-Halpern and Foley, 1978, Galt, 1982, Galt, 1991, Kerewski-Halpern, 1985, Kerewski-Halpern, 1995).
In other surveys and sites of field study, little emphasis has been placed on a truly medical-anthropological comparison of folk pharmaceutical remedies among various ethnic groups that share a close territory, and most of these studies have had a strong ethnobiological/ethnobotanical focus (Heinrich et al., 1998, Moerman, 1998, Leonti et al., 2003). In addition, medical literature on this subject has rarely considered the “remedies” (pharmaceutical means) as a paradigm for understanding cultural differences in healing systems (Kelleher and Hillier, 1996).
In Europe, no comparative studies with original data has been carried out so far, although a comparative evaluation of ethnopharmaceutical issues may represent a first step to better understanding the cultural components influencing the perception of pharmaceutical means in different cultures, how these components change and evolve, and which strategies cultures put in place to face these changes.
Finally, analysing these phenomena within migrant communities could allow us to evaluate adaptive cultural processes, which strongly affect how newcomers, and among them maybe especially women, manage plants in the domestic domain and cope with household health care (Kuebel and Tucker, 1988, Stephenson, 1995, Balick et al., 2000, Corlett et al., 2002, Gladis, 2002, Gladis, 2003, Jonsson et al., 2002a, Jonsson et al., 2002b, Greenberg, 2003, Nguyen, 2003, Reiff et al., 2003).
Section snippets
Research settings and methods
In the present study, the traditional medical practices of two communities in the Basilicata region (Lucania), southern Italy were compared (Fig. 1). The Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT, 2000) reports that Basilicata represents the Italian region having the lowest percentage of urban population (17%, calculated in the period 1997–1999), the highest life expectancy (75.7 years, calculated in the period 1991–1995), and presents the lowest utilization of allopathic medical services
Complementary medicines in Lucania today
It has become evident from our field studies that Traditional Knowledge (TK) on complementary medical practices in the two chosen areas is in a state of rapid decline. Most of the plant remedies recorded are not used at present. In Ginestra/Zhurë, only 40% of the quoted uses were also directly observed during field research, while an even lower proportion of 31% was observed in Castelmezzano. Complementary medicine in both centres demonstrates a household character, and is intended mainly as a
Conclusions
Understanding the dominant medical-belief system of a community is essential to any ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants. In this cross-cultural comparison of two communities sharing a similar terrain and socio-demographic character, we found that the influence of culture and ethnicity played a unique and important role in the utilization of local resources as medicinal products. While we found that a similar flora was utilized in both of the communities’ pharmacopoeias, the number and
Acknowledgements
Special thanks are due to all the marvelous people of the municipalities of Castelmezzano and Zhurë/Ginestra, who agreed to share their knowledge on folk medicines during the years 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003; to Dr Giuseppe Pepice and Massimo Summa, Mayor and Vice-Mayor of Ginestra/Zhurë, and Dr Nicola Valluzzi, Mayor of Castelmezzano, and the Pro-Loco of Ginestra/Zhurë and Castelmezzano, for their logistical assistance.
For their financial support, special thanks are due to the Mars Nutritional
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