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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Cultural diversity and biodiversity are strongly intertwined through the ways in which local human communities have understood, categorized, perceived, and used nature and species for centuries. Folk nomenclature and uses of wild plants in particular are strongly linked to specific ethno-diversities and have often been considered as cultural markers. In the current study, through thirty-one interviews with elderly villagers, the ethnobotany of five Albanian villages in North Macedonia was recorded, as these villages are inhabited by descendants of Reka Albanians, whose peculiar dialect and customs have been the subject in the past of some linguistic, historical, and ethnographic works. A few folk names and utilizations of commonly used species (such as Rumex, Urtica, Tilia, Crocus, and Hypericum spp.), as well as the traditional customs of collecting tree cambium during the spring and ritually adorning home doors with Cornus mas and Salix spp. branches on St. George’s Day, partially overlap Macedonian/Bulgarian folklore, and, to a minor extent, data previously collected in NE Albania and South Kosovo. Nevertheless, some archaic uses (such as the consumption of Crocus corms) remain very idiosyncratic. While the origin of the Reka Albanians and the exact historical reasons for their peculiar ethnobotany practices cannot be exactly established, the data showed that this cultural group living at the cultural edge between the Albanian and South Balkan Slavic realms has maintained its diversity until the present. Its uniqueness should be valorized and celebrated.

Details

Title
The Importance of Being Diverse: The Idiosyncratic Ethnobotany of the Reka Albanian Diaspora in North Macedonia
Author
Berisha, Rinor 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Sõukand, Renata 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Nedelcheva, Anely 3 ; Pieroni, Andrea 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 PEN—Peer Educators Network, Rr. “Behije Dashi” Kati I, Prishtinë 10000, Kosovo 
 Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 30172 Venezia, Italy 
 Department of Organic Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, 1 J. Baurchier Blvd, 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria 
 University of Gastronomic Sciences, 12042 Pollenzo, Italy; Department of Medical Analysis, Tishk International University, Erbil 44001, Iraq 
First page
936
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
14242818
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2734620205
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.