Abstract
This contribution takes the notion of herbal landscape (a mental field associated with plants used to cure or prevent diseases and established within specific cultural and climatic zones) as a starting point. The authors argue that the features by which a person recognises the plant in the natural growing environment is of crucial importance for the classification and the use of plants within the folk tradition. The process of perception of the plant can be divided into analytical categories according to the sign concept of Charles Sanders Peirce. Whereas the plant can be seen as the object, the feature(s) the plant is recognised by is (are) the representamen(s), and the image of the plant within the herbal landscape can be understood as the interpretant. Different methods of perception of the signs within the herbal landscape are demonstrated comparing the herbal knowledge acquired from the herbals with the method of plant recognition learned in the traditional way. The first can be looked at with the terms of Tim Ingold as transportation, using plant features to go across, leaving all other signs present in the landscape unnoticed. The wayfarer, guided by signs learned within the context of surroundings, walks along and perceives the plant as a part of the herbal landscape. Although the examples analysed come from Estonian ethnobotany, the method of analysis can be applied in ethnobotanical research worldwide.
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Notes
The approximation in numbers is due to the fact that digitalisation is an ongoing process and is still not completed.
Historical Estonian herbal folk medicine differed greatly within the cultural space, and the differences remain mostly within parish borders (Sõukand and Kalle 2008). Church parishes (kihelkond) are historical territorial units that were in wide use until the 1920s; even nowadays many people recognise their home-parish. The borders of the parishes have remained unchanged since the early Middle Ages, and native Estonians, being servants, were prohibited to move around the country; even marriage to a person from another parish was complicated.
As there are many books in the bookstore from local authors featuring only locally grown plants.
As a plant growing within the landscape, as a fresh sample removed from its natural surroundings, the voucher specimen, or the photo of the plant or its part, to list the most common.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Governmental Research and Development program “Estonian Language and Cultural Memory” (EKKM09-84), EEA/EMP Grant 54 MP1RT08079N and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence CECT) for supporting this research. Our special thanks to Sabine Brauckmann, Kalevi Kull, Kati Lindström, Timo Maran and Morten Tønnessen for their useful comments on this manuscript.
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Sõukand, R., Kalle, R. Plant as Object within Herbal Landscape: Different Kinds of Perception. Biosemiotics 3, 299–313 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9078-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9078-9