Bencsik János szerk.: Hajdúsági Múzeum Évkönyve 2. (Hajdúböszörmény, 1975)

Primitive Gathering Activity in the Moors of the Great Hungarian Plain

Béla Gunda PRIMITIVE GATHERING ACTIVITY IN THE MOORS OF THE GREAT HUNGARIAN PLAIN Until the end of the last century the Great Hungarian Plain was covered by lakes, moors and marshes. These reedy moor-lands (Szernye mocsár, Ecsedi-láp, Hortobágy, Nagy-Sárrét) were the nesting places of innumerable aquatic birds. The population gathered the eggs of the water-fowl (wild ducks, wild geese, lapwings, coots) by boatloads. The eggs were eaten raw, boiled or fried, or used for kneading dough. Many of them were sold on the market. The eggs of wild ducks and geese, of swans, partridges and quaiks were eventually hatched, and the young birds raised. The gathering of water-fowl eggs was made possible by the ecological conditions and was undoubtedly an ancestral occupation of the Hungarians. As an evidence it may be noted that a Hungarian term for egg (mony) is of Uralian origin, while several wild birds have names of Finno-Ugric and Ugric origin. The eggs of wild birds and particularly of water-fowl are also gathered in Northern Europe, in Siberia and by the Slav peoples, first of all in Scotland, Iceland and Northern Norway. 178