Abstract
Enset (Enseteventricosum) is a traditional multi-purpose crop mainly used as a staple/co-staple food crop over 20 million people in Ethiopia. The Gurage are sedentary agricultural people of patrilineal persuasion who speak a Semetic language and inhabit in a sparsely fertile semi-mountainous regionin south-central Ethiopia. Enset, their staple food crop, commonly called the “false banana plant”, is produced in abundance by each Gurage homestead. The objective of this study was to document the socio-cultural values of enset plant among the Gurage. In this study, a qualitative methodological approach is employed in extracting information from different sources on the subject in question. The study relied mainly on primary and secondary sources.According to findings, three types of food, viz, Kocho(fermented product from scraped pseudo stem grafted corm), Bulla(dehydrated juice), and Amicho (boiled corm) can be prepared from enset. As a food crop, it has useful attributes such as foods can be stored for long time, grow in wide range of environments, produces high yield per unit area and tolerates drought. It has irreplaceable role as a feed for animals. Enset starch is found to have higher and widely used as a tablet binder and dis-integrant and also in pharmaceutical gelling, drug loading and release processes. Moreover, enset shows high genetic diversity within a population which in turn renders resilience and food security against the ever-changing environmental factors and land use dynamics.Enset is totally involved in every aspects of the daily social and ritual life of the Gurage, who, with other several tribes in southwest Ethiopia, form what has been termed “the EnsetCulture Complex Area”. From birth, when the umbilicus is tied off with a fiber drawn from enset fronds, the life of the Gurage is enmeshed with various uses of enset, not the least of which is nutritional.
Highlights
Enset is distributed as a wild species in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (Tadessa and Masayoshi, 2016; Mistre, 2019; Marsha, Robert and Samuel, 2014)
The live plant can be maintained onfarm and harvested any time when the need arises. It can be harvested and consumed before it is matured and these qualities of the crop have in part contributed to the fact that enset areas not characterized by a history of famine (Almaz, 2001; Mistre, 2019; Getahun, 2020) There is no recorded evidence that tells how and when enset became food and part of the livelihood of the Gurage people
This review describes the socio-cultural values of enset plant among the Gurage people of south-central Ethiopia
Summary
Enset is distributed as a wild species in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (Tadessa and Masayoshi, 2016; Mistre, 2019; Marsha, Robert and Samuel, 2014). It became an emergency food during the Second World War in Vietnam (Asia) It is cultivated only in Ethiopia (Mesfin, Kumelachew and Osamu, 2018; Lisanu, 2020; Mistre, 2019; Getahun, 2020) Studies have identified threemajor good crops, which can be linked with three broad cultural ecologies in Ethiopia. These crops include, teff, mainly cultivated in the Northern highlands, where it is produced as a staple and cash crop, enset, a major or costaple in the more humid southern and south-western, and maize and sorghum in the Eastern and Western parts of the country. It is Ethiopia’s most important traditional staple crop in the densely populated south and south-west parts of the country; where it is grown and exploited for its starch to IJSSHR, Volume 04 Issue 10 October 2021 www.ijsshr.in
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