Abstract
Simple SummaryWild food plants (WFPs) have played an important role in the human diet throughout history. The current study reports WFP uses among two linguistic groups, i.e., the Ormur people and Pashtuns, living in the Valley of Kaniguram, South Waziristan, Pakistan. A total of fifty-two plants were reported among the two researched groups and these plants were mostly consumed as raw snacks and vegetables. Remarkable homogeneity was observed for WFP uses among the two groups. Being an ancient diaspora, the Ormur people have retained rich traditional knowledge of WFPs and reported some important plant uses that are believed to have arrived from the near West, most likely the Middle East. The current study is an important effort to preserve the biocultural gastronomic heritage of the Ormur people that speak the moribund language; hence, it is strongly recommended that policy makers pay attention to the cultural and traditional gastronomic heritage of the community.An ethnobotanical field study focusing on traditional wild food botanical taxa was carried out in Kaniguram, South Waziristan, Pakistan, among Ormur (or Burki or Baraki) peoples, which represent a diasporic minority group, as well as among the surrounding Pashtuns. Through sixty semi-structured interviews, fifty-two wild food plants (taxa) were recorded, and they were primarily used raw as snacks and cooked as vegetables. Comparative analysis found a remarkable overlap of the quoted plant uses between the two studied groups, which may reflect complex socio-cultural adaptations Ormur speakers faced. Ormur people retain a rich knowledge of anthropogenic weeds and the phytonyms reveal important commonalities with Persian and Kurdish phytonyms, which may indicate their possible horticultural-driven human ecological origin from the Middle East. Some novel or rare food uses of Cirsium arvense, Nannorrhops ritchiana, Periploca aphylla, Perovskia atriplicifolia, Viscum album, Oxalis corniculata and Withania coagulans were documented. Since the Ormuri language represents a moribund language, still spoken by only a few thousand speakers in NW Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is recommended that the traditional bio-cultural and gastronomical heritage of this minority group be appropriately protected and bolstered in future rural development programs.
Highlights
The first agricultural expansion during the Neolithic Revolution drove several cultures into a wide-scale transition, namely from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement [1]
In the past Century, industrialization and globalization have significantly reduced the dependence of local communities on wild food plants (WFPs), and this in turn has impacted the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) around these natural resources, which co-evolved for millennia, even though WFPs are still a “hidden harvest” for many rural areas, even in industrialized countries [4,5,6]
This study recorded important TEK linked to WFPs within two cultural groups in Kaniguram, NW Pakistan
Summary
The first agricultural expansion during the Neolithic Revolution drove several cultures into a wide-scale transition, namely from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement [1]. Human societies evolved adaptive mechanisms in order to organize the biotic and abiotic environment and to cope effectively with the changing socioecological circumstances across time and space [2,3], and foraging, i.e., the collection of wild food items, and especially plants, has been crucial in both pre-and post-Neolithic societies. In the past Century, industrialization and globalization have significantly reduced the dependence of local communities on WFPs, and this in turn has impacted the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) around these natural resources, which co-evolved for millennia, even though WFPs are still a “hidden harvest” for many rural areas, even in industrialized countries [4,5,6]. It is evident that each culture generates particular knowledge of the surrounding environment and this is constantly reshaped following continuous socio-ecological changes. Researchers have always taken a keen interest in understanding TEK transmission within given cultural groups [9,10,11,12,13,14], and the cross-cultural sharing of TEK, which has led researchers to carry out cross-cultural and cross-linguistic ethnobotanical studies ([7,15,16,17,18,19,20], and references therein)
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