Koma ; a Spectrum of Use and Exclusion: Cultural Meaning of a Plant Nutrition in the Region of Sheshtamad, Sabzevar, Khorasan Razavi Province, Iran

Abstract

Anthropology is a discipline that its aim is to understand human and its place in the natural order of things. On the one hand, Anthropology examines affairs that are simple and normal and on the other hand, it examines ambiguous Affairs. According to this, current article is in nutritional anthropology by an ethnographic approach and inspired by the vision of cultural ecology and it examines patterns and ways of nutritional consumption of Koma and cultural belief relate to it in a region in south of Sabzevar. Results of this examination indicate that there is a considerable importance for this pasturage plant in context of animal husbandry communities of the studied region. Due to the importance and function of the plant in the life cycle of region, a certain cultural formations and image of this plant is formed in the studied society. The cultural image has been tried to protect this plant with unholy construction mechanism. In fact, because of the importance of the Koma in the environmental and economic level of the animal husbandry context of the region, from cultural level, a kind of cultural interaction and a kind of preservation culture is created. This kind of protection culture would affect the thought and action of regional actors in the field and their relation with the plant.

Keywords

• koma
• cooking practices and patterns of koma
• koma cultural ecology
• plant nutrition
• cultural preservation of resources