FOOD HABIT OF TRIBAL COMMUNITY OF ASSAM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SHYAM TRIBE
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Date
2020-09
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Publisher
AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
The present study on ―Food habit of tribal community of Assam with
special reference to Shyam tribe‖ was carried out with the following objectives 1.
Complete understanding of the Shyam tribe. 2. Food consumption and dietary habit of
people of Shyam tribe. 3. Indigenous food practices in treatment of common health
problems. The study was carried out in the Jorhat district of State of Assam. From
Jorhat district Titabar development block was purposively selected. A list of the villages
which are predominantly habitated by Shyam tribe was prepared from which two
villages were selected randomly. From each of the village 30 Shyam people were
selected through judgmental method. Thus total numbers of respondent were 60. Data
was collected using structured interview schedule and analysed using appropriate
statistical techniques viz., frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The data
revealed that more than half of the respondents were of middle adulthood group of 40-
60 years, had nuclear family (51.67%) medium family size (5-7 members) (56.67%).
The status of education was up to middle school level (26.67%), majority of the
respondents were married. Main occupation of the family was farming (63.34%), had
small land (31.67%) to marginal land holding (18.33%) and ownership was in the name
of respondent mostly male members. More than half of the respondents did not have
membership in any organization and sometimes contacted bank personnel rather than
other extension personnel. Cent per cent had mobiles phones and half of them had low
mass media exposure. Almost all of them possessed birds (90.00%), followed by cow
(26.67%) and goats (20.00%). Traditional housing pattern is still prevailing among the
respondents, as regard to rituals related to marriage and funeral high majority (86.00%-
88.00%) still followed completely and all the festivals are observed by all respondents
such as Sangken, Poi-leng, Mai-ko-sum-phai, Poi-kathing. Traditional costume is used
mostly by the older generation which is less worn by young generation. Basically
respondents are non vegetarian, boiling and steaming are common cooking method,
some of the traditional food items are sticky steamed rice , jolokia-pitika, laitenga,
khautak, boiled pork with vegetable. They have a good treasure of indigenous
knowledge which is still followed by majority of the respondents in treatment of
common health problems. The finding of the study suggest that documentation and
preservation of their traditional culinary practices and plethora indigenous knowledge is
the need of the hour before it is lost with the passage of time which will be an addition
to the knowledge busket of wisdom and also this can serve for the taking up startups for
the new generation. It is evident from the study that the indigenous knowledge holders
of Shyam tribe collect the different medicinal, edible plant species from the surrounding
plant resources located in the periphery of the village and some species that are grown
in their traditional homestead gardens. Thus it can be concluded that like many other
tribal communities of the world, Shyam people also have their system, rituals, customs,
festivals and preparation of food. The ethnic foods are important and have cultural
values.