Cultural Homogenization Has Affected Palula Traditional Plant Foraging in Multilingual Chitral, Hindukush, NW Pakistan

We recorded local knowledge of wild food plants (WFPs) among the Palula minority in the Chitral region of northwest Pakistan through semi-structured interviews with 25 elderly participants. Data were compared with the previously published food ethnobotanical studies conducted in NW Pakistan. A total of 45 plant taxa were recorded, mainly used as cooked vegetables and raw snacks. A cross-cultural comparison of the foraging practices among the different ethnolinguistic groups revealed that the Palula shared more than two-thirds of the recorded WFPs with the other groups. This homogeneity may suggest that ecocultural homogenization occurred after the group migrated into the study area many decades ago and adapted to the more common and dominant socioecological patterns characterizing the Chitral area of the Hindukush region. We found that the original WFP nomenclature and reports among the Palula were likely affected by Kho and Pashto cultures, whose languages are widely spoken as lingua francas in Chitral. Thus, Palula foraging heritage might have been blended and osmotically mixed with that of the majority groups. The current study underscores the urgent need for policymakers to pay more attention to protecting ecocultural diversity and promoting the resilience of minority groups.