Expression of Agro-Ecological

Journal of Rural Development & Administration Vol. XLVII, No. 2 (July - December 2016) EXPRESSION OF 1 AGRO-ECOLOGICAL WISDOM FOR FARMERS: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF PUNJABI INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM THROUGH PROVERBS Lubna Akhlaq Khan1, Umer Farooq Azam2, Aadila Hussain3 ABSTRACT The present research started from the presumption that Punjabi proverbs are rich with agricultural information and have a lot of guidelines for the farmers. When the research started, it was found that the area of Punjabi agricultural proverbs was still unexplored. A sample of 362 agriculture related Punjabi proverbs was collected, from a Punjabi dictionary of proverbs, Saa- day Akhan (Our Proverbs) (Malik, 2004). Through the use of purposive sampling, proverbs were chosen with the help of Punjabi farmers and the students of an agriculture university. The short-listed proverbs were then translated into English and divided into major and sub-categories based on their thematic content. Linguistic anthropology and Eco-Linguistics are used as theo- retical frameworks. A mixed approach of using both the quantitative and qualitative methods has been applied for the analysis of the data. The findings of this research show that apart from the historical relevance of Punjabi agricultural proverbs, a lot of proverbs guide about various aspects of agriculture, such as proper time for sowing, use of fertilizers, plowing, hard work, selection of farms etc. Punjabi proverbs also foretell the weather on the basis of certain symbols and observations of the environment. Rainfall at the proper time and out of season rainfall affects crops very much. This research concludes that apart from historical relevance, Punjabi proverbs are rich with agricultural information even for the contemporary agriculturalists. These proverbs contain enormous information for farmers to gain good yield of crops so these agricultural proverbs should be made a part of the syllabus of the students of agriculture in order to sensitize the younger generation about the efficacy of these proverbs in the field of farming. Key Words: Proverbs, Agricultural wisdom, Indigenous Knowledge System, Guidance 1Higher Education Department, Punjab, PhD Scholar, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad., [email protected], 2MPhil Scholar, University of the Punjab, [email protected] 3University of Punjab, PhD Scholar, University of Gujrat, [email protected] 1 Journal of Rural Development & Administration Vol. XLVII, No. 2 (July - December 2016) INTRODUCTION Pakistan is such a blessed country which has been bestowed upon with four seasons. Farmers cultivate different crops according to these seasons. Punjab is the most important province, regarding agriculture, of Pakistan. It produces wheat, rice, sugar cane, and maize on a large scale. These crops are also exported to other countries. Besides, people keep cattle such as cows, buffaloes, oxen, etc. for getting milk and for the purpose of driving carts. Hence, agriculture is still one of the most popular professions for earning money especially in the villages of Punjab. Indigenous knowledge system comes into existence after the huge experiences, beliefs,and workmanship of the natives. This knowledge is the representative of natives’ insight and has a natural link to that society. Indigenous knowledge is preserved in different forms such as folk-tales, folk songs, and proverbs etc. and is transferred from generation to generation orally. This type of knowledge contains guidelines for every field of life including agriculture, medicine, religion, etc.Therefore, the livelihood of the oral narratives of such a society, where this knowledge is practiced, increases manifolds (Wutete, 2014). Punjabi proverbs are a huge resource for guidance in almost every field of life because they are the reflection of our ancestors’ wisdom and experience. Being the major profession of Punjab, agriculture has an important place in Punjabi proverbs. Instructions about field sand crops, predictions regarding rainfall and guidance about choosing seeds are among the common information found in the proverbs (Singh & Dorjey, 2003; Singh, 2012; Narayan, 2016; and Kim, Vaswani, Kang, Nam & Lee, 2017). Yet this significant facet of Punjabi proverbs is so far unexplored, this paper, the agricultural aspect of Punjabi proverbs would be analyzed. This paper will try to answer the following questions: 1. What type of guidance about agriculture is found in Punjabi proverbs? 2. How do Punjabi proverbs deal with weather and crop seasons? 3. How do Punjabi proverbs deal with the profession of agriculture? LITERATURE REVIEW The word ‘Punjab’ is a mixture of two Persian words ‘punj’ and ‘ab’ which give the meaning of ‘five’ and ‘water’ respectively. Thus Punjab gives the meaning of a land consisting of five rivers. This land has been assaulted by many foreigners including Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Sikhs, etc. This piece of land holds a distinguished history in South Asia (Khan, 2009). Punjabi is a widely spoken language both in the east and west Punjab. After the 2 Journal of Rural Development & Administration Vol. XLVII, No. 2 (July - December 2016) partition of 1947, east Punjab went into the possession of India and west Punjab became the part of Pakistan. Punjabi language is on the eleventh number among those languages which are widely spoken all over the world. According to the cen- sus of 2008, 76, 335, 300 natives of Pakistan speak this language which becomes 44.15% of the populace. While 29, 109, 677 Indian speakers use this language which aggregates nearly 2.83% of Indian populace (Rahman, 2017). Proverbs are transferred from one generation to the other and no one knows about their real creators. A proverb is the manifestation of huge wisdom. Brevity and rhythmic form of a proverb helps a listener to memorize it even in one listen- ing (Trench, 1861). There exist such proverbs which carry implied and denotative as well as connotative meanings. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze such proverbs in the related context and culture to get the exact meanings of them (Meider, 2004). Proverbs are used for different purposes in a society. They have guidance for different fields of life. Ahmad (2005) points out the various themes mentioned in Sudanese proverbs such as relationship, patience, silence and speech, class and caste difference, friendship, uniformity and women’s inferiority. He also compares these proverbs with English proverbs and finds out similar themes in them. Prov- erbs also show the behavior and bent of mind of people of a certain area. Khan, Sultana & Naz (2015) have declared the gender biased aspect of Pakhto proverbs. Khan (2017) has highlighted such Punjabi proverbs which target gender. The results of this study manifest that the women in Punjabi society are depicted as inferior, dependent and idle creatures through these proverbs. On the other hand, men are portrayed as courageous, wise and superior to women. In the past, people used to foretell about weather by identifying strange par- allels between different things and environmental changes. Folklores including proverbs preserved such experiences. Golakia (1992) has reflected on such proverbs related to Saurashta communities and arrived at the conclusion that folklores are rich with predictions of rainfall and monsoon. Agriculture-related folklores of Orissa have abundant information for cultiva- tors such as proper timings of plowing, seeding and appropriate distance between seedlings (Mohanty & Rout, 2002). Folklores of Orissa also provide guidelines to gain good harvest from horticulture and olericulture (Mohanty, Dash & Dash, 2008). Folklores are guidelines which come into existence after the acute observation of ancient people regarding the cattle and they are delivered from forefathers to their children. Orissa proverbs identify certain characteristics of the cattle and help the farmers to select them before buying. Even in this new farming age, these are still functional for the poor farmers of Orissa (Mohanty, 2003). Mohanty 3 Journal of Rural Development & Administration Vol. XLVII, No. 2 (July - December 2016) (2004) has also analyzed Orissa proverbs in the context of choosing livestock and found the same results. But in both the studies, findings are generalized on the basis of inadequate data. There are only 15 proverbs in the first research upon which the findings are declared. Similarly, the results of the later research are also stated on the basis of 25 Oriya folklores which do not seem to be sufficient to be claimed as an adequate data. Through discussion and interaction with talented farmers of Yadav commu- nity, Singh & Dorjey (2003) have collected and analyzed agrarian proverbs but the collected data is very limited. These proverbs show the predictions regarding rainfall, instructions about field proceedings, information about choosing seeds and their suitable ratio in a field and grafting. He manifests the ratio of the use of these proverbs among people through figures. Narayan (2016) has also declared similar results in his study of Indian proverbs that these proverbs are loaded with agricultural knowledge but he has not mentioned any kind of methodology and data collection tool in his study. Singh (2012) argues that the Punjabi proverbs related to agriculture carry similar worth not only in history and science but also in the current South-Eastern Punjab. The results of his research are also a proof of the usefulness of agricultural proverbs

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