Percepción y significados del guaje rojo Leucaena esculenta (DC.) Benth. en la cultura ngiwa de Puebla, México

Abstract

Traditional foods are part of the culture of indigenous communities; they are part of their history and identity. Guaje is a traditional food grown in the popoloca (Ngiwa) region of southern Puebla state, Mexico. The objective of this research was to identify the type of route of influence of human values, direct or indirect, and thus to know the meanings and communalities that guaje has for native consumers. A survey was applied to 200 consumers where they were shown an image of the guaje and asked to mention three words related to what they were seeing. New variables (factors) used in the construction of linear regression models were generated by factor analysis. Three multiple linear regression models were adjusted to estimate the multiple correlation coefficients RModel1, RModel2 and RModel3. These models are conformed as follow: consumption as a function of tangible attribute factors; consumption as a function of human value factors plus tangible attribute residuals; and consumption as a function of human value factors. The direct or human values influence was obtained by the difference between RMmodel1 and RMmodel2, and the indirect influence was obtained by the difference between the change in R (ΔR) and the RMmodel3 multiple correlation coefficient. The direct influence was not significant, indicating that the utilitarian element is most important, i.e., human values flowed through the importance of tangible attributes. The words were grouped by affinity, to calculate their frequencies and apply the k-proportions test and Marascuilo's procedure. Guaje presents the greatest frequency of utilitarian meanings (70.7 %) whose categories with the highest communalities were gastronomy (29.45 %) and economy (22.75 %).