IRANIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Year:2013 | Volume:10 | Issue:17|Papers Count:7

The human-pigeon relationship that has met human's different demands has a very long history. But nowadays pigeons are considered as an entertainment. This paper examines a group of pigeon fanciers who breed and fly pigeons from their rooftops in Tehran. This research, by focusing on a specific group of pigeon flyers of Tehran and their annual ceremonies and competitions known as "GERO", tries to document and analyze changes of fanciers' social life and jargons along with an ethnographic documentation of the event and its relations. During these changes, the number of pigeons and costs of breeding impact on their social status and relationships. As the costs have been increasing during recent years, the social status has been under the shadow of the number of pigeons he keeps and the expenses he spends for breeding and feeding them. Consequently the symbolic capital among their society is replaced with economic capital and therefore, this new capital has become a determinant of the position of the men in their social relations.

One of the important functions of city as a social phenomenon is its economic mechanism related to the urban society. This function has played an important role in production, distribution and exchange organizations between urban and rural societies in the Islamic period. The administrative organization has also been emphasized in dynamic economic and social life in the Iranian cities during the medieval and late Islamic centuries.This research is based on historical analysis approach supported by historical sources and social and economic studies for explanation of economic structure of Iranian cities in the Safavid Era. The selected cities include: Farah-Abad of Sari in the north, Isfahan in the central region and port of Bandar Abbas in the south of Iran.The results of this research show that the Iranian cities in the Safavid era have been classified into two kinds of cities: a) Developed cities, b) Newly-established cities were developed or established on the direction of the Silk Road for production, distribution and exportation during Shah Abbas reign (996-1038A.H) in three regions: northern, central and southern. Based on such a production and exchange organization, cities were divided into three types: cities capable of production of raw materials, brokering cities and exporting cities.Analysis of the economic mechanism of the Iranian safavid cities reveals that the forms of exchange have been based on the Shah's monopoly, owner's exploitation, and immense dependence of ur an economy on the rural agricultural economy as well as brokering and retailing in the cities.

This research aims to investigate definitions of poem, its variety, narrative prose and its variety and non-narrative prose.In all kind of prose, narrative prose (story) has an important and special role to preserve national culture and official educational language (Persian Dari). The main object of this research is whether the stories and fables have been contributed to the formation of national and cultural identity of students. In this case, for finding suitable response, a number of studies and investigations have been done on the Persian books that have been published since 1385 onwards. Story can be classified into different forms such as tale, short story, navel and others.Consequently, the author tried through methods of descriptive-analytic and collection of information via bibliotheca to introduce narrative prose and its position in the Farsi books of elementary school.As we know, the textbooks themselves are considered as kid and teenager literature, so for the same reason, this paper has also paid attention to this genre of literature. The experts involved in preparation of textbooks especially Farsi books have properly employed old and modern stories, tales and fables for educational purposes through audio, written and spoken forms.Finally with respect to the studies done, we find out that the Iranian stories and fables have not only contributed in education of the national official language but also in learning moral, religious, social notions as well as the words of preeminent persons and in formation of an Iranian-Islamic identity.

Fetishism is a belief system in which an object with extraordinary power in the minds of nomadic men can assist them in confrontation with the difficulties of life. The effects and traces of fetishism have been reflected in the Iranian folklore at all times. In this approach, the origin of the belief in some objects, its action and influence are paid attention to as the fundamental elements in the Iranian folklore. Clarification of fetishism theory in Iran requires identification of deep-rooted and archaic beliefs in the Iranian culture regarding the use of some certain objects.We try to study the fetishism in the Iranian folkloric culture along with its concerning traditions, customs and beliefs.Data from the research leads us to the point that these objects rooted back to the common beliefs and customs, as well as religious faith in the folklore that the lay of people have retired to these objects to satisfy their spiritual needs and meet their demands.

King Kai-Khosrow is a charismatic king of the Kayanian dynasty and the symbol of a perfect or idealistic human being in the Persian mythology. One of his most important characteristics is his ascension into heaven and his immortality. Khosrow's ascension has not been mentioned in the Avesta, but there are some old inscriptions about his brilliant kingship and mortality in the Middle Persian and Persian classical writings. This paper tries to study people's belief and their oral tradition about the ascension of this ascetic king. In the Iranian oral traditions, Kai-Khosrow is not only a mythological character, but also an alive king and a part of the people's true life. To them, the place where Kai-Khosrow ascended to the heaven is considered as a holy place in different parts of Iran and Zoroastrians annually celebrate the memory of his ascension and pray for his return on the sixth day of Farvardin.

Understanding people and their social relationships require an understanding of culture in general and cultural elements in particular. Therefore in this article an important concept is taken from Iranian culture and its different meanings were investigated. The concept chosen is "Aberu" which roughly means "face". It is used as a justification for many behaviors and social relationships in Iran. Yet not many are capable of defining it. For this reason, the present project is undertaken to decipher the meanings of the term hidden in the everyday cliche. The fieldwork revealed the following three different meanings of the term:A: Category "hefz-e Aberu" roughly means "keeping the face" that indicates compliance with norms of the society;B: Category "kasb-e Aberu" roughly means "gaining the face" that indicates gaining the social approval and being accepted.C: Category "Aberumandi" roughly means "having the face" that indicates "having principle" and eing a man of integrity and morality.Instances have been taken from the interviews and other observations that were used to demonstrate the concept of Aberu in its three different meanings. In addition, the theoretical and socio-cultural implications of the findings are discussed in the paper.

To understand ancient icons, one must know the symbolic markers that once had distinct meanings in ancient cultures, as words have in a language. They were representations of mythological beliefs, as they were. Iconology is an attempt to clarify the significance of these markers using a scientific approach in the interpretation of these icons. Based on an iconographical analysis and categorization, iconology appreciates their symbolic cultural values. Symbolic markers represent themselves as a word, image, or a behavior in a metaphoric system. While iconology works on the constituents of the images, it establishes a relationship between these markers in a broader metaphorical cultural system.Having an iconological approach, the present paper attempts to understand the symbolic significance of eagle and snake in the Chlorite artifacts of Jiroft dating back to the third millennium BC. To do so, most of all, one needs to understand the cultural context and the ways of representation of the concerning beliefs in that period of time. The paper will concern the dominant belief of the great goddess and its influence on images especially the role of eagle/bird and snake in the said period.