Other Anthropology Commons^™

Delineating Regions With Permeable Boundaries In New Guinea., Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Hays sets out the linkages among communities and societies as they form networks and regions in New Guinea. Hays reminds us of the long standing concern within the recent literature from New Guinea that supports the "primitive isolates" notion that is still with us. The "my people" syndrome still plagues the legions of researchers who seek to study a small distinct population that is largely uncontaminated by outside influences and remains primitive. He paints the picture of this primitive society by describing New Guinea topographically as a land of inaccessible mountain valleys, impenetrable swamps, and remote rain forests which make …

Plant Classification And Nomenclature In Ndumba, Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Traditionally, the terms "ethnobotany" and "ethnozoology" have designated little more than the study of plant and animal utilization. In the past two decades, however, the ways in which the components of given biological environments are locally perceived and categorized have received increasing attention. Not only has the study of ethnobiological classification been recognized as essential to a wide variety of ethnographic concerns (cf. Frake 1962; Bulmer 1967), but the discovery of possible universals in folk classification systems promises to enrich our understanding of human cognitive processes as well (Berlin et al. 1973; Brown 1977).

The paucity of comprehensive studies of …

"No Tobacco, No Hallelujah" , Terence Hays

Terence Hays

According to myths and legends told by some peoples of New Guinea, tobacco is an ancient and indigenous plant, having appeared sponotaneously in a variety of ways. In other instances, the plant and the custom of smoking it are said to have been established by local culture heroes, while still other traditions prosaically cite adoptions from neighboring groups. On the basis of oral history alone, then, one might conclude that New Guinea tobacco appeared in widely scattered locations in the mythic past, and its distribution at the time of European contact is explainable as simple diffusion within the region.

Kuku-"God Of The Motuites", Terence Hays

Terence Hays

When European colonists arrived in Papua New Guinea, tobacco and the custom of smoking already were widespread but not universal. The newcomers quickly filled this void by introducing trade tobacco, which nearly everywhere was rapidly adopted. A "passion" for smoking was especially evident among those to whom tobacco was previously unknown or very new. The chemical properties of nicotine combined with an absence of cultural rules regarding its use to create a new "god."

Sacred Texts And Introductory Texts, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

A survey of 118 introductory anthropology textbooks published in the period 1929-1990 examines the ways in which Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa has been presented to college undergraduates. In contrast to Derek Freeman's claim that her conclusions about Samoan sexuality and adolescence have been reiterated (approvingly) in an "unbroken succesion of anthropological textbooks," it appears that this work has been ignored almost as often as it has been cited. Criticesms of Mead, although relatively few and almost entirely methodological, have also been incorporated into texstbooks, both before and following Freeeman's 1983 book, Margaret Mead and Samoa. Whether or …

Introduction To Encyclopedia Of World Cultures Volume 2, Oceania, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

No abstract provided.

Language And Living Things, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Ethnobiology is often regarded as a quaint and excessively particularistic specialty, as its modern practitioners trace the complexities and subtleties of specific systems of folk classification and nomenclature. Their finegrained descriptions and elegant analyses are at once too “thick” and too “thin” for most nonspecialists, who, in any event, await syntheses of what has been learned from such inquiries, preferably in the form of comparative studies in the tradition of anthropology’s concern with generalizations that illuminate the wider human condition. Rising to this challenge, Cecil Brown has long pursued, in numerous papers and now in this book, crosscultural “uniformities” as …

Ndumba Folk Biology And General Principles Of Ethnobotanical Classification And Nomenclature, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Brent Berlin's proposed "general principles of classification and nomenclature" are examined as they apply to folk biology in Ndumba, a Papua New Guinea hzghlands society. Focusing on Ndumba folk zoology, supplemented with a previous analysis of their folk botany, Berlin's analytical schema for ethnobiological classification is supported, but principles of nomenclature in ethnobiology appear to be in need of reconsideration.

"The New Guinea Highlands" Region, Culture Area, Or Fuzzy Set?, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

The criteria for delineating "the New Guinea Highlands," a fundamental category in Melanesian anthropology, are variable, vague, and inconsistently applied, with the result that there is little clarity or agreement with regard to its characteristics and its membership. So far as the literature is concerned, "the New Guinea Highlands" is a fuzzy set. The common resort to notions of "cores," "margins," or "fringes" is an attempt to preserve an essentialist approach but inevitably leads to the same confusion. The continued use of "the Highlands" as an analytic or theoretical construct carries the costs of misleadingly implied homogeneity, with marginalization of …

Cognitive Foundations Of Natural History, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Since the 1960s, ethnobiology has gone beyond the documentation of plants and animals deemed “useful” in specific societies’ economies, or those that are “good to think” in their cosmological systems, to a nomothetic investigation of folk conceptualizations of the natural world as organizations of cultural knowledge. “General principles” and “universals” in the classification and naming of living things have been proposed that now play a major role in our growing understanding of human cognition.

Failure Of Treatment / Book Review, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

This is an extraordinary book, and one that I believe is unique in the literature of medical anthropology. Inspired by Victor Turner's "social drama, the extended case method" (p. 3), Gilbert Lewis presents "the ethnography of an illness" (p. 1), a detailed—sometimes day-by-day—account of a protracted illness suffered by Dauwaras, a Gnau-speaking man of the upper Sepik River in Papua New Guinea.

The Sweet Potato And Oceania, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Debates about the introduction and diffusion of Ipomoea batatas in the Pacific have gone on for a century although largely without the benefit of a thorough botanical understanding of the plant. That is now provided in Yen’s monograph, which synthesizes the results and implications of his own two decades of research with the now massive literature on the subject.

Exchanging The Past, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

In 1980-1982, Bruce Knauft and Eileen Cantrell conducted fieldwork among the Gebusi people of the remote Nomad region of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Then, "indigenous customs seemed robust as well as profound" (p.13), including one of the highest homocide rates in the world, rooted sorcery accusations derived from spirit medium seances.

Tzeltal Folk Zoology, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

In some respects, this volume might be viewed as a companion piece to Berlin et al.’s Principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification. It deals with the same people of highland Chiapas, Mexico, and an earlier version was Hunn’s doctoral thesis, supervised by Berlin. Nevertheless, it can also clearly stand on its own as a significant contribution to ethnology, with additional relevance to biosystematists, ecologists, linguists, and psychologists.

Auyana, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Sterling Robbins was one of four ethnographers who conducted fieldwork in the early 1960s as part of James B. Watson’s New Guinea Micro-evolution Project. As such he was unavoidably caught in the turmoil over how to deal with the “loose structure” of New Guinea highland societies.

From Ethnographer To Comparativist And Back Again, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

"As I sat one night in 1972 during an 'umana ceremony in the men's house of a hamlet in Ndumba, a community in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, I reflected on how fortunate I was."