Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Ethno-ornithalogical Classification: Generic Categories and Ethno-taxonomy Chapter 3: Intermediate Categories, Binary Associations, and Nomenclature Chapter 4: Things That Go Po In The Night: Ethnotaxonomy and Symbolic Classification Chapter 5: Spiritual Birds Chapter 6: Birds as Omens and Taboo Chapter 7: Hibernating Swallows, Kite Stones, and the Legless Nightjar: Some Curiosities of Nage Bird Knowledge Chapter 8: Birds in Myth and Metaphor Chapter 9: The Story of Tupa Lelu, or How Birds of Prey Became Chicken Thieves Chapter 10: Comparisons and Conclusions

This unusual and richly-illustrated book is the story of the relationship between the Nage people of eastern Indonesia and the birds alongside which they co-exist. Based on fieldwork carried out over a period of some fifteen years, it aims for a total view of how a human community interacts with another zoological class, giving birds a chosen place in human ideas and social practice. As well as a fascinating ornithological study of Indonesian bird life, Nage Birds offers a much-needed critique of current theoretical argument on how non-Western societies categorize and evaluate different species and modes of being.

The book examines wildmen, images of hairy humanlike creatures known to rural villagers and other local people in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Sometimes described in considerable detail, the creatures are reported as still living or as having survived until recent times. The aim of the book is to discover the source of these representations and their status in local systems of knowledge, partly in relation to distinct categories of spiritual beings, known animals, and other human groups. It explores images of the wildman from throughout Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on the Indonesian islands, and beyond, including the Asian mainland, Africa, North America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania.

The book reveals how, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, wildmen cannot readily be explained as imaginary constructs rooted in cultural values and social institutions, nor as simply another kind of spirit . Also critically examined is a view of such figures as fundamentally similar expressions of a pan-human mental archetype . Forth concludes that many Asian and African figures are grounded in experience or memories of anthropoid apes supplemented by encounters with ethnic others. Representations developed among European immigrants (including the North American sasquatch ) are, in part, similarly traceable to an indirect knowledge of primates, informed by long-standing European representations of hairy humans that have coloured western views of non-western peoples and which may themselves originate in ancient experience of apes. At the same time, the book demonstrates how Indonesian and other Malayo-Polynesian images cannot be explained in the same way, and explores the possibility of these reflecting an ancient experience of non-sapiens hominins.

The book examines 'wildmen', images of hairy humanlike creatures known to rural villagers and other local people in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Sometimes described in considerable detail, the creatures are reported as still living or as having survived until recent times. The aim of the book is to discover the source of these representations and their status in local systems of knowledge, partly in relation to distinct categories of spiritual beings, known animals, and other human groups. It explores images of the wildman from throughout Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on the Indonesian islands, and beyond, including the Asian mainland, Africa, North America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania. The book reveals how, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, 'wildmen' cannot readily be explained as imaginary constructs rooted in cultural values and social institutions, nor as simply another kind of 'spirit'. Also critically examined is a view of such figures as fundamentally similar expressions of a pan-human mental 'archetype'. Forth concludes that many Asian and African figures are grounded in experience or memories of anthropoid apes supplemented by encounters with ethnic others. Representations developed among European immigrants (including the North American 'sasquatch') are, in part, similarly traceable to an indirect knowledge of primates, informed by long-standing European representations of hairy humans that have coloured western views of non-western peoples and which may themselves originate in ancient experience of apes. At the same time, the book demonstrates how Indonesian and other Malayo-Polynesian images cannot be explained in the same way, and explores the possibility of these reflecting an ancient experience of non-sapiens hominins.

Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is a comprehensive analysis of knowledge of animals among the Nage people of central Flores in Indonesia. Gregory Forth sheds light on the ongoing anthropological debate surrounding the categorization of animals in small-scale non-Western societies. Forth's detailed discussion of how the Nage people conceptualize their relationship to the animal world covers the naming and classification of animals, their symbolic and practical use, and the ecology of central Flores and its change over the years. His study reveals the empirical basis of Nage classifications, which align surprisingly well with the taxonomies of modern biologists. It also shows how the Nage employ systems of symbolic and utilitarian classification distinct from their general taxonomy. A tremendous source of ethnographic detail, Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is an important contribution to the fields of ethnobiology and cognitive anthropology.

Based on anthropological research conducted over a number of years on the Indonesian island of Flores, this is the first published account of a people called Keo. Keo society reveals a pervasive pairing of villages, clans, and other groups. The book explores this dualistic social organization in relation to marriage, reciprocity, and sacrificial ritual. In doing so, it offers important insights into issues of kinship and social inequality.

A remarkable investigation into the hominoids of Flores Island, their place on the evolutionary spectrum-and whether or not they still survive. While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. Then along came the 'hobbit'. In 2003, several skeletons of a small-statured early human species alongside stone tools and animal remains were excavated in a cave in western Flores. Named Homo floresiensis, this ancient hominin was initially believed to have lived until as recently as 12,000 years ago-possibly overlapping with the appearance of Homo sapiens on Flores. In view of this timing and the striking resemblance of floresiensis to the mystery creatures described by the islanders, Forth began to think about the creatures as possibly reflecting a real species, either now extinct but retained in 'cultural memory' or even still surviving. He began to investigate reports from the Lio region of the island where locals described 'ape-men' as still living. Dozens claimed to have even seen them. In Between Ape and Human, we follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings. In a narrative filled with adventure, Lio culture and language, zoology and natural history, Forth comes to a startling and controversial conclusion. Unique, important, and thought-provoking, this book will appeal to anyone interested in human evolution, the survival of species (including our own) and how humans might relate to 'not-quite-human' animals. Between Ape and Human is essential reading for all those interested in cryptozoology, and it is the only firsthand investigation by a leading anthropologist into the possible survival of a primitive species of human into recent times-and its coexistence with modern humans.

We live in an era marked by an accelerating rate of species death, but since the early days of the discipline, anthropology has contemplated the death of languages, cultural groups, and ways of life. The essays in this collection examine processes of-and our understanding of-extinction across various domains. The contributors argue that extinction events can be catalysts for new cultural, social, environmental, and technological developments-that extinction processes can, paradoxically, be productive as well as destructive. The essays consider a number of widely publicized cases: island species in the Galapagos and Madagascar; the death of Native American languages; ethnic minorities under pressure to assimilate in China; cloning as a form of species regeneration; and the tiny hominid Homo floresiensis fossils ("hobbits") recently identified in Indonesia. The Anthropology of Extinction offers compelling explorations of issues of widespread concern. -- Indiana University Press

Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is a comprehensive analysis of knowledge of animals among the Nage people of central Flores in Indonesia. Gregory Forth sheds light on the ongoing anthropological debate surrounding the categorization of animals in small-scale non-Western societies. Forth's detailed discussion of how the Nage people conceptualize their relationship to the animal world covers the naming and classification of animals, their symbolic and practical use, and the ecology of central Flores and its change over the years. His study reveals the empirical basis of Nage classifications, which align surprisingly well with the taxonomies of modern biologists. It also shows how the Nage employ systems of symbolic and utilitarian classification distinct from their general taxonomy. A tremendous source of ethnographic detail, Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is an important contribution to the fields of ethnobiology and cognitive anthropology.