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7 8 Cecil H. Brown

KAY, Paul, and Chad K. McDANIEL, The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color ,Terms. 54:610-46. KEMPTON, Willett, 1978. Category Grading and Taxonomic Relations: a Mug Is a Sort ofAmerican Cup. Ethnologist, 5:44-65. ------, 1981. The Folk Classification of Ceramics: a Study of Cognitive Prototypes. New York, Academic Press. LAKOFF, George, 1987.Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Chicago Mind. University Press. RANDALL, A., 1977. Change and Variation in Samal Fishing: Making Plans to “Make a Living” in the Southern Philippines. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. ------, and Eugene S. HUNN, 1984. Do Life-forms Evolve or do Uses for Life? Some Doubts about Brown’s Universals Hypotheses.American Ethnologist, 11:329-49. ROSCH, Eleanor, 1975. Universals and Cultural Specifics in Human Categorization, in R.W. Brislin, S. Bochner, and W.J. Lonner (eds),Cross-cultural Perspectives on Learning: the Interface between Culture and Learning. New York, Halsted Press, pp. 177-206. ------, 1977. Human Categorization, in N. Warren (ed.),Studies in Cross-cultural Psychology, vol.l. New York, Academic Press, pp. 1-49. ------, and Carolyn B. MERVIS, 1975. Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7:573-605. WIERZBICKA, Anna, 1985.Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis. Ann Arbor, Karoma. WITKOWSKI, Stanley R., Cecil H. BROWN, and P. CHASE, 1981. Where do Tree Terms Come from?Man, (n.s.) 16:1-14.

FINGOTA/FANGOTA: SHELLFISH AND FISHING IN

Ross Clark University of Auckland

A few years ago, in the course of a brief foray into the shallows of marine ethnotaxonomy (Clark 1981),11 suggested the possibility of “shellfish” as a labelled life-form category in some Polynesian . Among a handful of putative labels for this category which I cited was Tonganfingota. In this paper I will investigate some of the semantic and formal relations of this .

FINGOTA AS “SHELLFISH” Churchward’s dictionary provides the following definitionfingota: of

sea creature of any kind other thanika. ..[including] shell-fish, crustaceans, cuttle-fish, jelly-fish, eels, sea-snakes, sea-slugs, star-fish, etc. and even sea-weeds (Churchward 1959:190).

This is a varied assortment indeed, apparently defined, as Churchward suggests, as the residue of sea life not included inika (true fishes, sharks, cetaceans and turtles). It would appear, however, that shellfish are the most important or most typicalfingota. The English-Tongan section of the dictionary fingotagives as a translation forshellfish', the suffixed formfingota’ iais glossed as “abounding in shellfish etc.”; and a more recent, simpler Tongan-English dictionary (Schneider 1977) offers just “shellfish”fingota. for Kirch and Dye (1979:60-1) give the following account of the meaningo f fingota for the Tongan speakers of :

Ika contrasts with the life formfingota “shellfish”. In the Niuan conception,ika generally have scales (’uno), a head (’ulu), eyes (mata) and are free-swimming; thus all fish, eels, turtles, cetaceans and cephalopods areika. Fingota have shells (nge’esi), are thought to be without a head and eyes, and move by creeping or crawling(totolo)-, they include crustacea, molluscs (excepting cephalopods), and echinoderms.

This is consistent with the view that althoughfingota may be very broadly understood (as by Churchward), sea creatures with external shells are its prototypical members.2 Shellfish and Fishing in Polynesia 79

Cognates of Tonganfingota in other include the following:

Niuean fingota : an edible sea-crab (McEwen) : shell-fish; to gather shell-fish (Tregear and Smith) East Uvea fingota : coquille.. .coquillage et animaux rampant sur la terre et dans la mer (Rensch 1984) East Futuna fingota : terme gênêrique pour les mollusques: coquillage, coquille (Rensch 1986) Samoan fiigota : the general name for “shellfish” including “jellyfish”. [This term includes almost all sea animals except fish and turtles, viz. molluscs, crustaceans, Echinoderms and Acalephae.] (Pratt) : general term for edible molluscs and other invertebrate sea- animals (Milner) : edible sea animals (Allardice) fiigota : general term for shell-fish(Tokelau Dictionary) Kapingamarangi hingodo : termite (Lieber and Dikepa) Taku fiinota : various kinds of shellfish and sea-foods gathered by women (Howard) pingota : a type of small shell-fish - either a type of abalone or a close relative (Feinberg)

Despite the absence of cognates in East Polynesian and several Samoic languages, the number and distribution of forms and their formal and semantic agreement are clearly sufficient to support reconstruction of Proto-Polynesian*fi(i)ngota. Most languages use this term for a large class of marine organisms of which shellfish are an important part. (Anuta and McEwen’s Niuean use the term for a particular species within this class; the Kapingamarangi reflex has strayed well out of the normal semantic range.) It should be noted that Frenchcoquillage refers strictly to edible molluscs and does not include crustaceans. Thus several sources introduce the criterion of edibility, or allude to the activity of gathering sea-food. This points the way to a connection with an established PPN*faangota. ,

FANGOTA AS “FISHING”? Biggs (n.d.) reconstructs PPN*faangota “to obtain seafood by fishing or hunting on the reef’. It will be of interest to examine the evidence on which this reconstruction is based:

Tongan fangawta : shell-fish; the act of picking up shell-fish on the beach at low water (Mariner) faangota : to fish, or to search for shell-fish (or any kindfingota of ), especially the latter (Churchward) Niuean fangota : to gather shellfish on the reef (McEwen) : shellfish (Tregear and Smith; English- section) East Uvea faagota : pêche aux coquillages; prendre des coquillages (Rensch 1984) East Futuna fagota: pêche, pêcher, prendre des poissons, des coquillages; bande de poissons qui apparaissent sur les recifs (Rensch 1986) : get seafood from reef (Biggs n.d.) Samoan faagota : to fish, fishing (Milner) Tokelauan faagota : school of fish; fish, catch fish fagota : long-handled scoop net (Ranby) faagota : shoal, school (of reef fish) fagota : to fish (Besnier) Pukapuka waangota : generic term for rod-fishing (Mary Salisbury, p.c.) Kapingamarangi hangota : go fishing with a line (Elbert 1948) haangoda : fishing (Carroll and Soulik) Taku faanota : go fishing (Howard) Luangiua haangoka : women diving for shell food (Salmond) haanota : general term for fishing (Donner) Rennellese haangota : to fish or gather shells, especially by women on the reef (Elbert 1975) faangota : fish in deep sea by hand line.. .catch prey, generally (Firth) Anuta pangota : 1. fishing, to fish, generic term covering all possible methods, but 2. applied especially to fish drives on the reef (Feinberg) 80 Ross Clark

Mele-Fila faagota : gather shellfish, etc. on the reef West Futuna fagota : 1. to fish, generic term for fishing; to hunt for any kind of animal sea life; 2. to fish from a canoe (Dougherty) fangota : to fish (Capell) West Uvea faangota : pêcher, faire la pêche (Hollyman) Rarotongan ’aangota : a large mat basket carried by the women in ancient times when they went out on the reef; the name was also given to a particular manner of fishing (Savage) ’angota : reef foraging (Ma’uke dialect; Richard Walter, p.c.)

Aside from the Tuvalu and Rarotongan glosses referring to fishing implements, all the senses here are verbal. The largest number refer simply to fishing in general. But a well-distributed minority refer to a particular type of fishing. Sometimes, as in Tongan, both the broader and the narrower senses exist in the same language. The more specific mode of fishing referred tofaangota as is described as having shellfish or fingota as its main catch (TON, NIU, EUV, LUA, MEF), the reef as its location (NIU, EFU, REN, MEF, RAR), and women as the fishers (LUA, REN, RAR).

FINGOTA/FANGOTA The similarity of form and meaning between these two can hardly be coincidental; yet the formal difference seems to be an ablaut relation (:/::verb:a), no other examples of which are known to me. We cannot even tell whether noun or verb is to be taken as basic. Evidence from outside Polynesian, however, can shed some light on this. PPN*fangota has a number of clear cognates in non-Polynesian which show a similar range of meanings:

Rotuman hagota to fish, fishing excursion, shoal of certain fish 3 Nguna pavagoda to gather/fish for shells and seafish; to look for shellfish Namakura bavagot to fish Paamese avahangor shell sp. SE Ambrym paegor to fish Lonwolwol fogoor fish, look for fish (on reef etc.) Atchin wa-warog look for fish with torches Mota vangona to catch fish with a line, to get shell-fish etc. for a relish, on the reef or in a canoe Sa’a hangoda haliotis used as bait for crayfish Nggela vangonda to collect food on the reef Bugotu vagoda hunt for shellfish on the reef Marshallese yaged go fishing Motu haoda to fish

These forms imply a verb*pangonta reconstructable at least at the level of Proto-Remote-Oceanic and possibly Proto-Oceanic, referring either to an activity of shell-fish gathering on the reef or to fishing in general. Just asfingota was less widely attested in Polynesian thanfangota , so cognates outside Polynesian are much harder to find. The only exact cognate I have found is

Kilivila vigoda shell (clamps [sic] and snails)

If, on the strength of this and the Polynesian reflexes, we reconstruct Proto-Oceanic*pingonta “shellfish”, we confront once again at this earlier level the problem that such a derivational relation does not seem to be otherwise attested. Two slightly different forms, however, suggest an explanation:

Nguna vinagoda shell, shellfish Tolai winaqonoi generic name for sea-shells

The relation of these two to the verb is by infixation-in-, which of is an attested noun-deriving process in both Oceanic and Western . The process is productive in some Oceanic languages (e.g. Roviana), but in most it survives only in fossilised forms (e.g. Proto-Polynesian*tinaqe “intestines”, cf.*taqe “feces”. Apparently, then, the Nguna and Tolai reflexes represent the original form, which Kilivila and Proto-Polynesian have independently shortened by -na-eliding . the Shellfish and Fishing in Polynesia 81

“SHELLFISH” AND “FISHING” The non-Polynesian evidence discussed in the previous section shows that the verb is historically primary and the noun derived from it. It is also noteworthy that in no case does the derived noun refer to “fish in general”, but rather to shellfish and sometimes other organisms. Thus at the heart offingotalfangota the relation is a derivation:

“gather seafood on reef’:O “seafood gathered on reef ’

This implies that fingota was not originally a biotaxon, but a category of produce,5 though it may subsequently have evolved into a biological category in one or more languages. It also suggests that the narrower sense *pangontaof (“gather shellfish etc.”) is the earlier, and that the word has broadened its meaning to the generic (“to fish”) in a number of languages independently: “gather seafood on reef’<> “seafood gathered on reef’ V V “go fishing in general” “non-ika sea creatures”

What does the fact that this semantic generalisation has apparently taken place repeatedly imply about the status of reef foraging among Oceanic fishing practices? There is as yet no body of established universals of semantic change. But in one well-known discussion of ethno-botanic nomenclature, Berlin (1972) discusses cases where a word is elevated from generic meaning (e.g. “oak”) to major class (e.g. “tree”), and suggests that those names which are so elevated are “precisely those generic names which, because of their distribution and cultural importance, are most salient culturally” (Berlin 1972:66). If we accept that “reef foraging” » “fishing” is comparable to “oak” » “tree”, we can ask whether the distribution and cultural importance of *fangota activity in Oceanic societies single it out from other fishing activities. In fact there is very little information on reef-foraging in the literature on Polynesian fishing. Ethnographers have noted that their (mainly male) informants often consider it “work for women and not really worthy of a man’s attention” (Kirch and Dye 1979:65). Indeed for some it may not be “fishing” at all (Hill 1978:68).6 Certainly it does not seem to be the most culturally salient form of fishing. There are two ways in which we might reconcile this fact with the repeated shift in meaningfangota. of One is to argue that although it is women’s and children’s work, and therefore at an opposite pole from the exciting and prestigious activities such as bonito-trollingRuvettus or fishing, it is nevertheless the activity that more people do more of, more of the time, than any other, and as such is the unmarked case of “fishing”. Another possibility (suggested to me by Robin Hooper) is that a type of ironic inversion is involved. Just because of the low prestige accorded fanto gota, the term could have been used by men - in jest, through modesty, or perhaps for reasons of word taboo - to refer to more serious types of fishing. Clearly more ethnographic evidence will be needed to decide which of these two hypotheses (if either) can best account for the semantic history of this word.

NOTES

1. Ralph Bulmer always encouraged my small efforts in this field, and was unfailingly ready to talk about birds, shellfish or whatever. 2. We need to pause here and ask just what we mean by “shellfish” in English, for there is a more and a less inclusive meaning of the term. As defined in most dictionaries, the term includes both the shelled molluscs (clams, etc.) and the crustaceans (crabs, lobsters etc.). This usage would seem to be stronger in the USA than in . It may be standard in the restaurant trade, and also as labelling a prohibited category in English accounts of the Mosaic dietary laws. For many speakers, however, “shellfish” includes only the molluscs and not the crustaceans. Churchward’s definition cited above shows that he is in the latter group, and it is in this narrower sense that I will use the term in this paper. 3. The Rotuman form is probably a Polynesian borrowing, according to Biggs (1965). 4. The Mele-Filafinagota has “shellfish”, the only Polynesian form with-in- the infix. Since Mele-Fila has borrowed extensively from dialects closely related to Nguna, it is safe to assume that this form is a rather than a uniquely conservative form. 5. Here I am using “produce” to refer to food material as first gathered, as opposed to “food” when it is processed and ready to eat. 6. Once again the investigation of Polynesian terms brings up questions about English semantics. I suspect that many English speakers might have a similar feeling that merely picking things up was not “fishing”, somehow lacking the element of risk or difficulty involved in the use of a line, spear or net. 82 Ross Clark

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INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES IN ETHNOBIOLOGY

Jared M. Diamond University of California School of Medicine, Los Angeles

This chapter concerns methods of overcoming a dilemma that is pervasive in ethnobiology, and that Ralph Bulmer solved especially well. The dilemma stems from the fact that local informants often know far more about their local fauna and flora than do anthropologists working with them. Out of this disparity in knowledge, underappreciated difficulties in eliciting information arise. I became aware of this dilemma in the course of my ornithological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, and the Solomon Islands for the past 26 years. My interests lie in the ecology, evolution, and behaviour of New Guinea birds. Early in my studies I found that local people were walking encyclopedias of information (Diamond 1966,1989). For example, New Guineans have distinct names in their local languages for almost every bird species living in the vicinity. For many species their knowledge of behaviour and life history far exceeds what western scientists know. The same is true of some other peoples elsewhere in the world who similarly depend heavily on wild animals and plants, such as Amazonian Indians. I and other biologists working in such areas want this expertise for its own sake. It would take me several lifetimes of observation to discover for myself what New Guineans already know about the birds I study. By learning names for New Guinea birds in local languages, I can tap into this knowledge. Ethnobiologists are also interested in this expertise, but for another reason. They want to know how different human cultures perceive and organise information. Nothing is so fascinating as understanding how another human being thinks. Ethnobiology offers a well-defined approach to this problem, because species possess an objective reality, and some of the same species occur in areas occupied by different human cultures. Particular goals of ethnobiologists include discovering what units people choose to name (species or other groupings?), whether people group units hierarchically as western scientists group species into genera and families, and whether the answers to these questions vary among peoples. The first step in an ethnobiological study is a seemingly simple one. You have somehow to gather from informants a list of names of birds (or of other animals or plants) in a local language, and to determine which bird each name refers to. Yet the apparent simplicity of this task is deceptive, as I gradually came to realise while gathering such lists in New Guinea myself and re-interviewing New Guineans previously studied by ethnobiologists. Anthropologists focus on theoretically interesting questions posed by naming, but often fail to appreciate the pitfalls in that mundane first step of obtaining a correct list of bird names. While the goal is to understand a people whose perceptions differ from ours, those very differences make it hard for us to discern their perceptions. Let us consider three stimuli that scientists have used to gather lists of bird names: pictures in bird books, dead specimens of birds, and live birds encountered in the jungle. To western scientists, accustomed as they are to book learning, the most obvious approach is this: show an informant a book with pictures of bird species likely to occur in this area, and ask him or her to name the birds depicted. This method has the virtues that a compact field guide may depict hundreds of species, you don’t have to go find and identify birds in the jungle, and every informant is shown the same birds. Among the many anthropologists and linguists who used this method were Leonard Glick (1964) and Kenneth McElhanon (1977) in their respective studies of New Guinea’s Gimi and Selepet peoples.