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Downloaded From R. Blust Rat ears, tree ears, ghost ears and thunder ears n Austronesian languages In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 156 (2000), no: 4, Leiden, 687-706 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:56:29PM via free access ROBERT BLUST Rat Ears, Tree Ears, Ghost Ears and Thunder Ears in Austronesian Languages 1. Introduction Mushrooms occupy a peculiar place both in the natural order and in the realm of culture. Unlike chlorophyllous plants, they do not manufacture their food by photosynthesis, and so in place of the reassuring green of typical leafy vegetation, they present a pale and sickly cast, often suggestive of rot and decomposition. As if this fundamentally unattractive physical appear- ance were not enough to mark them off as an alien life form, the suddenness ' of their appearance, often following thunderstorms, has created a universal aura of mystery in folk conceptions of these organisms. Finally, a number of mushrooms have hallucinogenic properties which link them with trance-like states of spirit possession. These qualities have left a lexical imprint in human language generally. The purpose of this paper is to document the occurrence in Austronesian languages of words for mushrooms or related types of fungi which translate literally as 'rat ear', 'tree ear', 'ghost ear' and 'thunder ear', and to make some preliminary suggestions as to what may have motivated such expressions. 2. Fungi as ears It might seem surprising that mushrooms are called by the same morpheme as 'ear', but the more detailed descriptions often specify the referent as a jelly fungus. Unlike the more familiar umbrella-shaped fruiting bodies of mush- rooms, jelly fungi are saprophytes, which sprout directly from the trunks of dead trees as a collection of folded tissues which may appear cup-like or ear- like. Indeed, the comparison of such fungi to ears is a universal feature of human perception, reflected in many different language families, as well as in the name of the Linnaean genus Auricularia ('ear-like'). Well-known ex- ROBERT BLUST obtained his PhD at the University of Hawaii, where he is currently Professor of Linguistics, specializing in comparative Austronesian linguistics and culture history. His pub- lications include 'Early Austronesian social organization; The evidence of language1, Current Anthropology, 1980, and Austronesian root theory, Benjamins, 1988. Professor Blust may be con- tacted at the Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii, Moore Hall 569, 1890 East-West Rd., Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. BK1156-4 (2000) Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:56:29PM via free access 688 Robert Blust amples include the Jew's ear (Auricularia auricula-judae), which The Oxford English Dictionary describes as a mistranslation of medieval Latin auricula Judae 'ear of Judas', 'so called from its shape and its frequent occurrence on the elder, the tree from which Judas Iscariot reputedly hanged himself, and the Mandarin mu er ('wood ear'), commonly described as a jelly fungus which grows on trees. Heyne (1927:52), who gives the Auriculariaceae as a group of the Basidiomycetes (a large group of fungi including the smuts, rusts, mushrooms and puffballs), lists some less well-known terms in European languages which are missing from even the larger dictionaries, including French oreilles de chat 'cat ears', and Dutch muizenoortjes 'mouse ears.' Terms of similar semantic structure are also found in languages of the Americas, as seen in Lakota chan nankpa (literally 'tree ear' or 'wood ear'), which Gilmore (1919:62) describes as 'a fungus found growing on ash trees: Polystictus versicolor L.', and Tzotzil cikin c'o con (literally 'ear-rat-animal') 'highland "mushroom": Panus sp.', said to be a herb which resembles ear fungi (Laughlin 1975:119). A number of Austronesian languages use the mor- pheme for 'ear' or a reduplicated shape of the same form without further modification to refer to some type of fungus, as in Pazeh (central Taiwan) saringa 1. ear, 2. wood-ear fungus; Puyuma (south-eastern Taiwan) 1. TangiLa 'ear', 2. TangiLa-ngiLa-yan 'Jew's ear: Auricularia auricula-judae'; Itbayaten (northern Philippines) talina 1. outer ear, earlobe, auricle, 2. edible tree fun- gus: Auricularia auricula-judae L.; Nauna (Admiralty Islands) 1. taling 'ear', 2. taling-ling 'mushroom'; Nggela (central Solomons) talinga 1. wax in the ear, 2. fungus, mushrooms on mbiluma tree; Kwaio (south-eastern Solomons) 1. ali- nga-na (with obligatory 3sg possessive pronoun) 'ear', 2. alinga 'mushroom'; Sa'a (south-eastern Solomons) alinge 1. ear, 2. large fungi, some edible, grow- ing on logs; Rotuman/a/mgfl 1. ear, 2. toadstool or fungus; Tongan 1. telinga 'ear', 2. talinge-linga 'fungus'; Samoan talinga 1. ear, 2. name given to several types of fungus, including Jew's ear. 2.1. Rat ears Austronesian terms for mushrooms which translate literally as 'rat ear' include the following: Table 1. Names for mushrooms that have the semantic structure 'rat ear' in Austrone- sian languages Bontok koleng si otot (ear-rat) Tagalog tainga-ng daga' (ear-LIG-rat) Malay chendawan telinga tikus (mushroom-ear-rat) Tae' talinga balao (ear-rat) Marshallese lojilnin kijdik (ear of rat) Samoan taliga 'imoa (ear-rat) Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:56:29PM via free access Rat Ears, Tree Ears, Ghost Ears and Thunder Ears 689 Rarotongan taringa kiore (ear-rat) Tuamotuan taringa kiore (ear-rat) Reid (1976:162) glosses Bontok koleng si otot as 'a kind of thin, non-edible bracket fungus which grows on trees'. Webster (1924:90) gives Tagalog tai- nga-ng daga" as the Auricularia polytricha, a 'fleshy, leathery, rather thin, more or less lobed fungus 5-15 cm. in diameter which grows on dead wood of many species'. Burkill (1935:268) describes Malay chendawan telinga tikus or kulat telinga tikus as a fungus which grows on rotting wood: Auricularia auri- cula-judae, Schroet. Van der Veen (1940:660) lists Tae' talinga balao as 'a type of fungus which grows on the underside of decaying bamboo of the genus Den- drocalamus in the shape of a rat's ear'. Abo et al. (1976:184) give Marshallese lojilnin kijdik as 'a plant, toadstool Auricularia ampla Persoon, and other ear- like Basidiomycetes (fungi)'. Savage (1980:359), finally, lists Rarotongan taringa kiore as 'a species of fungus which grows on decaying trees'. The Samoan and Tuamotuan glosses are less informative. The motivation for the expression 'rat ear' is relatively transparent. Jelly fungi come in many sizes and shapes, but the Auricularia are typically thin and smooth. Because they lack internal structure their general shape re- sembles the ears of rodents or other small mammals more nearly than a human ear. They are typically brown or reddish-brown, with a soft velvety exterior when young, while older fruiting bodies dry out and have a pale grey, furry exterior. In texture they are tough and rubbery, hence all in all the comparison appears to be one which could easily have arisen through con- vergent innovation. 2.2. Tree ears Austronesian terms for mushrooms which translate literally as 'wood ear' or 'tree ear' include the following: Table 2. Names for mushrooms that have the semantic structure 'wood ear1 or 'tree ear' in Austronesian languages Itbayaten talina nu kayuh (ear-of-tree) Kankanaey inga-n di kaiw (ear-of-tree) Hanunoo talingabatang (ear-log) Chamorro talanga-n hayu (ear-of tree) Erai aikinin (tree-ear) Mondropolon cannl key (ear-tree) Maori taringa rakau (ear-tree) Again, one does not have to go far to understand the motivation for this term. Since saprophytes most commonly grow on the trunks of decaying trees, it is not surprising that they would be called 'tree ears' or 'wood ears' Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:56:29PM via free access 690 Robert Blust in various languages (in most Austronesian languages the meanings 'wood' and 'tree' are not lexically distinguished). The real challenge, then, is to explain why some bracket fungi are called 'ghost ears' or 'thunder ears'. 2.3. Interlude: Mushrooms in culture In an essay engagingly entitled 'Mushrooms in culture' the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1976) sketched the fundamentals of an ethnology of mushrooms, or ethnomycology. Levi-Strauss's essay is divided into two parts. The first is an overview of the seminal work of R. Gordon Wasson (1968), with an occasional aside to Wasson and Wasson (1957), and the sec- ond a brief survey of the ethnomycology of the Americas outside Mexico, prompted in part by a critical assessment of some of the more general claims made by Wasson. The Wassons advanced several intriguing propositions about mushrooms in culture, including the following: 1. cultures can be characterized as being either passionately mycophile, or mushroom-loving (Russians, most Medi- terranean peoples), or passionately mycophobe, or mushroom-despising (Celtic and Germanic peoples); 2. globally mushrooms 'are associated with either thunder and lightning, or the devil, or madness'; 3. these associations reflect an ancient Eurasian mushroom cult which was widespread in early Europe, but became obscured by the invasions of mycophobe Celtic and Germanic peoples; 4. similar cults are preserved among aboriginal peoples in Siberia and Mexico, where they revolve around the consumption of the hal- lucinogenic umbrella-shaped fly agaric, or Amanita muscaria, easily identified by its large flat or rounded cap ranging in colour from a speckled bright red to a dull gold. Wasson (1968) attempts to shed light on certain of the Vedic texts of ancient India which refer to the soma, identified variously as a plant, the juice of that plant, and a god. Earlier attempts to isolate the referent of 'soma' were unsuccessful in various ways, and Wasson shows how a number of obscure references in the Vedic texts yield a straightforward interpretation once the soma is identified with the Amanita muscaria.
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