444Andrew Pawley meaning to the rules of grammar. To grant certain well-formed strings lexeme status just because they are frequently used is, I believe, objectionable to grammarians on several grounds: (i) Economy. Some strings now must be specified twice, once generated by the grammar, once listed in the lexicon. (ii) Vagueness. How frequently must a well-formed string be used to qualify it for lexeme status? (iii) Structural boundaries. Grammar and lexicon have complementary functions, one being generative, the other being a list of primitive elements. This step breaks down the clear division of labour between them, because many formulas are productive. (iv) Loss of autonomy. The generative component of language should be independent of any particular culture. Formulas belong to the domain of language use, not to language structure. Objections (i-iii) simply reflect one possible view of the nature and boundary of the lexicon. There is no good evidence that language users organise their linguistic knowledge in terms of the kinds of economies and structural boundaries beloved of grammarians. However, in many respects productive formulas do have a different character from typical lexemes, and so I prefer not to call them lexemes but formulas, and to speak of the formulaic component of a language-culture system. Objection (iv) is a terminological quibble. It reflects an arbitrary preference to define language structure narrowly, so as to exclude conventions that reflect the common usages and worldview of language users. REFERENCES GRACE, George, 1981. An Essay on Language. Columbia, S.C., Hornbeam Press. -----------, 1987. The Linguistic Construction of Reality. London, Croom Helm. LANE, Jonathan, 1991. Kalam Serial Verb Constructions in Kalam. MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland. MAJNEP, Ian Saem, and Ralph BULMER, in preparation. Animals the Ancestors Hunted: An Account of the Wild Mammals of the Kalam Area, Papua New Guinea. Based on English Text of Kalam Hunting Traditions. Working Papers I-XII. University of Auckland, Department of Anthropology Working Papers. PAWLEY, Andrew, 1987. Encoding Events in Kalam and English: Different Logics for Reporting Experience, in Russell S. Tomlin (ed.), Coherence and Grounding in Discourse. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 329-60. -----------, 1991. How to Talk Cricket: on Linguistic Competence in a Subject Matter, in Robert Blust (ed.) Currents in Pacific Linguistics: Essays on Austronesian Languages and Ethnolinguistics in Honour of George W. Grace. Canberra, Pacific Linguisics, C-117. pp. 339-68. AUSTRONESIAN CLASSIFICATION AND THE CHOICE OF ENDEAVOUR Wendy Pond Stout Research Centre, Wellington E te iwi o te Tai Tokerau whānui, tēnā koutou katoa. E tuku atu nei i aku mihi kia koutou i āwhina mai i ngā mahi whakaatu i ngā ingoa Māori mo āhua ngārara katoa o tenei rohe. Me mihi kau ake ahau i tenei wā ki ēnei kaumātua kua whetūrangitia na rātou tonu i timata ngā mahi nō tēnei kaupapa whakaatu i ingoa Maori o ngā ngārara mō te rohe o te Tai Tokerau: kia Tauwhitu Papa, kia Rapata Tucker, rāua ko tona hoa wahine kia Riripeti, kia Vivian Gregory, kia Tureiti Whetoi Pomare, kia Ned Nathan, kia Frederick Augustus Conrad, kia Tuhi Maihi, kia Rewi Pereri Wiki, kia Te Rongomau Kaka nō tona hoa wahine kia Te Kiu, kia Ngarongoa (Nga Ihaia) Rewiti, me Hemowai Brown. E kui mā, e kara mā, kei te mau mahara tonu kia koutou: moe mai katoa i roto i te ariki. I have been working in Northland, New Zealand, recording the Māori names of insects and terrestrial arthropods. My collection of specimens was prepared by the Auckland branch of the Entomological Society. The elders remarked on the craftsmanship and manual dexterity evident in the mounting of the specimens, and they expressed appreciation of the contribution by members of the Society to giving Māori names scientific definition. The final referees of the work are the tribal councils of Northland. * * * AN Classification and the Choice of Endeavour 445 In the culture inherited by some elders of the Tai Tokerau tribes of Northland, an inescapable omen of death is presented by a green gecko, kākawariki, kākāriki, Naultinus elegans (Gray), crossing their path or laughing at them: the gecko has appeared to that person because the death of a relative is already foretold. Some people will immediately cut the gecko in pieces, with a karakia. Others have been taught to let every creature go its way and to forebear. I am wrestling with the problem that some people of Tai Tokerau have expressed a wish that I should not record the omens and tapu and spiritual significance of native creatures. Some feel such knowledge should not be written down to be transmitted without guidance; some feel it will be denigrated as heathen; some feel it should not be known outside their own family. Others give this information freely and ponder on the philosophical wisdom of their ancestors with loving respect. The collision of cultures instigates debate. The tribal councils will decide what records of spiritual practice should be published. What response will New Zealand scientists make to these records? Both cultures can appreciate that prohibitions on human action are inserted at certain points in the chain of being to prevent harm being done in the natural and social worlds. The omen of death that the sighting of a green gecko implies, asserts the existence of spiritual power. If the omens and tapu are left out, the natural world will be unprotected by Maori values. Also, if New Zealand scientists fail to play their part and deride Maori metaphors and Maori respect for spiritual qualities, Māori control of the landscape will be displaced by Pakeha control, as it has been by the appointment of Pākehā wild life and conservation officers. If Maori spiritual values get pushed aside, we have not constructed a bicultural society. On the other hand, the elders deeply appreciate scientific validation of their inherited knowledge. Both sides can proceed through critical appreciation of the other’s perspective. I walk in the footsteps of Dr David Miller (1952), a former director of Entomology Division at DSIR who compiled a list of 385 Maori names of insects from historical records; Dr Graeme Ramsay (n.d.) who examined Maori names of Orthoptera, and Winstanley and Brock (n.d.) who examined Maori names of crickets. These entomologists were vexed by the inadequacy of the historical records. Maori names have been defined in terms of common English classification, as in Williams’ Dictionary (1971): ngaro ‘fly, blow fly’. Ngaro is an Austronesian category of short-legged, stout-bodied flying insects, which includes house flies, blow flies, the native solitary bees and wasps, and excludes long-legged, weak-bodied flies such as crane flies, sand flies and mosquitoes. Further, Williams’ Dictionary does not identify dialects, and entomologists have meanwhile attempted to relate dialect variations to different species. Thus, New Zealand has about 40 species of cicada, 12 of which are found in Northland. Each Tai Tokerau dialect name, tātarakihi, kihikihi, paeke, encompasses all cicadas, but Miller (1952:44), using historical records without field work, proposed: “Tatarakihi could be specifically applied to the spatial, sibilant-voiced cicadas such as Melampsalta ca ssio p e ”It was clear that field work was necessary to complete gaps in the record, to provide accurate definitions of Maori concepts, and to determine dialect territories. FIELDWORK 1985-88 This was a dramatic period in which to carry out fieldwork. I worked in a climate of historical injustice; of hostility at the presence of a Pakeha; of confrontation and challenge; of hospitality, courtesy, and shared commitment; of wry reflection, and sadness at the loss of the old Maori culture loved by the elders. My role was to open a channel for exchange of knowledge between the elders and natural scientists. Reservation was expressed that my records would not be accurate. Certainly, knowledge was withheld, but knowledge was given with sincere wish for its accurate transmission. I came to see that those elders who were bellicose, contentious and abrupt towards me, acted likewise to everyone : the old generation of Maori people is not racist: their spirit responds to whatever lives. In our explorations of the meanings of words, is their love of their language and their inherited Maori culture. It is my own generation, with its loss of knowledge, which reacts with anger. At Kaitaia, my work was criticised by a Kohanga Reo instructor. She observed that the work proceeded because of my perseverance and because Maori people were unaware that the names of insects comprised a coherent body of knowledge to the Pākehā. She said people gave the knowledge because it was the first time they had been asked to recall it. I was shaken by her distress at the raiding Pākehā, and I was sometimes aware, in households, that my peers resented their parents transmitting their knowledge to me. In Auckland ACORD, the Auckland Committee on Racial Discrimination, sent a deputation of Pakeha women to instruct me to stop the work. They said Pakeha must not transmit Māori knowledge. At Whangarei, I met Māori journalists who, instead of staring through me, embraced natural science as an aspect of māoritanga they had overlooked, and berated me for being so weak-kneed. At the rate I was progressing, they said, the work would take a lifetime. At Panguru, Charlotte Cassidy and Whina Cooper were preparing for the Pope’s visit. Whina had me remove the tinsel braid from Charlotte’s dress, saying it was in bad taste. Then Whina played the piano while Charlotte soaked her feet in a basin of warm water. The field work was a saga of war and peace. 446 Wendy Pond STATE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE Natural scientists are still exploring the Gondwanaland continental fragments which exist today as South Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia-New Guinea-Tasmania, and Aotearoa-New Caledonia.