The Folk Biology of the Tobelo People - Smithsonian Institution ...

The Folk Biology of the Tobelo People
A Study in Folk Classification
Paul Michael Taylor
1. Introduction
1.1 The Description of Tobelo Folk Classification justify die publication of this overview of Tobelo folk
classificatory knowledge. As later identifications become
This description of Tobelo folk biological classification available, tiiey can be incorporated into more specific studies of
presents data gatiiered during approximately thirty-seven folk classification and uses of particular groups, which can in
montiis of ethnographic field research in Tobelo-speaking, turn refer back to die generalizations presented here about die
largely Christian, coastal villages of Halmahera Island (Moluc­ patterns of Tobelo nomenclature, and about the structure of
cas, Indonesia). The scope of this study resulted in a highly Tobelo folk biological classification.
comprehensive survey of die folk biological knowledge of one This study begins by considering, in tiiis chapter, the local
human culture—probably die most comprehensive such study linguistic context in which folk classification occurs (including
ever undertaken by a single individual. Yet any study of such a dialect differences, bilingualism and multilingualism, die
topic is inherently collaborative, because an intelligible in-law name taboo, and particular speech registers for which
description of folk biology must relate folk classification to our Tobelo consider tiieir language inappropriate). In Chapter 2,
scientists' Linnaean taxonomy. To document die conclusions Tobelo cultural presumptions about die origin and die nature of
presented here, die autiior assembled die world's largest folk biological classification are reviewed. Then (Chapter 3) an
collections of Halmahera's fauna and flora, and distributed investigation of folk nomenclature details methods for die
diem to specialists at many institutions. For a fauna and flora as identification of lexemes, proposes a new typology of lexemic
rich and as littie-known as Halmahera's, tiiis requires an types diat differs from typologies used by omer authors, and
international effort on die part of hundreds of specialists. discusses die advantages of mis new typology. Data from folk
Despite the yeoman efforts of many biologist colleagues, nomenclature are among those considered in positing culturally
that effort is still far from complete, as is indicated by this relevant unlabeled ("covert") classes (Chapter 4), including die
book's Appendixes' many annotations like "sp. or spp. undet." class BIOTIC FORM, die semantic domain whose classifica­
(one or more undetermined species), followed only by the name tory structure of inter-articulated taxonomic and non-
of the biological family to which specimens can be assigned. taxonomic relations is considered below in detail (Chapter 5).
Many specimens that were distributed to specialists more than "Folk biology" (or "etiinobiology") here refers to die
nine years ago remain unidentified. Some groups (such as "conceptualisation and classification of plants and animals, and
birds) were quickly identified, the taxonomy regularly updated, knowledge and belief concerning biological processes" (Bul-
and die collections widely used for ongoing research on mer, 1974:9) by individuals widiin an ethnic unit (e.g., "die
Wallacean avifauna. For otiier groups (mollusks, arthropods, Tobelo"). The semantic and classificatory emphasis of tiiis
some fish), identifications below family level have been much analysis is justified primarily because Tobelo decisions about
more difficult to obtain. Yet I believe that enough time has dietary, technological, medical, and other uses of plants and
already elapsed, and enough identifications already obtained, to animals (see 2.2 below) are presumably based on criteria tiiat
can be linguistically expressed and discussed, and on a system
of grouping plants and animals into classes used in natural
Paul Michael Taylor, Department of Anthropology,National Museum
of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560.
language. "Folk classification" (cf. Conklin, 1980:7-13) here