Gregory Forth – författare

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.

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.

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.