Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies

Brent Berlin

Published by Princeton University Press 1992

Ethnobiological Classification

Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies

Brent Berlin

Volume 185 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400862597

Overview
Contents

About this book

A founder of and leading thinker in the field of modern ethnobiology looks at the widespread regularities in the classification and naming of plants and animals among peoples of traditional, nonliterate societies--regularities that persist across local environments, cultures, societies, and languages. Brent Berlin maintains that these patterns can best be explained by the similarity of human beings' largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and animals: people recognize and name a grouping of organisms quite independently of its actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance in human society. Berlin's claims challenge those anthropologists who see reality as a "set of culturally constructed, often unique and idiosyncratic images, little constrained by the parameters of an outside world." Part One of this wide-ranging work focuses primarily on the structure of ethnobiological classification inferred from an analysis of descriptions of individual systems. Part Two focuses on the underlying processes involved in the functioning and evolution of ethnobiological systems in general.

Originally published in 1992.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Reviews

This well-researched and enthusiastically written book is a major contribution to ethnobiology.... This book is aimed at professional ethnobiologists, but it will also be of value to those who are interested in linguistics, systematics, psychological mechanisms, and the postmodernist debate.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
PART ONE: Plan
CHAPTER ONE. On the Making of a Comparative Ethnobiology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
CHAPTER TWO. The Primacy of Generic Taxa in Ethnobiological Classification Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
CHAPTER THREE. The Nature of Specific Taxa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
CHAPTER FOUR. Natural and Not So Natural Higher-Order Categories Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
PART Two: Process
CHAPTER FIVE. Patterned Variation in Ethnobiological Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
CHAPTER SIX. Manchúng and Bíkua: The Nonarbitrariness of Ethnobiological Nomenclature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
CHAPTER SEVEN. The Substance and Evolution of Ethnobiological Categories Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	260
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Author Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
Index of Scientific Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Index of Ethnoscientific Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	322
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331

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