Results and conclusion Using language and pile-sorting data analysed through Principal Component Analysis, we show how both Zapotec and Cuicatec subjects place a particular emphasis on an intermediate level of classification. These categories group birds with non-birds using ecological and behavioral criteria, and violate a strict distinction between symbolic and mundane (or ‘natural’), and between ‘general-purpose’ and ‘single-purpose’ schemes.
We suggest that shared classificatory knowledge embodying everyday schemes for apprehending the world of birds might be better reflected in a multidimensional model that would also provide a more realistic basis for developing culturally-informed conservation strategies. Over the last 50 years, the study of plant and animal folk classification has provided important evidence for understanding the logic and meaning of the processes by which cultural categories are established more generally. By categories we mean here those entities that the human mind creates in order to make sense of the diversity of experience, by grouping things, attributes and phenomena on the basis of similarity and difference; and by classification, the ways in which categories are related to each other, and the means by which particular cultural patterns are produced.
Since the early path-breaking work of Conklin several directions have developed in the study of the folk classification of living things, which have focussed on a number of different theoretical issues. Five of these are highlighted by Zent : a) universality versus relativity, b) intellectualist versus utilitarian motives, c) taxonomy versus fuzzy sets, d) general purpose versus special purpose classifications, and e) cultural models versus individual contextual schemata.
Let us examine each of these in turn. The debate juxtaposing universality and relativity is associated with the view that the underlying principles, and to some extent the actual categories, evident in different ethnobiological classification systems, reflect universal properties of the human mind. The main proponents here include Cecil Brown , Brent Berlin, James Boster and Scott Atran.
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Berlin provides us with evidence and makes claims for widespread regularities concerning plant and animal categorisation and systems of ethnobiological knowledge organisation across cultures, concluding that underlying similarities reflect a universal human pattern and a common developmental sequence. Both Boster and Atran have progressed Berlin’s approach theoretically and methodologically, connecting it more obviously with current work on human cognition conducted by psychologists.
This work in turn has made possible claims that pan-human regularities in the organisation of natural history knowledge might support the idea that the human mind is ‘modular’. However, models of mental modularity in the human brain build on generalizations concerning a pre-linguistic phase of cognitive development and assume a degree of genetic determination or ‘hard-wiring’. The relativists, by contrast, argue that many aspects of these systems most likely reflect local ecological variation and varying cultural representations and uses , , and insist that many (though not necessarily all) ‘universals’ simply reflect the converging common experience of different groups. As Descola has argued, it may now be necessary to go beyond simplistic notions of universality and relativism in trying to make sense of ethnobiological classification. Taxonomy versus fuzzy sets. This debate is associated with the view, first formulated by Berlin and his colleagues , , of the pan-cultural universality of the idea of taxonomic hierarchy, meaning classification operating through the logic of class inclusion, contrast and ranking.
Others, including Hunn , , have suggested that ethnobiological classifications are in practice often characterised by flexibility and fuzzy logic, and that the taxonomic model may be a misleading guide to how classificatory knowledge is generally stored, retrieved and utilised in oral folk cultures. General-purpose versus special-purpose classifications. This distinction was introduced by Berlin as part of his argument favouring a universal taxonomic model underlying ethnobiological classifications based on ‘natural’ discontinuities, which ‘carve nature at the joints’. Those who have argued against this , , claim that, in practice, people combine aspects of special purpose and general purpose constructs depending on circumstances, and that to distinguish one from the other is too rigid. These same critics argue that a generalization of rank based on abstract properties is inconsistent with a holistic and dynamic conception.
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The position of one category in relation to others much depends on context. Berlin’s idea of a pre-eminent ‘natural’ general-purpose classification also requires excluding symbolic or ritual classifications and placing them in a particular kind of special-purpose classification.
However, the evidence of sorting tests and other methodologies suggest that in many contexts people do not distinguish systematically between general-purpose and special-purpose or between the social and non-social worlds, and - in practical terms - boundaries between these are often unclear. Metaphorical and symbolic thought are central to human cognition of the material world. Symbolic things are in an important sense practical, and practical classifications of the non-social world often rely on metaphors that are ultimately social, as in the use of the terms ‘genus’ and ‘family’ to organise plants and animals. Shared cultural models versus individual contextual schemata. The work of Berlin shows awareness of the problem of ‘the omniscient-speaker hearer’, that is the tendency of ethnographers – sometimes unwarrantedly - to assume a sufficiently high level of cultural sharing to justify statements of the kind ‘the Zapotec believe that’, ‘the Cuicatec know’, etc.
This is often sustained by relying on exceptional individual informants with extensive knowledge. Although all populations require a level of shared cultural knowledge to be effective socially, much of this is distributed and varies according to context. There are now many attempts to measure intra-cultural variation and disagreement among informants through cultural consensus analysis and other methodologies ,. In addition, interviews included a pile-sorting test of the kind advocated by Puri. The test involved 33 13 × 13 cm cards, each card representing a selected species or more-inclusive taxon from the range of fauna known to both populations.
Each card displayed the photograph of an animal (recorded previously in the area) on the front and a number to identify the phylogenetic status of each species on the back. Twenty-eight persons at each research site were recruited to participate in the pile sorts. The group included both male and female children, adolescents and adults (Table ), males and females being selected from alternate households.
All the tests were conducted, where possible, inside the houses of participants to avoid unnecessary crowding and distractions. The data gathered during the card sorting exercise comprised 268 groupings for Zapotec subjects and 247 groupings for Cuicatec subjects. Zapotec and Cuicatec subjects grouped animals in different ways, on the basis of ‘judgments’ of resemblance relating to different kinds of criteria.
In this analysis all judgments have been placed in six main groups. These are: 1) association with humans, 2) behaviour, 3) feeding, 4) habitat, 5) morphological attributes and 6) miscellaneous. As we will show, the judgments are not mutually exclusive and each has a different value. Combining all classificatory judgments made by Zapotec subjects during the pile-sorting exercise we used PCA to generate Figure. The first two components accounted for 24.1464 percent of the variation. In examining this figure we can see that on the X axis the first component forms two groups.
On the left side of the graph is group 1, based on the Eigen values shown in Additional file. These are animals in a positive relationship with humans (S2), being edible or appreciated in other ways, mostly living in tropical forest, having four legs or being defined in neutral terms simply as ‘animals’. On the right hand side of the graph is group 2. These are animals in a negative relationship to humans (S1), being inedible or harmful, or - for example - causing damage by biting. Snails, frogs and fishes are not placed in either group 1 or 2 as they are considered to be aquatic (L1), a classificatory characteristic that is more salient for Zapotec subjects than either positivity or negativity separately. Indeed, the snail is considered to be an animal with neither positive nor negative implications for humans, being an animal of the forest, neutral and with no particular uses.
Figure 2 Principal component analysis for all Zapotec judgments in pile-sorting analysis. If we now examine the PC2 for the Y-axis in Figure, we can distinguish two groups: groups 1 and 2 on the left side of the graph, and group 3 on the right side of the graph. The separation of group 3 from the other two groups reflects the higher values provided by subjects, as indicated in Additional file, namely −0.8243 for flying animals (C3) and −0.8442 for birds (P10). This suggests the criterion of flight as the most important classificatory feature.
Among flying animals, the owl is close to the bat because they are both considered omen animals, with a value of −0.6068. The owl is more salient than the others because it is a nocturnal animal, like a bat, and emits sounds, which also places it with the jaguar and puma on both counts, a relationship indicated in Figure by their being placed within the ellipse bounded by a broken line. Additionally, the curassow ( Crax rubra) is separated from other birds because it does not routinely fly, spending more time walking, and for which reason it is sometimes not considered to be a bird at all. Additional file shows the importance value of each judgment in each of the first three principal components.
The components that contributed more to the first principal component were PC1 and PC2 (4 each), the highest values being those over 0.6, whether negative or positive. For PC1, numbers marked. are the highest: with a value of −0.7241 for character S2 (positive relationship with humans), a value of −0.7247 for character L2 (terrestrial animals which live in the rain forest), a value of −0.7903 for character M10 (animals with four legs), and a value of −0.7903 for character P2, which defines animals as a whole or that ‘just are’ All the highest values - negative or positive - reflect the number of times a particular judgment is mentioned, and the main reasons why people made judgments. If we now turn to Cuicatec judgments for all animals, and examine Figure, and in particular PC 1 on the X-axis, the main grouping obtained is group 1.
This is separated from groups 2 and 3 due to the following high values (Additional file ): -8872 for character B8 (animals designated as ‘clever’, those that are difficult to see, and those that cannot be domesticated); -0.8234 for character H4 (those animals living in tropical forest), -0.7432 for character H5 (those living in semi-deciduous forest, -0.7680 for character M8 (animals with hair), and −0.7503 for character SC4 (mammals). On the Y axis, PC2 generates group 3 separated from groups 1 and 2 due to the higher values for character B13, animals producing sounds (−0.8109), character M10, animals with feathers (−0.8335), and character SC1, pajaritos (−0.7600), that is ‘birds’, though it should be noted that there is no word for ‘birds’ as a whole in either traditional Zapotec or Cuicatec. Group 2 has no high values but is separated as these animals have shells or scales (M4), are very small (M1), inedible and/or harmful (S1). Aquatic or semi-aquatic animals (H1) are also separated, as are humans and donkeys due their symbiotic relationship (S5). If we now examine Figure, the highest values for PC 3 are - 6.471 for herbivores (A1) and 0.6389 for carnivores (A2). This relationship is indicated by their appearance in the figure within the ellipse bounded by a broken line.
In the Cuicatec PCA the first two components accounted for 25.8686 percent of the variation. Figure 5 Three-dimensional graph of principal component 3 in Cuicatec pile-sorting analysis. Considering the range of overlapping criteria used for classifying animals using pile-sorts by Zapotec in San Miguel Tiltepec and by Cuicatec in San Juan Teponaxtla, it is difficult to represent their overall system of folk classification as a two-dimensional scheme, or as a conventional taxonomic tree diagram. Although groupings based on morphology are robustly evident in accordance with the Berlinian model, diverse non-morphological criteria were also used by research subjects (especially in Figures and ), while judgments made in the pile-sorting tests are all interrelated in several, often crosscutting, ways, and vary according to context.
For this reason it is a better reflection of how Zapotec and Cuicatec actually think about the affinities between different animals in everyday situations to use an n-dimensional model in which each item or animal is simultaneously in more than one classificatory arrangement. For example, if we take the case of the owl: in the context of its association with humans it is a member of a category of omen animals; in terms of its behaviour it is a member of a category of nocturnal animals; in terms of its feeding habits it is considered a carnivore, and finally if it is judged in terms of its morphological attributes it is considered as an animal that ‘can be either small or large’. For both Zapotec and Cuicatec, zoological classifications are dynamic, varying according to the different contexts in which people refer to or use animals: for example depending on the perceived relationship between humans and animals, in terms of the habitats that they occupy, their alimentary habits or other features of behaviour, or in terms of their morphological characteristics. In order to capture some sense of this dynamic quality, we selected just eight animal types - snail, bee, spider monkey, deer, eagle, armadillo, jaguar and bat - in order to construct an illustrative three-dimensional model. In Figure, the X-axis represents judgments concerning ‘behaviour’, the Y-axis ‘morphology’ and the Z-axis ‘association with humans’. We can see from the figure that the values or judgments on each axis are different, for example the eagle has a value of 5 on the Y axis, reflecting its status as an omen animal, a value of 8 on the X axis reflecting its status as a flying animal and a value of 6 on the Z axis, reflecting its status as an animal of great size.
It is impossible to represent all judgments registered in both Zapotec and Cuicatec settlements in a graph of six dimensions for the 33 animals sampled. Download film 99 cahaya di langit eropa bluray ganool. It would be even more difficult if we were to attempt to represent their ethnozoological classification in this way. In all the groupings produced by both Zapotec and Cuicatec subjects, the great majority of people used just one judgment in order to decide where to place animals in piles, such as ‘animals with four legs’, or ‘animals that are all edible’, ‘animals with hair’.
Some people used two judgments, such as: ‘animals that are nocturnal and born from eggs’, ‘animals used in sorcery and that are nocturnal’, and ‘carnivorous animals living in cloud forest’. Some groupings did not appear to be accounted for through one or two simple sorting judgments, and involved more complex reasoning of the kind ‘humans take care of donkeys and rabbits, but the tick is on the donkey’, ‘the jaguar may eat the squirrel, the monkey and the coati, but they share a common habitat in the branches of a tree’, ‘animals with no skeleton, but the spider can eat the bee, butterfly, tick, flea, scorpion and beetle’. Table shows the relationship between age, gender and whether the judgment used in grouping animals in the tests were single, binary or multiple. Multiple judgments were reported for two persons in the Zapotec sample and for four persons in the Cuicatec sample. Overall, subjects tended to sort piles based on single criteria.
Age and gender were not shown to influence the results. We can also see how multi-dimensionality might be incorporated into the classificatory knowledge of a single species, by referring to Figure. In this figure Penelope purpurascens (Crested Guan) is classified together with other species depending on different judgments or contexts.
These contexts are the basis for the formation of groups, and each group is represented in the figure as a cube, where each side of the cube represents one judgment or context determining location in the same group. In the Zapotec and Cuicatec ethnobiological worlds there exist as many cubes as there are ideas or qualities to locate the connections relating to species. It is useful to hypothesize how an individual person, Zapotec or Cuicatec, thinks about the classificatory affinities of a particular bird species, uninfluenced by the professional concerns of ethnobiologists or conservation biologists. We might imagine that he or she has in mind a series of prototypical images, represented by the contents of each cube in Figure. But, as Figure shows, these prototypical images share similarities with other species, depending on the judgments used to form the groups in those cubes.
In this example, Penelope purpurascens is presented in different ways, depending on the contents of each of the cubes. It is associated with cube 1 on the right hand side of the figure on the basis of colour.
Purpurascens is linked with the Crow ( Corvus corax-1a ) and the Cowbird ( Molothrus aeneus-1b ) because they both have gloomy feathers, although P. Purpurascens is also linked with the Emerald Toucan ( Aulacorhynchus prasinus-2b ) and the Common Bush-tanager ( Chlorospingus ophthalmicus-2b) in cube 2 since they can all be found together in the same habitat (Cloud Forest). At the same time, P.
Purpurascens can be placed with the Great Curassow ( Crax rubra-3b) and the Long-tailed Wood-partridge ( Dendrortyx macroura-3b) in cube 3 as they all share a similar behaviour, in spending most of the time strutting around on the forest floor, but at the same time gregarious. Purpurascens is linked to the birds inside cube 4 due to similarities in the way in which these species interact with people. All are regarded as ‘smart’, P. Purpurascens, the Plain Chachalaca ( Ortalis vetula-4b) and the Montezuma Quail ( Cyrtonyx montezumae-4a) being perceived as difficult to catch or see, escaping easily from a human presence. In turn, the theme of human interaction links the species, on the one hand in cube 4–1 with the Muscovy duck ( Cairina moschata-4-1b) and the Red Billed Pigeon ( Patagioenas flavirostris-4-1b) because all are edible, and on the other hand in cube 4–2 with the Squirrel Cuckoo ( Piaya cayana-4-2a) and Boucard’s Wren’ ( Campylorhynchus zonatus-4-2b) as Cuicatec omen animals.