Subject: [Tweeters] Kudos to Gene Hunn:Mayan words for birds
Date: Feb 24 09:36:52 2005
From: Levine, Barron - LevineB at bsd405.org


Tweeters,
Just came across this on Mex-birds and thought I'd pass it on to those who would be interested. The post mentions our own Gene Hunn and some of the work he has done in Mexico. Buena suerte.

Barry Levine
Seattle
Levineb at bsd405.org

________________________________

From: rbehrstock [mailto:naturewideimages at cox.net]
Sent: Thu 2/24/2005 8:02 AM
To: Mexico-Birding at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Mexico-Birding] Mayan words for birds





Dear birdsters,

Jim Gain's question about Spanish/Mexican names for birds (warblers)
is an interesting one. Unfortunately, the majority of field guide
names are rough translations of the English names and don't always
reflect what the birds are called "by the locals." The UNAM website
provided earlier in this discussion by Dr. Antonio Hidalgo R. may
provide a more realistic view from a Mexican approach.

Members of this list may be interested in several papers published by
Eugene Hunn (Dept. Anthropology, U.W., Seattle) including these below:

Hunn, Eugene S. 1975. "The Tenejapa Tzeltal Version of the Animal
Kingdom." Anthropological Quarterly 48:14-30.

Hunn, Eugene S. 1975. "A Measure of the Degree of Correspondence of
Folk to Scientific Biological Classification." American Ethnologist
2:309-327.


Gene's work with the Tzeltal-speaking Mayans who live just outside
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas culminated in the book:

Hunn, Eugene S. 1977. Tzeltal Folk Zoology: The Classification of
Discontinuities in Nature. Academic Press, New York.

The book considers many groups of animals and discusses the Mayan
names. More than that, it considers the development of a folk
taxonomy based on encountering various organisms and considering
their usefulness/danger/time of appearance, etc. Those of you who
still believe that Adam and Eve named all the animals in the Garden
of Eden will find it especially fascinating.

I mention this because of Jim Gain's reference to names for migrant
warblers. My (hopefully correct) recollection of Gene's warbler data
in the book is that the Tzeltal had names for the various resident
warblers in the mountains around San Cristobal, but were
sophisticated enough (without binoculars, of course) to lump the
passage migrants with a term that applied to all of them, rather than
coining separate names for each one.

At any rate, if you can find the book or the papers, they're most
interesting.

Best,
RAB
_____________________
Robert A. Behrstock
Naturewide Images
10359 S. Thicket Pl.
Hereford, AZ 85615
Phone: (520) 378-3262
FAX: (520) 378-0216
N31? 22.814' W110? 10.677' c. 5,100' elev.
http://members.cox.net/naturewideimages/Naturewide_Images_Home_Page.in
dex.html





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