Background to the study

I first undertook fieldwork among the Nuaulu of south central Seram between 1969 and 1971. During this research, with its ecological orientation [Ellen, 1978b], it became increasingly evident that in order to analyse adequately how this eastern Indonesian people interacted with their environment, it was necessary to pay attention to the way in which it was apprehended and classified [Ellen, 1982]. The point, of course, had been made much earlier by Conklin [Conklin, 1957], and had been implicit in much of his subsequent work, as well as in that of others who owe him an intellectual debt. At the same time I was already intrigued and impressed by new ethnobiological reports then appearing, particularly the work of Berlin and his various associates in Mexico, and that of Bulmer and his associates working in Papua New Guinea.

Specifically, my interests were motivated on the one hand by a recognition that ethnobiology was a neglected (though fundamental) part of social anthropology, with implications for the study of subsistence behaviour, ecology, categorisation and belief; and on the other by a fascination with and an admiration for the rigorous techniques employed, and the detailed data obtained, by a handful of dedicated ethnographic enthusiasts. I judged it of some interest to attempt to replicate and evaluate these methods and results in a region – eastern Indonesia – for which they were at that time unknown.