EXPLORATIONS TN ANTHROPOLOGY

A University College London Series

Se¡ies Editors: Barbara Bender, John Gledhill and Bruce Kapferer

Joan Bestard-Camps, What's in a Relatiae? Household and Family in Formentera

Henk Driessen, On the Spanish-Moroccan Frontier: A Study in Ritual, Power and Ethnicity
Redefining Nature
Alf¡ed Gell, The Anthropology ofTìme: Cultural Construction ofTemporal Maps and Images
Trm lngold, David Riches and James Woodbum (eds), Hunterc and Gatherers
Volume 1 History, Eoolution and Social Change
Volume 2. Property, Power and ldeology Ecology, Culture and D omesticøtion
Bruce Kapferer, A Celebratíon of Demons (2nd edn.)

Guy Lanoue, Brothers: The Politics q Violence among the Sekani of Northern British Columbia

Jadran Mimica, Intimations of lnfinity: The Mythopoeia of the Iqwaye Counting System and
Number

Barry Morris, Domesticating Resistance: The Dhan-Cadi Aborigínes and the Australian State Edited by
Thomas C. Pate¡son, The Inca Empire: The Formation and Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist
State
Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui
Max and Eleanor Rimoìdi , Hahølís and the Labour of Loae: A Social Mouement on Buka Island
Pnina Werbner, The Migration Process: Capítal, Cifts and Offerings among Pakistanis in Britain

Joel S. Kahn, Constituting the Minangknbau: Peasants, Culture, and Modernity in Colonial
Indonesia

Gisli Pálsson, Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse

Stephen Nutent, Amazonian Caboclo Society

Barbara Bender, Landscape: Politics and Perspectiues

Christopher Tilley (ed.), Interpretatioe Archaeology
Emesl S. Burch Jr and Linda J. Ellanna (eds), Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research

Daniel Miìle¡, Modernity - An Ethnographic Approach: Dualism and Mass Consumptíon in

Tiinidad
Robert Pool, Dialogue and the Interpretation of IIIness: Conuersations in a Cameroon Village
CécÍle Barraud, Danieì de Coppet, André lteanu and Raymond Jamous (eds), Of Relations
and the Dead: Four Socíeties Víaaed flom the Angle of their Exchanges

Christopher Tilley, A PhenÒmenology of Landscape: Pløces, Paths and Monuments

Victoria Goddard, Josep Llobera and Cris Shore (eds), The Anthropology of Europe: Identity
and Boundaries in Conflict
Pat Caplan (ed.), Uiderptanding Disputes: The Politics of ArgtLment

Daniel de Coppet and André Iteanu (ed.), Society and Cosmos: Their lnterrelations or Their
Coalescence in Melanesia

Alisdair Rogers and Steven Vertovec (eds), The Urban Context: Ethnicity, Social Networks and
situational Analysis
Saskia Kersenboom, Word, Sound, Image: The Life of the Tamil Text BERG
Daniel de Coppet and André Iteanu (eds), Cosmos and Socíety in Oceania
Oxford . Washingdon, D.C.
XXlI Preface
Namihira and Manabu Tsukamoto were present as guest
observers and we are grateful to them for their presence and
active participation in the concluding session, and to Hiroshi
Matsuda.
Most of the editing involved in producing this volume has
taken place at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC), and
we would like to thank Jan Horn of the Department of Sociology
and Social Anthropology for her expertise and efficiency in
preparing the papers to a high standard and in dealing with a
variety of administrative matters. Some of the original figures
have been redrawn with the help of the UKC Printing Unit
(Lesley Farr and Chris Lancaster), and we are pleased to
acknowledge their assistance in this. Finally, we thank Barbara
Delaney, Marion Berghahn, Kathryn Earle, Sara Everett and
Robert Parkin for their patience and cooperation in ensuring that
a complex international collaborative project, long in gestation,
eventually reached fruition.
Katsuyoshi Fukui, Kyoto
Roy Ellen, Canterbury
Chapter L
Introduction
Roy Ellen
Backgroundl
Humankind has evolved over several million years by living in
and utilizing nature, by transforming and assimilating it into
culture. Indeed, the biological success of our species has been
widely accepted to rest upon its abilities to influence, manipulate
and completely change this thing called nature.2 Yet, by the
sixties of the present century the idea that culture is divorced
from, and necessarily in confrontation with, nature was being
challenged by the experience of non-Western 'holistic' philo-
sophies, by advances in environmental biology, by the
recognition of the damage done by environmentally unfriendly
practices, and in a new generation of more profound anthropo-
logical studies of ecology.
people as parts of largel svqtems, olÌ cul_tEre ir¿ na_!ure, on_the
cultural cotsfrucfíon of nature, arld on species co-existence and
sustainable 4eyg!gp:!9.1 !.3
Anthropology is increasingly concerned with such matters, as
they become more urgent for Homo sapiens as a whole, and as
they become routinized as parts of political prograrnmes and
t volume seeks to review the
cun€nt condition of the
historia¡s to assert, and in some cases demonstrate in convincing
detail, the cultural, ideological and moral construction of nature,
th" r"ul
"hull".gS_4lq_q _:nplf",+"[-"1:. _91^9-.9ç.f.
1
 Introduction
epistgpglggiç¡l l"t"lyiry {gl_9"'ç _gþiççtiy"_ ptaçt!1e1of gcientists
oJ_e-rl!iil4:.1llglÞj_![.js-*tra3¡þaptt_rþ"il-t-gl_tlrelg,"
implepgn-!qh*g"11!he.Iiveg.-o_f pe-o'p lgo,u!si{e*the_{ç-qg!_e_4y.We
need to ask, for example, what deconstructionism means for the
way scientists and administrators deal practically with issues
which are seemingly no longer clear cut, and to what extent we
are able to separate our scientific selves, for whom concepts have
precise and understood contingent characters, from our broader
cultural selves, where other meanings interfere. Can person and
environment ever be anything but implicate in each other? Is the
'environment'the same as the environment? To what degree can
we anyway cope at a practical level with the multiple ordering of
realities, or do we need the re-assuringly straightforward
certainties of Cartesian dualism? A relativist discourse of nature
and culture is much easier to hãñãlè for fhose who are in a
päsitión tô ireai ali their.agta as téx!1, who-de¡y_orAave no
¡l,erplisil-9gFparlpglgl pat4*$elg9-lgreltzetio* It it
T!ql9s,t
lLuçLnlele 4iffi-cr+l! if wç-ryiqþ !o-lrelqi4!ç lhe inpe-rt qr pggh
oo
in
of
èiÞláin hòw-il-is= $at humans beem to share a'particulai
glpg_r-iglç_-e*qf- Fq ly_"t14 sufficiently !o be able to find the things
thgy ¡1Ik abqul ry-çog1rzable.
The present book examines these issues through twenty
contributions based on research conducted among a wide range
of peoples throughout the world, from the prehistoric and
historic past as well as the ethnographic present. The boôk is
organized around three themes: nature as cul!g¡1! goncgp_1Ure
l
ction of studies of the
_Ieletic!glgqyeqllp9-ç.úlq do{nes_ticates and Ëuman põp_"tugqnq,
and the çg+g¡'1+lgpþUs-rbllit)a of the. idea of cultural adaptarion
to the environment.
.öF
The first is concerned with the negotiable
cTãiacter tnõ nature-culture dichotomy, and seeks to &amine
approaches to understanding it which go beyond conventional
unreflexive assumptions. The second theme builds on the
observation that particular species of domesticated plants and
animals have evolved through mutual interaction with human
populations, and focuses on the various cultural strategies
involved. The third theme focuses on the extent to which it
n q_q94 lç*t9_ jp,s-el<- gl_isitùrg _31a s oã i e ty el I lç n ç s ltru:
'-'_
Introduction
'inf ius!çins',1$u+ue_+å.:ee9_|{ing,.lS_gtgqll4g-en{e4ep_tils
to environmental relations.
Nature as a Cultural Concept
That nature is culturally construed and defined - even
'constructed' - has become a coûunonplace in anthropology and
thehistoryof ideas.¡:(.gqlgg!yjefi¡Sg1_!y"e. j4S3A_herç_æade
g)991!l g-f gl _!-bry,r--gl'- . p_la ç tic ?1. . gllg a gg$*e-,nt and ., c.ognition
Qqlgggrfgati-oL"l-aþ_çllggr*i$gll_e-c!i"ol*î14.?"91'e.{""n)Jew_w.ould
now dissent from the view that nature, and the extent to which it
eÏi-sts as a discrete idea at all, varies between different
populations, according to different levels of discourse, and over
time. There are now many analyses of the cross-cultural variation
of the concept of nature within the ethnographic present. The
present edition contains some further examples, and it is no
wonder that, given its collaborative character, we are especially
intrigued by the problems of translating between |apanese and
European traditions. There has also been a steady growth of
studies of how conceptions of nature change over time, in both
the realm of scholarly ideas [e.9. Collingwood 7945; Glacken
7967; Horigan 1988; Williams 7976: 784-91, and in the lives of
ordinary folk [e.g. Dove 7992; Thomas 1983]. However, there is
no particular consensus as to what firm conclusions might be
drawn from all this.
The hard relativist position of many contemporary
anthropological writers owes much to the insistence of Edmu44
rsæh-[J-qjÉ-.Q1--sj.!t'-a!-l-þee!-",r9ltlr,9"-r!ip.p-er-ççiv,ç-d"eq--e
continuum which does not contain any intrinsically separate
thñã;îñìnding us of fohn Locke's biank sheet upon which
children impose a 'discriminating grid which we discover
through language'. This is a view which has not stood the test of
time and has been challenged by a later generation of
psychologists and anthropologists, yet we find it echoed clearly
enough by Carol MacCormack [1980: 6]:
The 'myth' of nature is lsystem of arbitrary signs which relies on a
social consensus for meâning. Neither the concept of nature nor that
of culture is 'given', and they cannot be free from the biases of the
culture in which the concepts were constructed.

á. i rrlr: ,r¿: ü.
-iÈ
Introduction lntroduction --oç;tt _..r.ç) c,: \,r,ticçirr: :
Similarly, Marilyn Strathern Í7980: 7771, in the same volume/
reiterates the position:
The point to extract is simple: there is no such thing as nature or
culture. Each is a highly relativized concePt whose ultimate
signification must be derived from its place within a specific
metaphysics. No single meaning can in fact be given to nature or
culture in Western thought; there is no consistent dichotomy, only a
matrix of contrasts.
But in the same passage Strathern is careful to voice a certain
detached agnosticism. 'The question then becomes', she con-
tinues, 'how large a part of the total assemblage of meanings must
we be able to identify in other cultures to speak with confidence
of their having such notions?' She declines to answer her own
question, preferring to 'bypass. . . the questions of underlying
structures, and the usefulness of these terms for apprehending
the workings of the human rnind'. Instead, she addresses those
styles of interpretation'which impute to other people the idea cf
nature-culture as a more-or-less explicit entity in their mental
representations. Whatever status these concepts have in "tation-
alist" discourse there has been a demonstrable "empirical"
appropriation of them' lStrathern 7980:77Ç7 emphases added].
Ol,q-:_u_ey_"gf j9-t9
-9!!g$p-$g!_qaff lvqlStrS¡_he¡nlq-qgqqlrln
I glf_g f_ol ely r¡¡dgrJying cog4ltivq propensities
ngl?-tç tþg v4riety- of lmaggq we ,intuitively
J4ry-Sp .414 pglçgiyed Patterns
ç4_qç-!f q4d_oth_er, 3¡d the- ¡eçsg-
nition of some inner essence or force. Even if we conclude that no
suchþanåurnan c%ñtive tË"iþiã|" exists, the rubric is helpful
in reviewing the variable characteristics of conceptions of nature.
The Thinginess of Nature
This refers to the ht!$! plqpglg¡-ty _tq i{ç$i{y_tltilgq (natural
k'"drr,"h'Ð_;¡:l _lnlentoii;la and aggreg{gq_q[9Agl
_ Kawada and Feld pay particular attention to this. Kawada
¡\ þ..\ G Nt,-\ (rìr -,\- ! 1 r'r cì '. \)
ur ' 'Ara
-r"\',
''.,\i-.. :r
''.\., ",'
lr-f.Cu , n. J \,.ar --
¡:,ç1qe!**t. e
5,,,o1,r,
;.1 ¡
Ir{
.¡.ct\l¡..
i , ,1., lÀo
7992; see also Conklin 79861 discusses the properties
distinguishing everyday vernacular forms of environmental
categorization, how linguistically reflected local systems capture
the combined natural and artefactual status of domesticated
plants and animals, and what we can learn from attending to the
way people talk about these complex entities. Using the results
of recent ethnobiological field research in lfugao, northern
Luzon, he explores these issues with respect to the multifaceted
and interlocking local classifications of rice. Hundreds of
expresslons designate and characterize the myriad forms,
functions, uses and meanings of this cultigen. For example, more
than 50 terms contrastively differentiate parts of the plant, more
than 70 specify uses other than as a food staple, more than 125
refer to distinct techniques of cultivating, storing, processing and
handling; and more than 250 express characteristics of diagnostic
significance in recognizing local (landrace) cultivars. Women
seed selectors, traditional specialists in varietal identification,
naming, and classification, provide excellent i¡formation for this
collaborative ethnobotanical account of all locally distinguished
rice-type categories.
Ing!_e!n--lg-,uee9'9_f_.eAyil9rr¡t9_4!e_1-¡>_9l_c_9pti.gl]-q¡ç. {ominated
bv the visual s__e_r-rgg..W_eg.. çyidç*!. fign_ Çq+klin's_pape..r. But
recognition of this has often ledltQ an underestirnation of the role
of the other senses. We perceive the environment as much
through smell, taste, touch and hearing as through vision, even
though science is dominated by visible or vision-based images of
the invisible. Moreove.r, lhçfç ip-^g p3¡tiçul-_a¡ IçeAq4 !-o-qs_sg¡t"th4t
't i"g{lSltiorl-t is u .óg"iti"" p-p"e1si1ft 9ioçiai9à ôgtJ_Iya!,
sight. For example, spoken language depends on the ability of
the speech organs t( produce, and the ear to recognize, particular
kinds of disuete sounds (phonemes), just as sight requires the
drawing of effective visual boundaries. The papers by Junzo
 lntroduction
compares the interpenetration of culture and nature in the
acoustical universe of the Japanese, French and Mosi (Burkino
Faso). He examines differing degrees of arbitrariness in the
meanings attached to sounds. Thus, in Japanese and Mosi verbal
expressions the use of ideophones is preeminent, including those
for non-acoustical sensations, whereas in French these are
virtually absent. Insfrumental sound communications range from
pan-human signs such as alarms, through culturally modified
melodic and rhythmic patterns, to highly conventionalized forms
of communication, such as Mosi drum language. The inter-
penetration between nature and culture in the sound universe is
exemplified by instrumental interpretation of natural sounds,
such as bird vocalizations, which are corunon in Japanese and
French, but virtually absent in Mosi. However, Japanese
interpretations are usually associated with a limited number of
species, mostly based on the idea of the rebirth of human beings
who have died in unfortunate circumstances. Thus, sound
relationships of this kind might best be understood as part of an
idiom of human-animal metamorphosis.
Taking his cue from an observation by Roy Rappaport, that
effective constructions of the environment may be less those that
are objectively correct than those which invest parts of nature
with value 'beyond themselves', Feld looks at two dirnensions of
the interrelatedness of adaptation and aesthetics amongst the
Kaluli of Papua New Guinea: the first is the ecology of sound, the
second the cartography of song. The natural soundscape of the
Kaluli rain forest features the calls of some 130 species,of bird, as
well as the sounds of many frogs and the rhythms of rfhny kinds
of insects. Additionally, there is the sonic presence of creeks,
streams, waterfalls, pools and other forms of water. These sound
patterns index the time of day, seasons of the yea¡, vegetation
cycles, migratory patterns, heights and depths of forest, and
many other aspects of the environment. In relation to this, Feld
explores what Kaluli perceive and know about natural diversity
in their world through these sounds, and how their own vocal
and instrumental music is inspired by, modelled on, and
performed through them. Similarly, Kaluli song texts are
organized as maps of place names. The sequences of these are
textually co-articulated with names of trees and vegetation,
waterways and birds. Feld explores how nature (place) is quite
literally 'placed' in the memory, and how its codification and
Introduction
evocation in the formal genre of song poetics intensifies the
relationship between the feelingful, experiential dimension of
cultural identity, and the adaptive dimensions of ecological
knowledge,and awareness.
The Otherness of Nature
wilderness, and except for those who live off the sea, essentially
terrest¡ial. But ideas of what is the best exemplar of that natural
other vary. For the Satawalese, described here by Tomoya
Akimichi, it is predominantly the sea. Though the sea is more
intractable than the land when it comes to physical modification,
it is not iÍunune, and is subject to elaborate forms of cognitive re-
structuring. Moreover, cultural images of natural otherness do
not necessarily comply with biological history as the chapter by
Charles Frake in this volume well demonstrates. Frake shows us
how what rnight be considered the domain of nature and things
natural is the consequence of pre-meditated cultural actions and
dramatic re-interpretations. He is concerned with the narratives
which the people of a part of Norfolk in England employ to make
sense of and orientate themselves within a particular landscape.
The dominant idiom is one which refers to 'the subtle tracei of
past human endeavour enthusiastically discerned and inter-
preted by those in the present\th present purposes in mind,.
The Norfolk landscape is a produèt of past activity that requires
constant cognitive attention and behavioural intervention to
preserve and reconstruct what is valued in contemporary images
of the past. This reading of the landscape is a cultural practice
motivated not only by social entailments and political or econ-
omic agendas, but also by the experiential en¡ichment afforded
by a meaningful epgagement with the past of one's place.
And what works for the English countryside would appear to
work also for Japanese industrial forest, for which John Knight
 Introduction
17994) has demonstrated an evocation of the same wild qualities
as those associated with natural forest. An even more dramatic
example of the attribution of wildness to what is tristorically a
tamed landscape is found in that epitome of natural otherness,
'jungle'. This is the English borrowing of the U¡du word jongøI
and has come to mean impenet¡able tropical forest. Its history
however, as Michael Dove [1992: 2411 suggests, is more complex.
In what is now Pakistan, forest was removed by humans in order
to create jangala, a savarìna vegetation suited to the keeping of
livestock. Only later, as jongal, did it come to mean forest in any
sense. Thus, what are categorized as nature and cultu¡e not only
shift and merge, but may even change places.
s-o .gl4 ssllqlggey
I
ç Nature as Essence
¿_ep-ç4Þ1ry¡y*39l-:g9$S_fel.ÏL91l-4_yieJgs..Thisiswellexemplifi ed
in the review provided here by Tim Ingold. According to Ingold,
hunters and gatherers deny with marked consistency that there
is a rigid separation between the world of human persons and
that of non-human agencies and entities, between society and
nature. Anthropological accounts, howevet typically present this
view as entailing â particular social and cultu¡al construction of
nature, thereby reproducing the very dichotomy that, in other
contexts, is recognized as peculiar to the Western tradition. Two
consequences follow. First, the 'perceived' environment is seen to
I differ from the 'real' environment as the product of the ordering
of sense data according to an imposed cultural schema (a theme
to which I shall be retuming latei in this introduction). Selondly,
the practical operations of hunting and gathering are reduced to
interactions within a given, physical world, as implied in the
notion of 'foraging'. In short, the perception of the environment
is culturalized and the activities of production are naturalized.
Ingold argues for an alternative theory more consistent with the
view of hunters and gatherers themselves, where the environ-
ment is only reyealed to the perceiver through an active process
of engagement, rather than constructed through an ordering of
sensations passively received.
The argrrment that natu¡e is an emergent property of culture is
taken still further by Peter Dwyer. In New Guinea, ecological
intensification (e.g. population increase and a growth in the
importance of agriculture) is associated with gradients in land
Introduction
use. Increasingly, the domain of the invisible (e.g. the world of
spirits) is connected with these gradients. Inasmuch as nature is
'other than culture', the comparative data suggest that in low
intensity systems, like that of Kubo hunter-horticultu¡alists of the
lowland interior relying heavily on wild sago and living in
dispersed settlements, the analogue of nature ls the invisible
world and that, with increasing intensification, emerging
geographic connections between the invisible and the visible
predispose to an identification of the 'other' with some
components of a perceived external nature. The artefactual
Western notion of wilderness, now largely divorced from the
invisible, represents an extreme position on this continuum.
r-.
Thethirdcogn:tivepropenslE:Jsbiçhqq!sg]y_q$9r99-s*ly"b-e_{l.we
Ë-e,Il-tPt.Ie
This may
involve recognition of a force exogenous to human will but
¡which can to varying degrees be controlled, or it may define an
irreducible core or an essence within things, such as the fluids
and pulses associated with life; or it may be simultaneously, or
varyingly, both, in equal or unequal measure. Thus, we have
nature as opposed to nurture, instinct as opposed to reason,
wildness as opposed to control, rawness as opposed to
refinement lStrathern 7980:277, following Mathieu]. We can see
other examples of the same thing in culturally equivocal
descriptions of nature as variously robust and fragile, benign and
malign, capricious and ordered, perverse and tolerant, eternal
and ephemeral [Schwartz and Thompson 7990: 2-73]. These
qualities do not simply allow us to locate things in the world but
to morally evaluate them as well. To say something is unnatural
is to condemn it as reprehensible. This is not to say, however, that
what is repreþensible is therefore to be understood as the logical
complementóf natu¡e, meaning cultu¡e. This would not work in
English semantics. On the other hand, to say that something is
uncultured is nõt to mean that it is natural in this sense. It is all
 10 Introduction
-qsç.9f les!þv-!ebng-1y-hel-re*eturd.ql'4-gs-o.Ip-9leq+g-{-r',!o
CUltufe. Thus, as Löfgren [1985: 211] has shown for recent
Swedish bourgeois traditions, an abhorrence of 'natural ways'
does not mean that there is no longing for the 'natural way of
life'. One and the same person can think with animals in different
and conflicting ways, partly because they are, paradoxically, both
within and beyond us lWillis 7975: 9]. Science begins by
distancing humanity from the natural world, and logically ends
up by incorporating the first into the second. The new sensitivity
and empathy towards animals associated with the animal rights
movement bring together science and sentiment, as, for example,
in current primate research [Reynolds 199a]. !öfgrellÞi4.: 216ì
s-u:ns-a-l-l-this-.u"p.-u-rte_rgq_qf C-slturelqo_tqeqlgigryi4qrngÉqm
ofP
-tñe
prgy_{rh_S_e-99.ç91{.qensualit¡ã¡dsen{pgr-rta!i.9.
Among the chapters presented here, that which best
exemplifies this ambiguous propensity to essentialize is
Hiroyasu Tomoeda's, which seeks to dissect a particular cultural
construction of nature, this time through an examination of the
fertility rituals of camelid herders in the high central Andes of
Peru. Tomoeda ârgues that the very structure of language
transforms the conventional tripartite relationship between gods,
humans and animals into the bifurcate relationship'I/you' n
ritual songs, thus requiring us to rethink radically the
appropriateness of conventional distinctions between nature and
culture. This is especially as it is through this dyadic relationship
that the concept of iital energy which permeafes both
environmental and social relationships is recharged.
.e/
n\!
lG
'>q--' : II
,Ù a The Hagen
..( f l"11çry-o:Lry_ttirt'_$ey-99ly9allþ-.e_Þ-ql!q,llpe$_ç-gbJ-ç19-es.,o!
t\tÌ
¡a
ç.y_Itu1"_-4-1rgp_pg_g9g-, 114. lle de-gr-99.!9 *SSþ lq"h an opposition
becomesadevicef or.c-osrnologiçelSpltgf ç_+ç_e_ye-ne-g.
- ñatutä t ee¿ ñJr6ä á ciàäily uounãèd concept, indeed it may
most often not be. In Japan, the complex and multifaceted idea
Introduction 11
bound up in the characters shizen t Ë ft I artd tennen ( X*&,)
captures, depending on situation, the opposite of artificiality, the
opposite of humanity, some inner fundamental properry
coûunon sense (føo), objects in the environment (such as trees),
and creative processes not under human control (such as
earthquakes). At the same time, it is accepted that there are
strong spiritual connections between, say, mountain (yama) and
village (søfo) which cut right across any inherent dichotomizing
tendency which these ideas might seem to be suggesting [cf.
Asquith and Kalland, in preparation; Berque 1986; Shaner 7989;
Tellenbach and Kimura 19891.
Where it is possible to extrapolate a 'difference' between
nature and culture, this may not best be represented as an
opposition [Stathern 7980:779, following Wilden]. The nature in
Frake's Norfolk landscape is not only objectively anthropogenic,
but the intricacy of its interconnections with cultural history give
it a comforting homely feel. Where the opposition nature:culture
is transparent, the terms may not even be labelled. Amongst the
Nuaulu, described in this volume by Roy Ellen, they eiist as
convenient covert categories strongly inferred from a series of
Fontrasts apparent in ritual practice and mythic narrative, the
interconnections between which cannot easily be spoken of in
any other way. \4/hether labelled or not, they need not be part of
a consistent set of corresponding analogical pairs, such as
left:right, male:female, nor logically comparable to such
classifications lGoody 7977: 64]. Tiue, gender is strongly linked
to natufe:culture distinctions, but it need not be; and when the
linkage is demonstrable, it is often contradictory.
Thg*;sgjd,eu
ol"ugfqep_p3-qply_çeng"glgfg-a+cth.919f oqefemate,white-i,rttute
$ ac-!iy_e, 3þ_g"t-r--g-ç-t Srld _gÌeJg jq..comg¡en ç¡9.Bgh, Þq.t. many
ngt çoqforr.n, githe-r all or part of 1,he timg (e-,g, the
!_ggp-l_e.s.do
ÇUqri_,[Ç!-l¡_sg+--1-98-QD, _N.etfrfç_Ar,r.4^"C¡¡.!.tpre ofren cannõt be
_ t5tr"q"^ 1eqój 1_28_1r äã u."
nvenience as
planted:uncultivated; belonging to people:belonging to wild
spirits, though neither obviously fits the Western nature:cultu¡e
distinction nor correlates necessarily with the male:female
contrast [ibid.: 205]. There is, then, no necessary link between ,the
natural world' and 'human nature'. For Hageners nature and
culture are not concepts of order; 'the tension between the terms
T2 lntroduction lntroduction 13

is different' [ibid.: 218]. culture is a distinction which the human mind is predisposed to
European conceptions of nature are no easier to grasp. We make. Of course, some will say that if the latter is true then so is
have already seen this with respect to the essential qualities with the former, or at least we can never know. Let us take the first
which it is associated in contemPorary thought, and as it has assumption first.
been opposed to different doctrines at different points in history Historical accounts of changing modalities of nature in
so its mèanings have altered lMacCormack 1980: 20]. We shall Western thought and science are hardly new. Collingwood [1945],
explore this further in the next section, explicitly in relation to for example, provides us with a surprisingly contemporary
sciãntific thought. But however nature is culturally constructed, interpretation of the shifts and continuities between Greek,
and whatever (if any) its underlying cognitive template, in the Renaissance and modern views. In the conventions of a
way we use it is always a synergy of the utilitarian and the presentist history of ideas it has become usual to locate the origin
aesthetic, the pragmatic and the symbolic, and knowledge of it of the idea that nature is independent of our perception of it,
can never be independent of relations with it [Norgaard 1987: and relations with it, in Greek physis artd nomos: that which is
1181. 9r.!o_pgJ !! qir-gþt-Iy {ifferen!.1y.þ-o¡g lgociety views nalury is unconnected with human agency and that which ¡esults from the
ilf*i! e. f+S99n of how qocig_ry_þ9_ \4ry u1a human capacity to conceive and execute. But the popular pre-
tlit¿riliirràl ðgnéèþçlons of nature er; tþe-pco- Christian Greek view of nature was essentially animist, in many
evolve' lDove 7992: 246]. respects resembling that of animist peoples recorded for the
ethnographic present. Outside the treatises of individual
philosophers, the Greek world of nature was saturated by mind.
The Cultural Construction of Nature in Science By contrast, the Renaissance view denies the Greek idea of nature
as an organism, and asserts that it is both devoid of innate
To delineate variations in the cultural construction
'and
of nature is ¡- knowingness and more akin to a machine, subject to laws
arguably easy - some would say - increasingly self- produced by an exogenous intelligence [ibid.: 5]. This is more in
indulgent.&eJg¡lpf pþ-!ç.+,-4.Il-i-v--ei-w--b-qg-weqþq-glvethatthe keeping with one interpretative stream in Greek thought, linking
Plato with Aristotle ll.loyd
elely!'l_Sgl"Sp_lt qp_e_losy)_qrç
a¿gig.n t fi calg gqry/
Ë -ry,91!
üñJüI,_,!8"_4 9"

s3!19_ç4qgue.-Notonlyql-g-+g-gl-e-e+Ê.qgltuf.gf o1\c,onceptq,Jhey
also form the basis pf a_çegPþI se.:gt-g!4iùqlglqqq-ll.scre¡ge
tiyç el4
escriptive
gs-çtp and BlgrylsFgYg {g!i-ces. and
interpretative deüices, 1nd
Many have contributed to this view in '*S*"_q_-o"lgl.'eßl9gy-þglw_ee3p-{-ocesf
e.t9-tthe4e!]rte!¡g_qrl4-e+
recent years, but few as persuasively as Dona Flaraway 11989,
1991; see also Jordanova 1986I. l¡-q¡4qlo-4eal-Igith ltrc-ry4y*1¡
which nature is used !l plgfçlqional scientific discourse (a1{-I
,¡_4Lþ9]q.l'9!é_p¡i1"âi¡ry-9n6¡oiogyqndanrhropglge{}*:ry, l¡f ç{çç !.. !bg",Ix qge and culture bec ame reif ie.SL gs_ ç-çiegllflc
d-isãñguls-ñ 6etwèén several lèvels. of assumption. The first is that conceptgjtradltionef__oæçqy_e\¡tq1yþ4æ_g4glg94-*r:r1_bjo-lqåy
nattlre reall¡r exists out there in the world in a positivist sense, a wa¡4 whiç\ made us- think,-that
and that science offers us a realistic model of how it is different qt4er{_ _o-f
g}s ryle_Ë_q+p .t-o:.!b. it. By
from culture. The second assumption is that nature itself is out üe_qey_e_+tçstthsçs!{r_it_be4j9-ç_q!ßç__qq!r_e_ql+g_w_lU_qb ç-o_qd_be
there but that science (including folk science) can only apprehend quantif ie d,_!ge chaL{2e3.__e1d
{çltpnetir q d [We s tf a ll 79 9 2],
it through shifting cultural lenses. The third assumption is that 'distanced from the world of sense and common sense' [Torrance
even if nature is not out there, the contrast between nature and 7992:vil. What some may think even more remarkable is the way
in which this Western tradition has spread and taken hold in
74 Introduction
other parts of the world which have been influenced by Western
science and thought, including Japan. However, such a view of
the emergence, growth, spread and global acceptance of a
European culture of science and its associated conception of
nature is problematic. The-way in which scientists have used the
word nature has never been wholly consistent, and it has become
increasingly apparent that what was once thought to be a clear
distinction between nature and culture is at the very l-qast
a,mb,iguous. So, while it is often remarked that oriental and
occidental conceptions of nature are in certain over-arching
symbolic senses opposed, such a view is not necessarily
inconsistent with uniformity at the level of practical experience
[Bruun and Kalland 7995: 16]. There may, in other words, be a
disjunction between the timeless qualities of cosmologies
organized through symbolic logic and the pragmatic, experi-
ential character of everyday subsistence lCroll and Parkin 7992b:
16; Ellen 1994 456). The extent to which we can really claim that
Japanese working within the tradition of Western science have
simply internalized for practical purposes a Western opposition
between nature and culture, man and environment, is an
assertion which really requires much further careful investi-
gation. Certainly, tve assume, for all intents and purposes, that
there is now one academic culture in which there is a sufficiently
shared understanding of what nature is for science to work as a
global discourse. But even though we must make it, there are
problems with this assumption. Let us exarnine some of these.
Jo beg!4 w-ith, humans mo-dify the world around them on an
,càtg, and have dôie so through .o-".rolLtiotãty
"nòrrrroùs for many thousands of years. Effeçliye_]¿ a.l1
interactions
lqndry4peq -with which humans routinely interact are therefore
cultural: and our environment is every bit as much what is made
socially g_,s,w-htl ig-ryt. Frake's chapter supplies a nice illustration
of this, but in a more esoteric realm high energy physicists, in
their attempts to understand the underlying character of matter,
quite literally produce 'new' nature in a particle accelerator
[Nothnagel 7994], and in this context nature is manifestly nof
something which can 'take care of itself'. And perhaPs most
significantly from the point of view of this book, the literature on
¿ðr¡rçqti-çeligl p-rgyi.q-es us lvith many exagrples whicñ late
non_selqg gf 3nyhard and fast distinction, none more so than the
proposal that the conservation and regulation of 'wild' animals
Introduction 15
rj qgsgl{lqlly !hç qe*ç a-q _{,qmes-tication [M4cbeth 1989]. 'How
strange, then, that in another version of the biological
imagination (that of classical evolutionary taxonomy) domesti-
cated animals and non-endemics are, somehow, nof the real
thing. The complexities of biological reality, enhanced by the
insights of modern ecology and genetics, make drawing the
frontiers between organism and environment, between what is
cultural and what is natural, almost impossible.
Secondly, whether some thing is natural or cultural may
depend on the level of abstraction in our arguments, our
methodology, or on time phase or context, not on any intrinsic
qualities. At different levels nature and culture are identified in
different ways: while at the most abstract level Amazonia as a
whole may be seen as nature in cont¡ast to the urban sprawl of
São Paulo, at a local level nature is remnants of rain forest as
opposed to secondary forest and cultivated areas. Sirnilarly,
technology is neither intrinsically nature nor culture. A tool may
begin as a stone unmodified by humans, but through perception
of its functions it becomes cultural. Again, a plant or animal may
become food (culture) without any material change ever having
taken place; food is thus simultaneously cultural and natural.
Much the same can be said of bodily techniques: walking, eating,
defecating, and so on.
Thirdly, conceptions of nature of a broadly Western kind, with
which individual scientists of diverse cultural backgrounds may
operate, are often, notwithstanding, affected by local folk or
philosophical traditions. The significance of this has only
emerged i¡r recent years through the ethnographic and historical
study of comparative culture. For example, iri "Christianity,
movement across the animal-human boundary was, quite
literally, a'transgression', an abomination against God's creation,
whereas in Buddhism and Shintoism, by contrast, there is no
sharp demarcation. Indeed, in Shinto natural phenomena and
species may be deified. ]apanese downplay oppositional contrast
and emphA,sise the fuzziness between opposites of nature and
culture [Ohnuki-Tierney 7987), and there is a pervasive folk
ideology that Japanese are 'closer to nature' than those in the
West. Animals can assume human form, which has led to much
greater freedom to anthropomorphize in primate studies
[Asquith 7986a,1986b]. In a sense, this parallels the breaking-
down of the nature-culture opposition among Western
 76 Introduction htroduction 77

pdmatologists as a result of the recognition of the close molecular Western thought and science. More generally, many [e.g. Horigan
rights are no 1988] have abhorred the rigid oppositional uses of nature and
wardship of culture, noting that these obscure more than they reveal.
ectually and
extend con-
sciousness and free will and culture to non-human animals, even
Nature and Culture as Analytic Categories in
if that culture is not quite what most anthropologists have in
mind. Anthropological Theory
The problem is that in the real world finding out how things
work must utilize modes of expression d.iawn from our I!ç'hs-!p_ty _q{ e+thro.p-o.-lggy iç ; jn.one wey or 4¡-o_!h_e1.-_ (þe
c¡,¡f !ure, By posing th e
hiqlqy__ol_the_ grleg9_r1$ ÀaJUIe _ ?n4
subjective lives. This is so even if what is held to define science is
relationship between the two and using it to legitimate
democracy, Lévi-Strauss claimed that Rousseau had invented the
subject [Freeman 1983: 30]; and to speak the language of nature
and culture is for many inheritors of the British structural-
functionalist consensus to relive the classic controversies of the
nineteenth centur ¡opolqgy.we know
4¡ld use nature which bear little
¡"*--!i-t"".e !.. objectivè anglytic
categories,.-anqe-s_ 1 co-g_njgy_q gp-1lgg_i{gl. At
Flowever, such techniques are used in conjunction with others translated into the ism vãrsuö-Ëultùialìsm,
are part of a long and complex debate. This set of chapters
which presume the existence of mythical islands, fabulous ,þese
does not seek to resolve, or even specifically to address, this
species such as yellow whales
debate, except in so far as the debate itself has perpetuated and
It would be misleading to po
functional or metaphorical. Ra reified concepts of nature and culture. The nature and culture of
this domain natural and supernatural are parts of I unified
system of knowledge. In one form or anothèr, such úiews are

environment) which humans manipulate and consume in the

conduct of their lives, on the other.
In early social evolutionism the nature-culture distinction was
largely ignored, and one looks in vain in the writings of, say,
Herbert Spence¡, for any allusion to it. And so it was to continue
in certain þranches of psychology and in the eugenics of Francis
Galton. Foi Tylor, like Marx, the history of man(ind was part and
I
parcel of the history of nature [Horigan 7988:74], not apart from
it, and certainly not against it. With Franz Boas, however, things
began to change: nature became simply that to which the laws of
biology applied, while culture became that which biology coutd
not explain. Thus the stage was set for that 'unrelenting struggle
¡ui
0. \ \',
 ,,.', i \¡'\i-!-r'.'-i I ç:\- G' \' ! \ðr-c '-h-.. t '
r- l, ,, "\ttì'
\..
c.r ,,-.f J,,.,,'-
18 Introduction
ô1't* r' -
( )1'\
between two doctrines', between 'two fervently held half-truths, swid.den farmers, gave creden." to L¿rri-Strauss's prototypical
each insufficient in scientific terms, which had originated amid nature-culture distinction. Again, Roy Rappaport was trying to
the theo¡etical confusions of the late nineteenth century, the one dissolve the hard culture-nature distinction he saw in Julian
overestimating biology and the other overvaluing culture' Steward's programme of cultural ecology. In the 'ethno-
lFreeman 7983: 33, 35ì. $o¡eover, as Horigan [1988: 4] has ecological' phase which Conklin's work heralded - indeed he
pointed out, the nature-culture opposition took on a special role appeárs to have invented-Gîõ?ä"lConklin 7954a, 1954b) -
in the social and human sciences by ensuring their legitimacy, nature becomes bifurcate, a folk nature reflected in the ideas and
providing them, in culture, with an object of study anÇ a discriminaìlà"t or ¡"çäÍ þägple and llegrl l-atqry g1_Jo_ryhich
principle of disciplinary demarcatio!. Hence the importancre of ificantly
-6äa&ñéö
different conceptual worlds were
defendi4g the autonomy of culture becomes part of the äiliicit tri-the-¿uãtistiö áþproâcn i*J
justification for lthe unrelenting strugglel, Every social of Vayda and Rappaport in which cognized (ernic) models are
anthropologist who asserts that there is no need to take heed of kept rigorously distinct from analytic (etic) models and become
biological explanation is re-asserting the nature-culture part of the means by which humans adapt to nature and regulate
opposition, even if the terms are not used. Yet what is obvious is it [Vayda and Rappaport 1968J. Thus the systems approach
that much anthropology since the second world war has which enshrined the organism-environment distinction
assumed that the issue was an essentially dead one. Tiue enough, necessarily upheld a particular version of the nature-culture :
social anthropologists are occasionally shocked and embarrassed conftast. For this reason, claims Dwyer (this volume), Rappaport l
ù
by ethologists and sociobiologists and others claiming that was paradoxically on the wrong side of the divide. Indeed, the
nature intrudes on human behaviour in more than just a passive, objectivist, adaptionist version of ecological anthropology has
r)
facilitating sort of way, but these are minor irritants. Instead, in been vigorously criticized since the mid-seventies. On the one
-ñrean
much socio-cultural lqth¡gpolggy ry_tu1e:culture camã to hand, there have been those who have placed increasing causal
o.omèrning èiòãl u cüituiaf ¿istinctiõn iisèlf: in a sen.se-rh¿ priority on individual cultural constructions, an approach which
culfural distinction - which serves to organize a high propoition eventually disappears into post-modernism. On the other hand,
of. what we experience of the world. This approach founðits contemporary evolutionary ecology, with its inspiration drawn
urs-p ira.tio¡.rr_r-thç wof k o f T évi- S tr aus s, f or -whom n ature-culture from methodological individualism, has no particular place for
iyqs_g -liqrglg-sg, y3fug free model, a mechanism through which the concepts of nature and culture, for the distinction between
the rnind organizes the world around itself, an'artificial creation intentionality and unintentionality, or that between cultural and
ol_qq_1!rge":_.[-Lévi-Strauss 1969: xxix]. In more recent times, natural selection. In fact, it has no need of the conventional t
suggests Horigan [1988: 33], it is also the idea which underlies ¡adaptionist programme at all. Thus, the nature-culture 1j
the attachment of Marshall Sahlins - among others - to a purely f!¡q1inçtion is cgqsglulgd in dlffçr-e_nt ways in diffeiã-ñf tneð.eiicat
symbolic and dualist definition of culture. læp¡93_.I"'_il_"Sqtq_g'-ç9_1*eplt"op-þtõgy.,b-"dsl"-siniäe_iè."e¡ðr ;)
. The history of anthropological studies of environrnental þn¿1!y_sis, one in which th.e environment is a biologiçal given, one
_l
relations reflects these general theoretical developments, but also lB whicn it is bifurcale_ (.aryly-_ti_ç.a¡d {ol!).and 9ne in which atl
materially influenced them. By insisting on the environment lsenses of nature or environment are 'constructed' and negotiable.
being outside the object of anthropological scrutiny, Boas forced 'What is dièfinctive about recent work in cultural anthropology,
the pace of possibilism; but it was empirical studies of hunter- ecological anthropology and sociobiology is that what we might
-gatherers and pastoralism which contrariwise showed the mean by nature has again become a central issue, for modernists
ãrtificiality of eiiminating nature from understanding central ' and postmodernists alike.
issues of social oiganization and cultural classification. In a So what is paradoxical about the ecological tradition in
different way, Conklin [e.9. Conklin 7957], in persuading us to anthropology is that while starting off rooted in the naturalism/
take seriously the environmental classifications of Hanunóo o"o"'1iiÎ.
culturalism debate,
I curturarism and while still fostering an objectivist.n.
-j> rrs t|::ï'llttrJii'1ïï
lr,'¿,i " f.. lk \l - r c '1-:
--;
G,rk\. (\-$;) < jila'-., r,,-.-.. .,.,Ic(_ì
t
i-..irì,
l: l:' L-i-: '-:
20 Introduction
agenda, it has been able to show just how insecure and
contingent the nature-culture distinction is. I!\qg-{o-r1g thi,t- by
demonstrating empirically the extent to which the natural has
been influenced by the cultural ,by u systemic app¡gach which
abhors simplç dq4!is{u9. eld þy- it-lrrçlreLrng .þ-o¡ ¡ Jhe most
esoteric elements of culture *igltt intricately affect our use of the
environment and even regul3te ou1.1et3!!9¡s w]t\!!, ]l_tus, in his
ContriUúton tó lhis volume, Mitsuo ichikawa shows how such
Zairebasinhãs bèen thê habitat of hunting and gathering peoples
for many centuries. Ichikawa shows how the Mbuti have made
use of their profound knowledge of the forest: as plants used for
food, medicine, poison, tools and construction, and for ritual and
other non-material purposes. Plants are also shown to be
indirectly useful as sources of food for other species which the
Mbuti hunt or make use of. Ichikawa argues that despite their
heavy dependence on forest resources, the Mbuti have not
obviously degraded plant and animal populations. Indeed, they
have actually improved the forest as a human habitat through
marginal modifications. Understanding the character of the co-
existence maintained between Mbuti and their environment
provides important data for reconsidering what we mean by
nature, and what the implications are for planned state
conservation, for the sustainable use of forest, and for
maintaining the integrity of Mbuti culture itself.
Relations between Specific Domesticates and Human
Populations
The !ta{ç_qua_cy Af.--thç diEtinçtfg¡ þ-eïwçer-L-,ry-ha!--lrYe
ç_9¡ryenË9¡4_UJ*g4l!-t9"1glç-end culture i s no b e tter e xe mp lif ie d
e¡ami4ation of particular domesticates, species
lbCILLEp_ggh-þg
w\ich qw_e- !he!¡ c¡rrrg4t genetic composition to close encounters
with hurnan populations which harvest them for food and ofher
p-rcd-uc-ts. When domesticated animals appear in human
subsistence systems we see this as the intrusion of culture; when
animals domesticate humans it is natural. From an ecological
I
Introduction 27
viewpoint the process is the same. Domestication as a process
raises intriguing issues of intention, selection and co-evolution,
and poses iri an acute form the difficulty of the terms nature and
culture in scientific discourse.
Sadao Sakamoto elucidates the process by which cultural pre-
ferences in the early stages of the domestication of six cereal
cultivars found only in east and southeast Asia led to the
convergent co-evolution of waxy çndosperm variants. He argues
that what favoured the selection of waxy endosperm mutants in
various kinds of rice and millets was a well-established prefer-
ence for sticky foods such as yam, taro and banana. He further
adduces that a pre-existing waxy endosperm food culture
favoured the selection of waxy varieties of maize when this was
introduced into the area in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
Sakamoto's is a classic ethnobotanical study which illustrates the
difficulties of separating an understanding of the genetic process
of domestication from a knowledge of detailed culinary ethno-
graphy. His paper illustrates the importance of ritual in the
development of new domesticates and the essential conservative-
ness of innovation: waxy varieties of rice mimicking waxy
varieties of tubers.
The origin of diversity in cultivated plants has long been
understood to be either the result of natural selection modified
by human interaction or the consequence of deliberate human
actions. But such views cannot explain how and why such
diversification occurred in the first place and was maintained
under earlier agriculture. Taking examples from the ensete
(Ensete aentricosum) zone of southwestern Ethiopia (Ari),
Masayoshi Shigeta examines how new landraces are created and
how and why diversity is maintained. Shigeta argues that
'cognitive selection', the categorization of the external appear-
ances of plants, must be distinguished from utilitarian selection,
that based on the usefulness of particular landraces. He
demonstrates the existence of the former as a qualitatively
different thra of selection, devoid of value judgement, but with
an indispensable role in establishing new types in a repository of
landrac e s. þe_4s_ia.tç_q¡a!c,9. 9f gç{!94C di-vetp lty !q 9 ¡ gprp liflgd b-y
'f gL\ _ U\
q_itg l_ c g¡rs e¡y 4_t¡94, lho.qgh
-why- dr_ve r s it¡4 .s_hgrr-t d- þ e
¡qql4!1in_e d i q nqlg ç qnpf 9x,. S-hi g g!3'ej e c !9 !\e g llliQ1ian -view
o!þ4dryc9 divelsity because it does not accuratefy reflgct qçtual
pglt-qffrs of use, and instead seeks to explain why it should b-e
 ì
l 22 Introduction
4t!acþ !9 çggntgyg qe!gç!iq+ i. "¡pl,q!ni4g,tlg--grigin of domes-
ticates. He begins by reviewing research which strongly implies
that diiierse groups of informants agree in the categorization of
avifauna in a way which suggests a pan-human perceptual
strategy for the selection of those features of a collection of
organisms that yield the most informative classification. These
results, taken together with those of other ethnobiological and
cognitive researchers, suggest that many features of human
cognition are best understood as having evolved to interpret and
discriminate other products of evolution. Egg_s-$g -ql -thg
relationship between the classi and selection
of Aguaruna cultñarê of mãñ ieïèârén-tnát
ãrgues thai the procedures cultivators ule !9 distinguish cr-op
varieties have the effect of selecting for increased variability in
the features they use to distinguish the croPs: cultivators change
the world !t Lhç plgçqg¡ o{ u1{grslgq_ilg i_t in s¡rch a way as
t9_ malg
lheir procedures for understanding more appropriate.
Thus, human Côgnition has co-evolved with the _natulal world:
the human mind has evolved to understand the natural world
and leâveé its márË as it does so.
- Thé ènàflter"Ëî"Parl Richãräs, hke those of Sakamoto, Shigeta
and Boster, emphasises the significance of aesthetic and moral
factors as well as practical ones in the evolution of particular
domesticates. Richards argues that a consideration of a group of
rice types grown by the Mende and Temne peoples of Sierra
Leone provides an opportunity to rehearse an important range of
local ideas about the beginning and underpinnings of social life,
and to discover the place of both elephants and rice agriculture
within the moral ecionomy of the peoples of the Upper Guinea
coast in West Africa. The paper surveys what is known of the
origins and dornestication of African ríce (Oryza glaberrimø),
speculates on the beginnings of agriculture (based on rice) and
overseas trade (based on ivory) in the headwaters of the Nigeq'
and considers the social significance of the survival of O'
glaberrima cultivard for the present.
Like Boster and Shigeta, Katsuyoshi Fukui demonstrates the
crucial role of folk classification in the co-evolution of human
I
lntroduction 23
populations and domesticates, but in this case using data from
the Bodi of southwest Ethiopia. Bodi colour cognition is largely
based on their classification of cattle, and colour-patterns are
used in their naming practices and cattle coats identified with
developmental stages. Bodi folk genetics of coat-colour is
complex and used for breeding purposes. Every part of their
world view is affected by thq language of colour-patterns and the
metaphors associated with them, and it is argued that this has co-
evolved with the diversification of cattle coats.
Whereas Fukui focuses on the way humans select domesti-
cated stock through a particular folk classification, Yutaka Täni is
concerned with how humans make use of and modify the social
relations between animals in the process of domestication. He
argues that in contrast to the huntel pastoralists distinguish
individual members in the flock not only by sex, age, mother-
offspring lineage and so on, but also by individual features, often
heating each individual differently. It is these differences at the
interventional and cognitive level which constitute the core of
techniques which have been developed during the domestication
process. Tani reconstructs two stages in the process with
reference to the interventions of shepherds in the Mediterranean
and Middle East. He identifies several features which may be
specific to the sheep-keeping nomads of this region, and
concludes that in contrast to the traditions of animal rearing in
central and south Asia, the underlying ideological construct in
their techniques is the idea of the domestic animal as serf.
The chapter by François Sigaut reintroduces a theme raised by
Tim Ingold, that enaironments have no existence in themselves,
the concept only making sense as a collectivity of interrelated
variables relative to the needs of particular organisms, in this
case humans,'and that these can only be approached via an
exarnination of culture, especially techniques. Thus, 'climate' does
not mean the same for wheat-growers, wine-growers, car-
drivers, sea fishermen, travel agencies, and so on, in the same
way that i\on does not exist fôr people without metallurgy.
Sigaut explores some of the relationships between technological
haditions and environmental factors which have developed
around staple foods such as cool-season cereals in the West, rice
in the East, millets and other crops.
The chapter by David Harris provides a fitting conclusion to
this group of papers, examining in broad terms the character-
 ie ìåí,r'1 - r4'¡J¿ n tt.. 1,{-
¡
u,,L'-' -\\:;\ - -'. {if ,:r':h
Introduction 25
24
Introduction

of social groups, produce and reproduce themselves, how they

make decisions about the use of what they call nature or natural
resources, and how these things are transformed by such use into
social entities themselves and become critical elements in social
relationships.
I shall return to this fundamental problem in the final section

sago-gathering, hunting, fishing and swidden cultivation. In the

Nature and the Problem of Cultural Adaptation
1980s they numbered less than 2,000, but genealogical and demo-
graphic data indicate that they had a mean annual rate of
population increase of 2 per cent during the last few decades of
the pre-contact period. Ohtsuka argues that the reproduction rate
(the rate of inter-generational population replacement for
females) varied considerably between inland and riverine
groups, in the former exceeding 1.0 and in the latter being below
1.0. This profile is judged to derive from differential patterns of
subsistence, nutrition and incidence of malaria. Gidra oral
traditions state that they originated inland and gradually
dispersed into riverine areas, a view supported by Ohtsuka's
demographic estimates and descriptions of present-day adaptive
strategies. But although the new environment is disadvantageous
when measured in terms of rate of population increase, the
horticultural practices which it can sustain and the new
possibilities fòr cash-cropping have raised its carrying capacity.
fhe.-r-e-4--s-o.4 w-hy p.qpsle{o¡9.çltStt eq_thç VbuF- el4 Gi{te efe
u¡le !9 ço_g¡lq-t_ WjÈ. qqP_r_ç"e!. {ein lory-9"t .i9 fu t .tbgir gqq -of it !s
Mbuti case this is because
ãnd seièctive qilna-l p¡-e;
{4gerr,glthe_ce_sç-q!,lhçtetiy,"-Asezq¡ie"-'-4eic!i6e-d!'F,+ilio
Mgre1¡-it_ip_4gS_t_q_tb9_qrnell¡I9aq__q!ç.?:g{a1{_the,p-149tic.99f
&.tdq4l¡ g !hç- çr4ti: e.t19. _tt .-o-{ e¡5}g+l ç¡op q wlthil thrg_g ye ÊIS.
.

Moran examines the management strategies of native Amazon-

ians which accelerate the process of forest succession and
evaluates them in terms of their site specificity, cultural
/
26 Introduction
appropriateness and potential for extrapolation to unlike areas.
These strategies are useful and adoptable beyond the boundaries
from which they originate. Most managed fallows select for
plants of economic value and are intimately connected to a
mythology which supports their valuation. While it is not
required that such strategies be culturally explicit, fallow
management is often a conscious strategy, and Moran investi-
gates whether this is more coÍunon where regrowth is fastel, as
one might predict on pragmatic grounds. To get a 95 per cent
biomass regrowth some areas require as little as eight years,
while others are believed to require no less than 100 years due to
soil differences.
Many anthropological studies have argued that pragmatic
conservation may be achieved through ritual practices. In his
contribution, Michael Dove suggests that the techniques of bird
augury employed by the Kantu' and other indigenous peoples of
Borneo help to randomize behaviour in selecting swidden sites
and minimize a tendency towards systematization. The intra-
and inter-household diversity in swidden strategies which this
promotes ensures a successful adaptation to a complex and
uncertain environment. Dove examines the implications for this
system of augury through the questions raised by Gregory
Bateson on the abrogation of human choice, and argues that in
this case it represents an appeal not to a lesser intelligence but to
a greater one, the goal of which is to overcome the lack of
humility and systemic thinking in human affairs. This requires a
distancing of society from its own circumstances, which is made
possible, in part, by the cultural construction of a parallel spirit
realiry the contemplation of which gives the Kantu' a perspective
on their own affairs they would otherwise lack. This same
perspective can be found in Tomoya Akimichi's chapter on the
significance gf navigational knowledge among the Satawalese of
the central C rohne islands.
__B,gje_neio_tpl_o-Ì_i-glr¿lg_ry_ar_B-ry9r!-_q{Cgltgele-{aptalion
ellryq{Lorntne_-o_b¿ery_qqgl_.tlelple-qq.gqwlÉçh_a1eob jgctiv_ely
efficient in maintaining_!_he biolo-gical viability of a human popu-
laqon_i¡9_¡911þly¡_tþ*ge!tþosgculturallyp:eqç1iþ__e_{Jor
_tsqy EU"l 4_dd-rgs.ses this issue by
different appqgachgq !g -!hg ar-r-elysis
etailed analysis of thg etlnggtgpby_
of Nuaulu hunting on the eastern Indonesian island of Seram.
I
Introduction 27
The first part of the paper presents Nuaulu hunting as a set of
social relations which not only make some contribution to daily
protein requirements, but which - through patterns of meat
distribution, exchange and ritual - constitute a necessary part of
that process through which 'houses', clans and a traditional
authority structure are reproduced. These demands place stress
on the ecological system without regulating it, and those ritual
prohibitions which do limit extraction do so in ways which have
a rninimal impact on rates of human predation. More important
in conserving the meat supply are storage, time constraints and
the need to attend to the provisioning of other key resources,
especially palm sago. The second part of the paper examines the
technical and ecological efficiency of Nuaulu hunting inputs in
the context of what is known of the distribution and population
dlmamics of game species on Seram.
A Response to the Deconstruction of Nature
How can we bring together the various strands of the argument
explored here? The meanings of nature are evidently myriad,
multivalent and shifting, bothbetween different populations and
within them. In the foregoing sections it has sometimes been
appropriate to generalize about dominant cultural ideas of
nature, but as Lloyd Í7992:71has shown for the ancient Greeks,
Murray 17992: 291for the, European Middle Ages, and Strathern
[1980] for the modern Hageners, different ideas of nature are
associated with different contexts, or linked to different philo-
sophical traditions. Indeed, as individuals, we constantly attach
to nature different moral nuances, draw its boundaries in
different ways'depending on how it suits us. For some, an algal
bloom of non-human origin on the surface of water is pollution,
as it resembles detergent effluent; for others, flowers which are
very much a consequence of human interference and which are
ecologicallfinoxious may be seen not only as non-polluting but
as intrinsically part of the beauty of nature. Nature prfovides us,
in the words of Schwartz and Thompson [7990: 6-13], with
'pluralrationalities'Çtyerr¡lhgsltelsjyeCf_igç_el{_eb49-9f
-th.ç199,t
telys9¡q-illy_o-u]+_Þ9I_e39,9$_b_i9j_o-gs_91999^tha-!y_"ryi4ngygr
qai.lf.-þg aþlç tq uqe the.ç-onçept of nature without thinking

28 lntroduction
twice - . . or more. We now understand the importance of the
t_.lgråg" *-g and about the tyrannicãI nécestity _o{
dichotomies. We "s9,
should not privilege our own concepts above
those of our informants without first asking why we should do
so and what the consequences are of so doing.
This is not only crucial for the private practice of
anthropologists, but has significant implications and applications
for other disciplines and professions. The problematic and
contingent - the fundamentally anti-monosemic - character of
our constructions of nature is still not understood by many
practitioners of science where such an understanding has an
obvious impact on their mode of analysis. And the matter is an
urgent and crucial one where science impinges on policy.
Definitions of nature in the discourse on the new reproductive
technologies [e.8. Strathern 7992], on transplant and prosthetic
surgery, are increasingly acknowledged as being of practical
moral import, though it is palpably contested conceptual
territory. And it is also at the heart of environmental politics
lDdhl 1993], development and conservation practice lCroll and
Parkin 7992a; E1len 19941. It is not only science which works with
its own and often conflicting definitions of nature; it is also tme
of states, bureaucracies and their agencies, which often have to
navigate the interface between scientific concepts and political
pressures. I!_"_4g"4 to examine the extent to which official defin-
itions of nature simply legitimate those of the morally and
pótiti¿äny p-ó*"i"f,it u"á thã degree to which they combine ghe
definitions of different constituencies. We need to ask how
p;iti."-tã_+f.$¡.g.-""ry the interests of particular
gfgups, whethe-r thçqç"f bq "ut".èìèt"e
the conservation lobby, the Roman
Catholic Church, o¡ r_rllgenous
-truäitionpeoples_whg s,e.e advantages_in
rèinventing a particuiåi of nature - the ecological Eden
pqq4_e_!lV3¡C-eg q1d,..{isçher.1986: l2!ì. In the necessity of
international orgTnizanons, such as the IJN Environmental Pro-
gramme and \ÂIWF, to develop a shared working language we
can see a new route to the globalization of concepts of nature
which will have practical consequences for the kinds of know-
ledge we generate añd for the lives of millions of ordinary
people.
Yet, we must be careful not to get caught up in a web of
reflexiveness which will ultimately prevent us from explaining
anything. Recognition of infinite relativity (even if we can
I
,--
lntroduction 29
surmount the problem of solipsism) is no basis for scientific
comparison, intellectual communication or practical action. It
may or may not be the case that 'we cannot in principle
distinguish between the constructed nature of our intelligible
world and the "independent" structure of the brute world'
[Margolis 7997:3]; but by talking about the cultural construction
of nature there must be some assumption that concepts of nature
exist. The more you talk about nature the more you create a meta
discourse which reìies upon its existence, and the more you give
it life as a ruling concepti in trying to get beyond nature and
culture we reify an opposition. The possible alternative, the idea
of 'the total interconnectedness of things', is not something which
best organizes day-to-day information we need in order to act on
the world. The philosophical language of ecology in which
nature is dissolved is remote and not easy to grasp for many
people, and we can see our inherent cognitive tendencies at work
in the way in which'ecology'has become the same as environ-
ment in British political discourse; the deliberately inclusive ,
exclusive, the persuasively monist dualist. The human mind
requires shape and discreteness in order to perceive the universe.
There is a similar problem with the seductive claim of Gibsonian
psychology that environment is constituted in relation to the
organisrn that dwells in it, for relational 'affordances' grounded
in practice are almost always first translated into abstract cultural
knowledge suitable for storing and recall which is not necessarily
relational in character, aL least not in the initial perceptual sense.
It is this reorganized knowledge which feeds back into practices
of perception. We do not learn them as affordances. Most of what
we do is habitual, not novel, and we act or react to culturally
situated cues with culturally routine responses. It is as if we
carulot avoid'a concept very much like nature to make sense of
the world, and that if we try to dispense with it we will have to
invent something remarkably similar to replace it. Arrd this is not
simply a folk compulsion, it is funclamental to the pursuit of
i
science. \
I
I
For some, nature is very real, itself the product of human
cognitive evolution - a kind of Ur-nature which differs from its
various cultural manifestations. In this view - argued most
persuasively in this volume by Boster - natural forms have a
different perceptual character from cultural forms, and nature is
I
I
essentially coterminous with, and shaped by the discontinuities
I
I
30 lntroduction
of, the biological world lsee also Berlin 7992 on the 'inherent
structure of biological reality' (p.8) and 'the unconscious
recognition of "nature's plan"' (p.267)1. But even if nature is a
semantic fiction, it is a very convenient one. A set of conventions
concerning nature as an object of scrutiny had gained such
widespread currency in international scientific circles by the
beginning of the twentieth century that it became very difficult
to dislodge. It just so happened that science as a global cross-
cultural practice consolidated at a particular point in history.
Having established the rules, rules which worked well enough,
as evidenced by the productivity of scientific work, there was no
particular point in changing them, and once invented, changing
them would have been extremely difficult. The reason why the
Western paradigm has apparently become the ruling one may,
therefore, not necessarily be because it is demonstratively a more
truthful way of perceiving the world, but because it had
historical infrastructural priority. Similarly, nature-culture, like
other dichotomies, is useful or misleading, not true or false; a
simplifying model for organizing thought, not a way of the world
lGould 7997 (7987):9]. As Stephen J. Gould reminds us, Goethe
realized that some dichotomies must interpenetrate, and do not
struggle to the death of one side, because èach of their opposite
poles - say, inhaling and exhaling - captures an essential
property of any intelligible world [ibid.: 19].
At the heart of our discussions about nature lies a logical
tautology. Individual Homo'sapiens use symbolic culture as part
of their extended phenotype to maintain and increase their
adaptiveness, but the very existence of symbolic culture
separates human self-ontology from an existential environment
(nature, the natural world, the other. . . whatever we wish to call
it). In other words, the emergence of culture necessitated a
bifurcation between experience and representation, and all
cognition ultimately Çerives from experience. In the most
fundamental sense, crllture is the symbolic representation of
experience, and evolution has effected an a priori dualism in our
dealings with the world. We construct symbolic models of the
world, the most primary being the self-ontology model which
presupposes self-other dualism. In this view, resembling that
recommended to us by John Locke, the human environment
comprises the sum total of the objects of our perception, which is
O*,lt existential and partly cognitively realized. This existential-
Introduction 31
cultural dualism is the core of the self-world or nature-culture
dualism, and is the result of evolutionary adaptation. We can
therefore have - and at this point I feel justified in reintroducing
the inverted commas - 'nature' and nature. The opposition
between nature and culture is not spurious lcontra Horigan 1988:
61, though the distinction may well be tautological, in that it is
invoked only to explain itself [ibid.: 110]. But to say this is an
observation of its formal status, and is not fundamental to its
existential character. Nature-culture dualism is created through
the symbolic construction of experience and is in nature only in
so far as Homo sapiens is also in nature. As we have seen, food
(both raw and cooked), techniques and bodies are all simul-
taneously in nafure and in culture. Culture emerges from nature
as the symbolic representation of the latter. As culture is a
subclass of nature (the most inclusive class) nature cannot be
fully specified using ordinary language, which is a kind of
symbolic culture. Thus, the tautology of cultural adaptation and
cultural meaning [see Ingold 7992: 39,53ì is really an instance of
the conundrum of Epimenides, that because all Cretans are liars
then Epimenides (himself a Cretan) must also be a liar. As
Bertrand Russell observed, such statements are internally
contradictory because they include themselves within their
scope. If culture gives meaning to nature, then nature gives
meaning to culture, then culture gives meaning to nature
(humans adapt), and so on ad infinitum. The 'paradox results
from considering non-nameability and indefinabitity as elements
in names and definitions' [Russell 1956: 61]. And 'whatever
involves all of a collection (meaning, culture, nature) must not
itself be part of the collection' [ibid.: 63]. Culture is subsumed
with nature both empirically and within the logical constructs of
ordinary language, and the opposition of nature and culture is
therefore a pseudo-problem arising out of reflexive symbolic
constructs (ordinary language) within culture itself.
\
Notes
1. This introduction is based in part on notes taken and
circulated at the Kyoto and Atami conference at which the
papers collected here were originally presented. Some of the
 -
32 Introduction
text also follows closely abstracts of papers submitted by the
various participants. I can, therefore, fairly claim that it is not
all my own work, and that I am indebted to all those who
contributed to the discussion. I am particularly grateful to
John Peacock, whose thinking and words are reflected i. *y
final remarks on nature-culture as a pseudo-problem.
2. The problematic status of the words nature and culture, and
the concepts which accompany them in different contexts, is
now so thoroughly acknowledged in the scholarly literature
that placing them in ironic quotation marks or in italics, or in
some other font, to highlight this, is wholly redundant.
Indeed, in a book of this kind, constantly to resort to such
textual devices quickly becomes irritating, confusing and
absurd. Therefore, outside quoted passages, they are not used.
3. It is not surprising, therefore, that the conference at which
these papers were first presented started from a recognition
that many of the old certainties bound up with conventional
Western scientific notions of nature no longer hold. This was
deemed to be so both in the sense of nature as a cultural
concept which can be shown to be endlessly malleable, and -
even - in its objectivist sense, where the discoveries of modern
i
ecological arr$ evolutionary biology, and of environmental
anthropology, show that the boundary between what is
natural and cultural is inherently fuzzy and dynamic. Such a
view is well exemplified in the various volumes of the
National Museum of Ethnology series entitled Liaing on the
earth, and edited by Fukui [Fukui 1995; Hori in press; Kakeya
1994; Komatsu in press; Ohtsuka 79941, and it was this project
which provided the original conference framework.
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