98 
Gregory Forth 
Anthropos 91.1996 
had to be prompted. By the same token, one may 
conclude that night birds are not a particularly 
salient group for Nage, and so occupy a peripheral 
position within the general category of “bird.” Ac 
cordingly, when their names were freely recalled, 
night birds were mentioned towards the end of the 
lists. In this regard, moreover, the nocturnal raptors 
contrast strongly with diurnal raptors, birds which 
on the contrary appear to be the most exemplary 
kinds of Nage avifauna, even in spite of the very 
close association of the two groups in spiritual or 
symbolic terms (Forth n.d.). 
Apart from the linking of the long-tailed Para 
dise Flycatcher and Spangled Drongo, other pos 
sibly significant pairings include the two small 
omen birds bama cea and ceka, and piko and kolo, 
both pairs being listed in succession by two of the 
ten informants. Connecting piko and kolo in this 
context accords with the conjoining of the two 
names in a standard phrase referring to smaller 
birds regularly hunted as food. In the same vein, 
two Nage listed kolo before or after ana peti (small 
passerine birds; cf., peti kolo). Three informants 
named the Cockatoo (kaka kea) immediately after 
the Large-billed Crow (ha), thus apparently reflect 
ing the standard pairing kaka ha (kaka = kaka kea), 
a reference to larger, flocking birds that cause dam 
age to crops, especially maize. Another possibly 
significant association is that of the Black-naped 
Oriole (leo or leo te’a) and the Hill Mynah (ie 
wea or io wea), whose names appear together in 
three of the ten lists. As the element wea (“gold, 
golden”) might suggest, the Mynah is often classed 
with the Oriole as a “yellow bird.” Although his 
formulation was perfectly idiosyncratic, one man 
even went so far as to describe the birds as two 
varieties of leo\ he then specificied the Oriole as 
leo te’a, and the Hill Mynah, simply, as leo (or 
Bahasa Indonesia “leo biasa” = “common leo”). 
While it is not so apparent from the free recall 
lists, other conversations revealed an association 
in Nage thought of the three named bat kinds. Not 
only do Nage commonly describe bats in effect 
as peculiar birds, but one man went so far as to 
describe them as composing a single “category” or 
“kind” (Bahasa Indonesia “bangsa”). Also owing 
to their peripherality to the Nage “bird” class, like 
true birds of the night (e.g., Nightjars and Stri- 
giformes), bats were in fact not often mentioned 
in free recall, or at least were not listed together. 
The Flying Fox (méte, Pteropus sp.), the largest 
of the group, was mentioned most often, being 
named by five informants. Ighu, the smallest bat 
kind, was mentioned by three informants, while 
the medium-sized gébu appeared in just one list 
(where it was mentioned together with the other 
two). In this case, then, one encounters an evident 
hierarchy, suggesting the Flying Fox to be the most 
exemplary member of a more inclusive, though co 
vert, class of bats. Two informants further named 
two varieties of Flying Fox, an ordinary sort and a 
larger variety specified as méte ha (“crow mete”). 
The apparent inequality among bats as category 
representatives is not clearly reflected in other un 
named intermediate groupings. For example, of the 
six named kinds of Falconiformes, “eagles” (kua) 
and the Brahminy Kite (jata) were included in the 
lists of all ten informants; the falcons named iki 
and bele teka were mentioned by nine and seven 
respectively; and the smaller hawk kind called sizo 
was listed by eight informants. Only the category 
of larger hawks, named jata jawa or wole wa, 
was mentioned significantly less often, appearing 
in just four lists. While eagles and the Brahminy 
Kite may be judged slightly more typical of the 
unnamed raptor class, therefore, only one of the 
remaining members can be called peripheral. 
Even so, the order in which Falconiformes were 
mentioned may be significant, since in the majority 
of cases kua and jata were named before any other 
kind. Also pertinent is the fact that diurnal birds of 
prey were mentioned right at the beginning of six 
of the ten free recall lists. Other “leaders” included 
small birds classifiable as ana peti, and Columbi- 
formes. Columbiformes, it should be noted, reveal 
the same largely unstratified internal patterning as 
the raptors. Of five named pigeon or dove kinds 
(not distinguishing the two varieties of bopo and 
of kolo), four were named by eight or nine of ten 
informants, while only one, the ’owa (Macropygia 
ruficeps), was mentioned in just five lists. 
Several conclusions can be drawn from the 
foregoing. First, diurnal raptors appear to be the 
most typical, or exemplary, of birds in Nage 
thought, a position arguably consistent with their 
relatively large size, visibility, capacity for high 
flight, and economic significance as stealers of 
domestic fowls. Not far behind the raptors in this 
estimation are the Columbiformes and small pas 
serine, seed-eating birds designated as ana peti. 
Secondly, the four largest and most firmly at 
tested clusterings (diurnal raptors, Columbiformes, 
quails, and crow-like birds) all appear relatively 
early in the listings. In other words, there seems 
to be a relationship between a bird kind’s member' 
ship of a clearly defined (if not explicitly named) 
intermediate grouping and the degree to which, 
by virtue of its position in the lists, it occupies 
a relatively central or focal position within the 
unlabelled “bird” taxon.