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Brent Berlin 3
Cognitive Aspects of Aguaruna Jivaro Botanical Ethnography

A. Description of research: Abstract
Building on the results of more than six years of research in the area of botanical ethnography, the applicant proposes to initiate basic ethnobotanical research among the Aguaruna Jivaro, a primitive horticultural group of American Indians residing along the Upper Maranon River and its many tributaries in Northern Amazonian Peru. The major focus of the study will aim at (a) compiling initial detailed data relevant to the testing of hypotheses concerning the nature of primitive ethnobiological classification and nomenclature which have been suggested to be applicable to all pre-scientific peoples (Berlin, Breedlove and Raven, in press; Berlin, in press), (b) providing more information on pre-scientific man's ethnobotanical conceptualization of the tropical forest leading ultimately to a study of Aguaruna ethnobiology in general and (c) providing data on the use of tropical forest resources which may be of value to modern man at a time when such research is of crucial importance. The methods to be employed will be those developed in the area of ethno-scientific research over the last decade, accompanied by systematic botanical sorting of the flora recognized linguistically by the Aguaruna. The immediate research goal will be to discover the underlying cognitive principles of classification and identification utilized by these people in interacting with their floral environment and to describe in what ways this knowledge is used by them for their own benefit. The long term goal is directed toward illuminating the nature of primitive classification and cognition which is supported by detailed empirical field research on actual folk systems.

B. Specific aims
The applicant proposes to spend 15 months of research time in Amazonian Peru living among the Aguaruna. There are two specific aims of the field research during this period. The first is to determine the full inventory of Aguaruna plant taxa and their botanical referents by extensive ethnoscientific elicitation and botanical collecting. Compilation of these basic data will form the foundation for the research leading to the discovery of those cognitive principles utilized by the Aguaruna in classifying, naming, and identifying these plant taxa. The final description of the native conceptualization of plants will contribute to the testing of hypotheses relating to the principles of ethnobiological classification which have been claimed to be highly general.

The second specific aim is to provide a detailed ethnobiological description of the ways in which the knowledge of plants is utilized by the Aguaruna in ways of cultural significance. Two broad and fundamental areas of human activity will be examined in detail: economic folk botany and the cultural use of plants in medicine and ritual. In this regard, an intensive description of horticultural knowledge is envisioned, along with studies of the significance of non-cultivated plants of major economic importance. The relationship of plants to social structure will be examined, especially as it relates to myth, social groupings, and religion. A preliminary study of Aguaruna theories of disease and disease classification will be undertaken with special reference to the use of plants which are employed because of their presumed medicinal value.

C. Methods of procedure
An adequate ethnobotanical description carried out from a cognitive point of view should specify explicitly the cultural knowledge held by members of a particular society which enables them to behave appropriately in any cultural contexts where botanical knowledge is utilized by them, consciously or unconsciously. The completeness of such a description must be evaluated in terms of the extent to which one can provide concise answers to at least the following questions (modified, in part, from Conklin 1969):