Nurit Bird-David
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520293403
- eISBN:
- 9780520966680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293403.003.0011
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The problem of naming forager-cultivator peoples is well-known. They call themselves by terms of kinship and shared humanity, but other people give them a variety of confusing and often derogatory ...
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The problem of naming forager-cultivator peoples is well-known. They call themselves by terms of kinship and shared humanity, but other people give them a variety of confusing and often derogatory names. Yet ethnonyms underpin ethnographic writing and cross-cultural comparison. This interlude relates the author’s experience of choosing an ethnonym for her study group, whose members call themselves sonta (us, relatives). It shows the appellatory confusion arising in areas with a rich colonial history, like the Nilgiris, where generations of travelers, administrators, and scholars have tried to ethnically map scattered forest groups, ignoring local population sizes and locals’ imaginations of their communities.Less
The problem of naming forager-cultivator peoples is well-known. They call themselves by terms of kinship and shared humanity, but other people give them a variety of confusing and often derogatory names. Yet ethnonyms underpin ethnographic writing and cross-cultural comparison. This interlude relates the author’s experience of choosing an ethnonym for her study group, whose members call themselves sonta (us, relatives). It shows the appellatory confusion arising in areas with a rich colonial history, like the Nilgiris, where generations of travelers, administrators, and scholars have tried to ethnically map scattered forest groups, ignoring local population sizes and locals’ imaginations of their communities.
