Chemehuevi: A grammar and lexicon By Margaret L. Press (review)

246 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 1 (1981) M's methods in collecting information about plants and animals from native consultants involved the use ofa checklist ofplant and animal species. H tells us in his introduction that M would attempt to fill out one of these lists with a speaker, using the plant or animal's common English name in conjunction with 'pictures' of the species (drawings or photographs?) M thus attempted to elicit terms for 68 mammals, 228 birds, 18 reptiles and batrachians, 5 fishes, 5 mollusks, 22 insects, 112 'trees and shrubs', 27 miscellaneous plants, and 4 general terms (e.g. tree, grass). Sometimes he would also provide information of a less systematic nature; e.g., in reference to the Tolowa term for 'bobcat', he noted: 'If mother sees bobcat before baby is born or mentions name of bobcat in presence ofbaby, baby will have fits and die' (212). Many schedules include additional terms for plant and animal species not included in his printed lists. M began recording Indian names for plants and animals in 1904, and continued until 1938. We are presented here with data from 122 languages and dialects, which H has organized according to linguistic family (Athabaskan 13, Algonkian 3, Yukian 3, Hokan 37, Penutian 35, and Uto-Aztecan 31). As H points out, some lists are very full, 'and others are very skimpy'; but there is enough here to entice the courageous researcher interested in at least some aspects of the ethnobiology of the early Californians. Several topics are mentioned by H as deserving further examination. First, one might be able to trace the diffusion of certain cultural practices, such as the Kuksu cult or the Miwok bird cult, by examining the patterning of word borrowings that have taken place with large numbers of names for plants and animals, many associated with these cults. Second, an orthodox dialectological approach to the geographic distribution ofeach item on the schedules (when data are sufficient) would provide an interesting comparison with linguistic maps drawn on the basis of more complete lexical and grammatical materials. Students of recent culture history might make a useful extension ofWilliam Blight's classic 'Animals of acculturation' (UCPL 4:4, 1960) by simply examining the structure and patterns of distribution of the words for 'dog' and 'horse' in M's schedules. On a more strictly ethnobiological theme, H mentions the need to explain the occasional 'lumping' of two biologically distinct species into a single native category, where one species is designated as 'male' and the otheras 'female'. How are these facts related to the perceptual bases of ethnobiological classification? Again, M's materials may provide guesses as to the importance or predominance of various plants and animals for California Indians. The systematic presence or absence of terms for certain species cannot be explained simply by the distributional facts concerning species habitats or speaker error. Finally, the names of many birds appear to be onomatopoetic; an analysis of how different languages render the sounds of identical species could provide insights into the nature ofonomatopoeia as a linguistic phenomenon. M's linguistic transcription is poor, and will make the use of these materials difficult for those scholars who lack recourse to more sophisticated sources. H points out (p. 1) that M was 'quite untrained in linguistics and obviously had a "bad ear".' His 'simple phonetic English' transcriptions at times appear to lead to a proliferation of forms that test one's notions of linguistic variation, as in the following renderings for 'grizzly bear' in seven Pomo dialects: Pt'tar'-rah, p'Tah'-kah, Boo-tug'-gah, Boo'-tahkah ('black bear'), Bü-rah-gäl, Bur'-ro-kah, Bottik '-kal. Nonetheless, M's records represent the last records available for many dialects now extinct. The diversity of these vocabularies for living things cannot be doubted, once one enters the pages of this book. Thus the work will stand as a major tribute to the ethnobiological knowledge of the first Californians, to the naturalist who worked more than 30 years in collecting the data, and to the anthropologist who firmly believed that these materials should not go unnoticed . [Brent Berlin, Berkeley.] Chemehuevi: A grammar and lexicon. By Margaret...