"This book describes in detail the relationship between the Nage people of eastern Indonesia and the birds whose environment they share. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, it explores the ways in which a human society interacts with members of another zoological class and attaches particular values to these in a variety of cultural and conceptual contexts. As well as a fascinating study of the local ornithology of the Indonesian island of Flores, Nage Birds provides a critical review of current theoretical debate regarding how non-western societies categorize and think about non-human forms of animal life.

Ranging from issues of taxonomy and naming to the fascinating subject of birds' prophetic associations and their places in religious representations, myth, poetry and song, Gregory Forth's richly detailed work will be invaluable to students of ethnobiology, social and cultural anthropology, folklore, zoology and Southeast Asia."--Jacket.