Word: kalam
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...diminutive man from the Kalam people of the Kaironk valley, Majnep is a living bridge between the subsistence life of a remote part of New Guinea's highlands and the world of science. In recent years, he has served as a collaborator on several scientific monographs published by Oxford University Press. Hired as an adolescent in 1959 to translate for New Zealand ornithologist Ralph Bulmer, Majnep soon found himself being interviewed for his familiarity with the feeding and breeding habits of birds that Bulmer was studying in the region...
Bulmer's respect for the knowledge of the Kalam people had a profound effect on Majnep. After assisting Bulmer, Majnep went on to work as a technician at the University of Papua New Guinea. Bulmer is now dead, and Majnep has returned to his village, where he continues to record his people's observations of animals and plants. "If you stay in your village, it is easy to pick up this learning because it is still all around you," he says. "But when people go to Madang ((the nearest city)), they lose it very quickly." Throughout the country, though, Majnep...