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A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea
As a young anthropologist, Don Kulick went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death of the native language, Tayap. He arrived knowing that you can’t study a language without understanding the daily lives of the people who speak it: how they talk to their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke. Over the course of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before it disappeared entirely, and he found himself inexorably drawn into their world, and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story of Gapuners—one that went beyond the particulars and uses of their language—that took full stock of their vanishing culture. This book takes us inside the village as he came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest. But A Death in the Rainforest is also an illuminating look at the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe—and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.
An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, A Death in the Rainforest takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.
An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, A Death in the Rainforest takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.
274 pages, Hardcover
First published June 18, 2019
102 people are currently reading
4035 people want to read
About the author
Don Kulick
19 books39 followersDon Kulick is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His books include Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 168 reviews
September 20, 2019
As a young man, anthropologist, Don Kulick traveled to a small, very remote village in Papau New Guinea. He went to find the reason that their main language, Tayap was dying. Why it wasn't being used nor taught by the elders in the village. He would return several times over the years, some trips would last year's....He grew to like and respect many of those in this village, they even built a house for him. Of course, these villagers had few things, were rather poor and had some strange beliefs. When he first came to the village they thought he was a reincarnated, passed on member of their tribe.
I enjoyed learning about this culture, the way they lived, celebrated, their past history and their new beliefs, which heralded from the few white men who had previously visited. The writing is clear, concise and there is humor and sadness as there always is in lives lived. The way they raise their children, and that I found fascinating. We learn everything about these people and there culture. The effects of colonization and their hopes for the future. They have what to me is a strange system, but for them it has worked for a very long time. It is a hard way of life in a hard climate and few live to what we consider an old age.
It also taught me one thing, that I wont soon forget. In many cultures, such as this it is an insult not to eat what is prepared for one. I, though they say never say never, don't think I would have been able to eat what was presented to Kulick. In fact, some of the humor was on this subject, as he tries to get rid of food he can't eat in a way that won't offend. So, if I ever travel to a foreign country I am going to find out their food choices before my trip.
He does find out why their language is dying and so much more. An interesting and enjoyable read.
ARC from Netgalley.
I enjoyed learning about this culture, the way they lived, celebrated, their past history and their new beliefs, which heralded from the few white men who had previously visited. The writing is clear, concise and there is humor and sadness as there always is in lives lived. The way they raise their children, and that I found fascinating. We learn everything about these people and there culture. The effects of colonization and their hopes for the future. They have what to me is a strange system, but for them it has worked for a very long time. It is a hard way of life in a hard climate and few live to what we consider an old age.
It also taught me one thing, that I wont soon forget. In many cultures, such as this it is an insult not to eat what is prepared for one. I, though they say never say never, don't think I would have been able to eat what was presented to Kulick. In fact, some of the humor was on this subject, as he tries to get rid of food he can't eat in a way that won't offend. So, if I ever travel to a foreign country I am going to find out their food choices before my trip.
He does find out why their language is dying and so much more. An interesting and enjoyable read.
ARC from Netgalley.
July 15, 2019
This was a book that I found most fascinating, well written and informative. It should be of interest not only to linguists and anthropologists but to any reader wanting to discover a different way of life and culture in a remote corner of the world.
On a personal note, I travelled for weeks in the Indonesian controlled part of New Guinea, with a small group led by an anthropologist who took us to some seldom visited tribes, including ones who could only be reached by small boats or hiking through the jungle. At that time the area was called Irian Jaya, now renamed Papua. More recently I travelled through Papua New Guinea on my own. This part of the island of New Guinea had been governed by Australia but is now independent. Having read everything I could find about this part of the world, I was excited when it was offered by NetGalley but disappointed when my request was rejected.
The author, Don Kulick, is a linguist who visited the small settlement, set in the mangrove swamps near the Sepik River. He lived with its inhabitants in intervals from 1985 until 2014, usually for periods of a month or longer. The purpose of his study was to find out how a language dies, and the cause and implications. There are approximately 1000 different languages spoken in New Guinea. The people of Gapun had been speaking Tayap, a distinct, expressive and sophisticated language seemingly unrelated to any other. This was being replaced by Tok Pisin(Talk Pidgin or sometimes referred to as Pidgin English). This is now the official language of the country. The author discusses how the demise of a language has been caused by outside influences, such as missionaries, plantation owners, overseas businesses exploiting the resources of the rain forests, etc.to the detriment of culture and folk stores, and beliefs.
Don Kulick realized he needed to embed himself in village life to learn Tayap in order to discover why it was becoming obsolete. He found it was more intricate and expressive than the language replacing it. He spent endless hours learning Tayap from the elders who still spoke it or remembered some of its words and phrases.
The author found he was accepted into their way of life and rituals. To his dismay, he learned that he was believed to be a dead villager who visited the European world and returned as a white man. This was related to their belief in the Cargo cult that white people were dead relatives who would return bringing lavish gifts from the outside world and would bring a change to transform their settlements into modern times with roads, cars, planes and homes they had seen pictured. Kurlick did give small gifts like knives, cigarette lighters, balloons, and old newspapers for rolling cigarettes in appreciation for their hospitality.
I found his studies of the languages to have clear explanations for the casual reader but would be of greatest interest to linguists. His interactions with the natives, his descriptions of various individuals, his anecdotes of life in the oppressive heat of Gapun, the difficulties in reaching the village, the description of their huts and daily activities were fascinating. The native food he ate, such as the diet of grubs and maggots mixed with jellied sago was just as disgusting for him as to the reader. He had to finally leave after some dangerous incidents with rascals, the name given to murderous young thieves and killers from outside the settlement. He learned that is presence was putting not only his life in jeopardy but also others in the village. At the end of the book, he relates incidents of tropical diseases he endured to carry out his studies. He fortunately survived and is presently as Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He has written a great non-fiction book.
On a personal note, I travelled for weeks in the Indonesian controlled part of New Guinea, with a small group led by an anthropologist who took us to some seldom visited tribes, including ones who could only be reached by small boats or hiking through the jungle. At that time the area was called Irian Jaya, now renamed Papua. More recently I travelled through Papua New Guinea on my own. This part of the island of New Guinea had been governed by Australia but is now independent. Having read everything I could find about this part of the world, I was excited when it was offered by NetGalley but disappointed when my request was rejected.
The author, Don Kulick, is a linguist who visited the small settlement, set in the mangrove swamps near the Sepik River. He lived with its inhabitants in intervals from 1985 until 2014, usually for periods of a month or longer. The purpose of his study was to find out how a language dies, and the cause and implications. There are approximately 1000 different languages spoken in New Guinea. The people of Gapun had been speaking Tayap, a distinct, expressive and sophisticated language seemingly unrelated to any other. This was being replaced by Tok Pisin(Talk Pidgin or sometimes referred to as Pidgin English). This is now the official language of the country. The author discusses how the demise of a language has been caused by outside influences, such as missionaries, plantation owners, overseas businesses exploiting the resources of the rain forests, etc.to the detriment of culture and folk stores, and beliefs.
Don Kulick realized he needed to embed himself in village life to learn Tayap in order to discover why it was becoming obsolete. He found it was more intricate and expressive than the language replacing it. He spent endless hours learning Tayap from the elders who still spoke it or remembered some of its words and phrases.
The author found he was accepted into their way of life and rituals. To his dismay, he learned that he was believed to be a dead villager who visited the European world and returned as a white man. This was related to their belief in the Cargo cult that white people were dead relatives who would return bringing lavish gifts from the outside world and would bring a change to transform their settlements into modern times with roads, cars, planes and homes they had seen pictured. Kurlick did give small gifts like knives, cigarette lighters, balloons, and old newspapers for rolling cigarettes in appreciation for their hospitality.
I found his studies of the languages to have clear explanations for the casual reader but would be of greatest interest to linguists. His interactions with the natives, his descriptions of various individuals, his anecdotes of life in the oppressive heat of Gapun, the difficulties in reaching the village, the description of their huts and daily activities were fascinating. The native food he ate, such as the diet of grubs and maggots mixed with jellied sago was just as disgusting for him as to the reader. He had to finally leave after some dangerous incidents with rascals, the name given to murderous young thieves and killers from outside the settlement. He learned that is presence was putting not only his life in jeopardy but also others in the village. At the end of the book, he relates incidents of tropical diseases he endured to carry out his studies. He fortunately survived and is presently as Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He has written a great non-fiction book.
November 30, 2020
Another read for Non-fiction November courtesy of my book club which will discuss this Monday. I’ve read most of the books in English about Papua New Guinea including historical ethnographies so I feel like I know more than your average reader. I enjoyed this layperson account by a linguist of the people living in Gapun where just about 50 people speak Tayap, a language isolate unique to just that village in the jungle. Don Kulick has spent time in Gapun over a span of 30 years and has a solid understanding of a lot of the cultural elements that also have an influence on language.
There is a video on YouTube of Charley Boorman visiting Gapun while Don is there, so it was nice to have more visuals with the narrative.
I think we will have a lot to discuss!
There is a video on YouTube of Charley Boorman visiting Gapun while Don is there, so it was nice to have more visuals with the narrative.
I think we will have a lot to discuss!
May 9, 2019
Don Kulick, an anthropologist and professor, first traveled to Gapun, New Guinea in 1986. Gapun is a very small village that is located in the tropical rainforest, aka the jungle. Mr. Kulick's primary purpose for visiting Gapun was to study the dying native language of Tayap. What he found was that that Tayap was being replaced by Tok Pisin, a semi-pigeon dialect picked up by the men of Gapun who had traveled outside of their village to work with English speaking white men. Parents were speaking Tok Pisin to their children, children were speaking it to each other and Tayap was spoken only by a few elders.
Kulick returned to Gapun many times, and for long periods, over the decades. He did a study of the Gapun people's culture, child raising practices, belief system, and overall way of being. What he found was that the traditional way of life was dying out. "What supplanted all those traditional ways of being in and knowing the world were the new ways of life that had been introduced to Papua New Guinea by white colonialists: Christianity, growing crops like coffee or cocoa beans for sale, the desire to acquire all the goods that the villagers saw or imagined white people had - and more broadly, the desire to change into something other than what the villagers were." "By the 1980's, Tok Pisin was firmly entrenched in Gapun as the language of the church, of modernity."
Since Mr. Kulick lived with the villagers, in some sense this book can be considered an ethnography. Mr. Kulick, an American who now lives in Sweden, observed many interesting aspects of New Guinea. For one, "it has more languages than any other country in the world and, in an area the size of California, there are almost one thousand separate languages, most of them still undocumented."
Mr. Kulick explored the insidious rise of Tok Pisin, and how the indigenous language died without anyone really wanting it to. "Tok Pisin - whose name literally means 'Talk Pidgin' or 'Bird Talk' - has a very short history" arising in the 1800's as a plantation language. It is a combination of the multiple languages of thousands of men brought together by plantation owners who had no common language. "As the decades passed, this invented language set."
Mr. Kulick's dedication and respect for the people and community he studied is obvious. While at first he is an oddity to the villagers and they look at him as a ghost, he wins them over, mostly via gifts, and then through continuity and participation in their lives. Anyone interested in culture and sociolinguistics will appreciate this book.
Thank you Algonquin for my review copy.
Kulick returned to Gapun many times, and for long periods, over the decades. He did a study of the Gapun people's culture, child raising practices, belief system, and overall way of being. What he found was that the traditional way of life was dying out. "What supplanted all those traditional ways of being in and knowing the world were the new ways of life that had been introduced to Papua New Guinea by white colonialists: Christianity, growing crops like coffee or cocoa beans for sale, the desire to acquire all the goods that the villagers saw or imagined white people had - and more broadly, the desire to change into something other than what the villagers were." "By the 1980's, Tok Pisin was firmly entrenched in Gapun as the language of the church, of modernity."
Since Mr. Kulick lived with the villagers, in some sense this book can be considered an ethnography. Mr. Kulick, an American who now lives in Sweden, observed many interesting aspects of New Guinea. For one, "it has more languages than any other country in the world and, in an area the size of California, there are almost one thousand separate languages, most of them still undocumented."
Mr. Kulick explored the insidious rise of Tok Pisin, and how the indigenous language died without anyone really wanting it to. "Tok Pisin - whose name literally means 'Talk Pidgin' or 'Bird Talk' - has a very short history" arising in the 1800's as a plantation language. It is a combination of the multiple languages of thousands of men brought together by plantation owners who had no common language. "As the decades passed, this invented language set."
Mr. Kulick's dedication and respect for the people and community he studied is obvious. While at first he is an oddity to the villagers and they look at him as a ghost, he wins them over, mostly via gifts, and then through continuity and participation in their lives. Anyone interested in culture and sociolinguistics will appreciate this book.
Thank you Algonquin for my review copy.
April 28, 2019
An approachable work of nonfiction for anyone intrigued by the field of anthropology. Its success emerges from its nimble evasion of many of the recent postmodern pitfalls of anthropological study. Kulick opens with the usual spiel on relativism and privilege and biased observation, but he doesn’t let the impossibility of making an impartial inventory and analysis of this vastly different society stop him from trying. The work harkens back to the field's great founding strength: the giddy discovery of new ways of talking, thinking, doing, and living.
Kulick first came to the remote village of Gapun in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea in the late 80s. His goal? To record the death of the local language, spoken by no more than a few hundred people. As a dual linguistics/anthropology nerd, this exploration was a holy grail for me. The chapters about language death are enlightening and rousing, but not for the reasons you might think. While it’s tempting to view the death of a language as a loss of a jewel of humanity, the way you might mourn the recent flagration of Notre Dame or the theft of a painted masterpiece, Kulick skewers this notion very convincingly: what we should mourn is not the nail in the coffin, the final loss itself, but the complex web of events that led to this loss taking place. For the village of Gapun, that web has many parts but the usual suspects are alive and present: colonial rule, economic inequality, colorism, education...
What’s happening to Tayap is the locals feel that their old language is backwards while all they want is to desperately move forwards, to the world of highways and helicopters and white skin and plenty. The younger generations who do still understand the language are afraid to speak it for fear of making mistakes and being humiliated by the oldtimers. Again and again, we are reminded to bemoan the larger political economy that has pushed the language to the brink, but it’s hard not to feel the most acute sadness in moments where Kulick asks the Tayap word for rainbow, and nobody knows for certain.
Interspersed in the linguistic tale is a variety of informative and charming tales about the broader Tayap culture. At a slim 200 pages, the tale clips by at a pleasing rhythm. Kulick knows his audience is more general-interest reader than academic, and he fits his tone perfectly to the task. More anthropology please--fiction and non!
Kulick first came to the remote village of Gapun in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea in the late 80s. His goal? To record the death of the local language, spoken by no more than a few hundred people. As a dual linguistics/anthropology nerd, this exploration was a holy grail for me. The chapters about language death are enlightening and rousing, but not for the reasons you might think. While it’s tempting to view the death of a language as a loss of a jewel of humanity, the way you might mourn the recent flagration of Notre Dame or the theft of a painted masterpiece, Kulick skewers this notion very convincingly: what we should mourn is not the nail in the coffin, the final loss itself, but the complex web of events that led to this loss taking place. For the village of Gapun, that web has many parts but the usual suspects are alive and present: colonial rule, economic inequality, colorism, education...
What’s happening to Tayap is the locals feel that their old language is backwards while all they want is to desperately move forwards, to the world of highways and helicopters and white skin and plenty. The younger generations who do still understand the language are afraid to speak it for fear of making mistakes and being humiliated by the oldtimers. Again and again, we are reminded to bemoan the larger political economy that has pushed the language to the brink, but it’s hard not to feel the most acute sadness in moments where Kulick asks the Tayap word for rainbow, and nobody knows for certain.
Interspersed in the linguistic tale is a variety of informative and charming tales about the broader Tayap culture. At a slim 200 pages, the tale clips by at a pleasing rhythm. Kulick knows his audience is more general-interest reader than academic, and he fits his tone perfectly to the task. More anthropology please--fiction and non!
September 7, 2019
While the sections on linguistics (mercifully brief) are not really of interest to me, I appreciated Kulick's open and candid discussions of his multiple stays in Gapun. I've never studied anthropology, but his brief essay on the legacy of Margaret Mead was also fascinating. A very good read, even for the complete lay-person like me.
February 11, 2019
Advanced reading copy - publication date June 18, 2019
While I am often fascinated by travel tales where explorers come across previously unknown tribes, this is the first book I've read where the author sets out to live among such a community. The village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea wasn't exactly unknown, but you won't find it on any maps either. Don Kulick wanted to study a dying language and was directed to Gapun where about 200 people are the last speakers of Tayap, a unique aboriginal language. Gapun is in the middle of a swamp in the heart of a rain forest so his decision to settle in, observe the village and learn Tayap was not done lightly. In several instances, it was nearly the death of him.
The tale that emerges is of a sheltered community that is slowly becoming aware of the world outside of Gapun. They covet the author's gifts of cigarette lighters, balloons, kitchen knives, etc but they also respect his privacy and don't steal from him. They believe that he is the grown up ghost of a child who died young and came back to be with his family. He is welcomed and is soon a part of the daily life, eating the native food (though he finds most of it disgusting)and participating in many of the rituals. He spends most of his time talking to anyone who will teach him Tayap and tell him stories in that language.
He visits several times over the course of decades and observes how another language is taking priority over Tayap. Tok Pisin (aka Pidgin) is the common language of the area and the men who leave Gapun to earn money learn it while they work. In turn, they teach it to the young people of Gapun so that they will find work as well. Tok Pisin does not have the depth or range of Tayap and in one particularly sad chapter, no one can remember the word for "rainbow" in Tayap. It isn't just a language that is dying, it is also the history and culture of Gapun. Oral histories generally don't survive language migrations.
Of course, there are plenty of anecdotes about daily life in Gapun that keep the book from becoming dull. Don Kulick knows to keep the wonky linguistic anthropology stuff to a minimum and concentrate on telling the story of his immersion and observations. While the inevitable death of Tayap and lost innocence of Gapun are sad, at least we have this record. All too often the flora and fauna of rain forests are destroyed before they can be "discovered." The same can be said of languages and cultures. Recommended.
While I am often fascinated by travel tales where explorers come across previously unknown tribes, this is the first book I've read where the author sets out to live among such a community. The village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea wasn't exactly unknown, but you won't find it on any maps either. Don Kulick wanted to study a dying language and was directed to Gapun where about 200 people are the last speakers of Tayap, a unique aboriginal language. Gapun is in the middle of a swamp in the heart of a rain forest so his decision to settle in, observe the village and learn Tayap was not done lightly. In several instances, it was nearly the death of him.
The tale that emerges is of a sheltered community that is slowly becoming aware of the world outside of Gapun. They covet the author's gifts of cigarette lighters, balloons, kitchen knives, etc but they also respect his privacy and don't steal from him. They believe that he is the grown up ghost of a child who died young and came back to be with his family. He is welcomed and is soon a part of the daily life, eating the native food (though he finds most of it disgusting)and participating in many of the rituals. He spends most of his time talking to anyone who will teach him Tayap and tell him stories in that language.
He visits several times over the course of decades and observes how another language is taking priority over Tayap. Tok Pisin (aka Pidgin) is the common language of the area and the men who leave Gapun to earn money learn it while they work. In turn, they teach it to the young people of Gapun so that they will find work as well. Tok Pisin does not have the depth or range of Tayap and in one particularly sad chapter, no one can remember the word for "rainbow" in Tayap. It isn't just a language that is dying, it is also the history and culture of Gapun. Oral histories generally don't survive language migrations.
Of course, there are plenty of anecdotes about daily life in Gapun that keep the book from becoming dull. Don Kulick knows to keep the wonky linguistic anthropology stuff to a minimum and concentrate on telling the story of his immersion and observations. While the inevitable death of Tayap and lost innocence of Gapun are sad, at least we have this record. All too often the flora and fauna of rain forests are destroyed before they can be "discovered." The same can be said of languages and cultures. Recommended.
March 23, 2019
When I saw this ARC book, I was interested because it reminded me of a documentary I had seen called First Contact about Australian gold prospectors in a remote part of Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. While the author's reason for being among this particular village, was more benign (because, he was there to study the death of their language, and not to get rich), I saw a lot of parallels, especially in the universal belief that white people were ghosts.
Studying and trying to learn Tayap, an ancient language that is spoken by only 200 people (and has never been written down) did not prove to be easy. Kulik had to go back to the village about three times over the course of twenty years to complete his "dictionary." Just finding a willing teacher was difficult and the going was tedious. The lessons were conducted in the commonly understood "pidgin" language - Tok Pisin - that had evolved from a time when men from various locales were recruited as laborers for European business enterprises; and of course, being more recent, Tok Pisin did not have anywhere near the richness of vocabulary. Not only that, but Kulik had to endure the kind of terrible conditions that exist in all jungle environments (snakes, malaria etc.)...and the food sounded even worse. However, this is no dull dissertation, but is both humorous and suspenseful.
While the villagers come off as childlike and naive at times, by the end of the book, it is obvious that they do have a sense that there is a "white" world out there full of riches from which they are somehow excluded. In fact, the author would say that the only thing the importation of Christianity and schools did was to sow discontent by showing the villagers all the things they did not have, like flashy cars and, more recently, iPhones. This in turn has led to gang violence which, since 1985, has made New Guinea an increasingly dangerous place to be, even in the isolated areas.
Studying and trying to learn Tayap, an ancient language that is spoken by only 200 people (and has never been written down) did not prove to be easy. Kulik had to go back to the village about three times over the course of twenty years to complete his "dictionary." Just finding a willing teacher was difficult and the going was tedious. The lessons were conducted in the commonly understood "pidgin" language - Tok Pisin - that had evolved from a time when men from various locales were recruited as laborers for European business enterprises; and of course, being more recent, Tok Pisin did not have anywhere near the richness of vocabulary. Not only that, but Kulik had to endure the kind of terrible conditions that exist in all jungle environments (snakes, malaria etc.)...and the food sounded even worse. However, this is no dull dissertation, but is both humorous and suspenseful.
While the villagers come off as childlike and naive at times, by the end of the book, it is obvious that they do have a sense that there is a "white" world out there full of riches from which they are somehow excluded. In fact, the author would say that the only thing the importation of Christianity and schools did was to sow discontent by showing the villagers all the things they did not have, like flashy cars and, more recently, iPhones. This in turn has led to gang violence which, since 1985, has made New Guinea an increasingly dangerous place to be, even in the isolated areas.
January 4, 2023
This is an anthropological book which everyone can appreciate and enjoy - no need to be an academic here.
Following Don Kulick on this very personal journey of connecting and intertwining his life with one of the remotest tribes in Papua New Guinea (tribe,that hardly ever saw a white man before), through his day-to-day stories - often funny, often naive and amusing - one gets to get a glimpse into society and culture that we forget still exists, so remote and exotic it is. But as Don’s visits and his field notes span over the course of 30 years, they put under a stark light the reality of slow, merciless process of disappearance, “elimination” if you wish, of these authentic remote communities under an unstoppable bulldozer of westernization. As sweet, touching, mesmerizing this book is - it is also a tragic modern tale of “evolution by adaptation”, of slow transmutation and merging of diverse and unique cultures into something new, something “pidgin”, something that is no longer and not yet. Recommend!
Following Don Kulick on this very personal journey of connecting and intertwining his life with one of the remotest tribes in Papua New Guinea (tribe,that hardly ever saw a white man before), through his day-to-day stories - often funny, often naive and amusing - one gets to get a glimpse into society and culture that we forget still exists, so remote and exotic it is. But as Don’s visits and his field notes span over the course of 30 years, they put under a stark light the reality of slow, merciless process of disappearance, “elimination” if you wish, of these authentic remote communities under an unstoppable bulldozer of westernization. As sweet, touching, mesmerizing this book is - it is also a tragic modern tale of “evolution by adaptation”, of slow transmutation and merging of diverse and unique cultures into something new, something “pidgin”, something that is no longer and not yet. Recommend!
September 9, 2021
Jag läste boken nu i min antropologiutbildning och måste säga att monografin är så otroligt välskriven. Med inslag av humor, reflexivitet och en strävan efter bevarandet av kultur och språk analyserar Kulick Gapuns befolkning. Otroligt läsvärd och perspektivgivande bok!
June 14, 2020
Fascinating, and very approachable story of Kulick's anthropological studies of a remote village in Papua New Guinea. The first half focuses on his work to document their unique, and probably soon to be extinct, language. The second half focuses more on recounting stories that are culturally significant, funny, or tell us interesting practical aspects of his stays in the village. Kulick is very grounded. He doesn't aim for inspiration, or to call out a tragedy. Yet his writing is solid, and the book is compulsively readable. I read it all at once; I could not put it down.
> I was surprised that a word for something as striking and lovely as a rainbow could somehow slip away from village memory … Old villagers' squabbles over the rainbow helped me to see how their inability to agree on proper Tayap was a feature of village life that was contributing to the language's demise. … In Gapun, nothing is communal, nothing is equally owned and shared by everyone. Everything—every area of land, every sago palm, every coconut palm, every mango tree, every pot, plate, ax, machete, discarded spear shaft, broken kerosene lamp, and every anything else one can think of—is owned by someone. This includes people's names and the right to bestow them, as well as knowledge of myths, songs, and curing chants. … In their own view, villagers don't "share" a language. Instead, each speaker owns his or her own version of the language. The older those speakers become, the more they regard their version as the proper one and everyone else's as a "lie." And so speakers are predisposed to not regard the loss of Tayap as particularly traumatic.
> Sadly, though, she and those other women are the last generation of Tayap speakers who will have the competence to be able to tell their husbands: "Stuff your sago into the opening of your friend's prick and get a thread and sew it up so he can carry it down to his village in his balls!" After them, all that will be left is "shitty ass" and "hole."
> When I lived in Gapun, I had spent a great deal of time explaining to the villagers that not all white people in the world know one another. They assumed they did. No, I would say, the countries are a lot bigger than Gapun and the surrounding villages. There are a lot of white people and we can't all know one another. It's impossible. Bill Foley was the first white person who came into Gapun since I had left fourteen years previously. The first question the villagers asked him was whether he knew me. "Sure I do," he answered cheerfully.
> As far as I was ever able to tell from the way villagers talk about the world, they all—and I really do mean all of them, including the ones who have been to school and who have seen maps and maybe even globes—imagine the world to be arranged in a kind of mystic arc, starting from under the ground of Papua New Guinea, the last country, progressively curving upwards towards Belgium, which borders on Heaven, and ending in Rome, the country where the Pope lives with Jesus and his mother, Mary, and her husband, God.
> The attack by rascals that left Kawri dead resulted in me abandoning my research in Papua New Guinea and not returning for almost fifteen years. The rumors that I would be robbed of everything I had at the end of my second long-term stay in 2009 led me to enlist a helicopter to pluck me out of the village like a raisin from a bun.
> The villagers' caregiving practices gave me pause at first: the blithe handing over of butcher knives to grasping babies; the continual ordering to fetch this, do that; the violent threats. Over time, though, I came to see that the style of caregiving practiced by Gapun mothers resulted in exceptionally capable and competent young children.
> The only people in the village I have ever observed beating a child—that is, holding the child by an arm and hitting him or her repeatedly with a straw broom, a stick, or, in one particularly egregious case, a bicycle chain that the child's father had acquired somewhere—were all men like Rafael who strongly identified as good Catholics, and who also spent a few years attending the primary school that used to exist in the neighboring village of Wongan. In my darkest moments, I sometimes think that the only practical knowledge that Christianity and Western education has given the villagers of Gapun is proficiency in how to beat their children.
> I was surprised that a word for something as striking and lovely as a rainbow could somehow slip away from village memory … Old villagers' squabbles over the rainbow helped me to see how their inability to agree on proper Tayap was a feature of village life that was contributing to the language's demise. … In Gapun, nothing is communal, nothing is equally owned and shared by everyone. Everything—every area of land, every sago palm, every coconut palm, every mango tree, every pot, plate, ax, machete, discarded spear shaft, broken kerosene lamp, and every anything else one can think of—is owned by someone. This includes people's names and the right to bestow them, as well as knowledge of myths, songs, and curing chants. … In their own view, villagers don't "share" a language. Instead, each speaker owns his or her own version of the language. The older those speakers become, the more they regard their version as the proper one and everyone else's as a "lie." And so speakers are predisposed to not regard the loss of Tayap as particularly traumatic.
> Sadly, though, she and those other women are the last generation of Tayap speakers who will have the competence to be able to tell their husbands: "Stuff your sago into the opening of your friend's prick and get a thread and sew it up so he can carry it down to his village in his balls!" After them, all that will be left is "shitty ass" and "hole."
> When I lived in Gapun, I had spent a great deal of time explaining to the villagers that not all white people in the world know one another. They assumed they did. No, I would say, the countries are a lot bigger than Gapun and the surrounding villages. There are a lot of white people and we can't all know one another. It's impossible. Bill Foley was the first white person who came into Gapun since I had left fourteen years previously. The first question the villagers asked him was whether he knew me. "Sure I do," he answered cheerfully.
> As far as I was ever able to tell from the way villagers talk about the world, they all—and I really do mean all of them, including the ones who have been to school and who have seen maps and maybe even globes—imagine the world to be arranged in a kind of mystic arc, starting from under the ground of Papua New Guinea, the last country, progressively curving upwards towards Belgium, which borders on Heaven, and ending in Rome, the country where the Pope lives with Jesus and his mother, Mary, and her husband, God.
> The attack by rascals that left Kawri dead resulted in me abandoning my research in Papua New Guinea and not returning for almost fifteen years. The rumors that I would be robbed of everything I had at the end of my second long-term stay in 2009 led me to enlist a helicopter to pluck me out of the village like a raisin from a bun.
> The villagers' caregiving practices gave me pause at first: the blithe handing over of butcher knives to grasping babies; the continual ordering to fetch this, do that; the violent threats. Over time, though, I came to see that the style of caregiving practiced by Gapun mothers resulted in exceptionally capable and competent young children.
> The only people in the village I have ever observed beating a child—that is, holding the child by an arm and hitting him or her repeatedly with a straw broom, a stick, or, in one particularly egregious case, a bicycle chain that the child's father had acquired somewhere—were all men like Rafael who strongly identified as good Catholics, and who also spent a few years attending the primary school that used to exist in the neighboring village of Wongan. In my darkest moments, I sometimes think that the only practical knowledge that Christianity and Western education has given the villagers of Gapun is proficiency in how to beat their children.
September 28, 2019
Languages, cultures, peoples are disappearing from the earth every day. This is the story of one group of people in Papua, New Guinea, as told by “card carrying anthropologist” Don Kulick. He wants us to know. And, like Margaret Mead, he believes we should be responsible to make sure this does not happen. This is an insightful book with much to say to anyone who cares. I think you will like it, and you will learn about the people of the Gapun village; I know you will gain much from the reading.
I met this book at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA
I met this book at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA
January 24, 2020
The first half of the book read like a term paper. Nothing there to grab my interest. Once I was half through the book the author talked about being robbed. From there the story picked up and I learned a bit of the culture of New Guinea, which was ok. Not a book that kept my attention and do not recommend.
Read
October 5, 2020no. get your grubby colonizer fingers off.
October 3, 2019
This is a brilliant book with some intriguing insights. Don Kulick graduated as an anthropologist and went to New Guinea to study a community in the Rainforest, whose unique language was quickly disappearing. He lived with the Gapun people for more than 2 1/2 years out of 3 and traveled back repeatedly for shorter periods over the next 30 years. Studying them as both a culture and how it was becoming integrated into two nearby tribes that for millenniums had remained separate from one another, then in approximately the last 50-70 years, they began to breakdown the cultural walls to become entwined with their neighbors nearby.
This was groundbreaking work particularly because languages are quickly disappearing particularly among communities that are smaller that have under 1K speakers. It also gave me insights into how other cultures are absorbed into the countries where they emigrate. As the blurb states,
So, Don has become an observer and participant in this culture. Though he was intrigued, the villager's didn't particularly cotton to him as a person (perhaps, it was because he was the first white man, most had ever seen or maybe they aren't to interested in specifically), he mentions this as a partial problem in fitting in and being founded trustworthy. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the book to learn if there was another reason.
Why? Yes, why didn't I finish this fascinating story? Well, because I have a brain injury and it got VERY technical about how language develops and how each language has many different rules of speech which define whether it is a true language or a dialect. He went into great detail on the rules of Tayup. Which included what is required for the basics of sentence structure with all the various terms and their applicability. I found it both interesting and mind-blowing. It was to cumbersome for me to grasp. Then, I felt stuck. I was not sure if I would miss to much by not understanding these distinctions and ground to a halt. It didn't even occur to me try the waters by skipping forward to see if I could still appreciate the story in totality.
So, I suggest those interested in the story to proceed and if they are uninterested or overwhelmed by the intricacy's of language to please try the rest of the story. It answers a lot of questions about language and about tribalism (I am talking about what makes people decide to belong to each other, this is not said in derision or in a haughty sense). I think many will find this pretty accessible overall based on the many high ratings given by other reviewers. I enjoyed the first half despite my personal challenges.
This was groundbreaking work particularly because languages are quickly disappearing particularly among communities that are smaller that have under 1K speakers. It also gave me insights into how other cultures are absorbed into the countries where they emigrate. As the blurb states,
He arrived knowing that you can’t study a language without understanding the daily lives of the people who speak it: how they talk to their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke. Over the course of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before it disappeared entirely, and he found himself inexorably drawn into their world, and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story of Gapuners—one that went beyond the particulars and uses of their language—that took full stock of their vanishing culture. This book takes us inside the village as he came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest. But A Death in the Rainforest is also an illuminating look at the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe—and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.
So, Don has become an observer and participant in this culture. Though he was intrigued, the villager's didn't particularly cotton to him as a person (perhaps, it was because he was the first white man, most had ever seen or maybe they aren't to interested in specifically), he mentions this as a partial problem in fitting in and being founded trustworthy. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the book to learn if there was another reason.
Why? Yes, why didn't I finish this fascinating story? Well, because I have a brain injury and it got VERY technical about how language develops and how each language has many different rules of speech which define whether it is a true language or a dialect. He went into great detail on the rules of Tayup. Which included what is required for the basics of sentence structure with all the various terms and their applicability. I found it both interesting and mind-blowing. It was to cumbersome for me to grasp. Then, I felt stuck. I was not sure if I would miss to much by not understanding these distinctions and ground to a halt. It didn't even occur to me try the waters by skipping forward to see if I could still appreciate the story in totality.
So, I suggest those interested in the story to proceed and if they are uninterested or overwhelmed by the intricacy's of language to please try the rest of the story. It answers a lot of questions about language and about tribalism (I am talking about what makes people decide to belong to each other, this is not said in derision or in a haughty sense). I think many will find this pretty accessible overall based on the many high ratings given by other reviewers. I enjoyed the first half despite my personal challenges.
June 11, 2019
Kurlick has a talent for narrative nonfiction. The book is very interesting and easy to read. I admit that I only selected it from the library shelf because of the Papua New Guinea setting. I haven’t been there, but during a nine-year period of living in Jakarta, Indonesia I went on an amazing trek in West Papua (Irian Jaya) - the Indonesian half of the island.
Even without living with our hosts – usually only spending a day or two in any location - I had very conflicted feelings throughout the trek. It unsettled me to think we were traipsing in with our tents, cameras, hiking boots and western accoutrements, only to traipse back out after leaving gifts of safety pins, embroidery thread and colorful rubber bands. (I do believe our guide also gave money to each village.) In each instance I felt we had dangled a glimpse of a totally different life in front of the villagers and then pulled up stakes and departed with our advanced technology. Several trekkers commented that they were glad they had a chance to see these primitive people while they still existed and hoped their lifestyle remained primitive. A lot of my conflict came when trying to reconcile this. Yes, I thought their simple way of life should be preserved, but on the other hand, why should anyone be denied access to change if that’s what they desire? Would the villagers have been better off if they’d never been exposed to us and two or three other groups per year? Did it matter, since they’d already been contacted many years ago by missionaries who were the first ones to bring change?
So, I was very eager to read about Kurlick’s experience of living in the village. More than learning about how a language dies, I loved reading about how he interacted with the Gapun villagers. His very honest thoughts on their lives and how change is affecting them really resonated with me. I liked that he didn’t offer easy answers to imponderable questions, but I appreciated that he made a genuine effort to understand the situation.
Another thing the book reminded me of was that while trekking we visited the villages of both lowland and mountain tribes. The Korowai tribe lives in the swampy lowland where they spend most of their time cutting down sago trees and making sago flour exactly as described by Kurlick. The area is so dense and moist and swampy that most of the residents have skin rashes and look unhealthy. Not all that far away is the Baliem Valley with fresh air and beautiful mountain vistas. The villagers we met there (the Dani, the Lani, the villages of Pirime, Piugan and others whose names went unrecorded) looked healthier, seemed happier and spent less of their time fighting neighboring tribes. Why do people settle where they settle? Do they know a more pleasant valley exists? Do they ever wish they could move, not to America, but simply to more pleasant surroundings?
By the way, I’ve tasted Sago grubs cooked in sago flour (I couldn’t bring myself to eat one raw and wriggling) and I absolutely cannot imagine surviving on a diet of those for 15 months!
Even without living with our hosts – usually only spending a day or two in any location - I had very conflicted feelings throughout the trek. It unsettled me to think we were traipsing in with our tents, cameras, hiking boots and western accoutrements, only to traipse back out after leaving gifts of safety pins, embroidery thread and colorful rubber bands. (I do believe our guide also gave money to each village.) In each instance I felt we had dangled a glimpse of a totally different life in front of the villagers and then pulled up stakes and departed with our advanced technology. Several trekkers commented that they were glad they had a chance to see these primitive people while they still existed and hoped their lifestyle remained primitive. A lot of my conflict came when trying to reconcile this. Yes, I thought their simple way of life should be preserved, but on the other hand, why should anyone be denied access to change if that’s what they desire? Would the villagers have been better off if they’d never been exposed to us and two or three other groups per year? Did it matter, since they’d already been contacted many years ago by missionaries who were the first ones to bring change?
So, I was very eager to read about Kurlick’s experience of living in the village. More than learning about how a language dies, I loved reading about how he interacted with the Gapun villagers. His very honest thoughts on their lives and how change is affecting them really resonated with me. I liked that he didn’t offer easy answers to imponderable questions, but I appreciated that he made a genuine effort to understand the situation.
Another thing the book reminded me of was that while trekking we visited the villages of both lowland and mountain tribes. The Korowai tribe lives in the swampy lowland where they spend most of their time cutting down sago trees and making sago flour exactly as described by Kurlick. The area is so dense and moist and swampy that most of the residents have skin rashes and look unhealthy. Not all that far away is the Baliem Valley with fresh air and beautiful mountain vistas. The villagers we met there (the Dani, the Lani, the villages of Pirime, Piugan and others whose names went unrecorded) looked healthier, seemed happier and spent less of their time fighting neighboring tribes. Why do people settle where they settle? Do they know a more pleasant valley exists? Do they ever wish they could move, not to America, but simply to more pleasant surroundings?
By the way, I’ve tasted Sago grubs cooked in sago flour (I couldn’t bring myself to eat one raw and wriggling) and I absolutely cannot imagine surviving on a diet of those for 15 months!
November 16, 2019
I loved this book!
August 23, 2020
My favourite book on language loss... brimming with wisdom and humour. A must read reality check for any linguist responding to the world's language crisis.
November 17, 2020
A memoir, rather than an anthropological study, A Death in the Rainforest shifts tacks a few times throughout the book. I expected the Scientific study, and a bit of personal experiences. The first quarter of the book is quite shallow, and stirred up feelings of distaste for colonial attitudes that seemed present in a 'white man meets stone age black men' story. The story was quite unoriginal in and of itself, and was simply one of an outsider coming to the jungle to observe and write a doctoral paper. That alone would not have been a problem, as even Jane Goodall herself was not really a trained scientist when she went into the jungle. She did, however, utilize professional observation strategies and write detailed case studies. That is not what this book contains at all.
I began to think of casting the book aside (figuratively since it is Kindle whisper-sync) and began to look for something else on Papua New Guinea. Then I tried instead to persevere and continue the story, and soon reached the point past all this where the book began to discuss the linguistics and anthropology aspects. This portion spans the middle half of the book, and is of average interest level. There is nothing new in it, and it could be written by anyone who has ever read even a novel set in the country. Even the linguistics seem a bit lacking in details or depth. But, very soon the human element begins to fill out the story. And, I found myself enjoying the story to some degree. The author utilizes quite a bit of humor in places. And, I finished it in one sitting. But, overall the book had the feel of a book written to cash in on an experience.
The last quarter or so of the book is another big shift. Here, things begin to fall apart in his PNG experience. He seems to have become jaded to his 'scientific purpose.' He loses faith in his ability to do any good with his work. He becomes disillusioned by mankind in general, and villagers specifically. And, he makes some remarkably harsh statements about men like himself in the afterword, and about Westerners in general. So, there are things to think about in the book. I just can not say I would recommend it as a book to be read. If you want Science, then look elsewhere. If you want a good novel, then look elsewhere.
I read this for my stop in Papua New Guinea on my Journey Around the World in 2020. My next stop is Malaysia, where I will be reading something a bit different. I try to cover a variety in my journeys. Sometimes I read Science, history, poetry, drama, novels, war stories... and a variety of whatever I feel is representative of each country. For Malaysia I ordered a collection of Asian children's folktales, which arrived quickly in a nice hardback edition. I will be sharing that with you in my next review.
I began to think of casting the book aside (figuratively since it is Kindle whisper-sync) and began to look for something else on Papua New Guinea. Then I tried instead to persevere and continue the story, and soon reached the point past all this where the book began to discuss the linguistics and anthropology aspects. This portion spans the middle half of the book, and is of average interest level. There is nothing new in it, and it could be written by anyone who has ever read even a novel set in the country. Even the linguistics seem a bit lacking in details or depth. But, very soon the human element begins to fill out the story. And, I found myself enjoying the story to some degree. The author utilizes quite a bit of humor in places. And, I finished it in one sitting. But, overall the book had the feel of a book written to cash in on an experience.
The last quarter or so of the book is another big shift. Here, things begin to fall apart in his PNG experience. He seems to have become jaded to his 'scientific purpose.' He loses faith in his ability to do any good with his work. He becomes disillusioned by mankind in general, and villagers specifically. And, he makes some remarkably harsh statements about men like himself in the afterword, and about Westerners in general. So, there are things to think about in the book. I just can not say I would recommend it as a book to be read. If you want Science, then look elsewhere. If you want a good novel, then look elsewhere.
I read this for my stop in Papua New Guinea on my Journey Around the World in 2020. My next stop is Malaysia, where I will be reading something a bit different. I try to cover a variety in my journeys. Sometimes I read Science, history, poetry, drama, novels, war stories... and a variety of whatever I feel is representative of each country. For Malaysia I ordered a collection of Asian children's folktales, which arrived quickly in a nice hardback edition. I will be sharing that with you in my next review.
June 14, 2019
I went into this book completely blind, having only the vague notion that Papua New Guinea was somewhere in Oceania and curious to read something totally outside of my usual picks. I figured it would probably be boring, but I would slog through it for the sake of expanding my horizons.
I was quite wrong.
This book was fascinating, honest, playful, and a bit convicting. The author doesn't shy away from honestly discussing some of their beliefs and practices that would be considered bizarre to American readers, but at the same time he writes the villagers in such a way that they don't seem so different from us; I could imagine myself sitting on one of their verandas, bouncing my son on my lap and gossiping with the other ladies.
It piqued my interest on this small country I hadn't considered before. I found myself constantly taking Google breaks to learn more about something or look at a map.
The author managed to walk a fine line in terms of treating the villagers with dignity and pointing out how when cultures collide, some differences are pretty funny. Take for example his experiences eating Gapun haute cuisine, including a stew full of thumb-sized maggots whose poo the chef forgot to remove before cooking. (To be fair, he points out that Gapuners would likewise be repulsed at some of the things you would find in Michelin 3-star restaurants.)
His chapter on the complexities and poeticism of Tayap vulgarities is hilarious and endeared these people to me. As much as I want to share some of the more creative profanities, it's really best if you stumble upon them in the book and laugh out loud in a public place like I did.
While I haven't spent any of my life (until this book) imagining what life is like in a tiny village in Papua New Guinea, Gapuners have certainly spent a lot of time imagining what my life might be like as a fair-skinned person in America. And, while I might not consider myself wealthy by American standards, the legacy of colonialism has granted me a lifestyle beyond the reach of Gapuners . What responsibilities do I/we have in the face of this deficit? The author doesn't offer answers, but it's certainly worth pondering.
So, in sum: an enjoyable book about anthropology/linguistics that doesn't require a Ph.D to understand and appreciate. Highly recommended.
arc received from the publisher
World Read: Papua New Guinea
I was quite wrong.
This book was fascinating, honest, playful, and a bit convicting. The author doesn't shy away from honestly discussing some of their beliefs and practices that would be considered bizarre to American readers, but at the same time he writes the villagers in such a way that they don't seem so different from us; I could imagine myself sitting on one of their verandas, bouncing my son on my lap and gossiping with the other ladies.
It piqued my interest on this small country I hadn't considered before. I found myself constantly taking Google breaks to learn more about something or look at a map.
The author managed to walk a fine line in terms of treating the villagers with dignity and pointing out how when cultures collide, some differences are pretty funny. Take for example his experiences eating Gapun haute cuisine, including a stew full of thumb-sized maggots whose poo the chef forgot to remove before cooking. (To be fair, he points out that Gapuners would likewise be repulsed at some of the things you would find in Michelin 3-star restaurants.)
His chapter on the complexities and poeticism of Tayap vulgarities is hilarious and endeared these people to me. As much as I want to share some of the more creative profanities, it's really best if you stumble upon them in the book and laugh out loud in a public place like I did.
While I haven't spent any of my life (until this book) imagining what life is like in a tiny village in Papua New Guinea, Gapuners have certainly spent a lot of time imagining what my life might be like as a fair-skinned person in America. And, while I might not consider myself wealthy by American standards, the legacy of colonialism has granted me a lifestyle beyond the reach of Gapuners . What responsibilities do I/we have in the face of this deficit? The author doesn't offer answers, but it's certainly worth pondering.
So, in sum: an enjoyable book about anthropology/linguistics that doesn't require a Ph.D to understand and appreciate. Highly recommended.
arc received from the publisher
World Read: Papua New Guinea
September 26, 2019
I don't usually think of myself as a reader of anthropological nonfiction, but I found this book engrossing. It was well-written, entertaining, and enjoyably educational. I would definitely recommend if you have any interest on languages, cultures, and how the two intertwine.
December 31, 2019
Review coming.
September 26, 2019
I am on a non-fiction kick these days and so when I read a review of a book on a subject that I know nothing about, I put it on my library hold list, and this is one such book. The loss of language is like all the other extinctions we will be watching unfold, and understanding what we lose when that happens is well worth thinking about.
As a young anthropologist, in 1985, Don Kulick, the author of this book, traveled to the most remote reaches of Papua New Guinea to study how a language dies. Motivating his quest was a haunting consensus then emerging among linguists that fully half of the world’s 7,000 languages are teetering on the brink of extinction. As he made his way across the vast mangrove lagoon at the mouth of the Sepik River, wading through malarial swamps to reach a narrow slit in the jungle that would be his home for many months, he was acutely aware that every fortnight, somewhere in the world, some elder carries into the grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue, and another language is lost. His destination was the village of Gapun, home to just 130 people, 90 of whom were fluent in Tayap, one of 600 extant languages kept alive by fewer than 100 speakers.
Papua New Guinea, a nation the size of California with a population of 8 million, has more than a thousand distinct languages—not dialects, but actual languages, 350 of which have never been spoken by more than 500 people. He went back over the next three decades and what he has to say about his experiences are like nothing I have read before. Honest, frightening, and enlightening.
As a young anthropologist, in 1985, Don Kulick, the author of this book, traveled to the most remote reaches of Papua New Guinea to study how a language dies. Motivating his quest was a haunting consensus then emerging among linguists that fully half of the world’s 7,000 languages are teetering on the brink of extinction. As he made his way across the vast mangrove lagoon at the mouth of the Sepik River, wading through malarial swamps to reach a narrow slit in the jungle that would be his home for many months, he was acutely aware that every fortnight, somewhere in the world, some elder carries into the grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue, and another language is lost. His destination was the village of Gapun, home to just 130 people, 90 of whom were fluent in Tayap, one of 600 extant languages kept alive by fewer than 100 speakers.
Papua New Guinea, a nation the size of California with a population of 8 million, has more than a thousand distinct languages—not dialects, but actual languages, 350 of which have never been spoken by more than 500 people. He went back over the next three decades and what he has to say about his experiences are like nothing I have read before. Honest, frightening, and enlightening.
June 19, 2021
Excellent (but then, I'm a lifelong anthropology enthusiast). Spending months at a time in the jungle to study your subject is pretty courageous. The author had malaria five times, dengue fever twice, innumerable parasite infections, skin lesions, etc. in addition to consuming the same food the natives did --e.g., sago jelly the consistency of phlegm enriched with maggots. He was also attacked on more than one occasion (by outside gangs, not by his village) and has now given up returning to the remote village as the country is just too dangerous. He had some wonderful insights as to how and why a language ceases to be as well as how social, political, and religious pressures destroy a culture and way of life.
September 29, 2019
I have always been interested in linguistics, anthropology, and Papua New Guinea. This book was a perfect intersection of those three interests.
I really appreciated Kulick's approach to this. It was respectful, but he was still able to share his frustrations with various situations in a way that didn't reek of white arrogance. His relationship with Gapun and the villagers was one tinged with love and respect. It was obvious why he chose to live there for a combined total of 3 years spanning over three decades.
I also appreciated his take on Margaret Mead at the end. Mead was a valuable contributor to anthropology and despite the legitimate criticisms of her work and approach, it doesn't do well to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am glad that Kulick acknowledged that.
I really appreciated Kulick's approach to this. It was respectful, but he was still able to share his frustrations with various situations in a way that didn't reek of white arrogance. His relationship with Gapun and the villagers was one tinged with love and respect. It was obvious why he chose to live there for a combined total of 3 years spanning over three decades.
I also appreciated his take on Margaret Mead at the end. Mead was a valuable contributor to anthropology and despite the legitimate criticisms of her work and approach, it doesn't do well to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am glad that Kulick acknowledged that.
August 24, 2021
Don Kulick makes linguistic anthropology interesting! And this is a pretty big statement from someone with a PhD in physical anthropology. Love the discipline, but struggled to be engaged in my linguistics classes. Too bad Don wasn't my instructor.
In this book Don shares his stories of the last 20 years with the people in a small village in New Guinea who live in an extremely remote location and are the last indigenous speakers of their language. We learn more about the people, their culture and their lives; but we also learn about the language they speak and how the use of that language is slowly dying.
Kulick paints a vivid picture of these people and his interactions with them. He pulls no punches as he helps his readers understand the motivations of these people as their world slowly evolves toward a position that doesn't include their native language.
I enjoyed this book and learned a lot about the people and their culture. I learned more about the motivations that Don Kulick shares about his experiences and motivations for both working with the people and also for leaving them behind in the end.
In this book Don shares his stories of the last 20 years with the people in a small village in New Guinea who live in an extremely remote location and are the last indigenous speakers of their language. We learn more about the people, their culture and their lives; but we also learn about the language they speak and how the use of that language is slowly dying.
Kulick paints a vivid picture of these people and his interactions with them. He pulls no punches as he helps his readers understand the motivations of these people as their world slowly evolves toward a position that doesn't include their native language.
I enjoyed this book and learned a lot about the people and their culture. I learned more about the motivations that Don Kulick shares about his experiences and motivations for both working with the people and also for leaving them behind in the end.
April 2, 2024
It's always enjoyable to read a work by a linguist. This is a non-fiction account of one of the 839 remaining tribal languages in Papua New Guinea and the demise of that language as the national trade language (Tok Pisin) stretches its tentacles across the island. Add to that the anthropological reflections of the author who lived for months at a time with the coastal tribe and you have a very engaging narrative.
Content considerations: Not recommended for young readers. Author has a secular slant. There is at least one chapter that can be skipped (whole chapter on cursing in a tribal language 🤷🏻♀️).
Content considerations: Not recommended for young readers. Author has a secular slant. There is at least one chapter that can be skipped (whole chapter on cursing in a tribal language 🤷🏻♀️).
October 2, 2019
The author seems to have a healthy balance of awareness and accounting for his privilege, consideration for the dignity and concerns of the people whose language and culture he studied, and a skepticism for the modern criticism that has paralyzed many Western anthropologists. He also has a nuanced and critical take on much of the current writing about language preservation and language death. A likely wise and considered point of view from someone whose work mostly comes from prior decades and is no less relevant today for its age.
March 27, 2019
He isn't Mark Kurlansky or Jared Diamond but he does a good job and he has a sense of humor. I did love how he wrapped the idea up with his argument about why do we need to worry about losing a language with less than 500 speakers, a language that possibly never had more than 500 speakers ever, in an isolated spot in the rain forest of Papuan, New Guineau? Read it to find out.
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