131Birds play an even less important role [than mammals, to the Aguaruna and Huambisa of
Peru]. Some thirty to forty bird species, mostly the larger game birds, contribute an average
of 8 percent by weight to animal consumption, but none of these species contributes more
than 3 percent. By far the most dietarily signifi cant bird is the introduced chicken. (p. 89)
This obsession with only ‘what is eaten’ is worrying, and has been previously
noted by Hunn [ 62 ] in relation to plants. Solega people also consume more chicken
than any other bird, but to argue that this fact alone makes chickens more culturally
signifi cant than the woodpeckers , babblers, drongos and barbets that the Solega sing
about, listen out for, and tell stories about would be misguided in the extreme.
‘ Folklore ’ is probably not an entirely appropriate umbrella term for the diverse
items of cultural knowledge contained in the above categories, as many of the
Solega beliefs are undoubtedly based on a core of, what a western-trained scientist
might consider to be, biological fact. The example of the Greater Racket-tailed
Drongo , considered a leader among birds, is a prime example. Some of the useful
information that birdcalls are said to relay to humans may also have a biological
basis—many species of birds, including the woodpeckers found in the B. R. Hills
can produce special alarm vocalisations in addition to their standard calls, which
may serve to alert actual or potential mates, or even other members of their fl ock to
the presence of a predator. It has been shown that birds that perceive an alarm call
will hide themselves or fl ee [ 182 ], and the Solega’s belief that certain woodpeckers’
calls can indicate the presence or absence of danger may be based on such observa-
tions. Similarly, the frequent co-occurrence of the calls of some birds like the ka:ri
hakki or the ke:sakki with the onset of rain or the start of a new season is frequently
attested by visitors to the B. R. Hills. Such an association with rain is even encoded
in the formal English names of birds such as the Rain Quail Coturnix coromandel-
ica , which appears “ in certain districts coinciding with the opening of the rains... It
is generally a bird of the plains, but on the advent of the rains will penetrate up to
6,000 feet in the Himalayas and Nilgiris ” ([ 183 ] p. 265).
The relationships between certain birds and plants are sometimes encoded in
Solega lexemes, a prominent example being araḷakki ‘castor bird’, whose story was
described earlier. Ornithologists have noted that this bird does indeed have a par-
ticular affi nity for the seeds of the castor plant Ricinus communis [ 184 ]. The seeds
of the castor plant Ricinus communis are known to be extremely poisonous to
humans and other mammals, but it has been shown that birds have a higher toler-
ance to this plant’s toxin [ 185 ]. The regurgitation of castor seeds that the dove
performs in the Solega story may indicate a physiological mechanism to deal with
the ill effects of ingesting too high a dose of toxin.
There are also instances of plants being named after birds (we suspect this direc-
tion of lexical transfer because similar bird name s exist in some neighbouring lan-
guages such as Kannada , Telegu and Malayalam), although our consultants were
unclear about the exact nature of the link between the two species. Examples include
pa:riva:ḷada mara ‘ pigeon tree’ ( Butea monosperma ) and gi:jigana giḍa ‘weaver
bird plant’ ( Caesalpinia mimosoides ), both of which are species commonly found
in the B. R. Hills.
4.7 Birds in Solega Life, Myth and Ritual