237‘universals’ is based, are seriously fl awed. The discussion on Solega bird classifi ca-
tion not only incorporated contextualiding information, such as geographic loca-
tion, cultural/ encyclopaedic knowledge and utterance type, but also acknowledged
linguistic variation, which is an undeniable feature of any language community.
Moving further from ethno-classifi cations, and deeper into the domain of context
and encyclopaedic knowledge , I fi rst gave an account of how Solega people view
their (living) physical environment—as a complex, three-dimensional patchwork of
habitat types that is constantly being updated along the fourth dimension of time.
This mental map serves as the substrate for the countless temporal cycles, spatial
collocations, ecological interactions that constitute Solega traditional ecological
knowledge, knowledge that provides the Solega with the means to sense the passage
of time, avoid danger, fi nd useful resources, and have a general awareness of the
state of their forest home. Their brief but frequent interactions with honeybees—a
highly signifi cant group of organisms for cultural reasons—has allowed them to
reconstruct the complex life history of these insects with remarkable accuracy, in
spite of not being able to observe certain obscure but crucial aspects of honeybee
anatomy and behaviour. The latter chapters of this book illustrated the point that
ethno-classifi cations represent but a tiny portion of the TEK of a language commu-
nity, and that ecological, cultural (including religious and utilitarian ) and linguistic
knowledge can only be separated from each other by radically altering indigenous
world views and conceptions. Instead, a language-oriented, context-sensitive
approach to the study of TEK can contribute far more to our understanding of such
highly integrated knowledge systems.
8.6 Concluding Remarks