Dear Martin and all,

Thanks for giving access to what appears to be a great tool that will
provide a useful boost for current and prospective research on birds and
traditional knowledge of them in east Africa.

From my own very limited experience in east Africa it appears that there
is a wonderful diversity of language and cultural groups with which to
work there - there also appears to be a large number of young and
emerging researchers keen to work in this area. And of course there is a
number of senior researchers (George, Hassan, Fleur etc etc) who have a
wealth of knowledge and practice in the field.

And, particularly from contacts made at the PAOC in Cape Town in
September last year, I know that there is a great interest in ethnoorn
right across the African continent - I have standing invitations from
about twenty people from as many countries after that meeting!

But, as is common, finding the institutional and financial support for
research and fieldwork is always difficult - as is convincing the
mainstream that ethnoorn is an important research priority.

I'll do my best to spread the word about this material - I'm busy for
the next few months working on my own book on Australian Aboriginal bird
knowledge so I'll have limited time to delve into this work - which as
I've already noted in conversation with Martin previously, looks like a
novel and very useful, practical research method that could be repeated
and developed.

Best to all for now and if you have any thoughts about using Martin's
data or repeating that exercise (pun intended!) elsewhere please send a
post!

Bob Gosford
Australia
--- In Ethnoornithology@..., "martin_t_walsh" <mtw30@...>
wrote:
>
> In the early 1990s I was lucky to work with a number of bright young
research assistants who recorded ethnoornithological information for me
in exercise books. I've now posted pdf copies of these to the
document-sharing website scribd.com, where they can be viewed and/or
downloaded (I've split the longer exercise books into smaller sections
so that the files aren't too big). They're all in my ethnoornithology
folder at
> http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/8414590/folder/87658
>
> The following Bantu languages / ethnic groups are represented:
>
> Western Kenya:
> -- Bukusu (Luhya): 2 files
>
> Central Kenya:
> -- Embu: 3 files
> -- Mbeere: 6 files
> -- Chuka: 12 files
> -- Tharaka: 6 files
>
> I'm sharing these so that others can enjoy them and/or make use of the
information they contain in their own research. For researchers &c. in
these and neighbouring communities there's plenty to follow up on and
gaps to fill -- including the identification of birds for which only
local names are given.
>
> I've also uploaded some of my past and present working notes on
Mijikenda bird names from the Kenya coast. And there's more on a variety
of ethnobiological topics in my other folders at
> http://www.scribd.com/kisutu
>
> Comments, suggestions &c. are welcome!
>
> Martin Walsh
> mtw30@...
>