La catégorie kasituri, la nomenclature biologique Nuaulu et les échanges linguistiques dans le système commercial malais

The term kasituri appears in Nuaulu (Seram, eastern Indonesia) folk classification referring to a number of very different kinds of organism, sometimes as a uninomial and sometimes as an adjectival qualifier. The term is of Malay origin and in nineteenth century dictionaries primarily refers to musk and smell, though in Ambonese Malay refers to various species of parrot. I use ethnographic and language history data relating to this term to address issues of semantic change and flexibility in ethnobiological knowledge, particularly concerning the socio-cultural and ecological dynamics of introducing new words. Claudine Friedberg in her work on Bunaq folk classification was always sensitive to language change and this paper will incorporate parallels with her own work.