A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea

by Don Kulick

Overview

“Perhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literature.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“If you want to experience a profoundly different culture without the exhausting travel (to say nothing of the cost), this is an excellent choice.”
—The Washington Post
 
One of Time’s 32 Books You Need to Read This Summer * One of National Geographic’s Best Travel Books of Summer
 
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, as he returned again and again to document the vanishing language, he found himself inexorably drawn into the lives and world of the Gapuners, and implicated in their destiny.

In A Death in the Rainforest, Kulick 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. And in doing so, he also gives us a brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, an illuminating look at the impact of Western culture on the farthest reaches of the globe—and, ultimately, the story of why this anthropologist realized that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616209049
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	06/18/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Don Kulick is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on topics that range from the lives of transgender sex workers to the anthropology of fat. He has conducted extensive anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Scandinavia. He is the recipient of numerous grants and honors, including an NEH Fellowship, an A. W. Mellon Foundation Guest Professorship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is currently Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden, where he directs the research program Engaging Vulnerability.

Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

1 The Air We Breathe 1

2 A Village in the Swamp 14

3 First Catch Your Teacher 39

4 Moses's Plan 62

5 The Burden of Giving 76

6 Dining in Gapun 89

7 "I'm Getting Out of Here" 102

8 Over the Rainbow 122

9 The Poetics of Swearing 131

10 Matters of the Liver 140

11 Young People's Tayap 159

12 Living Dangerously 174

13 Who Killed Monei? 199

14 Luke Writes a Letter 219

15 Going to Hell 239

16 What Actually Dies When a Language Dies? 246

17 The End 254

Postscript: After the End 261

A Note about the Names in this Book 273

Acknowledgments 276

Editorial Reviews

04/29/2019

Anthropologist Kulick tells a story of cultural and linguistic transformation and exchange in this clever, empathetic memoir of his time spent in Gapun, a remote village in Papua New Guinea, trying to preserve the Tayap language and to learn why it was disappearing. The book captures the spirit and rhythm of daily life in the village; most chapters explore a single event, theme, or aspect of life in the village. Standouts include: Gapunian attitudes towards children and language learning; the courtship custom of writing love letters; and deeply visceral discussions of local cuisine (heavy on the insect protein). Kulick also delves into villagers’ beliefs about the world beyond their impoverished swamp, pointedly reminding the reader that Papua New Guinea’s “cargo cults” (religious beliefs focused on attaining material wealth) have arisen as a result of profound global inequality. The decline of Tayap, too, he finds, is a symptom of cultural change wrought by economic forces. Despite lots of fascinating detail about a culture that appears very different from the modern West, the book concludes with a firm and moving reminder about shared similarities and an exhortation to better honor collective responsibilities. This frank, passionate work will move readers interested in a thoughtful contemplation of culture and globalization. Agent: Doug Stewart, Sterling Lloyd Literistic. (June)

Publishers Weekly

2019-04-10
How a culture withers and its language is rendered mute.

Kulick (Anthropology/Uppsala Univ.; Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture Among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes, 1998, etc.) wears his scholar's hat casually in this deeply personal, engaging inquiry into a "tiny windless slit in the rainforest [of Papua New Guinea]…surrounded on all sides by massive trees rooted in a vast, seemingly boundless swamp." A small village of roughly 100 people, Gapun has its own unique language, Tayap. The author renders his academic research in a light, almost novelistic style, with plenty of drama and heartache. He invokes anthropologist Margaret Mead's conviction that we should "learn from difference." From 1985 to 2014, Kulick lived in the village seven times, once for 15 months. The villagers called him Saraki and thought him a dead person, a white ghost, a "harbinger of the change they want so badly." He immersed himself in their lives and culture and learned their unique language, later writing a grammar. The linguistic part of the book may be a bit much for some, but Kulick does a fine job describing the language's origins, how he learned it, and how it differs from the country's national language, Tok Pisin. The author discusses their cuisine, especially their main staple, sago, a raw form of flour, maggot stew, and chewed betel leaves; how they educate and raise their children, never hitting them; their sex practices; and creative swearing, which is mostly done by women. Kulick also recounts a harrowing episode when gunmen from outside tried to rob him and a villager was killed. He understands that they want to change, but he wonders, at what cost? Few now speak their precious and irreplaceable language: The "mighty tree that once was Tayap has been whittled down to a skinny toothpick."

A sad and uplifting, ultimately poignant exploration of a tiny world within a bigger, harsher, and crushing world.

Kirkus Reviews

Perhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literature.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“If you want to experience a profoundly different culture without the exhausting travel (to say nothing of the cost), this is an excellent choice.”
—The Washington Post

“What does it take to study a culture? Anthropologist Don Kulick visited the small village of Gapun in New Guinea on and off for 30 years to study its dying language, Tayap. Blending academic discourse, linguistics and his personal stories about life in the remote community, A Death in the Rainforest illuminates the ways a society can change over time and become swallowed by forces of the outside world.”
—Time

“An important history lesson from an anthropologist who spent three decades watching a language and a people go extinct as the rainforest around them disappeared.”
—The Revelator

“Anthropologist Kulick tells a story of cultural and linguistic transformation and exchange in this clever, empathetic memoir of his time spent in Gapun, a remote village in Papua New Guinea . . . Despite lots of fascinating detail about a culture that appears very different from the modern West, the book concludes with a firm and moving reminder about shared similarities and an exhortation to better honor collective responsibilities. This frank, passionate work will move readers interested in a thoughtful contemplation of culture and globalization.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In this captivating narrative, [Kulick] considers complex questions about race and power in anthropological research, the nature of relationships among very different people, and the challenges of living in such a demanding environment. Kulick's engrossing, thought-provoking, and transporting chronicle will be enjoyed by National Geographic fans and all readers interested in cultural investigations.”
—Booklist

“Kulick . . . wears his scholar's hat casually in this deeply personal, engaging inquiry . . . A sad and uplifting, ultimately poignant exploration.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[Don Kulick’s] stories of adjusting to daily life in the village are both humorous and compassionate. Throughout his time working in Gapun, he is distinctly aware of the field of anthropology’s conflicting eras of practice, from its colonialist past up to the highly culturally sensitive present. Kulick allows his research to reveal his own cultural bias and acknowledge his privilege; in doing so, he details the reasons that support his theory as to why languages die in a manner that shows strong social responsibility and fairness. Recommended for a readership of varying ages, from young adults with an interest in cultural anthropology to college students and academics.”
—Library Journal

“A book not to be missed . . . Don Kulick looks back at thirty years of research into the death of Tayap, the native language in Gapun, a remote village in Papua New Guinea. His honest account of his work and adventures in this village are no less than fascinating . . . His funny, warm, and at times sad account of the changing way of life in Gapun makes for an informative and unforgettable read, and one that I wholeheartedly enjoyed.

From the Publisher