Describes how statistical categories were developed from common names for Amazonian animals and plants hunted, gathered, and raised given as answers to open-ended questions on the Peru's First Census of the Indigenous Communities conducted in 1993. Sources of variance and ambiguities, decisions made to prepare coding categories for tabulation and statistical data, and methods used to reference local names for life forms to Latin binomial names are detailed. Cites words originating in the respondents' Amazonian languages or Spanish, the raw frequencies of communities reporting particular terms, and the probable biological references. Recommends developing and testing visual aides to overcome cultural and linguistic differences between local respondents and Western science.
Citation: 1996, Journal of Ethnobiology 16 (2 Winter 1996, January 1997) : 185-211.
