SOME PROCEDURES AND RESULTS IN THE STUDY OF NATIVE CATEGORIES, TZELTAL FIREWOOD

This study represents results at one stage in the development of some specifiable techniques of ethnographic investigation & description. These techniques are directed to the formulation of linguistic contexts which elicit stable responses from some segment of the pop under study, & are thus efficiently replicable & minimally ambiguous. Query & response constitute a descriptive unit resting upon classificatory diff's signif to R's rather than investigators. Such descriptions can be seen as laying the ground for transcultural investigations into a wide range of systems in which culture is a signif variable. By way of example of the use of the techniques, the manner in which they reveal relevant dimensions is shown in terms of which firewood is diff'ially identified & evaluated by the persons using it in Maya Indian parajes of the Municipio of Tenejapa in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The description also illustrates some of the complex ways in which variously sized units within cultural systems can hang together. AA.