Ian Saem Majnep

Ian Saem Majnep (c. 1948 – September 2007) was a naturalist from the Kalam people of Papua New Guinea who wrote about the plants, animals and the belief systems of the Kalam people collaborating with the anthropologist Ralph Bulmer. He worked as a field assistant for Bulmer at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby and contributed to several books by Bulmer and also to a dictionary of the Kalam language which was published posthumously.

Majnep was born around 1948 and belonged to the Kalam people of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. The name Majnep means "Just sweet potatoes", derived from the situation faced by his family at the time of his birth, of having nothing to eat but sweet potatoes. When he was just four, his father died after a fall from a tree and his mother, Kalam, took care of him. They lived in the mountain forest above Gobnem (pronounced Gombnem) and in the Gulkm Valley. His mother was described by him as an expert hunter of animals and knowledgeable on the plants. He learned to recognized and survive on plants and animals around him from a very young age. When he was 11, the Kalam people came in contact with the outside world and two Europeans came to the region to study them, Ralph Bulmer and Bruce Biggs. As a child he visited their camps and when he was 15 he began to assist Bulmer who continued to make visits. He became a field assistant for Bulmer, who translated his notes and made him the first author of the books he published. At the age of 26, he was baptised and received the name Ian. In 1968 Bulmer had the University of Papua New Guinea employ Majnep. The first few writings of Bulmer made use of Majnep as an informant but in 1974, Bulmer decided to let Majnep be the main author and ethnographer. In 1977 Majnep got married and moved to the Kaironk Valley. Majnep received an honorary doctorate from the University of Papua New Guinea for his contributions in 1989. Bulmer published several works starting with Birds of My Kalam Country (1977) with Majnep as the main author. Bulmer decided that Majnep would decide the shape and purpose of the anthropological work as ethnographers rather than as consultants.[1][2]

Majnep died suddenly in 2007 and Kalam plant lore which he was preparing was published posthumously. A dictionary project that he worked on would only be published in 2011. A conference on traditional environmental knowledge was held in his honour in October–November 2012.

Writings

The writings of Majnep include:

  • Majnep, Ian Saem, 1982. On the importance of conserving traditional knowledge of wildlife and hunting and plants. In Louise Morauta, J. Pernatta and W. Heaney, eds, Traditional conservation in Papua New Guinea: implications for today,79-82. Monograph 16. Port Moresby, Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem, 1991. What is this man up to? A Kalam view of Ralph Bulmer. In Pawley ed. 1991, 29–36.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer, 1977. Birds of my Kalam country. Auckland: Auckland and Oxford University Presses.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer, 1983. Some food plants of our Kalam forests.Working Papers in Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics, Maori Studies no. 63. Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer 1991. Kalam hunting traditions.(Edited by Andrew Pawley.) Working Papers in Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics Maori Studies nos 85–90. Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland. pp. 405.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem and Ralph Bulmer 2007. Animals the ancestors hunted: an account of the wild mammals of the Kalam area, Papua New Guinea. (Edited by Robin Hide and Andrew Pawley.) Adelaide: Crawford House Australia.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem with Andrew Pawley, 2001. On the value of ecological knowledge to the Kalam of Papua New Guinea: an insider‟s view. In Luisa Maffi ed., Biological diversity: linking language, knowledge and the environment, 343–357. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
  • Majnep, Ian Saem, Andrew Pawley, Rhys Gardner and Robin Hide (?). Kalam plant lore: an account of the trees and other plants of the Upper Kaironk Valley, Papua New Guinea.
  • Pawley, Andrew and Ralph Bulmer, with the assistance of John Kias, Simon Peter Gi and Ian Saem Majnep, 2011. A dictionary of Kalam with ethnographic notes.Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
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References
  1. Pawley, Andrew (2012). "How Saem became an ethnobiologist and writer: on the collaboration of Ian Saem Majnep and Ralph Bulmer". Saem Majnep Memorial Symposium on Traditional Environmental Knowledge (PDF). University of Goroka.
  2. Marcus, George E. (1991). "Notes and quotes concerning the further collaboration of Ian Saem Majnep and Ralph Bulmer: Saem becomes a writer". Man and a Half (PDF). Auckland: Polynesian Society. pp. 37–45.
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