The Unexpected Aye-Aye

Title: The Unexpected Aye-Aye

General Information about Item:

  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Verbal folklore; interpreting an anomaly 

Informant Data:

  • Nate Dominy is a Dartmouth professor who has researched several different aspects of aye-aye anatomy and behavior. 

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:

This interview lasted nearly an hour and was conducted in the informant’s office with all three group members present, taking notes, and asking questions.

This anecdote is shared from scholar to scholar (and occasionally with students). Transmission of the folklore can occur in any environment in which academics are in contact with each other: while performing research, giving a lecture, hearing a lecture, or talking over food or around a campfire.

  • Cultural Context:

This verbal folklore comes from a researcher who has conducted first-hand research with aye-ayes in laboratory contexts. He has never seen an aye-aye in the wild, though he has traveled to Madagascar. His knowledge of aye-aye folklore comes from other scholars’ accounts. Predominately, these scholars are Western intellectuals who are not native to Madagascar. Thus, it is a Western academic perspective that observes and disseminates evidence of this behavior and interprets it in context of their own reactions and those of the Malagasy people of Madagascar.

Item:

“So, there was this one occasion, this one anecdote that gets shared.

Some researchers went into a forest called Romapon. And they had no idea aye-ayes were there. Nobody did. Even the local people didn’t know aye-ayes were there. So it was this untouched, primary forest. And the researchers built a research station there. And the researchers went into the forest and the saw aye-ayes for the first time. And we think the aye-ayes saw humans for the first time. And so the aye-aye showed no fear whatsoever. Came down the tree, came over to the researcher and tapped the foot of the researcher. And then turned around and went up the tree. And so one could imagine that, if that happens to a local villager, and the aye-aye shows no fear no humans, then that might be pretty upsetting. And that may be part of this cultural aversion to this animal. Who knows? In other words, it’s innate curiosity may be part of the problem.”

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Collectors’ Comments:

This story conforms to a comment from our informant Sam Gochman. He said that aye-ayes are very curious, and will even tap on your body if you let them.

From what we understood, researchers will often use this anecdote and other similar ones in service of a larger point. This point often aims at understanding the Malagasy people’s perceived fear of aye-ayes, and connects the aye-ayes’ strange appearance with their startling forwardness. Researchers contrast their own reaction with the Malagasy people’s assumed reaction.

Collectors’ Names:

Keira Byno, Savannah Liu, and Annie Medina

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