Machiguenga ethnoicthyology: taxonomy as the intersection of alternative systems of identification

The Machiguenga consider all true fish emerged from the same mother so constitute a domain separate from terrestial, avian and other aquatic life forms.  They identify fish by classes (genus-style taxa each named for one illustrative species), by behavioral categories and by descriptors indicative only in the context of a class and/or category of fishes. Key behvaioral categories feature fish-human interactions and parse classes to exclude some fish anatomically similar to the archetype while including others as dissimilar as catfish, characins and needlefishes. Their Amazonian logic of alternative identification systems accurately "point" to hundreds of fish species, few of which are assigned only one unique reserved "name".  Analysis is based on recent fieldwork among Machiguenga in the Urubamba basin in north Cuzco and south Ucayali Regions, Peru.