Bulmer's essay, "Why the Cassowary is not a bird" was the first item on the reading list for my first year undergraduate Sociology course back in 1980 in which

Bulmer's essay, "Why the Cassowary is not a bird" was the first item on the reading list for my first year undergraduate Sociology course back in 1980 in which he argues "The cassowary is not a bird because it enjoys a unique relationship in Karam thought to man." The Karam are the people of the upper Kaironk Valley in the Schrader Mountains of New Guinea to whom the Cassowary has totemic significance.