Anthropology

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Brothers, Revised Ed., 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn and chipped dust jacket. 618 pages, b&w illustrations. Features a vast amount of factual data bout the customs and rituals of the Murngin, the result of several years of study in the region. This new revised edition has 16 charts, a map of the tribes and clans, 17 photos and a glossary. Some light pencil marking in a few chapters.

Softcover. Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wrappers, 293 pages. B&w illustrations. A pioneering study that captures the mood, life and color of exorcist rituals. Attention is given to culture underling Sinhalese beliefs when demons intrude in their social world. Mild wear to covers, otherwise clean.

NY/Sydney AU, Academic Press , 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark blue cloth with silver and gilt stamping, 286 pages. Numerous tables, maps, plans and illustrations (some from photographs, others by Margrit Koettig). Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 381 pages, b&w illustrations. Filled with insight, provocative in its conclusions, A'aisa's Gifts is a groundbreaking ethnography of the Mekeo of Papua New Guinea and a valuable contribution to anthropological theory. Based on twenty years' fieldwork, this richly detailed study of Mekeo esoteric knowledge, cosmology, and self-conceptualizations recasts accepted notions about magic and selfhood. Drawing on accounts by Mekeo ritual experts and laypersons, this is the first book to demonstrate magic's profound role in creating the self. It also argues convincingly that dream reporting provides a natural context for self-reflection. In presenting its data, the book develops the concept of "autonomous imagination" into a new theoretical framework for exploring subjective imagery processes across cultures.

Hardcover. Urbana, University of Illinois, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 212 Pages. Hardcover with NO dust jacket. EX-LIB with usual markings, stamps. Card residue on rear fly leaf. Tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st US, 1935, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 337 pages, Index. Black & white photographic illustrations. Cream cloth with red & black illustration and lettering. The exciting story of the author's travels by car with Paris Benga, the famous Negro dancer, on a tour which zigzagged through the French colonies, the French and British mandates, and the Gold Coast to study the native dances in the districts most remote from civilization. This is also a study of the government and religion, the sex-life and marriage ritual, habits and customs, and the emotional and mental character of these West African Negroes. Mild stain to corners of front cover, not affecting the interior. Otherwise clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Thomas Yoseloff, 1st, 1960, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, 175 pages. Hardcover. 131 Illustrations, 16 color plates. Top corner bump, causing a light crease to pages at upper corner. Otherwise very good, clean. Dust jacket with light edge wear, chipping, mild soil.

Softcover. Madison WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 2nd pr., 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 570 pages. A scholarly study of British anthropologists and their contributions. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 324 pages. Poet and anthropologist Michael Jackson brings to this study of the folktales of the Kuranko people of Sierra Leone a sensitivity to the philosophical nuances of literature. Clean copy. Review slip laid in.

Softcover. Rio de Janeiro, Liberia Francisco Alves, 1st, 1977, Softcover in pictorial wraps, 108 pages. Scholarly book on African-Brazilian religious cults in South America and Mexico. Clean copy

Hardcover. Cambridge UK, W. Heffer & Sons, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and soiled dust jacket. 395 pages, b&w illustrations, charts. Alur Society became a classic for a number of reasons. Being much more than a descriptive account of an African society, it was the first intensive ethnography to adopt the ideas of Max Weber. It pioneered the idea that religion and ritual could be the basis of political action. It also showed how state systems could evolve not just on the basis of conquest but as a result of societies without kings inviting those with kings to govern them. Southall's theory of the segmentary state was adopted by many political anthropologists and political scientists, being applied not just to Africa but also to India and other parts of the world. Previous owner's signature inside front cover otherwise clean.

London, Cambridge University Press , 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 187 pages, b&w maps, diagrams. The Wamira people of Papua New Guinea display what outsiders would describe as an obsession with food. Who owns how many pigs, how much taro grows in whose garden, and who contributes what food at a feast, are all questions uppermost in their thoughts. Wamirans account for this preoccupation by saying that they suffer from perpetual "famine." They explain this by means of an elaborate and colorful myth about Tamodukorokoro, a monster who would have brought them abundant food, but whom, in typical Wamiran style of fearing what they desire, they chased away. In this carefully crafted and beautifully evocative book, Dr. Kahn, who lived with the Wamira people for two and a half years, argues that Wamirans' "famine" has in fact little to do with the belly. For Wamirans, concepts of food and hunger are cultural constructs. Dr. Kahn writes with a degree of nuance that takes the reader beyond academic analyses into the experience of the ethnographer and the daily lives of the people with whom she resided. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1941, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in green cloth, faded gilt lettering on spine, 500 pages. Photographs, bibliography and index.

Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 625 pages, b&w illustrations, maps. Contents: Principles of Status; The Maori of New Zealand; Manihiki-Rakahanga; Tongareva; Magaia; Easter Island; The Marquesas; Mangareva; The Society Islands; The Hawaiian Islands; The Samoan Islands; Tongs; Uvea; Futuna; The Tokelaus; Tikopia; Pukpuka; Niue; Ontong Java; The Status Lineage; Principles of Kinship; The Economics of Status; The Rituals of Status; Status and Evolution. Owner's name inside front cover otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Gloucester MA, Peter Smith, reprint, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth covers, 569 pages. Two decades after Darwin, intellectuals were writing about the evolution of everything. In England Edward Taylor focused on material culture such as fire making, cooking, or tool making. In America, Lewis Henry Morgan, concentrated on social evolution combined with subsistence techniques. His thinking was influenced by his Iroquois neighbors in New York. Like many others he posited three stages of evolution: savagery, barbarism and civilization, but he refined the three periods with three subperiods. In Lower savagery, for example, he saw humans subsisting on fruits and roots in tropical climes, using gesture language and marrying siblings in a consanguine family. Middle savagery saw fish subsistence, monosyllabic language, and marriage of cousins. Bows and arrows appeared in Upper Savagery along with syllabic language, clans, and tribal organization. Obviously Morgan was speculating on most of the developments, but he had found arguments for his positions from the reports of explorers and missionaries around the world. As a result, Morgan inspired an era of inquisitive thought that led to the development of American anthropology. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution/Bureau of American Ethnology, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, olive green cloth covers, gilt lettering on spine. 664 pages plus 112 b&w plates in rear. Extensive folding maps, plates. text illustrations. The mounds of Marajo & other sites. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 167. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Golden Press, 1st US, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 462 pages. Hardcover. The fourth volume of the series 'The Arts of Mankind' edited by Andre Malraux and Georges Salles. Light foxing to preliminary pages, front and rear. Profusely illustrated with full color and black & white photographs. A massive volume on the highlights of Oceanic art. Part One reviews material conditions of Oceanian life, the social & religious systems, etc. Part Two is a Gazetteer of Styles with Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia & Polynesia grouped stylistically. Dust jacket with chipping, wear along edges. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber , 3rd pr., 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright, rubbed and edgeworn dust jacket. The autobiography of an intelligent, traditional Hausa woman. An excellent piece of ethnography. The author, the wife of social anthropologist, became Baba's friend in Nigeria. After many conversations between the two women, she agreed to dictate the story of her life. Name on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Mountain View CA, Pacific Press, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 120 pages. A missionary's experience in the 1930s among the natives of New Guinea. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. A collection of 15 essays. No markings.

Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 328 pages. INSCRIBED BY CO-EDITOR GODELIER on the front fly leaf. The societies of Melanesia have been a constant stimulus to anthropological theory. In this collection of essays, anthropologists who have worked in all parts of the Melanesian region of the Pacific bring their expertise to bear on a single theoretical issue. This is a hypothesis formulated by Maurice Godelier concerning the relationship between power, kinship and wealth. Although tightly focused on Godelier's work, the book opens up a major enquiry into the constitution of society in a part of the world where men of prominence come to personify the nature of power. 'Big men', entrepreneurs of exchanges, and 'great men', who flourish in societies characterized by restricted exchanges and ritual complexity, appear to belong to quite different systems. This book considers how substantial the difference between them really is. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Co,, reprint, 1947, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. The true story of an African medicine man as he leaves his home to practice his medicine in the city. Wulf Sachs was born in Russia and trained at the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg. A citizen of South Africa who resided in Johannesburg, he was a practicing psychoanalyst and the author of many books on psychiatry and literary criticism. Classic account of a two and half year psychoanalysis of a South African witch doctor. This book was earlier published with the title Black Anger. Derived from a review posted on-line: Black Hamlet is at the same time a case study in psychoanalytic therapy, the report of a scientific investigation, a political polemic, a collection of ethnographic observations, and the biography of a common man whose remarkable features would otherwise have been overlooked. Clean copy.