Anthropology

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 129 pages. Anthology of 20 stories gathered from 16th Century chronicles of missionaries. Illustrated by Bierhorst, Jane Byers. Clean copy. Dust jacket price-clipped.

Hardcover. Glendo, Wyoming , High Plains Publishing, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 244 pages. An incorrigible trickster, a clever thief, a rogue, sometimes a magnanimous hero, often a vengeful loser, but always a survivor, Coyote is the most complex character in the Nez Perce cycle of traditional myths. An anthropological analysis of Coyote's social relations with the other characters reveals how the myths, while entertaining stories, also impart traditional cultural values, proper social relations, and other practical information. Coyote's actions are often humorous, with consequences that account for many of the blessings and hardships of the Nez Perce experience. These translations from the native language are the most reliable and the most comprehensive available. Supplemented by myths from Archie Phinney and Herbert Spinden, Deward Walker's collection provides insights into the world and the myths of the Nez Perce Indians.

Softcover. Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st pbk, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 298 pages. This book suggests a bold comparative approach to broad cultural differences between Africa and Melanesia. Its theme is personhood, understood in terms of what anthropologists call embodiment. These concepts are applied to questions ranging from the meanings of spirit possession, to the logics of witchcraft and kinship relations, the use of rituals in healing, and even the impact of capitalism. Questioning common assumptions about the huge differences among these discrete areas, the contributions document surprising continuities. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 343 pages. This is an anthropological study of boyhood in a group of related Igbo villages called Afikpo, in souteastern Nigeria. About half of the book is taken up with the description and analysis of adolescent initiation rites, providing a close and detailed view of rituals that for the most part have only been touched upon in literature. The work makes use of psychoanalytic theory, with a logic that is grounded in data, blended with traditional cultural anthropological analysis. Ottenberg's understanding of the dynamics of the symbols and their unstated meanings contributes to the study of ritual process in any society. The data on ritual initiation alo0ne make this a major contribution to African ethnography, and Ottenberg's descriptive material on male secrecy and related gender distinctions provides a background fora more general understanding of West African secret societies.

Softcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2nd pr., 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 280 pages. Since 1965, West Indians have been emigrating to the United States in record numbers, and to New York City in particular. Caribbean New York shows how the new immigration is reshaping American race relations and sheds much-needed light on factors that underlie some of the city's explosive racial confrontations. Philip Kasinitz examines how two forces-racial solidarity and ethnic distinctiveness-have helped to shape the identity of New York's West Indian community. He compares "new" (post-1965) immigrants with West Indians who arrived earlier in the century, and looks in detail at the economic, political, and cultural rules that Afro-Caribbean immigrants have played in the city during each period.

Hardcover. Oxford/NY, Berg, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, glossy boards, 601 pages. This book explores the Yafar society, a forest people living by shifting cultivation, hunting and gathering. Based on fifteen years' research, it offers a detailed examination of all aspects of a society whose material and nutritional relations with their rainforest environment are mediated by a sociocultural system based on a carefully negotiated relationship with natural forces, and harmony between the sexes. Pencil marking to 10 pages otherwise clean.

Softcover. London/NY, Routledge, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 236 pages. "Colonial Desire is a controversial study that breaks new ground in analysing how concepts of culture get formed, and how racialized assumptions continue to pervade them." In this study, the author argues that today's theories on post-colonialism and ethnicity are disturbingly close to the colonial discourse of the 19th century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd Ed., 1974, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with fading to spine. This revised and expanded second edition, again tackles the question of procreation within the aboriginal tribes. As Ernest Jones said of the first edition (from the rear panel of the dust wrapper) " ... by far the most valuable study among the large literature that has accumulated over the vexed question of whether Australian aborigines are really ignorant of the physiological effects of procreation and whether they are " so to speak " pretending for social and religious reasons to be thus ignorant ". This landmark study was first published in 1937, and this second edition takes into account later fieldwork and new information that became available on the subject.

Hardcover. London, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightky worn and soiled dust jacket. 228 pages, b&w illustrations including several fold-out charts. Extends the study begun in her earlier 'Rituals Of Kinship Among The Nyakyusa' to include detailed accounts of traditions of origin, cosmology, and moral values. Contents: The Mythological Charter; The 'Divine Kings'; The Ritual of Chieftainship; Sacrifices at the Groves of Chiefs; Land & Power; Cleansing the Country; Rain-making & 'Sprinkling the Homesteads'; Kasitile the Priest; Medicines; Nyakyusa Cosmology; Pagan & Christian; Twenty Years' Change; Religion & Social Structure. Previous owner's signature inside front cover otherwise clean.

Softcover. Oxford UK, JASO, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 219 pages. Journal of the Anthropological Society Occasional Papers No. 4. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1st US, 1966, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 192 pages, b&w white illustrations. The history of a small volcanic island, 24 miles in circumference, that was settled by an English soldier and his family in 1816. And what happened in 1961 when it's descendants, cut off from civilization for 150 years, were rescued after a volcanic eruption into the modern world.

Softcover. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wrappers, 287 pages. Light fading to spine. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, diamonds were thought to endow their owners with invincibility. In contemporary United States culture, a foreign-made luxury car is believed to give its owner status and prestige. Where do these beliefs come from In this study of craft production and long-distance trade in traditional, nonindustrial societies, Mary W. Helms explores the power attributed to objects that either are produced by skilled artisans and/or come from 'afar.' She argues that fine artisanship and long-distance trade, both of which are more available to powerful elites than to ordinary people, are means of creating or acquiring tangible objects that embody intangible powers and energies from the cosmological realms of gods, ancestors, or heroes. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York University Press, 5th pr., 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 262 pages. "An Introduction from Vodou and Santeria to Obeah and Espiritismo." Creolization--the coming together of diverse beliefs and practices to form new beliefs and practices-is one of the most significant phenomena in Caribbean religious history. Brought together in the crucible of the sugar plantation, Caribbean peoples drew on the variants of Christianity brought by European colonizers, as well as on African religious and healing traditions and the remnants of Amerindian practices, to fashion new systems of belief. Creole Religions of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive introduction to the syncretic religions that have developed in the region. From Vodou, Santer a, Regla de Palo, the Abaku Secret Society, and Obeah to Quimbois and Espiritismo, the volume traces the historical-cultural origins of the major Creole religions, as well as the newer traditions such as Pocomania and Rastafarianism. Chapters devoted to specific traditions trace their history, their pantheons and major rituals, and their current-day expressions in the Caribbean and in the diaspora. The volume also provides a general historical background of the Caribbean region. Light shelf wear, clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Museum of Primitive Art, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover,112 pages. Original color illustrated wrappers with black lettering on cover and spine. Outline guide to the objects used in upper Sepik River rituals and the context in which they are employed. Based on author's field trips to the region in 1964, 1965, and mainly 1967. Profusely illustrated with b/w photographs and drawings throughout.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, reprint, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 312 pages plus index. Though written over fifty years ago, Cuban Counterpoint is recognized as one of the most important books of Latin American and Caribbean intellectual history. Treating tobacco and sugar both as agricultural commodities and as social characters in a historical process, he examines changes in their roles as the result of transculturation. Clean copy. Spine faded.

Hardcover. self-published, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, a self-published field study, bound in green cloth covers with gilt title on front, 276 pages printed on one side only, includes maps, charts and many color photos pasted onto the pages. A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Sciences at Massey University in New Zealand. the author was a missionary nurse in various provinces of Papua New Guinea from 1962 until 1972. She later returned in 1980 to research this study. A unique item.

Softcover. Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 198 pages, bibliography, index. Mild fade to part of cover wrapper, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Ausyin TX, University of Texas Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 282 pages, b&w illustrations. The simple question "How did the Maya come up with a calendar that had only 260 days?" led Vincent Malmstrom to discover an unexpected "hearth" of Mesoamerican culture. In this boldly revisionist book, he sets forth his challenging, new view of the origin and diffusion of Mesoamerican calendrical systems--the intellectual achievement that gave rise to Mesoamerican civilization and culture. Malmstrom posits that the 260-day calendar marked the interval between passages of the sun at its zenith over Izapa, an ancient ceremonial center in the Soconusco region of Mexico's Pacific coastal plain. He goes on to show how the calendar developed by the Zoque people of the region in the fourteenth century B.C. gradually diffused through Mesoamerica into the so-called "Olmec metropolitan area" of the Gulf coast and beyond to the Maya in the east and to the plateau of Mexico in the west. Clean copy.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press , 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 309 page, b&w and color illustrations. Light pencil marking in text. On the little-known and darker side of shamanism there exists an ancient form of sorcery called kanaima, a practice still observed among the Amerindians of the highlands of Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil that involves the ritual stalking, mutilation, lingering death, and consumption of human victims. At once a memoir of cultural encounter and an ethnographic and historical investigation, this book offers a sustained, intimate look at kanaima, its practitioners, their victims, and the reasons they give for their actions.

UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1980, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 233 pages. Anthropologists, in studying other cultures, are often tempted to offer their own explanations of strange customs when they feel that the people involved have not given a good enough reason for these customs. The question how the anthropologist can justify interpretations of customs which go beyond those offered by the people themselves runs through this book. The book focuses on the various interpretations that have been offered by anthropologists of ritual and symbolism. It offers a critical discussion of theories in this field in general, identifying their strengths and weaknesses when applied to the particular case of puberty rituals in a West Sepik village in Papua New Guinea. It then goes on to suggest an alternative approach, which draws on aesthetic as well as anthropological theory, and pays particular attention to the emotional and aesthetic experiences of people as they perform the rites. Pencil marking to about 25 pages, name on inside front cover.

Hardcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 452 pages, b&w illustrations. Some mild dust soiling, no markings.

Hardcover. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth cover with gilt lettering, 988 pages, 24 b&w plates, drawings in text, folded maps in rear pocket, all very good condition. Previous owner's signature on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean copy of a scarce volume.

Hardcover. Washington, D.C., Prestel, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 408 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Large oversized book. Devi, the Great Goddess of India is beautiful, beneficent, terrifying, all-powerful, and glorious. Ubiquitous in India's social and spiritual fabric, she has, over the millennia, been painted, sculpted, carved, and wrought from silver and bronze in a myriad of shapes and forms. Devi: The Great Goddess brings together one hundred and twenty of these diverse examples of Devi and a group of distinguished essayists who explore facets of Devi worship and tradition, including ritual, architecture, literature, history and contemporary issues such as feminism and gender politics. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO SIZE & WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Sraus and Giroux, 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 650 pages, b&w illustrations. A rare study of the Nabataeans, whose kingdom included that archaeological wonder of the world:, Petra. Name on front fly leaf, dj spine with fading.