The Reinvention of Primitive Society

The Reinvention of Primitive Society
Author: Adam Kuper
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2017-02-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351852973

The Reinvention of Primitive Society critiques ideas about the origins of society and religion that have been hotly debated since Darwin. Tracing interpretations of the barbarian, savage and primitive back through the centuries to ancient Greece, Kuper challenges the myth of primitive society, a concept revived in its current form by the modern indigenous peoples’ movement: tapping into widespread popular beliefs regarding the noble savage and reflecting a romantic reaction against ‘civilisation’ and ‘science’. Through a fascinating analysis of seminal works in anthropology, classical studies and law, this book reveals how wholly mistaken theories can become the basis for academic research and political programmes. Lucidly written and highly influential since first publication, it is a must-have text for those interested in anthropological theory and post-colonial debates.

The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
Author: W. H. R. Rivers
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2017-11-17
Genre:
ISBN: 9780331289701

Excerpt from The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 At the present moment there exists in Melanesia an influence far more likely to produce disintegration of native institutions than the work of missionaries. I refer to the repatriation of Melanesian labourers from Queensland which has been the result of the movement for a white Australia. Large numbers of men, women and children have recently returned to nearly every Melanesian island. Some had been many years in Queensland and have quite forgotten all they ever knew of their native institutions; some even have that contempt for these institutions which so often accompanies a smattering Of civilisation. Their influence on native institutions in the future must almost certainly be great, but this influence is so comparatively recent that I do not believe it has had any appreciable effect on the social conditions which I record in this volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Complete)

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Complete)
Author: Sir James George Frazer
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Total Pages: 6687
Release: 1957-01-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1465538461

For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my attention was the hitherto unexplained rule of the Arician priesthood; and last spring it happened that in the course of my reading I came across some facts which, combined with others I had noted before, suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of primitive religion, I resolved to develop it fully, and, detaching it from my general work, to issue it as a separate study. This book is the result. Now that the theory, which necessarily presented itself to me at first in outline, has been worked out in detail, I cannot but feel that in some places I may have pushed it too far. If this should prove to have been the case, I will readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon as it is brought home to me. Meantime my essay may serve its purpose as a first attempt to solve a difficult problem, and to bring a variety of scattered facts into some sort of order and system. A justification is perhaps needed of the length at which I have dwelt upon the popular festivals observed by European peasants in spring, at midsummer, and at harvest. It can hardly be too often repeated, since it is not yet generally recognised, that in spite of their fragmentary character the popular superstitions and customs of the peasantry are by far the fullest and most trustworthy evidence we possess as to the primitive religion of the Aryans. Indeed the primitive Aryan, in all that regards his mental fibre and texture, is not extinct. He is amongst us to this day. The great intellectual and moral forces which have revolutionised the educated world have scarcely affected the peasant. In his inmost beliefs he is what his forefathers were in the days when forest trees still grew and squirrels played on the ground where Rome and London now stand.

Anahulu

Anahulu
Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1994-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226733654

Combining archaeology and social anthropology this historical and archaeological two volume set constructs an integrated history of the Anahulu Valley in northwestern O'ahu that traces the cultural transformation in a typical local center of the Hawaiian Kingdom founded by Kamehame. Volume one is a historical ethnography and volume two is an archaeology of history.

Two Against the Tide

Two Against the Tide
Author: Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2024-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1805395777

When Charles Seligman invited his wife, Brenda, to share his tent in 1907, he sanctioned a professional place for female fieldworkers in anthropology. Seligman was a groundbreaking pioneer of ethnographic work in Oceania and Africa. He treated shellshocked soldiers, he amassed museum collections and he fathered a generation of exceptional students. Brenda, his first student, became a scholar in her own right. Eighty years after his death, the Seligman legacy was deleted from the institution he began. Two Against the Tide explores how as wealthy Anglo-Jews, Charles and Brenda Seligman built a shared career through secret benevolence and silent endurance of hardship.

Patterns in Comparative Religion

Patterns in Comparative Religion
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2022-11-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1496208323

In this era of increased knowledge the essence of religious phenomena eludes the psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and other specialists because they do not study it as religious. According to Mircea Eliade, they miss the one irreducible element in religious phenomena--the element of the sacred. Eliade abundantly demonstrates universal religious experience and shows how humanity's effort to live within a sacred sphere has manifested itself in myriad cultures from ancient to modern times; how certain beliefs, rituals, symbols, and myths have, with interesting variations, persisted.