An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia
Culture and Tradition

An introductory text to the peoples and cultures of Melanesia for undergraduate studies in general anthropology.

Paul Sillitoe (Author)

9780521588362, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 October 1998

280 pages, 60 b/w illus. 15 maps 6 tables
22.8 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.46 kg

"Sillitoe's sparkling book offers an unprecedented introduction to the anthropology of Melanesia....It will effectively bring Melanesia into its deserved position as one of the main loci of anthropological thought and analysis." Choice

This Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia is intended for undergraduate anthropology students with some grounding in the issues and ideas that inform the discipline, and for courses in Pacific Studies. Each chapter focuses on a topic common to many cultures in the region, such as the role of so-called Big Men, ancestors, male initiation, and exchange, and these ideas are fleshed out with apt ethnographic examples. Melanesia is a fascinating culture area, and has always been a popular fieldwork site for anthropologists, including W. H. R. Rivers, Bronislaw Malinowski, Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. Some of the most important theoretical contributions to the subject were also first formulated with reference to Melanesian studies, and students today still learn much of their basic anthropology from Melanesian examples.

1. Introduction to Melanesia
2. Food gathering, fishing, and hunting in the Fly estuary
3. Swidden cultivation in the Bismarck Range
4. Socialisation in the Admiralty Islands
5. Exchange cycles in the Massim Archipelago
6. Sociopolitical exchange in the Southern Highlands
7. Big men on Bougainville Island
8. Technology in the highlands fringe
9. Gender relations in the Western Highlands
10. Dispute settlement around the Paniai lakes
11. Sorcery on Dobu Island
12. Warfare and cannibalism in the Balim region
13. Initiation rites on the Sepik river
14. Ancestors and illness in the shadow of the Owen Stanley Range
15. Myth in the Star mountains.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]