Arguments about Aborigines
Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology

A stimulating history of the central questions in Aboriginal studies, first published in 1996.

L. R. Hiatt (Author)

9780521566193, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 June 1996

240 pages, 9 b/w illus. 6 colour illus. 1 map
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

'… handsome and elegantly written book … L. R. Hiatt leads us with a sure hand and dry humour through this personal selection of Arguments about Aborigines.' Ian Keen, The Times Literary Supplement

In the debates which followed the publication of Darwin's book on the origin of species, Australian Aborigines were used as the ideal exemplars of early human forms by European scholars bent on discovering the origins of social institutions. The Aborigines have consequently featured as the crucial case-study for generations of social theorists, including Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim and Freud. Arguments about Aborigines reviews a range of controversies such as family life, religion and ritual, and land rights, which marked the formative period of British social anthropology. Professor Hiatt also examines how changes in Aboriginal practices have affected scholarly debate. This elegant 1996 book will provide a valuable introduction to aboriginal ethnography for students, scholars and the general reader. It is also a shrewd and stimulating history of the great debates of anthropology, seen through the prism of Aboriginal studies.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Prologue
2. Real estates and phantom hordes
3. Group marriage
4. The woman question
5. People without politics
6. High gods
7. Conception and misconception
8. Dangerous mothers-in-law and disfigured sisters
9. Initiation: the case of the cheeky yam
10. Epilogue
Notes
References
Index.

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