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Klappentext 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. Zusammenfassung Many of the most important theoretical contributions to anthropology were first formulated with reference to Melanesian studies. An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia is intended for undergraduate students with some grounding in the issues and ideas that inform the discipline. Inhaltsverzeichnis 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.
