Ron Brunton revives a problem posed by the great anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers in History of Melanesian Society (1914): how to explain the strange geographical distribution of kava, a narcotic drink once widely consumed by south-west Pacific islanders. Rivers believed that it was abandoned by many people even before European contact in favour of another drug, betel, drawing his speculations from the ideas of the diffusionist school of anthropology. However, Dr Brunton disagrees. Taking the varying fortunes of kava on the ...
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Ron Brunton revives a problem posed by the great anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers in History of Melanesian Society (1914): how to explain the strange geographical distribution of kava, a narcotic drink once widely consumed by south-west Pacific islanders. Rivers believed that it was abandoned by many people even before European contact in favour of another drug, betel, drawing his speculations from the ideas of the diffusionist school of anthropology. However, Dr Brunton disagrees. Taking the varying fortunes of kava on the island of Tanna, Vanauta, as his starting point, he suggests that kava's abandonment can best be explained in terms of its association with unstable religious cults, and not because of the adoption of betel. The problem of kava is therefore part of a broader problem of why many traditional Melanesian societies were characteristically highly unstable, and Dr Brunton sees this instability as both an outcome and a cause of weak institutions of authority and social coordination.
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New. Trade paperback (US). 228 p. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology . Worked examples or Exercises. Intended for professional and scholarly audience.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Contains: Unspecified. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology . Includes unspecified. Intended for professional and scholarly audience.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Contains: Unspecified. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology . Includes unspecified. Intended for professional and scholarly audience.
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Good. Ex-Library. 8vo. viii, 219pp, index, glossary, references, bw ills, maps. Or brown cloth lacking jacket. Ex-university library with more than the usual number of stamps etc (inc cancelled stamp). The use of Kava among the Tanna people of Vanuatu.
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Very Good. No Jacket. 8vo. Signed & Inscribed by the Author viii, 219pp, index, glossary, references, bw ills, maps. Or brown cloth, no jacket. Slight fading at top of front cover, some foxing to endpapers/edges/prelims. SIGNED and inscribed (To Marney) by author on front free endpaper. The use of Kava among the Tanna people of Vanuatu.
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Fine in Very Good jacket. 219pp. Octavo hardbound, tight binding. Clean boards, sharp corners. Interior clean throughout. dj: clean, crisp, lightly faded on spine.
