lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, ethnomusicology and indigenous art

11386 Allen, Louis A Time Before Morning Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines Rigby, Adelaide, 1975. Small quarto, 304 pp. Owner's name on endpaper. Minor spotting to endpapers and page edges. 167 illustrations in colour and black and white. Very good in dustwrapper with some fraying and tearing to top edge. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The book presents a general introduction to the history of the Aborigines, their different art styles and the artists themselves, as well as shorter introductions to set individual stories in their cultural and religious context. In addition the author includes detailed notes on the sources of the stories and on the meanings of the paintings and sculptures. Click here to order $50

14400 Berndt, Ronald M Three Faces of Love Traditional Aboriginal Song-Poetry Nelson, West Melbourne, 1976. Hardcover, 130pp, colour illustrations. Boards worn along edges and corners. Dustwrapper chipped along edges and corners especially over the spine. Otherwise very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Three Faces of Love is the three song-poetry cycle of traditional Aboriginal erotic poetry. Professor Berndt's sensitive renderings of the poems conjure up the haunting atmosphere of muted eroticism of the north-eastern Arnhem Landers' traditional songs. Drawings in the traditional style have been chosen to illustrate in colour the richness and originality of the tradition. Click here to order $20

30418 Binney, Judith Redemption Songs A Life of the Nineteenth-century Maori Leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki University of Hawaii, 1997. Paperback, remainder, new. Click here to order $30

52493 Blacker, Carmen The Catalpa Bow A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan Allen and Unwin, London, 1975. Hardcover, 376pp., b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly toned. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges; sticker mark on upper front corner; scrape to front panel; some marks to front spine hinge. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] In this book, Dr Blacker describes the supernatural beings, both good and evil with whom the shaman communicates, the complex geography of the other world in Japanese mygh and legend, the initiatory dreams by which the shaman is elected to his task and the ascetic practices by means of which he consolidates his powers. She goes on to describe these shamanic figures as they survive today; the blind mediums in the north of Japan, the founders of new religious sects, the ascetic healers and exorcists who cure sicknesses due to divine possession, the rituals still performed in certain villages whereby deities are caused to descend into a medium and deliver an oracle. Click here to order $65

33547 Blake, Barry J Australian Aboriginal Languages A General Introduction Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1981. Hardback, page edges lightly spotted. Board edges worn on lower edge of spine and corners. Dustwrapper slightly crumpled at head of spine, slight shelf wear. Otherwise very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $45

40072 Boon, James A From Symbolism to Structuralism Levi-Strauss in a Literary Tradition Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1972. Hardcover, page edges spotted. Dustwrapper very slightly scuffed. Otherwise, very good. Click here to order $23

7496 Cornet, Joseph. A Survey of Zairian Art: The Bronson Collection. North Carolina Museum of Art,1978. Hardcover, square quarto, 379pp., numerous colour and monochrome plates. Faint spotting to upper page edges; boards clean and solid, edges slightly rubbed, very slight sunning; dustwrapper a little creased at edges, but intact. Overall very good/near fine in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] An indispensable reference work to those interested in the vast sculptural art of the former Congo region; valuable both to the general art public interested in Primitive and Contemporary Art and to scholars, museums, and universities. It presents new interpretations, comprehensive re-classifications, and new names and locations for a substantial number of people, styles and sculptures of the region. Click here to order $130

8157 Degerando, Joseph-Marie The Observation of Savage Peoples Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1969. Little flecking to page edges; else near fine in slightly worn dustwrapper. Introduction by E.E. Evans-Pritchard. In 1800 a young philosopher from Lyons, Joseph-Marie Degerando, wrote these Considerations on the Various Methods to Follow in the Observation of Savage Peoples as a memoir to serve as guidance to some of the members of the Societe des Observateurs de l'Homme in an impending expedition to Australia. It is a major work of anthropology and yet it had been forgotten for many years until it was re-discovered by Dr F C T Moore in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Degerando's originality lies in his recognizing and stating that the observations of previous explorers were casual and superficial and did not therefore provide an adequate guide to the customs and thought of indigenous peoples. The paper is of great interest both to anthropologists and to students of the history of ideas. Click here to order $25

53501 Denning, Melita and Philips, Osbourne Voudoun Fire The Living Reality of Mystical Religion. Llewellyn Books, St. Paul, 1979. Softcover, quarto, 87pp., b&w and colour illustrations. Some toning. Near fine. Click here to order $14

52700 Dixon, Bob Searching For Aboriginal Languages Memoirs of a Field Worker University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, circa 1981. Paperback, 330pp., mainly b&w illustrations. Page edges spotted slightly. Minor scuffing, otherwise, very good. Over two hundred languages were once spoken by the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, but it was not until the 1960's that any serious attempt was made to study them. When Bob Dixon, a young linguist from Britain, came on his first field trip to Australia in 1963, he had first to discover whether any speakers of the languages he was to study were still alive. This book provides a picture of life in northeast Queensland between 1963-77. It also provides an insight into how linguists work, how they gather their information, and how they interpret it. Click here to order $32

52789 Edwards, Robert (ed.) Aboriginal Art in Australia Ure Smith, Sydney, 1978. Small quarto hardcover, 72pp., b&w illustrations. Minor wear, very good in slightly scuffed dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $30

52667 Eliade, Mircea Australian Religions An Introduction Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1977. Second printing hardcover, minor scuffing to dustwrapper, otherwise, very good to near fine. Mircea Eliade here examines certain patterns of ritual and belief that recur in Australian Aboriginal religions, and offers a critique of the literature on the subject. Focusing on meaning rather than function, the Professor strikes a balance between reconstructing the cultural history of the Australian Aborigines and unraveling the complexities of their various religions. A theoretical introduction, is followed by chapters on supernatural beings, high gods, and culture heroes; mythical geography and theogony; initiation rites and secret cults; medicine men and their supernatural models; as well as death and eschatology. The classical works of Spencer and Gillen, Howitt, Stanner, the Berndts and Elkin are evaluated throughout. An excellant and classic text in Australian anthropology. Click here to order $100

53128 Eliade, Mircea Shamanism Translated by Willard Trask Princeton University (Bollingen Series), 1974. Paperback, 610pp. Lightly toned page edges. Scuffed cover slightly worn along edges. Very good to near fine. Writing as a historian of religion, Mircea Eliade synthesizes the approaches of psychology sociology and ethnology. He analyzes the ideology of shamanism and discusses its techniques, its symbolisms, its mythologies. For Eliade shamanism is, precisely, a technique of ecstasy. Click here to order $22

36642 Evans-Pritchard, E E Social Anthropology Cohen & West, London, 1964. Hardcover, 134pp. Endpapers and page edges spotted. Boards worn along edges and corners. Dustwrapper very worn, spotted, discoloured along spine, edges and corners worn and chipped two tears on upper edge. Book is in itself, good, dustwrapper, poor. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $20

33114 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (ed.) Man and Woman among the Azande Faber, 1974. Hardcover. Foxed prelims, lightly spotted page edges; boards slightly rubbed but firm and clean; dustwrapper creased at edges, slightly sunned, but intact. Good/very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $25

39426 Forman, W. & B. (Lubor Hajek, ed.) Exotic Art Spring Books, London, nd. Folio, 324 pp. Light browning of pages, some very moderate wear to decorated boards. Very good. Mostly plates, both colour and monochrome of works from Egypt, Africa, America, Oceania and Indonesia. Accompanied by introduction and eight articles. Click here to order $85

30307 Frazer, J.G. The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion. London, Macmillan 1933-34-36. 3 volumes octavo publisher's cloth. Fairly uncommon set. The first two volumes are worked up from lectures delivered at Cambridge and the last, most substantial, volume follows their treatment and concludes with studies on precautions against the return of ghosts, deceiving the ghost and the categories of dangerous ghosts. Click here to order $300

40030 Geertz, Clifford (ed.) Myth, Symbol and Culture W W Norton, New York, 1972. Paperback, endpapers and page edges spotted. Slightly shelf worn cover with edge and corner wear. Very good. Nine essays on the meaning of metaphors, ranging in subject from a Balinese cockfight through literary criticism to a home-cooked meal. Click here to order $17

53767 Gidley, Mick Edward S Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated Cambridge University, 2000. Paperback, remainder, new. Edward S Curtis took thousands of photographs of Native Americans and collected masses of other data, myths, recordings of music and ceremonies, folk tales, language vocabularies and histories. This material was published in The North American Indian (1907-30) in twenty volumes of illustrated text and twenty portfolios of photogravures. The project was supported by Theodore Roosevelt and funded in part by J Pierpont Morgan and spawned exhibitions, postcards, magazine articles, lecture series and the very first documentary film. Mick Gidley examines the historical documentation such as letters and field memoirs of Curtis, principal ethnologist W E Myers and other participants including Native American assistants and informants and synthesizes the ideological, governmental, aesthetic, economic and anthropological forces in the project. Click here to order $20

41584 Guiart, Jean (Anthony Christie, trans.) The Arts of the South Pacific Thames & Hudson, London, 1963. Quarto, 461 pp. 317 photogravure illustrations, 107 colour plates, 5 maps. Very good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] In The Arts of Mankind series edited by Andre Malraux and Georges Salles. The volume aims to present the art in terms of its social and cultural functions in the society to which it belongs. The art of Oceania, it is argued, must be seen against its native setting and in relation to its role for its creators and for those to whom it properly belongs. Click here to order $245

59911 Haeberlin, Peter W & Bowles, Paul (text) Yallah McDowell, Obolensky, New York, 1957. Quarto hardcover, 83pp., b&w illustrations. Very slightly rolled binding. Faint spotting to page edges. Illustrated black and white dustwrapper with minor edgewear. Very good to near fine. The photographs reproduced here in gravure print, were collected by Peter Haeberlin between the years 1949 to 1953. Generally alone and carrying with him almost nothing but his camera he made four extensive trips throughout North Africa. In these dangerous surroundings, and with enormous courage, diplomacy and simplicity, as well as an iron constitution, he travelled in the stark and limitless stretches of hill country and desert, venturing into places the ordinary traveller would not dare. The sensitivity and feeling for primitive beauty is evident in his work. Click here to order $80

8146 Hallet, Jean-Pierre Pygmy Kitabu Souvenir Press, New York, 1974. First US edition. Minor wear only. Near fine in like dustwrapper. An account of the origins and legends of the African pygmies. Hallet proposes that the Pygmies are in fact the people from which all other races are descended and that their jungle fastness is no less than the Garden of Eden. He documents their way of life and explores their language and, especially, their rich store of myths and legends. Click here to order $22

57512 Hill, Barry Broken Song T. G. H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession. Knopf, Sydney, 2002. First edition. Hardback, 818pp., b/w photographs. Page edges toned. Dustwrapper is lightly worn at edges. Very good. Click here to order $120

33508 Horton, David (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994. 2 vols hardcover + CD-ROM. Fine in slipcase. Around 1000 colour and black and white photographs, maps and drawings. The first significant authoritative and comprehensive reference on all aspects of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture. A prime intent of the compilation of the work was to produce 'not only an encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, but an encyclopaedia for Aboriginal Australia.' Click here to order $250

30058 Isaacs, Jennifer Australian Aboriginal Paintings Weldon, Sydney, 1989. Hardcover quarto, 189pp., numerous colour illustrations. Minor wear only to illustrated board and dustwrapper edges, slight spotting to upper page edges, owner's name. Otherwise near fine. Aboriginal artists continue to express the value of their ancient beliefs and evoke the depth of their relationship with the Australian landscape. The paintings are timeless, yet changing, like the land itself. Aboriginal paintings are a major contribution to Australian contemporary art. In "Australian Aboriginal Paintings', Jennifer Isaacs has selected a collection of traditional paintings which spans decades and which displays the distinctive styles of two regions of Australia: the western desert and Arnhem Land. Some of the artists are photographed with their paintings, together with the diverse landscapes which inspire them. The paintings are simply presented to be easily appreciated, with brief notes interpreted from the information by the artists themselves. Click here to order $60

10968 Johnson, Dianne Sacred Waters The Story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners. Halstead Press, Broadway, 2007. Hardcover, quarto, 237 pp. New book. Colour plates. The moving story of the Gundungurra people of the Burragorang Valley and the Darug people of the lower Hawkesbury, celebrating their survival in a changing world and their ongoing struggle to protect their sacred lands and waters. The emotions and impact of history are conveyed through the voices of those who lived through the loss of their traditional lands, and through their descendants. Their story can also be traced through the history of Sydney: from Governor Arthur Phillip's first meeting with the Gully people's direct ancestors at Pitt Town Bottoms in 1791, through to the diaspora of familiar surnames throughout Richmond, Blacktown and Parramatta. Click here to order $60

52695 Junod, Henri A The Life of a South African Tribe University Books, New York, 1966. Second edition two volume hardcover set in slipcase. 559 &660 pp., respectively with b&w plates. Green linen cloth boards with gilt lettering on black along spine, top edge stained dark green. Slight edge and corner wear to boards, otherwise books in near fine condition. Illustrated black and red slipcase, scuffed and worn with a long tear along bottom edge to corner. Click here to order $75

53964 Kirk, Robert The Secret Common-Wealth Brewer/Rowman & Littlefield, Cambridge, 1976. Hardback, 133pp. Minor wear; some toning. Very good to near fine in like dustwrapper. This is one of the basic texts for students of folklore, important historically for its evidence of belief in fairies and similar supernatural phenomena. Written towards the end of the seventeenth century by a scholarly Gaelic-speaking minister of the Church of Scotland, it gives a first hand account of local Highland varieties of certain universal beliefs: fairies, witchcraft, ghosts, divination and second sight. Furthermore, Kirk actually defends these beliefs, because to deny them would be to deny the Devil's existence. He discusses his material in a systematic and thoroughtly scientific spirit. Click here to order $65

54096 La Barre, Weston The Ghost Dance The Origins of Religion George Allen & Unwin, London, 1972. Hardcover, 677 pp. Minor shelf wear, otherwise, near fine in like dustwrapper. Weston La Barre shows how the first human cultures, particularly in the magico-religious person of the shaman, share universal motifs, traceable to common maladaptive retreats from reality, and demonstrates that these 'ghost dances' are the basis of Greek, Christian, and Hebrew religion. Click here to order $30

52705 Lamshed, Max 'Monty' The Biography of C P Mountford Rigby, Adelaide, 1972. Hardcover, 222pp., b&w illustrations. Minor wear, very good to near fine in like dustwrapper. Click here to order $30

10620 Leach, Maria (ed.) Standard Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1949 & 1950. First edition. Two large octavo volumes. Faint tape stains to endpapers, spotting to upper page edges, very moderate wear only. Very good. Twenty eight specialists contribute articles on some 4000 terms relating to the folklore of the world's cultures. Click here to order $100

40114 Levi-Strauss, Claude Introduction to a Science of Mythology: The Raw and the Cooked/From Honey to Ashes/The Origin of Table Manners: 3 vols Jonathan Cape, 1970-78. Light spotting to page edges, volume 2 felt pen marks to lower page edges, minimal wear to wrappers. A near fine set. Click here to order $130

14625 Levy, Howard S Chinese Footbinding The History of a Curious Erotic Custom Neville Spearman, London, nd. Foxed prelims, spotted page edges; very good in dustwrapper worn at edges, some smudging to rear panel. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The 'Golden Lotus' (the tiny female foot) and the 'willow walk' were long celebrated in Chinese literature. The author relates the custom to the central problem of the position and role of women in Chinese society. He further documents the history of its abolition. Click here to order $45

41594 Lizot, Jacques Tales of the Yanomami Daily Life in the Venezuelan Forest Cambridge, 1989. Paperback, cover slightly scuffed with minor edge and corner wear. B&w illustrations. Very good. Focuses, through the words of Yanomami themselves, on daily village experience; shamaism, magic and sorcery; and relations of war and alliance with other villagers. Click here to order $18

8147 Malaurie, Jean Last Kings of Thule A Year Among the Polar Eskimos of Greenland Allen & Unwin, London, 1956. First edition. Endpapers lightly foxed, page edges spotted; else very good in slightly worn dustwrapper. Black and white plates. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $25

41303 Malotki, Ekkehart (ed.) The Bedbugs' Night Dance and Other Hopi Tales of Sexual Encounter University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Paperback, remainder, new. Click here to order $20

13315 Malotki, Ekkehart (ed) Hopi Tales of Destruction Bison Books, University of Nebraska, 2002. Paperback. Remainder. New. Click here to order $15

52234 Meyer, Anthony J.P. Oceanic Art: 2 volumes Konemann, Koln, 1995. Quarto hardcover, 320 & 340pp., colour illustrations. Dustwrappers slightly worn along edges and corners. Otherwise, very good to near fine in like slipcase. The art of the island populations of the South Pacific takes such diverse forms as masks and jewelry, household utensils and weapons, canoe prows and overmodeled skulls, tapa and major representations of the deities. It is spawned from the religious beliefs of people attempting to answer the great questions of their very existence. Oceanic art has long been hidden away in museums devoted to the scientific study of man. 'Rediscovered' in the early years of this century, it is now finally being regarded as a major component of the world's artistic heritage. Most of the works of art illustrated in these two volumes are stored deep in the reserves of museums or held in private collections not accessible to the public. The majority are shown for the first time in this book. Click here to order $80

52784 Montagu, Ashley Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines The procreative beliefs of the Australian Aborigines Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1974. Paperback, 426pp. Minor spotting to page edges and very slight wear to cover, very good. Click here to order $25

7410 Muensterberger, Warner Sculpture of Primitive Man Thames and Hudson, 1955. Hardcover quarto, 46pp., 138 plates, 2 colour. Prelims, page edges foxed; decorated boards bright and solid but rubbed, bumped at corners and spine ends, with some fraying, edges sunned; dustwrapper sunned, foxed, frayed with several chips. Good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] A magnificent pictorial record of the plastic art of the 'primitive' peoples, prefaced by an informative introductory text which helps to set the art in perspective. Click here to order $85

8151 Nance, John Gentle Tasaday A Stone Age People in the Philippine Rain Forest Victor Gollancz, London, 1975. Owner's name on front endpaper, slightly soiled page edges; else near fine in like dustwrapper. Black and white plates The then tribe of only twenty eight people who until 1962 appeared not to have had any contact with other human beings. The author documents his experiences living with them and the mixed effects of their exposure to the 20th century. Click here to order $20

41693 Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira (eds.) A Dictionary of Superstitions Oxford, 1990. Hardcover. Light spotting to page edges. Slight edge wear to upper edge of dustwrapper. Very good otherwise. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] An alphabetically arranged compendium of folk beliefs and rituals, explaining their traditional significance. Illustrated by quotations from historical sources. Click here to order $25

41586 Rockefeller, Michael C. (Adrian A. Gerbrands, ed.) The Asmat of New Guinea The Journals of Michael Clark Rockefeller, with his ethnographic notes and photographs made among the Asmat people during two expeditions in 1961. Documented by a pictorial and descriptive catalogue of the objects he collected. Museum of Primitive Art, New York, 1967. Hardcover, 349pp., b&w and colour illustrations. Endpapers and page edges toned with some spotting. Decorated cloth boards near fine. Acetate dustwrapper has chip missing from lower front edge and small tears in corners. Very good to near fine. In gathering works during his expeditions, in photographing the country and its people, in taking extensive field notes, Michael C. Rockefeller's purpose was to record and preserve the art of a disappearing culture, to document the context of its creation, to understand its creators. Click here to order $500

40080 Roheim, Geza Animism, Magic, and the Divine King Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1972. Hardcover, page edges spotted. Dustwrapper slightly worn along edges and corners, spine faded. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Pioneering study which applies psychonalytical theory to the elucidation of the primitive mind and its workings, the organization of society and the development of mankind from the primitive to the complex. Click here to order $50

40175 Roheim, Geza Australian Totemism A Psycho-Analytic Study in Anthropology Frank Cass, London, 1971. Hardcover, endpapers and pastedowns lightly spotted. Page edges lightly foxed and spotted. Soiled and slightly discoloured dustwrapper worn along edges with some chipping. Sticker mark, Otherwise very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Classic study of the symbols and rituals of Australian Aboriginal life and culture. Click here to order $130

52737 Roheim, Geza The Panic of the Gods and other essays Harper, New York, 1972. Paperback, 227pp. Page edges lightly spotted with three ink lines traversing the side and top edge. Cover slightly rubbed with edge and corner wear. Good. Click here to order $16

52698 Roheim, Geza (Werner Muensterberger, ed.) Children of the Desert The Western Tribes of Central Australia. Basic Books, New York, 1974. Hardcover, 262pp. Random light spotting to page edges - top edge stained mauve. Minor edge wear to yellow card dustwrapper (illustrated), but otherwise, very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Ever since Roheim had read Totem and Taboo, Freud's study of man's psychic make-up, the desert people of Central Australia had been a source of vexation for him. He had no reservations about Freud's ingenuous assumptions of cultural origins, which bore the mark of the evolutionary point of view of such nineteenth-century thinkers as Haeckel, Lamarck and Atkinson. Brought up in a liberal Budapest milieu, Roheim had a pronounced sympathy for the extraordinary teachings of the Viennese doctor, especially with regard to his novel explanations of the origins of cultural ethics and religious beliefs, which made extensive reference to the most primitive tribes known. These theories, with the unique opportunies offered by and tempered by work in the field, enabled Geza Roheim to test psychoanalytic ideas against the concrete experience of sociocultural data. He himself considered Children of the Desert to be his magnum opus. Click here to order $40

39407 Scheffler, Harold W. Australian Kin Classification Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology Cambridge University Press, 1978. First edition. Typeface text, 569pp. Owner's name on endpaper, very light foxing to endpapers and top edges of pages, boards good, dustwrapper with tears at edges, some fraying; good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $70

39696 Segy, Ladislas African Sculpture Speaks A A Wyn, New York, 1952. Quarto, hardcover, 252pp., b&w illustrations. Binding slightly rolled. Page edges lightly toned. Card dustwrapper worn along edges with chipping and 5cm tear on upper rear panel and spine. Otherwise, very good. Professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. A comprehensive pictorial guide to a great art tradition. Ladislas Segy toured many museums of Europe and North America, collecting reproductions of the finest African sculpture - more than 275 of these appear in this book, as well as complete maps of West Africa and a guide to the types of sculpture produced by the tribes of each region. Click here to order $45

8145 Shelemay, Kay Kaufman Music Ritual and Falasha History Michigan University, Michigan, 1989. Near fine in slightly worn dustwrapper, spine sunned. A textual and musicological analysis of the religious liturgy of the Ethiopian Falashas, or Beta Israel. Click here to order $25

31066 Sillitoe, Paul Give and Take: Exchange in Wola Society Australian National University Press, 1979. Hardcover. Minor shelf wear to boards; dustwrapper creased at edges. Very good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The exchange of wealth amongst the Wola people of the Highlands of New Guinea acts as a central principle, encouraging co-operation and social order. Click here to order $20

30420 Stefansson, Vilhajalmur & Palsson, Gisli (ed.) Writing on Ice The Ethnographic Notebooks of Vilhjalmur Stefansson University Press of New England, 2001. Hardcover, remainder, new. Steffansson went on three long expeditions to the Arctic and wrote voluminously about his experiences and observations. His successes in exploration for long overshadowed his anthropological concerns. This volume redresses the balance drawing from his field work diaries. Click here to order $30

52738 Steinbauer, Friedrich 9Max Wohlwill, trans.) Melanesian Cargo Cults New Salvation Movements in the South Pacific. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1979. Hardcover, 209pp., b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly spotted. Minor wear otherwise, very good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The real significance of cargo cults as a response to the invasion of an alien, powerful civilization is revealed in this study. The original German edition has been edited and translated by Dr Max Wohlwill. Click here to order $25

41548 Steiner, Franz Taboo With an Introduction by E E Evans-Prichard Cohen & West, London, 1956. First edition. Owners' names, foxed prelims, spotted page edges; very good in moderately worn dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $35

14651 Summers, Roger (ed.); Goodall, Elizabeth; Cooke, C.K.; Clark, J. Desmond Prehistoric Rock Art of the Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland National Publications Trust; Chatto and Windus, 1959. Hardcover, quarto, xx + 267pp., 116 plates, numerous figures/maps/diagrams. Prelims, page edges lightly spotted; boards firm but marked, spine tail and corners bumped; dustwrapper marked at edges, underside spotted. Good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $150

7530 Sydow, Eckart von Kunst und Religion der Naturvolker Stalling, 1926. Hardcover, quarto, 237pp., 83 plates (3 tipped colour), 55 illustrations through the text. Spotted prelims; boards rubbed at edges, sunned; dustwrapper significantly frayed, with a few small chips. Despite signs of wear and age, the book is solid and in good/very good condition. Text in German. Professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Click here to order $150

52765 Tierney, Patrick The Highest Altar The Story of Human Sacrifice Bloomsbury, London, 1989. Hardcover, 480pp., colour plates. Inscription to owner on endpaper. Slightly scuffed, excoriated dustwrapper. Minor wear, very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The author describes how he followed the leads he had uncovered, tracking down specific incidents and trying to understand the complex social and political motives of the shamans, yatiris and brujos who still perform the ancient ritual of sacrifice. Click here to order $30

33509 Tindale, Norman B. Aboriginal Tribes of Australia Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits and Proper Names University of California Press, 1974. Quarto, 404 pp. 46 colour plates, 92 black and white. Sketches, diagrams, maps. Four loose charts in slipcase. Very minor wear to edges. Otherwise fine in slipcase. Click here to order $1100

52655 Turnbull, Colin M. Man in Africa David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1976. Hardcover, 313pp., b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly toned. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Colin Turnbull looks at the great traditional forms of society in Africa and their relation to the various environments; grassland, river valley, forest, desert, woodland. This traditional past, people living to a pattern and in harmony with land and wildlife, is the source of much of Africa's contemporary strength, of the distinctive character of the new nations. Click here to order $24

35939 Tuzin, Donald The Cassowary's Revenge The Life and Death of Masculinity in a New Guinea Society University of Chicago, 1997. Paperback, b&w illustrations. Minor wear, very good. Click here to order $22

41800 Wassing, R S African Art Its Background and Traditions Portland House, New York, 1988. Quarto hardcover, 285pp., mainly b&w illustrations. Minor shelf wear, otherwise, near fine in like dustwrapper. Through its, vigour, its marvelous geometric forms and its evocative power, African art has taken its place in a relatively short time, among the world's great forms of artistic expression. African art is intimately bound to religion and magic, and at the same time plays a purely functional part in every day life. Author Rene Wassing, curator of the Museum voor Land en Volkenkunde in Rotterdam, having made many expeditions to Mali, explores and explains the context in which the art arises. Click here to order $50

14632 Westermarck, Edward Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco Macmillan, London, 1914. Foxed prelims and further spotting, tender front hinge, wear to boards, fraying to head and tail of spine. Good. Click here to order $70

7343 Williams, Denis Icon and Image A study of sacred and secular forms of African classical art Allen Lane, 1974. Hardcover, large octavo, xv + 331pp., 219 monochrome plates, 2 maps, 6 tables. Owner's name on front pastedown. Light foxing to endpapers, upper page edges spotted; boards worn, rubbed at edges, spine ends, some fraying; dustwrapper slightly frayed, esp. around spine panel, but bright and intact. Good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Denis Williams' magisterial survey of African classical sculpture and metallurgy both establishes an aesthetic relevant to the judgement of his whole field and makes an important contribution to the study of form and technique. As the outlines of African history are pieced together, attention will increasingly be paid to the history of African art. But though written records, archaeology, material culture and oral tradition provide a wealth of source material, not many media of expression in African art submit to a traditional historical treatment. A historical picture emerges most satisfactorily in the study of iron and bronze. "Icon and Image" attempts to present such a picture, through an examination of the techniques and cults associated with particular forms. If the book seems weighted in this direction this is because very little in the study of African art can simply be assumed, even where the evidence refers to hallowed local or oral traditions. The title suggests a degree of interpretation of the material, though it has to be admitted that, like the word 'Art', these terms, and many others of art-scholarship, have no equivalents in the languages of the peoples responsible for the objects thus described, which are nonetheless among the finest creations of man's plastic impulse. Click here to order $75

52674 Williams, Francis Edgar "The Vailala Madness" and Other Essays Edited and with an Introduction by Erik Schwimmer C Hurst, London, 1976. First edition, 432pp., b&w diagrams. Slightly spotted dustwrapper with very minor edge wear, otherwise, very good to near fine. Besides his four major monographs, Williams produced a vast number of shorter writings, of which this collections presents some of the more remarkable. F E Williams' ethnographic records of the people of the Purari Delta, the Gulf Coast, Lake Kutubu, the Orokaiva and several mountain tribes have become classics. Though working in the tradition of British functionalism, Williams expressed basic criticisms of this school towards the end of his career, and foreshadowed some of the methods of enquiry of the structuralist school that developed after his death. Click here to order $50

39339 Williams, Walter L The Spirit and the Flesh Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture Beacon, Boston, 1988. Paperback, bookseller's sticker on endpaper. Cover scuffed with edge and corner wear. Otherwise, very good. Click here to order $18

30442 Young, Michael W Malinowski Odyssey of an Anthropologist 1884-1920 Yale University Press, 2004. Hardcover, 690 pp. Remainder, new. A biography of the founding father of social anthropology based principally on primary documents, including letters and unpublished diaries and manuscripts. Click here to order $28