Bücher der Reihe Harvard Studies in Cultural Anthropology

No detailed description available for "Nature and Society in Central Brazil".

Indonesia east of Bali is perhaps the least known of all major cultural areas of Southeast Asia. Yet the anthropology of the region has long held a prominent place in the development of structuralist theories of marital exchange and symbolic classification. Falling in a distinguished lineage running from van Wouden to Lévi-Strauss to Rodney Needham, The Flow of Life presents a comprehensive set of essays by a distinguished group of international scholars, which provides both a full picture of this culturally rich area and an important extension of earlier structuralist theory. This volume is bound to become the standard source on the social anthropology of eastern Indonesia. But it is a work of more than regional significance, providing a variety of empirical resources to address the questions which lie at the bottom of much structuralist thought about mind and society: what is the nature of symbolic thought? how does consciousness intertwine with society and ecology? what is the difference between ¿primitive¿ and ¿modern¿ society?

The Ge-speaking tribes of Central Brazil have always been an anomaly in the annals of anthropology; their exceedingly simple technology contrasts sharply with their highly complex sociological and ideological traditions. This book, the outgrowth of extended anthropological research organized by Maybury-Lewis, at long last demystifies Ge social structure while modifying and reinterpreting some of the traditional ideas held about kinship, affiliation, and descent.