This study aims to resolve the century-old debate about the nature of Australian aboriginal societies and the comparability of their structures with the structures of other tribal and kinship-based societies. It begins with a critical evaluation and refutation of the claims that Australians are ...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Scheffler, Harold W. 1932-2015 (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1978
Schriftenreihe:	Cambridge studies in social and cultural anthropology 23
Schlagworte:	Aborigines Aboriginal Australians / Kinship Kinship / Australia Kinship / Terminology Verwandtschaft Australien
Online-Zugang:	BSB01 FHN01 UBG01 Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	This study aims to resolve the century-old debate about the nature of Australian aboriginal societies and the comparability of their structures with the structures of other tribal and kinship-based societies. It begins with a critical evaluation and refutation of the claims that Australians are 'ignorant of physical paternity' and therefore cannot have systems of kin classification. Professor Scheffler then demonstrates that systems of kin classification are a common feature of Australian languages and that, contrary to the theory proposed by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and others, variation in the rules of interkin marriage does not account for variation in systems of kin classification. This was the first monographic treatment of the subject since Radcliffe-Brown's classic work, The Social Organization of the Australian Tribes, published in 1931, and is much more comprehensive and synthetic in its coverage of the range of variation in Australian systems of kin classification. It applies the concepts and methods of structural semantic analysis to a broad range of ethnographic and linguistic data, and demonstrates how they resolve one of anthropology's oldest and most perplexing theoretical puzzles
Beschreibung:	Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
Beschreibung:	1 online resource (xx, 569 pages)
ISBN:	9780511557590
DOI:	10.1017/CBO9780511557590