Anthropology

The Island Builders of the Pacific – Walter Ivens – First Edition 1930 – Prestigious Ownership Scarce Dust Jacket

Published by Seeley, London a first edition 1930 in very good condition with full dust jacket. Prestigious relevant ownership.

Title continues … “How and Why the People of Mala Construct their Artificial Islands, the Antiquity and Doubtful Origin of the Practice, with a Description of the Social Organization, Magic and Religion of their Inhabitants”

The author Walter G. Ivens, at the time, was a Research Fellow of the University of Melbourne and had already authored several respected anthropological works. Very good condition and very rare to find it in its dust jacket.

Thick octavo, 317 pages, 18 illustrations from photographs, three maps of which two are folding and one most interesting sketch map of Mala.

The book covers; North Mala; the Artificial Islands; Social Organisation; Marriage, Women and Children; Ghosts; Priests and Sacrifices; Sharks and Crocodiles; Porpoise and Turtle Hunting; War and Fighting; Burials, Death-feasts and Panpipes; Magic, Divination, Omens, Signs and Dreams; Ceremonies, Tabu, Restrictions and Curses; The North-East lagoon and its People; Gardens and House Building; The People of Morodo; Folk-lore and The Cultures of North Mala.

Ownership stamp of esteemed anthropologist Harold W Scheffler (1932-2015) at Yale and his name written and dated 1960 when he would have been completing his PhD at Chicago where he was a Fullbright scholar. During that period he conducted 18 months field work on the island of Choiseul in the Solomons so this book may have been with him. He joined the Yale faculty in 1963 and his principle research continued in the Solomon Islands and also Vanuatu and among the aboriginal people of Australia focusing on kinship and social organisation. He published many papers in this field. The book has many careful and tidy pencil annotations which could be removed but we have not as we believe it greatly adds to the interest of this copy.

Scarce interesting prestigious owner

$160.00

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Early Observations of Marquesan Culture 1595-1813 – Edwin Ferdon

First published University of Arizona, 1993. Octavo, 184 pages in very good if not fine condition.

A scholarly work by Edwin Ferdon who as a young man was archaeologist on the Thor Heyerdahl 1955 expedition to Easter Island. The notes and bibliography make it extra useful for those that want to more broadly study the history of the Marquesas.

Ferdon was thorough

$40.00

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The Great Frozen North – Jackson – First Edition 1895

The Great Frozen North (Bolshaia Zemelskija Tundra); Narrative of a Winter Journey Across the Tundras and a Sojourn Among the Samoyads.

Edited by Arthur Montefiore from the journals of Frederick George Jackson (1860 – 1938).

Published by Macmillan, London a first edition 1895 in very good condition. Large octavo, 297 pages after preliminaries numerous illustrations from photographs and drawings with three foldout coloured maps showing the route taken. Original blue cloth binding with the lovely gilt deer to front.

In the autumn 1893 Jackson explored Vatgack Island spending a year among the Samoyeds gaining sledging experience with reindeer. He then sledged 3,000 miles along the Arctic coast from Vaygach to the Pachora River and on to Ust Tsilma then west to the Menzen working his way up the coast of the White Sea north to Varanger Fiord. All of which was in preparation for his planned expedition through Franz Josef land the following year sponsored by the RGS. This book has become a fundamental reference to the way of life of the native Samoyed people.

Incidentally, during his later Franz Josef expedition Jackson came across Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen who had been lost for three years and had been trying to get to Spitsbergen and assisted them in a safe journey home aboard the Windward. Jackson received a knighthood of the first class of the Norwegian Royal Order of St Olaf for saving their exploration hero.

Jackson went on to have a distinguished military career rising to the rank of Major. As a youth he spent time in Queensland on a cattle station. In his last year he lived on a houseboat on the Thames. Quite a character.

$260.00

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Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge – Various Notable Scientific Contributors

A special book published by Blackie, London and Glasgow in 1932, a new edition. Some minor ageing to page edges very good complete dust jacket, overall a very good copy.

Bringing forward the views of notable scientists of the day to explain the position of the “Theory of Evolution” by reference to their special disciplines. Includes the Astronomer Jeans, Zoologist MacBride, Chemist Soddy, Geologist Watts and Australian born Elliot Smith Anatomist and pursuer of Ancient Man. A fine provoking work despite and later revelations.

Evolution and Elliot Smith among the best.

$120.00

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In Search for Man’s Ancestors – Prof Grafton Elliot Smith – 1931

Published by Watts & Co, London, 1951 first edition, 56 pages part of the Forum Series. Very good condition in a complete dust jacket. Inscription to paste down.

Grafton NSW born Elliot Smith has risen to Professor of Anatomy at University College, London by the time this book was published.He was involved in the Piltdown hoax, which features (pre-exposure) here along with Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg Man and Peking Man. His view on the “Cradle of Mankind” in which the Australian “Talgai” skull from near Warwick gets a reference.

Grafton born Professor Searches for the beginning of Man

$60.00

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Somewhere in New Guinea – Frank Clune – First edition 1951

Published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney in 1951, a first edition in pretty good condition

A companion book to Frank Clune’s “Prowling in Papua”. This time the north side and a good deal of mooching around “as he put it”. Wewak, Hagen, Madang, Markham Valley and Rabaul included.

First Edition Clune in New Guinea

$40.00

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The Island Builders of the Pacific – Walter Ivens – First Edition 1930 – Prestigious Ownership Scarce Dust Jacket

Early Observations of Marquesan Culture 1595-1813 – Edwin Ferdon

The Great Frozen North – Jackson – First Edition 1895

Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge – Various Notable Scientific Contributors

In Search for Man’s Ancestors – Prof Grafton Elliot Smith – 1931

Somewhere in New Guinea – Frank Clune – First edition 1951

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