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The first use of the word 'anthropology' in English was recorded in 1593, but its modern use to indicate the study and science of humanity became current in the late nineteenth century. At that time a separate discipline had begun to evolve from many component strands (including history, archaeology, linguistics, biology and anatomy), and the study of so-called 'primitive' peoples was given impetus not only by the reports of individual explorers but also by the need of colonial powers to define and classify the unfamiliar populations which they governed. From the ethnographic writings of early explorers to the 1898 Cambridge expedition to the Torres Straits, often regarded as the first truly 'anthropological' field research, these books provide eye-witness information on often vanished peoples and ways of life, as well as evidence for the development of a new scientific discipline.

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43 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Anthropology

Page 1 of 3

The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man
  • Mental and Social Condition of Savages
  • John Lubbock
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    23 January 2014
  • Though professionally a banker and politician, John Lubbock (1834–1913) is best remembered for his scientific writings. As a boy, he was tutored by his father's friend, Charles Darwin, in natural history. He went on to make contributions to archaeology, anthropology and entomology. In this illustrated anthropological treatise, Lubbock applies evolutionary theory to the development of human civilisations, outlining the progression from ancient forms of art, relationships, religion, ethics, language and law to their counterparts in the present day. He argues that the social structures of ancient cultures can be interpreted through interaction with contemporary primitive cultures. Published in book form in 1870, the material for this work was first delivered as a lecture series at the Royal Institution. Lubbock's Pre-historic Times as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages (1865), in which he coined the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic, is also reissued in this series.

The Ama-Xosa
  • Life and Customs
  • John Henderson Soga
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 November 2013
  • Son of Tiyo Soga, the first black South African to be ordained, John Henderson Soga (1860–1941) was a Xhosa minister and scholar. Like his father, he was one of the first of his people to be educated in Europe and to marry a European woman. His perspective on his people's history and culture is therefore distinctive. Conscious of the effects of modernity on Xhosa traditions, he published this work of social anthropology in 1932 to record their way of life as distinct from other tribal communities in South Africa. Soga traces the historical development of their clan system and laws, while offering uniquely informed insights into their beliefs and practices, such as the function of witch doctors and the customs of circumcision, lobola or 'bride price', and polygamy. The South-Eastern Bantu (1930), Soga's earlier survey of three branches of the Bantu family, is also reissued in this series.

At Home with the Patagonians
  • A Year's Wanderings over Untrodden Ground from the Straits of Magellan to the Rio Negro
  • George Chaworth Musters
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • Orphaned by the age of four, George Chaworth Musters (1841–79) joined the Royal Navy at thirteen, served with distinction during the Crimean War, and reached the rank of commander. Having been stationed on the coast of South America, during which time he read up on Darwin's voyage in the Beagle, he pursued in 1869 his aim of travelling through the south of the continent. In this 1871 publication, which earned him the nickname 'the king of Patagonia', Musters records the year he spent among native Patagonians, covering almost 1,400 miles. He gives a detailed account of their customs and daily life, particularly the manners, dress, hunting practices and methods of battle of the Tehuelche people. Featuring a number of vivid engravings, the book did much to reveal this land to Europeans. It remains an instructive text in the history of South American exploration and anthropology.

The South-Eastern Bantu
  • Abe-Nguni, Aba-Mbo, Ama-Lala
  • John Henderson Soga
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • Son of Tiyo Soga, the first black South African to be ordained, John Henderson Soga (1860–1941) was a Xhosa minister and scholar. Like his father, he was one of the first of his people to receive an education in Europe and to marry a European woman. His perspective on his people's history is therefore distinctive. Driven by a desire to record Xhosa traditions before they were lost in a changing world, Soga collected oral histories during his work at mission stations in South Africa, producing this historical survey of three branches of the Bantu family. Including genealogies of the main tribes, and tracing their traditions, beliefs and conflicts, the work first appeared in this English version in 1930, having been translated by the author from his native language. His equally authoritative work of social anthropology, The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs (1932), is also reissued in this series.

The Northern Bantu
  • An Account of Some Central African Tribes of the Uganda Protectorate
  • John Roscoe
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    26 August 2010
    First published in:
    1915
  • John Roscoe (1861–1932) was an ordained Christian missionary who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society in 1912 for his contributions to the ethnographic record of Uganda. John Roscoe joined the Uganda mission in 1891 and upon returning to England in 1909 he began to publish the results of his investigations into the lives of the indigenous people in Uganda. This edition contains an ethnographic survey of six different indigenous Bantu speaking groups living near Lake Victoria, and was first published as part of the Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series in 1912. In this work he describes the social, political and economic life of these groups before European influence from colonialism, drawn from interviews with local people in their own language. This volume contains views on ethnicity which were acceptable at the time this volume was published.

The Lore of the Whare-wānanga
  • Or Teachings of the Maori College on Religion, Cosmogony, and History
  • Volume 2, Te Kauwae-raro or ‘Things Terrestrial'
  • H. T. Whatahoro
  • Translated by S. Percy Smith
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1915
  • Stephenson Percy Smith (1840–1922) arrived in New Zealand as a boy, and soon became fascinated by Maori culture. After retiring in 1900 from his career as a government surveyor, Smith devoted himself to the study of the Maori and co-founded the Polynesian Society, which published this two-volume study in 1913–15. The book contains the Maori text of an important body of beliefs and traditions which had been committed to writing over fifty years earlier, when the young W. H. Whatahoro had acted as scribe for a group of senior elders concerned to preserve this ancient and sacred knowledge. Only long afterwards was Whatahoro willing to divulge it to Europeans, and he personally assisted Smith with the translation provided here. Volume 2 focuses on traditions relating to the history and migrations of the Maori people and their arrival in New Zealand in the 'Great Fleet'.

Desert and Water Gardens of the Red Sea
  • Being an Account of the Natives and the Shore Formations of the Coast
  • Cyril Crossland
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1913
  • Cyril Crossland (1878–1943) was Director of the Sudan Pearl Fishery between 1905 and 1922. At this time, the British colonial government had taken charge of running the fishery, with local fishermen as employees. A marine biologist and zoologist, Crossland was praised in his obituary in the journal Nature as 'one of the last explorer-naturalists of the Darwin type'. This book is both an account of his life in the Sudan and a scientific survey of the coral reefs on the Red Sea coast. It offers a lively description of the region, its people and customs, and a clear, accessible explanation of the development of coral reefs. In Crossland's time this region had not been fully mapped by Western explorers and this study was an important contribution to knowledge. The book is illustrated with many of Crossland's own photographs of landscapes and people and his diagrams of the coral reefs.

The Duab of Turkestan
  • a Physiographic Sketch and Account of Some Travels
  • W. Rickmer Rickmers
  • Published online:
    10 November 2010
    Print publication:
    26 August 2010
    First published in:
    1913
  • W. Rickmer Rickmers (1873–1965) was a German explorer and mountaineer who visited and explored central Asia five times between 1894 and 1906. This book provides an account of his travels in the area he calls Turkestan, which incorporates modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and south-west Kazakhstan, and was first published in 1913. The region, which contains the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, had not been previously described in so much detail by a western European traveller. Rickmers includes accounts of both these historic cities as well as describing the social life of the indigenous people, with a comprehensive survey of the geography of the region. Richly illustrated with 207 maps and photographs, this volume provides an insight into the everyday life of the area before the upheavals of the Soviet era.

The Kachins
  • Their Customs and Traditions
  • Ola Hanson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    26 April 2012
    First published in:
    1913
  • Ola Hanson (1864–1927) was a Swedish-American missionary from Minnesota, posted to northern Burma in 1890. He lived with the Kachin people and became fluent in their language, compiling a word-list and eventually producing a Kachin–English dictionary. Their own culture and complex belief system were orally transmitted: Hanson therefore devised an alphabetical transcription for his translation of the Bible into Kachin, and this writing system later became widespread in Burma. First published in 1913, this book was written after Hanson had lived with the Kachins for over twenty years, and offers a unique insight into their culture at this time. It outlines their origins, dialects, law and weapons, as well as the details of Kachin religious beliefs and ceremonies for births, marriage and death. This book is valuable as both an ethnography of the Kachin and as an example of the perspective of an early twentieth-century missionary.

Kindred and Clan in the Middle Ages and After
  • A Study in the Sociology of the Teutonic Races
  • Bertha Surtees Phillpotts
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1913
  • Bertha S. Phillpotts (1863–1932) was an English historian and linguist of Scandinavia who served as the Director of Scandinavian Studies in the University of Cambridge from 1926 to 1932. First published as part of Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series in 1913, this pioneering and highly influential book contains a detailed examination of kinship structures in northern Europe during the early medieval period. In this work, Phillpotts analyses the laws and literature of seven northern European countries to explore the kinship structure of their ancient societies. The references to the legal concept of 'weregild' and the description of gender hierarchies, together with the range of evidence examined, cause this work to remain of considerable relevance for the understanding of kinship systems in medieval Germanic and Scandinavian societies.

The Lore of the Whare-wānanga
  • H. T. Whatahoro
  • Translated by S. Percy Smith
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1913
  • Stephenson Percy Smith (1840–1922) arrived in New Zealand as a boy, and soon became fascinated by Maori culture. After retiring in 1900 from his career as a government surveyor, Smith devoted himself to the study of the Maori and co-founded the Polynesian Society, which published this two-volume study in 1913–15. The book contains the Maori text of an important body of beliefs and traditions which had been committed to writing over fifty years earlier, when the young W. H. Whatahoro had acted as scribe for a group of senior elders concerned to preserve this ancient and sacred knowledge. Only long afterwards was Whatahoro willing to divulge it to Europeans, and he personally assisted Smith with the translation provided here. Although Smith's interpretative notes and 'comparative mythology' agenda are typical of their time, this pioneering work laid foundations for later research. Volume 1 focuses on the gods and creation myths.

The Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofán
  • H. A. MacMichael
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    02 November 2010
    First published in:
    1912
  • H. A. MacMichael (1882–1969) was a member of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan government between 1905 and 1933 and was the deputy Inspector of Kordofan province in Sudan between 1906 and 1912. After combining his administrative duties with ethnographic research, he published this volume as part of the Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnographic Series in 1912: it was the first major ethnographic work on the Sudan. The book combines the history of the province with genealogical information based on interviews MacMichael conducted with local people during his long tenure in Kordofan. The ethnography's focus on local history and the history of different ethnic groups in Kordofan remains the primary source for the local history of the province and the genealogies of the indigenous population. This volume contains opinions on ethnicity which were acceptable at the time it was first published.

The Veddas
  • Charles Gabriel Seligmann, Brenda Zara Seligmann
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    02 November 2010
    First published in:
    1911
  • Dr C. G. Seligmann (1873–1940) was a renowned anthropologist who was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute between 1923 and 1925. After joining the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait in Melanesia in 1898, he changed his career from medicine to anthropology and began his career as a distinguished field anthropologist. This book contains his pioneering ethnology of the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. The social, political, religious and economic life of the Veddas is systematically examined in this detailed study, first published as part of the Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series in 1911. This ethnology remains the standard reference work for the social structure and material culture of the Vedda people, as they have ceased to exist as a separate community in Sri Lanka. This volume contains views on ethnicity which were acceptable at the time it was published.

The Baganda
  • An Account of their Native Customs and Beliefs
  • John Roscoe
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1911
  • Missionary and amateur anthropologist John Roscoe (1861–1932) published this account of the Baganda tribe of Buganda in 1911, to preserve a record of a sophisticated people before their cultural traditions were undermined as their territory became part of the British Protectorate of Uganda. He had spent twenty-five years in Africa, during which he interviewed the people in their own languages about their customs and religious beliefs. The Baganda is a straightforward survey of a traditionally organised way of life. Birth, upbringing, marriage, death and burial, clans, kings, government, warfare, and other topics are treated in careful detail. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the longest chapter is on religion, but Roscoe makes non-judgmental observations on customs which did not fit with western morality. More recent anthropological research has amplified Roscoe's findings, but has found little to correct, and this remains a standard work on a culture about to undergo a massive transformation.

Ethnology of A-Kamba and Other East African Tribes
  • C. W. Hobley
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    02 October 2010
    First published in:
    1910
  • C. W. Hobley (1867–1947) was a colonial administrator who was stationed in Kenya between 1894 and 1921. Following the implementation of Indirect Rule in Kenya, indigenous law and custom were followed in political and judicial proceedings, with the colonial administration requiring a working knowledge of traditional customs. This book contains information collected by C. W. Hobley during his tenure as administrator of Nyanza Province and was first published in 1910 as part of the Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series. This detailed ethnography was the first systematic survey of the Kamba people, and provides a comprehensive description of their traditional society, cultural practices and political and economic life. A description of the social organization of the Masai people is also provided. This volume contains views on ethnicity which were acceptable at the time it was first published.

Hawaiki: The Original Home of the Maori
  • With a Sketch of Polynesian History
  • S. Percy Smith
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    24 November 2011
    First published in:
    1910
  • Stephenson Percy Smith (1840–1922) was a New Zealand ethnologist and surveyor. As a young man, he travelled six hundred miles exploring the volcanic interior of North Island, and had many interactions with the Maori population, whose language, history and traditions fascinated him throughout his career as a government surveyor. In 1892 he co-founded the Polynesian Society, in whose journal this study originally appeared. The first book edition was published in 1898, and this third, updated edition in 1910. Using indigenous sources gathered in Polynesia and New Zealand, Smith constructed an elaborate history of the Polynesians, and argued that they were ultimately descended from Aryan ancestors in India. His theory of Maori origins was accepted by several generations of scholars, but was eventually superseded by modern historical and archaeological research. However, his pioneering work, acclaimed in its day, still provides fascinating insights into both nineteenth-century Polynesian culture and colonial ethnography.

The Races of Man and their Distribution
  • Alfred Cort Haddon
  • Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    10 May 2012
    First published in:
    1909
  • The Cambridge anthropological expedition of 1898–9 to the Torres Strait and New Guinea, led by the zoologist and anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon (1855–1940), marked an epoch in field methodology. This edition, published in 1924, examines some of the major physical differences between human beings that Haddon used to distinguish race, looking at skin colour, hair, stature, nose, face and head form, and is thorough and wide-ranging in offering examples from throughout the world. He also suggests some reasons for the geographical distribution of the races. This was a new approach, though Haddon's findings are necessarily condensed here, providing a valuable work of reference rather than a full study. Forming the basis for a larger work, this book is is an important example of early scientific anthropology, while Haddon's curatorial work in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge made this a primary centre for anthropological study and research.

Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia
  • Northcote Whitridge Thomas
  • Published online:
    05 February 2012
    Print publication:
    02 October 2010
    First published in:
    1906
  • N. W. Thomas (1868–1936) was one of the first government anthropologists of the colonial era and published one of the first studies of central African languages. This book, written in the early stages of his career, is a study of kinship structures in indigenous Australian peoples, and was first published as part of the Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series in 1906. Thomas develops and defines fundamental anthropological concepts used today – such as consanguinity as a distinct term affecting descent, status and duties in a society – and emphasises the importance of seeing kinship terms as a social description, instead of merely describing biological relationships. His deconstruction of Lewis H. Morgan's theory of social evolution is also of interest for constructing a historiography of social anthropology. This volume contains views on ethnicity which were acceptable at the time it was first published.

The Amusements of Old London
  • Being a Survey of the Sports and Pastimes, Tea Gardens and Parks, Playhouses and Other Diversions of the People of London from the 17th to the Beginning of the 19th Century
  • Volume 2
  • William Biggs Boulton
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    24 November 2011
    First published in:
    1901
  • Little is known about the life of William B. Boulton, who was active as an author in the 1900s. This illustrated two-volume set, published first in 1901 is perhaps the most famous of his works, though he also wrote biographies of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The work examines how popular entertainment in London changed dramatically between the restoration of Charles II and the accession of Queen Victoria. From cock-fights and bear-baiting, tastes turned to less bloodthirsty pursuits, and led to the rise of many leisure activities that are still popular today. Volume 2 looks at the growth in popularity of outdoor pursuits in parks and gardens, fairs, the growth of clubs and coffee-houses, and the refinement of boxing from a crude, bare-knuckle contest into something resembling its modern form.

Primitive Civilizations
  • Or, Outlines of the History of Ownership in Archaic Communities
  • Volume 2
  • Edith Jemima Simcox
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    04 November 2010
    First published in:
    1894
  • Edith Simcox (1844–1901) was a prominent British feminist, social critic, and prolific writer. She published many articles and essays advocating support for women's rights to education, improved working conditions and suffrage. Her scholarly works in philosophy and economic history sought to demonstrate that contemporary capitalism was not the only route to a prosperous society. These volumes, first published in 1897, contain a comparative analysis of the economic history of ancient societies. Simcox discusses and compares aspects of economic history including ownership, industry and commerce, and domestic relations and ownership rights within families, in ancient Egypt, Sumeria and China. Through her comparisons, this pioneering volume examines economic effects on the proprietary rights of women, demonstrating that gender relations and contemporary ideals were not consistent across ancient cultures. Volume 2 contains her discussion of ancient and medieval China. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=simced

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