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University of California Press

About the Book

The Pintupi, a hunting-and-gathering people of Australia's Western Desert, were among the last Aborigines to come into contact with white society. Despite their extended relocation in central Australian settlements, they have managed to preserve much of their traditional culture and social organization. This book presents a comprehensive ethnographic interpretation of the ways in which Pintupi politics, cosmology, kinship systems, nomadic patterns, and social values reinforce and sometimes contradict each other.

About the Author

Fred R. Myers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at New York University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Past into Present:
"We Are the People from the West"

CHAPTER 2 The Dreaming: Time and Space

CHAPTER 3 Individuals and Bands

CHAPTER 4 Being a Countryman:
Emotions and the Cultural Subject

CHAPTER 5 The Cultural Basis of Landownership
and Its Social Implications

CHAPTER 6 Relatedness and Differentiation

CHAPTER 7 Kinship: Models of the Pintupi Social Universe

CHAPTER 8 The Cultural Content of Hierarchy:
Politics and Value

CHAPTER 9 Time and the Limits of the Polity

Conclusion
Notes
References Cited
Index
Maps and Diagrams