Quadripartite Structures: Categories, Relations, and Homologies in Bush Mekeo Culture

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover. Mark S. Mosko is Professor, Department of Anthropology, School of Culture, History & Language, Emeritus Professor, Australia National University. For approximately 40 years (1974-2015), his research was concentrated on the ethnography of (Austronesian) North Mekeo peoples of the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. The Mekeo are an indigenous people who are known to have inhabited only this region. Their contact with the outside world began in the 1840s and was accelerated by the arrival of French Catholic missionaries beginning in 1875. Most of the Mekeo were converted to Christianity, but their initial population of 20-30,000 was devastated by diseases introduced by the outsiders. The massive deaths led to an escalation of traditional sorcery for which the Mekeo are still renowned. Mosko's publications have focused on traditional and changing patterns of social organization, religion and cosmology, myth, personhood, gender, chieftainship, commoditization, land tenure, and Christian conversion. This scholarly anthropological work was first published in 1985. Available copies are generally reprints from the period 2008-2009. A copy from 1985 is very rare. Octavo. Black cloth covered boards with gilt title to spine. Slight bumping to spine ends. Light browning to end pages. Else is pristine. Black dust jacket with yellow title to front and spine panels. Slight creasing to spine ends of dust jacket. Index, 298 pages. South Pacific. SOUPAC/051111.