article

The problem of 'totemism' in southern Lau: a reply to A. Capell and R. H. Lester

Oceania • 17 • Published In 1947 • Pages: 211-224

By: Thompson, Laura.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document

This article is a reply to a criticism by Capell and Lester on the accuracy of her findings as published in 2: Thompson, this file, especially as they related to totemism and social groupings. Thompson re-examines her data and theirs, and comes to the conclusion that Capell and Lester tried to force the Lau social groupings into preconceived concepts, while she described the functioning groups, thus explaining the difference in findings. As regarded totemism, she believes the data to be in her monograph, although not usually described under that name, since she held to a very srtict definition of totemism. Although Thompson, Capell and Lester followed radically different methods in reconstructing southern Lau cultural history, they came to much the same conclusions.

SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF

General character of religion

Kin groups

cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)

Lau Fijians

HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document

1996

RegionThe area the document pertains to

Oceania

Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region

Polynesia

Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs

article

Evaluation

Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.

Ethnologist

Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.

5: Excellent Primary Data

AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection

Timothy J. O'Leary ; 1959

Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document

1933-1934

Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to

not specified

Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)

Lau Islands, Fiji

NotesAdditional notes

by Laura Thompson

LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings

Fijians