Documents
eHRAF is comprised of thousands of ethnographic sources including monographs, journal articles, dissertations and manuscripts. Use this page to find relevant documents by searching or filtering. Each document in eHRAF also contains a Publication Information page with added metadata including brief abstracts written by HRAF analysts who have subject-indexed the file.
A folklore survey of County Clarearticle 1912 • Westropp, Thomas J. (Thomas Johnson)
Rural Irish • Europe > British Isles
This is a representative compilation by a folklorist of the oral traditions of County Clare. Themes include the origins of place names and legends of places, banshees, the Death Coach, fairies and fairy forts and mounds, assorted spirits and ghosts, ...Contributions to the zooarchaeology of Icelandessay 1989 • Amorosi, Thomas
Icelanders • Europe > Scandinavia
One of the more important tools in paleoeconomic reconstruction is zooarchaeology (or archaeozoology), a technique of faunal analysis which attempts to use excavated animal bone collection to gain an understanding of the relative importance of differ...Sibs, privileged familiarity, and cross-cousin marriage among the Waluguruarticle 1935 • McVicar, Thomas
Luguru • Africa > Eastern Africa
This is probably the first attempt to systematically enumerate the many Luguru clans by their names and seniority. Also included in the description is the cultural logic behind cross-cousin marriage as the ideal form....Culture summaryessay 2006 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
This is a culture summary of the Gusii. Information is presented on major aspects of Gusii culture....The appropriation of fertilityarticle 1990 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
Quoting from Karp (1978), the author states that 'a descent ideology must transform the facts of biological relatedness through both maternal and paternal ancestors into a symbolic model which emphasizes the identity of people transmitted through a p...Bridewealth, women, and landBook 1988 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
This document examines the persistence of bridewealth among the Gusii people of southwestern Kenya. The focus of the work is on the various factors which have affected the norms and actions connected with bridewealth transactions. This entails a stud...Grain, cattle, and powerarticle 1994 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
The relationship between agricultural production and grain and cattle exchange is examined here in the context of the Lake Victoria basin and the highlands of western Kenya. The societies in this region were patrilineal and acephalous, with polygynou...Gender and life-course strategies among the Gusiiessay 1997 • Håkansson, Thomas & LeVine, Robert Alan
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
In Gusii society not only is the road toward an ideal old age different for men and women, but the ways in which each gender achieves the ideal are mutually contradictory. As in many other African societies, the family provides security and comfort i...Detachability of womenarticle 1994 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
This article examines the role of gender and kinship identities in shaping women's access to social and economic resources among the Gusii and Luyia in Kenya. High population densities, cash crop production, market dependency, and wage labor are ubiq...Socioeconmic stratification and marriage paymentsessay 1990 • Håkansson, Thomas
Gusii • Africa > Eastern Africa
This paper is based on the author's 12 months of fieldwork among the Gusii people of Kisi District in western Kenya. It presents a brief outline of how the Gusii elite manage marriages with the intent of establishing favorable social connections in t...Comanche kin behaviorarticle 1948 • Gladwin, Thomas
Comanche • North America > Plains and Plateau
This document lists Comanche kin terms and forms of address and discusses the associated behavior patterns. Included in the discussion are the relations between siblings, husband and wife, siblings-in-law, parents-in-law, grandparents and grandchildr...An account of the manners and customs of the Sauk and Fox nations of Indians traditionessay 1911 • Forsyth, Thomas & Translated, edited, annotated and with bibliography and index by Emma Helen Blair
Fox • North America > Eastern Woodlands
This is a good, early ethnographic sketch of the Sauk and Fox tribes. The author combines several years' experience with Indian groups (both as a trader and an Indian agent) with a fairly objective viewpoint in presenting his materials. Most major cu...Wild rice and the Ojibway peopleBook 1988 • Vennum, Thomas
Ojibwa • North America > Arctic and Subarctic
Vennum looks at the role wild rice played and continues to play in the life of the Ojibway people. He discusses how it grows (and how paddy wild rice is grown), it's place in myth and ceremony, and its importance in the diet. He also examines how the...Culture summaryessay 2009 • Bargatzky, Thomas
Samoans • Oceania > Polynesia
This is a culture summary of Samoa. Information is presented on major aspects of the culture of Samoa....Culture summaryessay 2011 • Thomas, Nicholas
Marquesas • Oceania > Polynesia
This is a culture summary of the Marquesans. Information is presented on major aspects of the Marquesan culture....RSFSRBook 1957 • Fitzsimmons, Thomas et al.
Russians • Europe > Eastern Europe
Combining data from official government reports and village-level ethnographic studies, this document describes continuities and changes in Russian culture and society that had experienced land redistribution, collectivization, industrialization, and...The islands and their inhabitantsbook chapter 1860 • Williams, Thomas
Bau Fijians • Oceania > Polynesia
This book describes aspects of Fijian culture and society during the rise of Bau as the dominant political center of Fiji, with considerable perspective on politics and events beyond the Bau chiefdom. There was a simultaneous increase in missionary a...TrukBook 1953 • Gladwin, Thomas & Sarason, Seymour Bernard
Chuuk • Oceania > Micronesia
This monograph is based primarily on seven months of field work that Gladwin undertook on the island of Romonum in the Chuuk group in 1947, and is supplemented by information obtained from other members of the Yale University team on Chuuk who were p...Canoe travel in the Truk areaarticle 1958 • Gladwin, Thomas
Chuuk • Oceania > Micronesia
This article discusses the various factors involved in the extensive canoe trips of the Chuukese, which often covered over two hundred miles in length and occupied weeks and sometimes months in time. The factors that Gladwin believes are very importa...Inishbofinarticle 1958 • Freeman, Thomas Walter
Rural Irish • Europe > British Isles
This is a brief examination of the economic geography of an island off the northwest coast of County Galway. The focus is on fishing and potato farming, the landscape, and the settlement pattern and population. The author notes that the relative comf...Culture and class among the "large" farmers of eastern Irelandarticle 1988 • Wilson, Thomas M.
Rural Irish • Europe > British Isles
In this article, the author focuses on Ireland's large commercial farmers, the "big men" of County Meath, a county with the greatest number of cattle, the most fertile land, the largest farms and the richest farmers in Ireland. Since the eighteenth c...'Veni, VD, vici'?article 1997 • Callahan, Bryan Thomas
Ila • Africa > Southern Africa
This document is a re-examination of the historical origins of syphilis epidemics among the Ila-speaking people of Zambia. It argues that colonial era reports vastly overestimated the incidence of this sexually transmitted disease because they were b...The harmless peopleBook 1959 • Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall
San • Africa > Southern Africa
This source is a popular account of an expedition to the Kalahari Desert in 1955. It concentrates on the life of two groups of San, the Gikwe and the Kung. The author gives a general description of the culture of these slightly differing groups, the ...Among the Ibos of NigeriaBook 1966 • Basden, George Thomas
Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
This is a record of the author's observations and experiences among the Igbo people during his initial visit to Nigeria in the period of 1900-1920. Although Basden was a keen observer of native customs, especially in regard to material culture, the e...Niger IbosBook 1966 • Basden, George Thomas & Willis, John Ralph
Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
This source, written with some 15 more years of field experience, is extremely like the author's earlier work (Source 6: Basden in this file) in content and in subject coverage. The major difference seems to be that this volume gives a more comprehen...