W. H. R. Rivers, who has been called 'the founder of the modern study of social organization', exerted an immense influence on his contemporaries and successors. This volume reprints three of his lectures, delivered in 1913 and first published in 1914, which provide a short and brilliant exposition of his theoretical approach, and are exemplary of his handling of ethnographic evidence. His theme is the relationship between kinship terminologies and social organization, more particularly forms of marriage, a subject still of lively theoretical interest. Also included is the same author's The Genealogical Method of Anthropological Enquiry, first published in 1910, a classic of anthropological methodology, and Professor Raymond Firth of the London School of Economics and Professor David Schneider of the University of Chicago provide commentaries estimating the past and present importance of Rivers in British and American Anthropology respectively.

INTRODUCTION by Raymond Firth I PART ONE Commentaries RIVERS AND KROEBER IN THE STUDY OF KINSHIP by David M. Schneider 7 RIVERS ON OCEANIC KINSHIP by Raymond Firth 17 PART TWO Kinship and Social Organization by W. H. R. Rivers ORIGINAL PREFACE 38 LECTURE I (Classificatory Terminology and Cross-Cousin Marriage) 39 LECTURE 2 (Classificatory Terminology and Other Forms of Marriage) 55 LECTURE 3 (The Classificatory System and Forms of Social Organization) 75 THE GENEALOGICAL METHOD OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL INQUIRY 97 LIST OF WORKS CITED IN THE INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARIES 110 INDEX 113