Coming Into Being Among The Australian Aborigines
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"To the Australians an exact knowledge of physical paternity is not relevant. Concern about fatherhood as a physical reality depends, as far as I can see, on the standardized sentiments of sexual jealousy and, in close relation with this, on the emotionally determined value of direct lineage in the male line. The so-called primitive ignorance of paternity is nothing else but a very imperfect knowledge that intercourse is a necessary though not sufficient condition of the woman being “ opened up ” as my Trobriand friends put it. This is always combined with some form of animistic superstructure, which in fact we find even in the Christian doctrine of the new soul being created concurrently with the body. The problem therefore is really one of emphasis and value." --Foreword by Bronisław Malinowski to Coming Into Being Among The Australian Aborigines (1936) by Ashley Montagu |
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Coming Into Being Among The Australian Aborigines (1936) is a book by Ashley Montagu. It was his dissertation for the London School of Economics. Its full title reads Coming into being among the Australian Aborigines: A study of the procreative beliefs of the native tribes of Australia and it was directed by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict.
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