WENDELL BENNETT: ARCHAEOLOGY of KAUAI HAWAII/ RARE 1931

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF KAUAI. BY WENDELL CLARK BENNETT. BERNICE P. BISHOP MUSEUM, BULLETIN 80. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1931. First Edition. Very rare. A solid First Edition copy of this rare and fascinating book about archeology excavations in Hawaii written by Bennett a great anthropologist who died before his time. This book comes from the collection of Cornelius Osgood, with his owner stamp on the coverWith many illustrations in the book. Published nearly 80 years ago, this book is now long out of print and it is now rare, as there are no other copies of this book listed for sale on the intenret, worldwide, at any price. Therefore it is now virtually inobtainable. Another copy of this book is not likely to come up for sale again on ebay. NOTE: This book comes from the personal collection of Prof. Cornelius Osgood, a distinguished ethnographer who was Curator of Anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum from 1934 to 1973, and he was the General Editor of this Yale Anthropology series of monographs. He made scientific expeditions to northern Canada and Alaska and wrote a number of monographs on the indigenous peoples of northern North America. I am selling his fine collection of rare anthropology, Canadian and Alaskan books on ebay this month. There are no ownership markings in this book, but he did sign or stamp many of his other books. Please take a look at my other listings. From the Introduction: "This bulletin, designed to record what is known of the archaeology of Kauai, is based on nine months' field work during 1928-29 supplemented by a study of available collections, of published literature, and of manuscript notes on file in Bernice P. Bishop Museum. "Unfortunately the continuity of culture on the Island of Kauai is broken. The older natives who still remember the sites of the heiaus (temples) are fast dying, and the younger generations are no longer interested. Much can still be learned about such things as fishing methods and folk lore, but the amount of accurate material to be gathered from the Hawiians about the archaeology is small. "The destruction that has gone on is a handicap to the field worker. Many heiau foundations have been removed for road building, or for cattle pens. The plantations have cleared away such stones as remained. It is only where vegetation has protected the old sites that the structures remain relatively undisturbed. Unfortunately this protection of cactus and lantana also hampers the work of the archaeologist. Still with all this destruction, sufficient material remains to present a fair idea of the culture of the old Hawaiian...The materials gathered today is, for the most part, without historical or traditional records. Thus the work resolves itself into straight recordings and observations with conclusions and comparisons based on them...Though comprising only 547 square miles Kauai is large enough to have figured at all times as a major influence on Hawaiian culture...As a result of isolation Kauai was never captured or ruled by the king of another island...Many of the archaeological sites seem today impossible places to live...Two factors separate the archaeological history of Kauai from the political history: the scarcity and inaccuracy of the genealogies, and the lack of accurate legendary knowledge about the ruins and artifacts..." Contents include: Scope and purpose; Geography; Villages; Structures - houses, pens, walks and pathways, fishing shelters, irrigation ditches, fish ponds, salt pans; Burial Places; Heiaus - location, materials of construction, Heiau at Waimae, features of heiaus, functional classification, fishing shrines, places of refuge, stone artifacts, wood and bone artifacts, carving, archaeological sites; Literature cited. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quarto-sized in origina... read more

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