Ethnographic puzzles

"This study assesses how versatile are the techniques of classical anthropology when confronted by the ethnographically unfamiliar. Organised around the themes of cultural meaning, social structure and social change, each essay opens with an empirical problem - an ethnograpic puzzle - which it seeks to elucidate through orthodox and heterodox uses of standard techniques. Case material is drawn from the Amazon, East Africa and Northern India."--Jacket.