Transformations of Polynesian Culture

The essays in this volume exemplify a new synthesis emerging in Polynesian studies, based upon insights derived from structuralism. Working with the indigenous idi8oms of myth, genealogy, ritual, philosophy and history, the authors isolate common elements of Polynesian cultural theory and show how the structures variously constructed from them persist and recur in a variety of transformations in societies widely separated from one another both in time and space.