Animals and Ancestors

Brian Morris Emeritus Professor of Anthropology,Goldsmiths College, University of London

• 1 Introduction 2 Animals, Humans and Personhood 3 Rituals of Childbirth and Womanhood 4 Boys' Initiation and the Nyau Fraternities 5 God and the Rain Deities 6 The Ancestral Spirits

"Morris defends with great wit and intelligence his ''philosophical'' background and the methodology he uses ... well researched, well edited, offers a valuable bibliography, and is written in a language that attracts attention, avoiding academic jargon ... might become a classic, not only on Malawi but as an example of ethnography at its best. - Zeitschrift für EthnologieThe book gives a new insight into Malawian culture, bringing together the fruits of the long-term field research work of the author, and the published documents of many specialists of Malawian culture. Morris examines carefully their material, shows lacks and misleadings, and proposes interpretations that seem to better express the cultural reality. He maintains proper distance to the empirical material, therefore, his book is very instructive for the researchers in African studies. - Anthropos"