From Triads to Pentads

Robert Parkin taught anthropology at Oxford from 2002 to 2017, when he retired. He previously taught at the University of Kent and the Free University of Berlin. His main research interests are the tribal populations of India, kinship, the history of French anthropology, and politics and identity along the German-Polish border.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements



Introduction



Part I: Structuralism



Chapter 1. On the Notion of Structure

Chapter 2. Hierarchical Opposition and Some Other Types of Relation



Part II: Georges Dumézil and Indo-European Comparativism



Chapter 3. Debating Dumézil

Chapter 4. Quadripartion of Society in Early Tibetan Sources

Chapter 5. The Ideology of the Indo-Europeans: Dumézil’s Theory and the Idea of a Fourth Function

Chapter 6. The Category of Substance: A Maussian Theme Revisited

Chapter 7. Why did Odysseus Become a Horse?



Part III: The Tetradic Theory of Kinship



Chapter 8. A Dance of Relatives

Chapter 9. Tetradic Theory: An Approach to Kinship

Chapter 10. Assimilation of Alternate Generations

Chapter 11. Tetradic Theory and Omaha Systems

Chapter 12. The Division of Labour and the Notion of Primitive Society: A Maussian Perspective



Conclusion



Index