A polymath anthropologist

Harriet Lyons, Dorothy Ayers Counts, Claudia Gross

This volume honours Ann Chownings contributions to anthropology as a whole and to the anthropology of Melanesia in particular. It reflects the scope of her interests by bringing together a wide range of scholars and topics. A biographical narrative (by Judith Huntsman) of her life to date traces her career and there is a comprehensive bibliography of her works (Kathryn Creely). The essays deal primarily with issues in Oceania, except for two addressing one of her favourite pasttimes detective fiction, as a source of innovative word formation (Laurie Bauer) and its parallels to ethnography (Claudia Gross). Three archaeology essays discuss stone artefacts in Papua New Guinea (Pamela Swadling, Jim Specht, Susan Buhner), and one essay surveys dental morphology in Oceania (Daris R. Swindler). Essays in linguistics range from surveys of Oceanic plant names (Malcolm Ross), Proto Micronesian...