Critical Survey of Studies on the Anthropology of Nias, Mentawei and Enggano

Book excerpt: The purpose of this bibliography is to serve as a medium for informing those interested about the contents of books and articles which have thus far appeared dealing with the above-mentioned three cultures. Anthropology here is used in its widest sense: Physical anthropology, ethnology, cultural anthropology, archaeology and ethno history. l In view of the fact that Kennedy's bibliography has recently been brought up to date,2 a few words of explanation to justify this bibliography are necessary. This work attempts at completeness, that is to say, the items (especially found in missionary journals) which have been overlooked by those who did the splendid job of revising Ken nedy's bibliography, have been included here. Only those items which the present compiler was not able to get hold of have been left unannotated. In other words nearly every item listed here has been read or skimmed through. Moreover those pieces which have hardly any value or relevance to these cultures but which, none the less, are found listed in Kennedy (e. g. Buys under Nias) have been precluded from consideration here. Likewise those (few) articles dealing with modern developments which were uncovered have been listed here as well, contrary to the policy taken by the compilers of Kennedy's revised edition. Needless to say the debt one owes to these compilers for such a work as this - indeed for almost any research which one undertakes dealing with Indonesia - is untold.