The Forest of Taboos: Morality, Hunting, and Identity among the Huaulu of the Moluccas

“The Forest of Taboos may be considered among the most important books ever written by an anthropologist. Valeri writes superbly, and this book makes a fundamental contribution to one of the most central lines of thought in twentieth—century anthropology. He shows that taboo is finally comprehensible.”—John Stephen Lansing, University of Michigan

“The Forest of Taboos is no conventional ethnography, more an extended meditative essay on its subject, erudite, rich in ideas and data, wide—ran...