Most of the tribes and villages here are fictional. You cannot find the Tam or the Kiona on a map, though I have used details from the real tribes Mead, Fortune, and Bateson were studying at the time: the Tchambuli (now called the Chambri), the Iatmul, the Mundugumor, and the Arapesh. The book I call Arc of Culture is modeled on Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture.
The following books helped me immeasurably in my research: Naven by Gregory Bateson; With a Daughter’s Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson by Mary Catherine Bateson; Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict; The Last Cannibals by Jens Bjerre; Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen; One Hundred Years of Anthropology edited by J. O. Brew; The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler; To Cherish the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead edited by Margaret M. Caffrey and Patricia A. Francis; Sepik River Societies: A Historical Ethnography of the Chambri and Their Neighbors by Deborah Gewertz; Women in the Field: Anthropological Experiences edited by Peggy Golde; Margaret Mead: A Life by Jane Howard; Papua New Guinea Phrasebook by John Hunter; Kiki: Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime; An Autobiography from New Guinea by Albert Maori Kiki; Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women by Hilary Lapsley; Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist by David Lipset; Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski; Rain and Other South Sea Stories by Somerset Maugham; The Mundugumor by Nancy McDowell; Blackberry Winter: My Early Years by Margaret Mead; Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead; Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples edited by Margaret Mead; Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead; Letters from the Field, 1925–1975 by Margaret Mead; Sex and Temperament: In Three Primitive Societies by Margaret Mead; Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea by Kira Salak; Malinowski, Rivers, Benedict, and Others: Essays on Culture and Personality edited by George W. Stocking Jr.; Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork edited by George W. Stocking Jr.; Village Medical Manuaclass="underline" A Layman’s Guide to Health Care in Developing Countries — Volume II: Diagnosis and Treatment by Mary Vanderkooi MD.
I am grateful to the following people for their careful and insightful reading of earlier drafts of this book: Tyler Clements, Susan Conley, Sara Corbett, Caitlin Gutheil, Anja Hanson, Debra Spark, my sister Lisa, my extraordinary agent Julie Barer, William Boggess, Gemma Purdy, and my beloved, brilliant, and wise editor Elisabeth Schmitz. I’m also grateful to Morgan Entrekin, Deb Seager, Charles Woods, Katie Raissian, Amy Hundley, Judy Hottensen, and everyone at Grove Atlantic. Liza Bakewell’s keen anthropological eye on a later draft was invaluable. A big thank-you to the Inn by the Sea, where I finished the final-final edits in cut-rate bliss. And another to Cornelia Walworth, who brought me to the bookstore that day.
A special, perpetual thanks to my husband, Tyler, and our daughters, Calla and Eloise. All my love to you.
About the Author
LILY KING is the author of the novels The Pleasing Hour, The English Teacher, and Father of the Rain, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction. King is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and the twotime winner of the Maine Literary Award for fiction. She lives with her husband and children in Maine.
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