Introduction

Progress in kinship ethnography at the present time cannot, of course, be attributed solely or even largely to the influence of Rivers. But efficient collection of kinship data in the field has continued to use as a prime instrument some version of the genealogical method first specifically formulated and advocated by Rivers as a result of his own field research in the Torres Straits and among the Todas. Rivers held as a cardinal assumption in the lectures delivered at the London School of Economics that systems of kinship terminology give a valuable instrument for studying the history of social institutions, especially forms of marriage. This thesis is now outmoded except in some special features. While the main stream of kinship theory has swung right away from Rivers’s position and is not likely ever to return, it is clear that the influence of Rivers on his contemporaries was profound and on his successors has been significant.