The origin of kinship in Oceania : Lewis Henry Morgan and Lorimer Fison

This article investigates the importance of Oceania in the early study of kinship. It examines the tensions between evidence and analysis from the Pacific Islands in the development of Lewis Henry Morgan's theory of evolving kinship forms. While other sources from the Pacific islands are investigated it is focused particularly on the correspondence between Morgan and Lorimer Fison, Methodist missionary and key figure in the spread of kinship schedules and anthropological theories throughout Oceania in the I 870s. The empirical data gathered by Fison, challenged Morgan's schema and questioned the orthodox evolutionist hierarchy in Asia and the Pacific. Also investigated is the British response to this unruly
evidence.

'By the facts we add to our store' : Lorimer Fison, Lewis Henry Morgan and the spread of kinship studies in Australia

The formal study of kinship was introduced to the South Pacific Islands and the Australian colonies by Methodist missionary Lorimer Fison who distributed schedules and collected kinship data from around the region in collaboration with the founder of Anthropology in America, Lewis Henry Morgan. This article is a sequel to H. Gardner, 2008 'The origins of kinship in Oceania', Oceania, 78:2, 137-150. It traces Lorimer Fison's return to the Australian colonies from his mission post in Fiji and the subsequent spread of kinship schedules to settlers, missionaries and administrators around Australia. Based on unpublished correspondence, the article investigates Fison's gradual disillusionment with Morgan's evolutionist hypothesis of the development of the human family and his disdain for the speculation of much metropolitan anthropology in the 1870s.