hi there, i was going to just post this in the anthropology subreddit but it seems pretty dead over there.
i'm looking for book recommendations for what i think would be the subject of cultural anthropology of indigenous peoples/tibes but i'll explain it more to make sure we're on the same page:
i'm looking for a learning resource to study the way that indigenous peoples all over the world lived before they were affected by colonialism. like the customs and practices they had before they were influenced by the "western" influence (for lack of a better word). natural people in the natural world. this can include both spiriutal and practical customs like daily hygiene, hunting, beauty, medicine, spirituality, interpersonal relationships etc etc etc. if you feel a different subreddit would be more accurate or would yield better results, please help.
thank you in advance.
The Smithsonian Handbook of the North American Indians provides good, reliable treatments of various North American groups. Some articles within the multi-volume work refer to contemporary ethnography, but there is a great deal there on pre-contact and contact-era cultures. I recommend that as a general source.
I spend a great deal of time studying pre-industrial cultures of Northern Europe. The effect of modernism was felt everywhere. I do not see a significant difference between a rural Irish - or rural English, for the matter - community and the effect that industrialization and modernization had on it as opposed to a society that experienced "western influence" as a result of colonialism. Each experienced disruption.
I hope you post this questions at /r/askanthropology as well. They actually do answer questions over there.
Okay well there are a fair few books written on pre-colonial Africa. I can give a few reccomendations to do with pre-colonial Central Africa. Without reading a broader survey text pre-colonial Africa can be a little thorny at first.
Jan Vansina's Kingdoms of the Savannah is a great survey text for the area, a little dated but still referenced today.
Now if you're interested in a more in depth look at the practises of the peoples of central Africa Thomas Reefe's The Rainbow and the Kings is a fantastic look at the Luba empire and goes right up to its collapse when integrated into wider global networks. Fortunately this is available courtesy of google books for free.
Another great resource is Unesco's General history of Africa again these are not cutting edge research but provide valuable insight into pre-colonial Africa. Unesco's volumes cover the whole continent from pre-history to today but it would take a long time to get through all of them.
Hopefully a couple of these will be of use to you. I'll warn ahead of time these are not anthropological books and certainly focused on an academic history perspective.