Ralph O'Reilly Piddington

Ralph O'Reilly Piddington ( born February 19, 1906 in Sydney, Australia, † July 8, 1974 in Takapuna ) was an Australian anthropologist and psychologist.

He studied at the University of Sydney in the late 1920s. 1930 and 1931 he undertook anthropological research in North Western Australia. In 1932 he went to continue his studies in London at the London School of Economics, where he remained for the next six years. After receiving his Ph.D. In 1936, he worked as a teacher and at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen since 1938. He returned in 1944 returned to Australia to work with the Australian Army 's Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs.

He was Colonel Jack Keith Murray from the School of Civil Affairs, Duntroon, which later became the Australian School of Pacific Administration was that was responsible for the training of officials working in the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea later.

He returned in 1946 returned to Britain, where he was appointed as Reader for Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. In 1949 he was appointed foundation professor of anthropology at the University of New Zealand ( Auckland ), a position he held until his retirement in 1972.

Are famous is his anthropological work on the totemic system of Karadjeri, which first appeared in the journal Oceania and a certain influence on La primitive mythology, has the late work of Lucien Lévy -Bruhl exercised.

Marjorie Eileen Piddington (nee Barnes ) was his first wife.

Works

• Marjorie Eileen M. Piddington: Report on Fieldwork in North - Western Australia, in: Oceania 2, 1932, pp. 342-358.
• The Psychology of Laughter. London, Figurehead 1933
• An Introduction to Social Anthropology. 2 vols. Edinburgh in 1950 and 1957