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troduction with a few remarks about social organization. A chapter on the evil eye and sorcery and perhaps also one on divination would have filled out the picture of Nubian ceremonial life. I would also have preferred to see a closing chapter by one of the authors at- tempting to bring the whole together in a con- clusion rather than have the book die. so to speak, in the description of mortuary ceremon- ials. Finally. despite inflation I still find $SO for this book excessive.

All in all this is a valuable book-as descrip- tive ethnography, as an account of religious change, and as a critique of certain aspects of the anthropological theory of religion.

Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Michael Herzfeld. The Dan Danciger Publication Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. x + 197 pp. $17.50 (cloth).

Peter Allen Rhode Island College

This is not a conventional anthropological text; rather it is a treatise on the history of folklore (iaographia) as a discipline in Greece and an exposition of the ways folklore has been used to create, articulate, and ultimately validate a sense of historical and cultural identi- ty among the Greek people since the Revolution of 1821. Utilizing the perspectives of the semiotician and historian more than those of the cultural or social anthropologist, Henfeld has nevertheless written a book of interest to all an- thropologists concerned with Greece, oral tradi- tions, and the study of folklore. That many of the dramatis personae are characters not usually encountered in standard anthropological works is all the more compelling a reason for recom- mending this study to a more general anthropo- logical audience.

The book is a systematic chronological ac- count of developments in the creation of a Greek folklore discipline. It examines the works and lives of each major contributor to this crea- tion. noting their prejudices and identifying political and personal influences in their in- tellectual development. Especially welcome is the discussion of Nikolaas Politis and his works. Generally regarded as the founder of Greek folklore as a formal discipline, Politis never real- ly has been given his due, even in Greece (where the name of Fallmerayer is still better known

than Politis’). Herzfeld’s careful attention to Politis’ life and career help correct this inequity and one hopes that the book will soon be trans- lated into Greek.

In ours Once More Herzfeld clearly docu- ments the mutually reinforcing roles of folklore and ideology during the crucial formative years of the modern Greek nation. skillfully weaving the multiple strands of history, politics. ideol- ogy, and folklore into a coherent thesis. By trac- ing the evolution of scholarly folkloristic study in Greece, Henfeld demonstrates that it arose in direct response to the need for establishing a cultural and ethnic identity among a people subject to almost 400 years of foreign (Ottoman) domination. Added stimulus came from the publications of the infamous J . P. Fallmerayer in which any suggestion of links between an- cient and modern Greece is dismissed. claiming instead that the 19th-century inhabitants were the degenerate descendents of Slavs who largely replaced the classical Greeks in the early cen- turies of the Christian era. The responses pro- voked by this and other equally nefarious ideas eventually led to the establishment of folklore as an official branch of study in the Greek system of education; but. more important, various elements of the popular tradition came to be viewed as “verbal monuments” that reflected and proved continuity with the more glorious Greeks of the classical age.

Ours Once More explores thoroughly the ten- sions between the two opposing schools of thought on Greek identity--he Hellenic which harks back to the classical period and the Romeic, a more contemporary popular view- point. Henfeld points out that the Hellenic is mainly an imported penpctive spawned in Western Europe by philhellenes and Western- ized Greeks, whereas the Romeic is more “native” and evolved naturally, reflecting the full course of Greek history since antiquity. The Hellenic camp is usually identified with the formulators and supporters of kafharevousa, an artificial form of the modern Greek language that deliberately excludes intrusive foreign words and restores certain ancient forms. Sup- porters of the Romeic viewpoint champion demotic Greek, the language spoken by the common people in everyday life. Herzfeld shows how proponents of both positions used an in- digenous corpus of folklore to support their respective viewpoints, often manipulating material to fit their ideological and political PU‘poseS.

Throughout, Henfeld is quite objective in

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presenting the material and his sympathies for a particular position rarely blind him to the merits of others. This objectivity is carried too far in some cases, however, as one searches in vain for a clear statement by the author on the validity of certain basic positions taken by major figures in Greek folklore studies. For example, on the perennially nettlesome question of stylistic and thematic continuities between modem folk traditions and those of antiquity, Henfeld shies away from taking a position or even clarifying which elements from antiquity are generally accepted as authentically repre- sented in the modern corpus. Instead of shed- ding light on such larger issues, Henfeld is con- tent with identifying cases where individuals altered texts or presented material selectively to strengthen their arguments. Furthermore, it is puzzling that, after pointing out the striking paradox of the Hellenic camp’s concern with regaining Constantinople (Istanbul) and turn- ing i t into the capital of the modem Greek na- tion. Herzfeld fails to discuss this fascinating situation or follow up its ramifications.

At the nit-picking level, it should be pointed out that Count Capodistrias. the first president of Greece, was not assassinated by Maniat “leaders.” but rather by two undistinguished kinsmen of the imprisoned Maniat chief, Petro- bey Mavromichalis. In his discussion of the &lefts and brigandage, Herzfeld makes no reference to the excellent and important work of John Koliopoulos on this subject, nor does one find mention of Gail Holst’s fine book on rebefika in Herzfelds brief discussion of this Greek urban folk music genre.

But these are minor quibbles. In ours Once More Herzfeld has given us a well-researched and thoroughly documented scholarly work of high quality. In places it is dense and rather tough going. especially for the reader uniniti- ated in the history of European folklore studies, but it is well written and well organized, full of wisdom and common sense. Moreover, the au- thor demonstrates mastery of a large bibliog- raphy in several languages, and the comparative data from studies of folklore in other European countries that he brings to bear on the Greek case are illuminating. The chronological timetable at the end is very useful as is the brief appendix of Politis’ folklore taxonomy.

One final “criticism”: Herzfeld is altogether too kind to his anthropological colleagues in modem Greek studies on both sides of the At- lantic, almost all of whom have ignored or, worse yet. scorned laographia. Herzfeld has put

them on notice that they continue to do so at considerable risk. for the book clearly estab- lishes the seminal importance of folklore studies for a full understanding of modern Greek culture and history.

Chinese Ritual and Politics. Emily Martin Ahem. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthro- pology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982, ix + 144 pp. $24.95 (cloth).

David Wu East-West Center

This small book is a long essay on the analo- gies between how Chinese peasants communi- cate with their gods and with their government officials. Following several Anglo- American an- thropologists who have recently studied religious life in Taiwan, Ahern maintains that the struc- ture of the supernatural world is indeed mod- eled after that of the political bureaucracy in the social world. Peasants’ images of “gods” reflect their images of government officials as they were in imperial China, and the images persist to this day in Taiwanese society. While the thesis is old, tracing back to Durkheim’s writings and recent ethnographies on Chinese religion, Ahern’s presentation in this book is refreshing. She concentrates on the concepts of interpersonal communication. social etiquette. and sociopolitical manipulation as manifested in certain Chinese ritual acts, and demonstrates their structural similarities in both the religious and the political spheres. This point occupies the first two parts of the book (chapters 1 through 5). In the last part, (chapters 6 and 7). she reaches her conclusion that the function of Chinese rituals is also to serve the powerless, rather than just the authorities, as several an- thropologists have argued.

Chapter 1 deals with the varieties of ritual acts and taboos that the earlier scholars treated as “magical acts,” in Frazer’s terms. Ahern makes a careful distinction here between inter- personal transactions with a god, such as using a charm, and other social transactions, such as observing a taboo. in which there is no interper- sonal transaction. Ahern differentiates between these two types of social transaction, because only the interpersonal rituals involve forms of political control. Thus chapter 2, “Written Bureaucratic Communication.” shows how charms in Chinese rituals serve the purpose of informing, commending, or summoning in the