cern for anthropology.
The descriptive materials then one i s well advised to justify and explain
that this collection includes clearly make it
essential reading for the Southeast Asian scholar.
More importantly, the difficulties and questions
that these articles evoke are, I think, of special in-
terest inasmuch as they are symptomatic of some
of the best, most challenging, and most disturb
ing trends in contemporary social science.
ldoology and Evorydry Llfo: Anthropology,
Noomrrxlrt Thought, and tho Problom of
ldoology rnd tho Soclrl Wholo. STEVE
BARNETT and MARTIN Q. SILVERMAN. Ann
Arbor: Unlverrlty of Mlchlgrn Pnrr, 1979. Ix
+ 179 pp., notor, nferoncor. $5.96 (prpor).
ROBERT WASSERSTROM
Columbia University
If the argument and purpose of this book r e
main somewhat obscure, at least i t s central
premise is clearly formulated from the very
outset. ”It is the thesis of our volume,” write the
authors in their introduction, “that this moment
in the development of Western anthropological
theory is characterized by two impasses: an im-
passe within the general range of liberal anthre
pological (and related) theory, and an impasse
within the general range of neomanist (and
related) theory” (p. 3). The source of this dual
dilemma, they continue, is not hard to find: like
earlier crises in social theory, which transpired
when ”significant shifts in the organization of
production were taking place,” we have arrived
at a moment of major economic transformation,
the consolidation of monopoly capitalism. It is at
such moments, they declare (pace Thomas Kuhn),
that we allow ourselves the luxury of a little
much-needed epistemological housecleaning,
that we are forced to air out the closets and tidy
up the attics of our intellectual edifice. ”Perhaps
such shifts incline us to wonder about the
foundations of our knowledge and about the
relation between knowledge and the processes
which pertain to its construction” (p. vii). What is
needed in these instances, they conclude, is a
new theory of separations, that is, of the “fun-
damentally different approaches to categoriza-
tion itself [which] people make in their life activi-
ty” (p. 3).
Perhaps. Certainly, no one should object to the
suggestion that M a n and Weber, not to mention
many lesser lights, were in some intimate way
nourished by the political and social climate in
which they worked. Unlike these pioneers,
however, Barnett and Silverman do not keep
their task squarely before them, nor do they seem
particularly interested in giving their readers a
helping hand. Why, for example, a “theory of
separations” -except that philosophical idealism
is once again in vogue? Surely, too, if one intends
to make a major contribution to social theory,
192 american ethnologist
every novel concept, every innovation in
discourse and perception, not merely to coin new
phrases or allude obliquely to one’s allies and
adversaries. The problem with Marxism, they
declare at one point, is that insofar as it “still
reifies the person as a unit and still poses the in-
terpenetration of base and superstructure as a
secondary analytic level, it has been superseded
by a capitalism that can use such units and such
separations to reproduce itself” (p. 34). And yet, I
wonder if what they really mean to say is that
radical anthropologists have not taken full ad-
vantage of Lukacs’s work on ideology or ad-
vanced much beyond the frontiers which he ex-
plored half a century ago.
Of the three essays that compose this volume,
Silverman‘s is more successful than the others.
Although I am no authority on the subject, I was
most persuaded by his final chapter on ”Gender
and Separations in Precolonial Banabian and Gil-
bertese Societies.” Emerging from the nether-
world of self-conscious philosophizing, he
engages in fairly straightforward fashion an issue
that is both timely and complex: the different
ways in which kinship and gender were used to
order productive relations in the western Pacific.
O n this topic, he presents an array of fact and in-
terpretation which I trust will withstand the test
of scholarly review. Unfortunately. the same can-
not be said of Barnett and Silverman’s joint essay
on ”Separations in Capitalist Society,” in which
they test the views outlined in chapter 1 (entitled
”Impasses in Social Theory”) on our own peculiar
variety of civilization. Perhaps the book’s major
virtue, in fact, lies in the aptness with which it oc-
casionally gives voice to the doubts and appre
hensions that many of us have felt in our own
teaching and research-on cultural relativism,
for example, or on the universality of human
nature. As such, it fulfills in part, at least, the
authors‘ own injunction that, to be effective,
Marxist writing must be critical. Paradoxically,
their critical impact might have been enhanced
by several megatons if they had concentrated
upon less grandiose targets and taken more care
to temper literary imagination with greater
originality and thrift.
Colobrrtlonr of Dorth: Tho Anthropology of
Mortuary Rlturl. RICHARD HUNTINQTON
and PETER METCALF. New York: Cambrldge
Unlvenlty Pnrr, 1979. xv + 230 pp., flgunr,
Illurtrrtlonr, blbllogrrphy, Index. 821.96
(cloth), SO.95 (papor).
IOHN 0. STEWART
University of Illinois, Urbana
This is a joint work, organized as a limited
survey of the scholarship on mortuary rituals. The
central idea around which the work is organized
is taken from Robert Hertz’s study of secondary
burial ("A Contribution to the Study of the Col-
lective Representation of Death," 1907). It is the
assertion that the corpse is a significant
predicate, and therefore central to a symbolic
analysis of death rituals. This book i s dedicated
to the support of Hertz's generalization, and
much of it is given to an elaboration of the ways
in which his insight could lead to the revelatory
analysis of particular cultures. Along the way,
aspects of the work of several anthropologists
relating to the analysis of death rituals are sum-
marized and, in some cases, evaluated. Tyler,
Frazer, Van Gennep, Turner, and Goody are all
mentioned, with focus on the extent to which
their works make use of, or disregard. the Hert-
zian insight. The justification for this book, of
course, is that while Hertz's essay has been used
as the basis of successful sociological studies, its
potential instrumentality in the development of
symbolic studies has gone largely unrecognized.
For those who have an interest in the study of
death rituals, the book i s a most useful biblie
graphic source. To those who may not have
thought much about the metaphorical signifi-
cance of such rituals, or shied away from dealing
with them out of distaste or fear, the book could
be a captivating and reassuring introduction to
the subject. It is smoothly written, with, unfor-
tunately, some of the glossiness in style that
makes i t s way into any survey of a broad and
complicated topic. In order to impress upon the
reader the complicacy of their approach, in an
early chapter the authors reject the use of
"cultural universals" as explanatory devices of
significant dimensions. Yet, in the process, they
offer some glib generalizations themselves, if not
in denotative language, then certainly by innuen-
do and suggestion.
One example of this is the very brief section
(two pages) on "Death Ritual and the Birth of An-
thropology." The topical substance of the second
half of this title is not addressed at all, and the
reader is left with the suggestion that the search
for evidence in archaeology and the early
theories of Tyler and Frazer combine to form the
origins of the discipline. Nevertheless, the tone of
the writing is a stylistic strength. It carries, with a
certain amount of conviction, the message that
mortuary rituals are events through which pas-
sions aroused by the incidence of profound loss
are mastered, and by which the resources they
yield are channeled to the welfare of culture
groups and societies. Example after example
shows that the grave is not simply a oneway
passage into uncharted oblivion, but rather that
the events centered on it refract an intelligent
energy which is used in a variety of ways by dif-
ferent peoples.
A second strength of the book i s i t s ethnc-
graphic scope. Information on death rituals is
given for a number of societies in Southeast Asia
and Africa, and in some cases this turns on rather
rich firsthand accounts. Along with the accounts
of rituals among the "exotics"-whose cultures
provide the data base for too much of Western
anthropology-there are also interesting expla-
nations of ritual styles and artifacts in medieval
France and Britain and ancient Egypt. The book
ends with a discussion of mortuary rituals in the
modern United States which, though not as
ethnographically explicit as the descriptions of
rituals in the Asian and African cultures, does
draw attention to the cultural significance of em-
balming and other practices which serve to shield
mourners from the loss which the corpse would
otherwise represent.
Theoretically, Celebrations of Death is sort of a
meandering exercise. There are five parts to the
book, built around the following generalizations.
(1) Introduction-the analysis of death rituals
can yield a profound understanding of what life
means within any given culture. ( 2 ) Universals
and Culture-although the expression of strong
sentiments at the occurrence of death and the
use of special symbols in such expression may be
universal, explanations of death rituals based on
such panhuman observations must necessarily be
shallow, and particular case and topical studies
are a necessity. (3) Death as Transition+) death
i s transition, but the nature of this transition
varies from culture to culture; and (b) rituals in-
volving the corpse are a key to understanding the
transformations in any culture. (4) The Royal
Corpse and the Body Politic-the bodies of sig-
nificant leaders bear a direct relationship with
the body politic, and death rituals involving them
have as their aim the survival and continuity of
the larger body. ( 5 ) Conclusion-in American
death rituals, the power of the corpse i s chan-
neled to reaffirm life values in terms of a civic
religion. Each of these parts is liberally sub
divided, sometimes under captions that are quite
evocative (e.g., "The corpse alone").
As will be seen from this very skeletal sum-
mary, there are no theoretical pronouncements
with which one may wish to disagree. Nor, con-
versely, are there any that awaken us to a truly
original set of intellectual insights or social rela-
tionships. But then the authors did not set out to
do this. Their stated intention is to awaken us to
some ideas born out of Hertz's concern with sec-
ondary burial and to illustrate how these ideas
may facilitate explanation in the consideration of
a wide variety of death rituals. This is, in a way,
an exercise in symbolic interpretation at the first,
broad level. But it is rich in information, provoc-
ative in some of i t s assertions, and certainly a
very useful contribution in the field of symbolic
studies.
Shamanlrm In SIbrrIn. V. Dl6SZEQYl and M.
HOPPAL, rdr. Budaport: Akad6mlrl Klad4
1078. 538 pp., Index. $46.00 (cloth).
PETER 1. FURS1
State University of New Vork at Albany
When Vilmos Dibszegyi, the Hungarian eth-
nographer of Eurasian shamanism, died in Buda-
reviews 103