Christmas is the favourite time of the year for many of us, with present exchanges, food & drink and socialising with friends & family at the top of the agenda. But what are the true origins and meaning of this seemingly inexhaustible celebration? Although most of our current customs only go back a few hundred years - Father Christmas as we know him dressed in red and white much less - there has been a festival at this time in the year for thousands of years. Although these days it is taken to mean the commemoration of the birth of Jesus, the date of December 25 was that of the winter solstice in Roman times, and other cultures have celebrated the darkest winter night for millennia. This book looks at all aspects of what the festive period means for people all over the world, beginning with a history of Christmas that looks at Yule, Nativity and Christmas as well as pagan celebrations. The embodiment of Christmas, Father Christmas, has a whole chapter, and this jolly character we know and love has a long history, not to mention a big bag of presents! But wait - there's myrrh(!): quotes, jokes, sayings and words of wisdom and fun from around the world, as well as fun facts about how, where, when and why we celebrate - and we look at curious customs from around the world. SAMPLE FACT: The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has been tracking Santa's journey around the world since 1958.

Actress, storyteller, and priestess Luisah Teish dramatically re-creates centuries-old African-American traditions with music, memoir, and folk wisdom.

Explore the contemporary culture and traditional customs of Singapore and Malaysia in a volume that belongs on shelves in every high school and public library. Culture and Customs of Singapore and Malaysia examines all aspects of contemporary life in these two geographically close and historically and culturally connected nations, starting with the people fighting to maintain a balance between the new and the traditional. The book shows how religion has evolved through time in the two nations and examines how literature and traditional crafts thrive today. It highlights the performing arts and entertainment, noting how Western culture has influenced and shaped new customs. Housing and architecture, both modern and traditional, are discussed, along with cuisine and fashion. Students can use the book to analyze gender roles and family life. They can also read about the ways in which festivals are celebrated and can compare and contrast leisure activities of Singapore and Malaysia with their own. The volume concludes with a look to the future of these two evolving countries, both moving toward modernity, but still holding on to the traditions of the past.

The Question of the Gift is the first collection of new interdisciplinary essays on the gift. Bringing together scholars from a variety of fields, including anthropology, literary criticism, economics, philosophy and classics, it provides new paradigms and poses new questions concerning the theory and practice of gift exchange.
In addressing these questions, contributors not only challenge the conventions of their fields, but also combine ideas and methods from both the social sciences and humanities to forge innovative ways of confronting this universal phenomenon.

By considering the practice of globalisation, these essays describe changes, variations and innovations to Chinese food in many parts of the world. The book reviews and broadens classic theories about ethnic and social identity formation through the examination of Chinese food, providing a powerful testimony to the impact of late 20th century globalisation.

In this book, Sarah Tarlow provides an innovative archaeology of bereavement, mortality and memory in the early modern and modern period. She draws on literary and historical sources as well as on material evidence to examine the evolution of attitudes towards death and commemoration over four centuries.

The book argues that changes in commemorative practices over time relate to a changing relationship between the living and the dead and are inextricably linked to the conceptions of identity and personal relationships which characterize later Western history. The author's approach is different from most previous work in this area not only because of its focus on material culture but also because of its incorporation of experiential and emotional factors into discussions of human relations and understandings in the past.

As well as introducing readers to the study of death and rememberance in the past, this book contributes to wider archaeological debates about the interpretation of meaning and the place of emotion and experience in archaeological study. It will be of interest to all scholars and students interested in critical and theoretically informed approaches to the study of people in the past.

Every year, all over the world, millions of Irish people, both native and by descent, together with their non-Irish friends, celebrate the life of a man who died over 1500 years ago. St Patrick's Day is a boisterous festival of parading and revelry, dancing and drinking, emblazoned with shamrocks and harps, and all in emerald green.
The fascinating story of how the celebration of 17 March was transformed from a stuffy dinner for Ireland's elite to one of the world's most public festivals is captured for the first time in The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick's Day.
Long celebrated with more fanfare in New York than in Dublin, the holiday has been criticized for its loss of religious meaning, ever-increasing commercialism and embarrassing displays of drunkenness. More recently, it has become a flashpoint between political divides within the Irish community. At the same time, however, it has served to unite Irish emigrants worldwide, whether they be in America, Australia or Canada.

The dead are potent and omnipresent in modern Indonesia. Presidents and peasants alike meditate before sacred graves to exploit the power they confer, and mediums do good business curing the sick by interpreting the wishes of deceased forebears. Among non-Muslims there are ritual burials of the bones of the dead in monuments both magnificent and modest. By promoting dead heroes to a nationalist pantheon, regions and ethnic groups establish their place within the national story.Although much has been written about the local forms of the scriptural religions to which modern Indonesians are required by law to adhere - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism - this is the first book to assess the indigenous systems of belief in the spirits of ancestors. Sometimes these systems are condemned in the name of the formal religions, but more often the potent dead coexist as a private dimension of everyday religious practice.A unique team of anthropologists, historians and literary scholars from Europe, Australia and North America demonstrate the continuing importance of the potent dead for understanding contemporary Indonesia. At the same time, they help us understand historic processes of conversion to Islam and Christianity by examining the continuing interactions of the spirit world with formal religion.

Foodways are the key to the strongest and deepest traces of human history, and this pioneering volume is a detailed study of the development of the traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia, stretching from Laos and Vietnam to the Philippines and New Guinea. Beginning in the Paleolithic era and continuing to the present day, the author portrays the dietary life of the area and the many changes that have produced a cuisine that though influential and popular globally today has never before been studied in such depth. Beginning with the physical and social formation of the Southeast Asian world, the work covers the Neolithic food production economy, the ancient hunting cultures of the pre-European age, the development of agriculture and of alcoholic drink-making, the influence of the European colonial age on traditional dietary culture, the contemporary food practices of the area including agriculture and stock raising, and the ancient traditional foods that survive today, such as black sugar, fish sauce, and soybean products, which are so widely used in fusion cuisine. Here is the history behind Southeast Asian recipes and restaurant menus -- a history of invasion, invention, and enslavement that is both fascinating and scholarly, supported by full geographical, archaeolgical, biological, and chemical data. Based largely upon Southeast Asian sources which have not been available up until now, this is essential reading for anyone interested in food, culinary history, and in an area of the word that is rapidly developing and changing.

Lingua francas are languages used for communication between individuals for whom they are not the first language. Based on empirical work throughout, the individual contributions to this volume address lingua franca communication from sociolinguistic as well as from conversation analytic perspectives, or place this form of communication within the wider context of foreign language teaching. The volume as a whole attempts to broaden the traditional view of lingua francas as languages employed by non-native speakers to serve specific, restricted communicative purposes only. Instead, it is demonstrated that lingua francas have gained a number of varied functions, and that they are employed by a heterogeneous group of speakers for whom they do not always have the same status of a second or foreign language. The papers reveal intriguing similarities in form across different lingua francas, but also point at significant differences. As a result, it is proposed that approaches to teach lingua francas as such need to be developed on the basis of empirical evidence. Contents: C. Meierkord/K. Knapp: Approaching lingua franca communication - M. Meeuwis: The sociolinguistics of Lingala as a diaspora lingua franca: Historical and language ideological aspects - S. Fiedler: On the main characteristics of Esperanto-communication - M. Vollstedt: English as a language for internal company communications - C. Meierkord: 'Language stripped bare' or 'linguistic masala'?- Culture in lingua franca communication - P. Haegeman: Foreigner talk in lingua franca business telephone calls - A. Lesznyak: From chaos to smallest common denominator. Topic management in English lingua franca communication - J. Hee Bae:Discourse strategies solving trouble in German lingua franca communication - K. Knapp: The fading out of the non-native speaker. Native speaker dominance in lingua-franca-situations - J. House: Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca - B. Seidlhofer: The shape of things to come? Some basic question about English as a lingua franca.

Although so much of the life we care about takes place at home, this private space often remains behind closed doors and is notoriously difficult for researchers to infiltrate. We may think it is just up to us to decorate, transform and construct our homes, but in this book we discover a new form of 'estate agency', the active participation of the home and its material culture in the construction of our lives. What do the possessions people choose to take with them when moving say about who they are, and should we emphasize the mobility of a move or the stability of what movers take with them? How is the home an active partner in developing relationships? Why are our homes sometimes haunted by 'ghosts'?.
This intriguing book is a rare behind-the-scenes expose of the domestic sphere across a range of cultures. Examples come from working class housewives in Norway, a tribal society in Taiwan, a museum in London, tenants in Canada and students from Greece, to produce a genuinely comparative perspective based in every case on sustained fieldwork. So Japan, long thought to be a nation that idealizes uncluttered simplicity, is shown behind closed doors to harbour illicit pockets of disorganization, while the warmth inside Romanian apartments is used to expel the presence of the state.
Representing a vital development in the study of material culture, this book clearly shows that we may think we possess our homes, but our homes are more likely to possess us.

First Published in 2000. This is Volume XIV of fourteen of a series on India- its language and literature. Collated in 1888, this is a collection of folk-tales by the author who was a missionary who had the primary object in collecting these tales was to obtain some knowledge of Kashmiri, which .is a purely colloquial language; and a secondary object was to ascertain something of the thoughts and ways of the people.

The past few years have shown a growing interest in cooking and food, as a result of international food issues such as BSE, world trade and mass foreign travel, and at the same time there has been growing interest in Japanese Studies since the 1970s. This volume brings together the two interests of Japan and food, examining both from a number of perspectives. The book reflects on the social and cultural side of Japanese food, and at the same time reflects also on the ways in which Japanese culture has been affected by food, a basic human institution. Providing the reader with the historical and social bases to understand how Japanese cuisine has been and is being shaped, this book assumes minimal familiarity with Japanese society, but instead explores the country through the topic of its cuisine.

Liquid PLeasures is an engrossing study of the social history of drinks in Britain from the late Seventeenth Century to the present. From the first cup of tea at breakfast and mid-morning coffee, to an evening beer and a night-cap, Burnett discusses individual drinks and drinking patterns which have varied not least with personal taste, but also with age, gender, religion and class. He views how different ages have viewed the same drink as either demon poison or medicine.
Connecting drinks and related substances such as sugar to empire as well, the book runs to the present with coverage of the startling drinks revolutions in the 1990s.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203019857

Drawing attention to the ways in which creative practices are essential to the health, well-being, and healing of Indigenous peoples, The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being addresses the effects of artistic endeavour on the "good life", or mino-pimatisiwin in Cree, which can be described as the balanced interconnection of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being. In this interdisciplinary collection, Indigenous knowledges inform an approach to health as a wider set of relations that are central to well-being, wherein artistic expression furthers cultural continuity and resilience, community connection, and kinship to push back against forces of fracture and disruption imposed by colonialism. The need for healing-not only individuals but health systems and practices-is clear, especially as the trauma of colonialism is continually revealed and perpetuated within health systems. The field of Indigenous health has recently begun to recognize the fundamental connection between creative expression and well-being. This book brings together scholarship by humanities scholars, social scientists, artists, and those holding experiential knowledge from across Turtle Island to add urgently needed perspectives to this conversation. Contributors embrace a diverse range of research methods, including community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous youth, artists, Elders, and language keepers. The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being demonstrates the healing possibilities of Indigenous works of art, literature, film, and music from a diversity of Indigenous peoples and arts traditions. This book will resonate with health practitioners, community members, and any who recognize the power of art as a window, an entryway to access a healthy and good life.

The Normans in France and England left a rich legacy in historiography and literature, which is the subject of this volume. Dr van Houts first deals with the Scandinavian inheritance, which together with contacts with Danish England and Byzantium led to an interesting mix of pagan and ecclesiastical themes. Next she analyses the propaganda that followed the Norman conquest of England, in which the panegyrics written by French clerks eager to gain favour contrast markedly with the almost unanimous condemnation of William's actions on the Continent. Included is the earliest history of the battle of Hastings written in England, here published with a new English translation. The last papers consider the role of women in the transmission of knowledge about the past: in their families they passed on memories, and their importance as commissioners, readers and informants of chroniclers must also not be underestimated.

Drinking has always meant much more than satisfying the thirst. Drinking can be a necessity, a comfort, an indulgence or a social activity.
Liquid Pleasures is an engrossing study of the social history of drinks in Britain from the late seventeenth century to the present. From the first cup of tea at breakfast to mid-morning coffee, to an eveining beer and a 'night-cap', John Burnett discusses individual drinks and drinking patterns which have varied not least with personal taste but also with age, gender, region and class. He shows how different ages have viewed the same drink as either demon poison or medicine.
John Burnett traces the history of what has been drunk in Britain from the 'hot beverage revolution' of the late seventeenth century - connecting drinks and related substances such as sugar to empire - right up to the 'cold drinks revolution' of the late twentieth century, examining the factors which have determined these major changes in our dietary habits.

Turning these pages, the reader plunges deep into a fantastic and spooky world inhabited by all manner of lively, animated vegetables and fruit folk that caper and dance under the Halloween moon. These figures, led by the ever-popular jack o' lanterns, are shown in over 580 color photographs in their many collectible forms, including Halloween figural candy containers, lanterns, and postcards. Assorted noisemakers, wall decorations, hats, masks, and party decorations are also included in this thorough presentation. These collectibles span quite a range from the very old to the modern. Also included is sound advice about how to collect your favorite Halloween characters and prices for all of the items displayed. This wonderful romp through the woody underbrush of Halloween will bring back childhood memories of trick or treats past to all who read it!

Food as a cultural symbol was as important in antiquity as in our own times and Food in Antiquity investigates some of the ways in which food and eating shaped the lives and thoughts of the indigenous peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. In this volume thirty contributors consider aspects of food and eating in the Greco-Roman world. This is the most comprehensive exploration of questions relating to food in antiquity in this country. The authors, some specialists in this field, others with expertise in other areas, use a range of approaches to investigate the production and distribution of food, social, religious and political factors, medicine and diet, cultural identity and contrasts with neighbouring cultures, and food in literature. The volume is designed for both Classicists and those interested in the history of food. The aim is both to illuminate and to entertain, and at the same time to remind the reader that the Greeks and Romans were not only philosophers and rulers of empires, they were also peasant farmers, traders and consumers of foods who considered that what and how they ate defined who they were.

First Published in 2000. This Volume III of three of a series on Africa. Written in 1881, using the evidence of history and language, this text looks at the South African people of the Khoi-khoi or Hottentots and their Supreme Being, Tsuni-Goam.

'Why we eat what we eat?' is a key question for the 1990s, posed again and again in government departments, in sectors of the food industry, by professionals in health, in education, and in catering, to name a few. It is the same question adopted as the springboard for the UK Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Research Programme on 'The Nation's Diet' (1992-1998), a wide ranging, multi-disciplinary set of co-ordinated basic research projects across the social sciences, including economics, psychology, social anthropology and sociology, as well as education and media studies. Contributors include; Annie S. Anderson, Hannah Bradby, Robert G. Burgess, Michael Burton, Helen Bush, Pat Caplan, Mark Conner, G. Jill Davies, Richard Dorsett, Alan Dowey, John Eldridge, Ben Fine, Andrew Flynn, Leslie Gofton, Susan Gregory, Malcolm Hamilton, Michelle Harrison, Michael Heasman, Spencer Henson, Pauline Horne, Rhiannon James, Anne Keane, Debbie Kemmer, Mike Lean, Diana Leat, Zara Lipsey, C. Fergus Lowe, Sally Macintyre, Terry Marsden, David Marshall, Lydia Martens, David Miller, Marlene Morrison, Elizabeth Murphy, Georgina OIiver, Susan Parker, Christine Phipps, Tessa M. Pollard, Rachel Povey, Jacquie Reilly, Richard Shepard, David Smith, Paul Sparks, Andrew Steptoe, Ann Walker, Alan Warde, Jane Wardle, Anna Willetts, Janice Williams, Rory Williams, Judith Wright, Neil Wrigley, Trevor Young.

How can media and performance studies take a place in the discipline of anthropology?
IRitual, Performance, Media demonstrates how individual inventiveness makes society a process of dynamic interaction between creativity and convention. Human beings perform their roles in accordance with the context of the situation--be it in theater, dance, or rites such as spirit invocation or pilgrimages--yet continue to creatively devise ways of extending their engagement with the situation. Case studies of human behavior in relation to contexts in which reality is more than that of everyday routines shows how people continue to actively construct the world in which they live, for the purpose of personal satisfaction and social advantage.

Situated in the rugged mountain peaks and deep valleys of north-eastern Caucasus, Daghestan is home to more than 30 distinct peoples. Eachof these peoples has their own language yet they share a homogenous culture that has both withstood and absorbed centuries of external influence. This text offers an account of the swiftly vanishing traditional ways of life in the villages of this inaccessible mountain area, and how the Daghestanis of today are adapting to change.

Focusing on political and religious conformity, this work considers how the languages of dress in the Middle East connect with other social practices. Treating cases as diverse as practices of veiling in Oman and dress reform laws in Turkey, these thenographic studies extend from Malta, across the Middle East, to Iran and countries of the Caucasus.