First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

" . . . Kapferer's introduction is an intellectual tour de force, perhaps the most important rethinking of the problems of rationality that underlie the study of witchcraft and sorcery since Evans-Pritchard." . American Anthropologist " . . . teems with interesting theoretical insights, and all the chapters are particularly strong in delineating local meanings within the framework of broader processes." . African Studies Review ." . . shows that the discourses on 'occult economies' are multiple . . . The presented essays are an excellent illustration of their variety of forms and constitute a valuable contribution to their understanding." . Anthropos This book seeks a reconsideration of the phenomenon of sorcery and related categories. The contributors to the volume explore the different perspectives on human sociality and social and political constitution that practices typically understood as sorcery, magic and ritual reveal. In doing so the authors are concerned to break away from the dictates of a western externalist rationalist understanding of these phenomena without falling into the trap of mysticism. The articles address a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. Bruce Kapferer is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Adjunct Professor at James Cook University and Honorary Professor at University College London."

Women's mythic revision is a tradition at the heart of twentieth-century literature. Medea's Chorus explores post-WWII women's poetry that takes Greek mythology as its central topos. The book investigates five of the most influential poets writing in the twentieth century (H.D., Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Atwood, Eavan Boland) who challenge both the ancient literary representations of women and the high modernist appropriations of the classics. In their poetry and prose, the women engage with cultural discourses about literary authority, gender, oppression, violence, and age. Yet even while the poets rework certain aspects of the Greek myths that they find troubling, they see the inherent power in the stories and use that power for personal and social revelation. Because myths exist in multiple versions, ancient writers did not create from scratch; their artistic contribution lay in how they changed the stories. Modern female poets are engaging in a several millennia-old tradition of mythic revision, a tradition that has ruthlessly posited that there is no place for women in the creation and transmission of mythological poetry. Medea's Chorus tracks mythic revision from the 1950s through the second-wave feminist movement and into turn-of-the-century feminism to highlight individual achievements and to show the collective effect of the poets' highly varied works on post-WWII literature and feminist thought and practice. This engaging and beautifully written book is a must-read for any student, teacher, or scholar of the Classical Tradition, revisionist mythmaking, and twentieth-century poetry.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Over the millennia, many great writers, from Pliny and Plutarch to C.S. Lewis and John Steinbeck, have addressed diverse canine themes in their work, usually in a broader, human context. Late in the 20th century it was conclusively established by modern science that all dogs, without exception, are descended from wolves. Viewed within the dynamic lens of this new model, the constantly evolving relationship between humankind and canines, both wild and domesticated, appears more complex and intertwined than ever before. This survey reviews what 20 selected authors from the Western tradition have had to say on the same subject matter leading up to our present times.

The story of Jason and the Argonauts is one of the most famous in Greek myth, and its development from the oldest layers of Greek mythology down to the modern age encapsulates the dramatic changes in faith, power and culture that Western civilisation has seen over the past three millennia. From the Bronze Age to the Classical Age, from the medieval world to today, the Jason story has been told and retold with new stories, details and meanings. This book explores the epic history of a colourful myth and probes the most ancient origins of the quest for the Golden Fleece - a quest that takes us to the very dawn of Greek religion and its close relationship with Near Eastern peoples and cultures.

This book provides an insider view of Haida language, history, and culture, and offers a perspective on Haida culture that comes not only from external research but also from intimate knowledge and experiences the author has had as a Haida Nation citizen. The book's focus on language - past, present, and future - allows insight into the Haida language documentation and revitalization process that will benefit other cultures currently addressing similar issues with their language. Being able to write and discuss Haida culture as an insider affords the opportunity to instantiate the role of a First Nations scholar including the intricacies involved in having a voice about one's own culture and history. A First Nations person publishing a book about his or her own culture is a rare opportunity. However, such publications will become more common as other indigenous scholars and writers emerge from other margins around the world.

Jokes and Targets takes up an appealing and entertaining topic the social and historical origins of jokes about familiar targets such as rustics, Jewish spouses, used car salesmen, and dumb blondes. Christie Davies explains why political jokes flourished in the Soviet Union, why Europeans tell jokes about American lawyers but not about their own lawyers, and why sex jokes often refer to France rather than to other countries. One of the world s leading experts on the study of humor, Davies provides a wide-ranging and detailed study of the jokes that make up an important part of everyday conversation."

Authentic vampire tales exist in Transylvanian folklore. Yet the Transylvanian vampire is nothing like the bloodthirsty Count of Bram Stoker's imagination or the romantic hero of popular fiction. The Romanian tradition comes from the villages, reflecting the norms of peasant life and wisdom embedded in age-old communities. This book consists of 21 narratives created by the author, developed from the brief accounts recorded by local amateur anthropologists and cultural historians from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The goal is to capture the major themes found in the existing sources, retrieving the narrative thread and bringing the stories back to life. The book also includes translations of 17 brief folk stories about Vlad Tepes, known as Dracula. Contrary to the prevailing fictive image, these stories portray Vlad as a wise although strict ruler and a proud defender of his country's autonomy. An introduction discusses the Transylvanian village and its rich folk traditions, making explicit the comparison to the historic and to the fictional Dracula. An interlude analyses the characteristics of the Transylvanian vampire, including village superstitions regarding how to recognise and destroy one. Transylvania deserves commemoration of its own vampire stories, rather than those artificially created for it.

For the first time, the real story of ""The Yellow Rose of Texas"" is told in full, revealing a host of new insights and perspectives on one of America's most popular stories. For generations, the Yellow Rose of Texas has been one of America's most popular western myths, growing larger over time to eventually little resemble the truth of what really happened on decisive April 21, 1836, at the battle of San Jacinto, where a new Texas Republic won its independence. The real Yellow Rose was an ordinary but also quite remarkable free black woman from the North, Emily D. West. This is the first full-length biography of her-which explores the evolution of one of the most popular myths in American, Texas and western history.

The macroeconomic development of south-eastern Europe has been profoundly affected not only by the region's major historical events - for example, liberation from the Ottoman Empire, the outbreak of civil wars, and the birth of new nations - but also by global events, such as the world-wide conflicts of the twentieth century, and the recent transnational processes of globalisation and European integration. The rationale of this book is to employ a comprehensive micro-history - that is, the history of one particular community: in this case, the village of Tsamantas, in north-western Greece - as a means of providing a detailed picture that will permit extrapolation to a wider context. Situated in one of the most isolated parts of the region of Epirus, Tsamantas has a complex history and a rich folk culture. At times, it has been a textbook example of how decision-making within a community can impact upon the success of the local economy. Its inhabitants have been rational problem-solvers, with a sense of what is in their family's best interests, rather than passive victims of circumstance, and their choices at critical points in the village's history have resulted either in growth or decline. The author focuses his groundbreaking analysis on these choices, drawing upon publications, archived materials, and illuminating oral accounts of local events.

First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown's seminal work, is a unique look at Orkney through the eye of a poet. Originally commissioned by his publisher as an introduction to the Orkney Islands, Brown approached the writing from a unique perspective and went on to produce a rich fusion of ballad, folk tale, short story, drama and environmental writing. The book, written at an early stage in the author's career, explores themes that appear in his later work and was a landmark in Brown's development as a writer. Above all, it is a celebration of Orkney's people, language and history. This edition reproduces Sylvia Wishart's beautiful illustrations, commissioned for the original hardback. Made available again for the first time in over 40 years, this new edition sits alongside Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain as an important precursor of environmental writing by the likes of Kathleen Jamie, Robert Macfarlane, Malachy Tallack and, most recently, Amy Liptrot.

Rabbi Isaacs examines the treasure-trove of popular beliefs, customs, and superstitions that exist side-by-side with "normative Judaism."

A Companion to Folklore presents an original and comprehensive collection of essays from international experts in the field of folklore studies. Unprecedented in depth and scope, this state-of-the-art collection uniquely displays the vitality of folklore research across the globe. * An unprecedented collection of original, state of the art essays on folklore authored by international experts * Examines the practices and theoretical approaches developed to understand the phenomena of folklore * Considers folklore in the context of multi-disciplinary topics that include poetics, performance, religious practice, myth, ritual and symbol, oral textuality, history, law, politics and power as well as the social base of folklore * Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Myths are the expression of a form of knowledge essential to life. Including mainly previously unpublished work by A.M. Hocart the book examines such issues as: Why a queen should not have been married before; why a guest is sacred; why people are believed to have been turned into stone; how money originated. These issues are considered as part of a socio-religious complex embraced in many parts of the world, both East and West. (There are chapters on the UK, India, Sri Lanka, Africa, Fiji, Egypt, and Ancient Greece).

Spring and summer are my mother's time, autumn and winter are my husband's. What is left for me? Persephone spends six months of the year under the ground with her husband, king of the dead, and six months on earth with her mother, goddess of the harvest. It has been this way for nine thousand years, since the deal was struck. But when she resurfaces this spring, something is different. Rains lash the land, crops grow out of season or not at all, there are people trying to build a road through the woods, and her mother does not seem able to stop them. The natural world is changing rapidly and even the gods have lost control. While Demeter tries to regain her powers and fend off her daughter's husband, who wants to drag his queen back underground for good, Persephone finally gets a taste of freedom, joining a group of protestors. Used to blinking up at the world from below, as she looks down on the earth for the very first time from the treetops with activist Snow, Persephone realises that there are choices she can make for herself. But what will these choices mean for her mother, her husband, and for the new shoots of life inside her? No Season but the Summer takes a classic myth and turns it on its head, asking what will happen when our oldest stories fail us, when all the rules have changed. It is, above all, a book about choice.

The field of monster studies has grown significantly over the past few years and this companion provides a comprehensive guide to the study of monsters and the monstrous from historical, regional and thematic perspectives. The collection reflects the truly multi-disciplinary nature of monster studies, bringing in scholars from literature, art history, religious studies, history, classics, and cultural and media studies. The companion will offer scholars and graduate students the first comprehensive and authoritative review of this emergent field.

This is Volume XVI of sixteen of the Oriental series looking at Buddhism. Initially published in 1906, this book presents a collection of Tibetan stories connected to Buddhism, taken from Indian sources and translated from the Kah-gyur and are Tibetan versions of Sanskrit writings.

This book examines the attitudes of tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste to national identity and key issues of nation-building. Their views are pivotal to understanding the challenges of building a more cohesive sense of national identity and political community in these states. Melanesian countries show a relatively high degree of similarity in their responses to the surveys on national identity carried out by the authors, but with key differences attributable to particular historical, regional or linguistic legacies of colonial rule. The ongoing importance of traditional authority and kastom/adat in conceptions of political community and identity is evident in all four case study sites, and in each case matches indicators of respect for modern state authority. Although different for each site, the authors' findings also illustrate the importance of students' geographical region of origin, language orientation and gender in explaining key differences in attitudes towards national identity. The book demonstrates that strong levels of national identification and pride persist among the future leaders of the countries surveyed, even in the face of ongoing regional and linguistic divisions and weak state capacity, suggesting a strong potential basis for nation-building agendas if wider challenges of democratic performance, service provision and regional development can be addressed over time.

The focus of "Fusion Fashion" is on Orientalism as a sartorial practice, which has to be differentiated from the common knowledge of Orientalism by means of its organization, constitution and reception. The book offers historic as well as systematic perspectives. On the one hand, it compares orientalizing practices in fashion since the Tang Period in China and European Renaissance. On the other hand, it highlights current tendencies of so called "orientalism", "self-orientalism", "occidentalism" in a globalized world. The book covers two time periods: Orientalized fashion practices from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century, with an emphasis on European "Oriental" practices, and the period beginning in the 1990s up to the present day, with an emphasis on non-Western sartorial practices.

Wisdom and Initiation in Gabon: A Philosophical Analysis of Fang Tales, Myths, and Legends is a study of the philosophical significance of Fang mythology and the rituals of Initiation that lead to Wisdom. Bonaventure Mve Ondo argues that Fang tales, myths, and legends are components of the foundation of a worldview that sustains and protects a unique, historical Fang identity. For Mve Ondo, the contemporary challenges to the existence and identity of the Fang require, perhaps more than ever, recognition of the central role of mythology. At an historical moment when Africans are faced with the challenges of westernization, the metaphysics of the Fang, illustrated and preserved by tales, myths, and legends, is a critical element of Fang survival. Mythology is far more than a collection of amusing or awe inspiring stories, they are profoundly important moral lessons for the Fang in their continuing encounters with such contemporary challenges as materialism and, as the "stories" in this book illustrate, the constant struggle to live lives of purpose and meaning. For Mve Ondo, the critical, central issue for the Fang is to focus on the distinction at the heart of his analysis, i.e., the crucial distinction between "to have" and to "to be." The lessons transmitted from generation to generation by these marvelous stories are, Mve Ondo argues, central to living lives that reflect and perpetuate the eternal truths of the Fang experience.

In Greek mythology the beautiful Narcissus glimpsed his own reflection in the waters of a spring and fell in love. But his was an impossible passion and, filled with despair, he pined away. Over the years the myth has inspired painters, writers, and film directors, as well as philosophers and psychoanalysts. The tragic story of Narcissus, in love with himself, and of Echo, the nymph in love with him, lies at the heart of this collection of essays exploring the origins of the myth and some of its many cultural manifestations and meanings relating to the self and the self's relationship to the other. Through their discussion of the myth and its ramifications, the contributors to this volume broaden our understanding of one of the fundamental myths of Western culture.

Revealing the origins of the grail in Goddess religion, this title shows its continuance through Christianity down to modern times, with devotees of the Goddess still at work in the world today. It explains why it was adopted and used, how it existed on different levels to different people and shows what Grail Knowledge really was and is.

There are many stories featuring the villainous hero Reynard the Fox in many languages told over many centuries, goingback as far as the early 12th century. All these stories are comic and much of the humour depends on parody and satire resulting in mockery, sometimes the subversion of certain kinds of serious literature, of political and religious institutions and practices, of scholarly argument and moralizing, and of popular beliefs and customs. The contributors to this volume, all of them experts in one or more of the Reynard stories and their backgrounds, focus on the transformation of these tales through various media and to what extent they reflect differences in the cultural, class, and generational background of their tellers.

Profiles of artists and performers from around the world form the basis of this innovative volume that explores the many ways individuals engage with, carry on, revive, and create tradition. Leading scholars in folklore studies consider how the field has addressed the connections between performer and tradition and examine theoretical issues involved in fieldwork and the analysis and dissemination of scholarship in the context of relationships with the performers. Honoring Henry Glassie and his remarkable contributions to the field of folklore, these vivid case studies exemplify the best of performer-centered ethnography.