Asian Folklore Studies articles from April 1 2007

Asian Folklore Studies archives from April 1 2007

Editors' introduction.(Editorial)
April 1, 2007... WE ARE pleased to present this special double issue of Asian Folklore Studies in honor of Professor Peter Knecht, who has stepped down as the journals editor after a highly successful tenure of twenty-six years. Peter's departure is lamentable...

Rice: representations and reality.(Report)
April 1, 2007... EVEN if most Japanese today may no longer eat rice at every meal, rice is still not only their staple food (shushoku [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), it is also the food par excellence. Unless they have eaten a bowl of rice, Japanese may not...

Female shamans in eastern Japan during the Edo Period.(Report)
April 1, 2007... THANKS largely to the efforts of many anthropologists and folklorists, including of course Peter Knecht, the longtime editor of this journal, the ghostly outlines of contemporary Japanese shamanism have begun to be transmitted to a non-Japanese...

The true history of Shido temple.(Report)
April 1, 2007... SHIDOJI [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a Shingon temple dedicated to Eleven-Headed Kannon [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]--[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], faces Shido Bay about fifteen kilometers east of Takamatsu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE...

The making of tojin: construction of the other in early modern Japan.(Report)
April 1, 2007... THIS article examines the kinds of worldviews and images of foreign Others the nonelite people of premodern Japan constructed, and how folk belief and knowledge contributed to this construction. (1) Recent scholarship on Japanese history has...

Onmyoji: sex, pathos, and Grotesquery in Yumemakura Baku's oni.(Report)
April 1, 2007... IN YUMEMAKURA Baku's (1951-) series Onmyoji, Abe no Seimei (921?-1005?), a legendary onmyoji, or a practitioner of Onmyodo (the way of yin-yang) known for his skills of divination, magic, and sorcery, teams up with the aristocrat Minamoto no...

The Kwallye samga of Korea: a failed attempt at Christian accommodation to Confucian culture.(Report)
April 1, 2007... RECENTLY an important document has come to light that illustrates the extent to which the first generation of Protestant Christians in Korea were attempting to accommodate their Christian beliefs to the Confucian values in which they had been...

The man-hunting tiger: from "Wu Song Fights the Tiger" in Chinese traditions.(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... THE STORY about Wu Song [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and his battle with a man-eating tiger has been popular in China since the Yuan Period (1279-1368). * The tiger tale belongs to a longer cycle of events, the Wu Song saga about one of the...

Notes on Blood Revenge among the Reindeer Evenki of Manchuria (Northeast China).(Report)
April 1, 2007... MOST of the approximately two hundred Reindeer Evenki of northeastern China were relocated in 2003 from the forests that were their homeland to the periphery of Genhe, a city about two hundred and fifty kilometers to the south. * Only a small...

Village deities of Tamil Nadu in myths and legends: the Narrated Experience.(Report)
April 1, 2007... THE HISTORY of Hinduism in India has been dominated by such powerful pan-Indian gods as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who figure in religious texts in Sanskrit and are controlled and mediated by Brahmins, the religious elite of the society. *...

Ordinary religion, extraordinary anthropology: the contributions of Peter Knecht.(Essay)
April 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FOR many years, Peter Knecht diligently worked in Nagoya, Japan, as a professor of anthropology for Nanzan University, as the editor of Asian Folklore Studies, and as a researcher for the Nanzan Anthropological...

How ancient is lore? Southeast Asia speaks up.(RESEARCH NOTE)(Essay)
April 1, 2007... THE IDEA that the sky is made out of stone appears in folk and religious traditions all around our planet. I have discussed this idea, and briefly proposed that another idea--the' stone falling from sky" motif--offers a key to understanding the...

A striking tale of weaving taboos and divine retribution: a reinterpretation of the Asauchiyama myth in Harima Fudoki.(RESEARCH NOTE)(Essay)
April 1, 2007... THE AIM of this essay is to review previous scholarship on the Asauchiyama [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] myth in the document known as Harima no Kuni Fudoki [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (hereafter Harima Fudoki), and to suggest an...

The Namuyi: linguistic and cultural features.(RESEARCH MATERIAL)(Report)
April 1, 2007... THE Namuyi (1) (in English also Namyi; in Namuyi--na53 mzi53, (2) in Chinese--Namuyi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) are a little-studied group of people who reside in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture...

Anderson, Wanni W., compiler. The Dall Sheep Dinner Guest: Inupiaq Narratives of Northwest Alaska.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... ANDERSON, WANNI W., compiler. The Dall Sheep Dinner Guest: Inupiaq Narratives of Northwest Alaska. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2005. x + 294 pages. Maps, illustrations, index. Hardcover, US$39.95; ISBN 1-889963-74-7. The...

Korom, Frank J. Hosay Trinidad: Muharram Performances in an Indo-Caribbean Diaspora.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... KOROM, FRANK J. Hosay Trinidad: Muharram Performances in an IndoCaribbean Diaspora. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. ix + 305 pages. Illustrations, table, glossary, bibliography, index. Cloth US$65.00/42,50 [euro]; ISBN...

Moerman, D. Max. Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... MOERMAN, D. MAX. Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan. Harvard East Asian Monographs 235. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. xviii + 297 pages. Maps, illustrations,...

Li Fuqing [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Boris Riftin]. Guan Gong chuanshuo yu Sanguo yanyi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Kuan-kung legends and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms].(Book review)
April 1, 2007... LI FUQING [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [BORIS RIFTIN]. Guan Gong chuanshuo yu Sanguo yanyi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Kuan-kung legends and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms]. Taipei: Han Chung Book Co., Ltd, 1997, xii + 366 pages....

Zhao, Xiaohuan. Classical Chinese Supernatural Fiction: A Morphological History.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... ZHAO, XIAOHUAN. Classical Chinese Supernatural Fiction: A Morphological History. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005. xii + 401 pages. tables, appendices, bibliography, index. Hardcover, US$129.95; ISBN 0-7734-6097-7. This study is...

Ter Haar, Barend J. Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... TER HAAR, BAREND J. Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History. Sinica Leidensia 71. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. x + 382 pages. Tables, illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. Hardcover 115.00 [euro];...

Stuart, Kevin, Keith W. Slater, Wang Xianzhen et al. Folktales of China's Minhe Mangghuer.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... STUART, KEVIN, KEITH W. SEATER, WANG XIANZHEN et al. Folktales of China's Minhe Mangghuer. Languages of the World/Text Library 01. Munchen: LINCOM Gmbh, 2005. vii+246 pages. Tables, illustrations, bibliography. Paper 72.90 [euro]; ISBN...

Robin, Francoise, translator, with the collaboration of Klu Rgyal Tshe Ring. Les Contes facetieux du cadavre.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... ROBIN, FRANCOISE, translator, with the collaboration of KLU RGYAL TSHE RING. Les Contes facetieux du cadavre. Paris: Langues & Mondes-L'Asiatheque, 2005. 332 pages. Tibetan and Sanskrit glossary. Paper, 18.00 [euro]; ISBN 2-915255-33-4. (In...

Tran, Nhung Tuyet, and Anthony Reid, editors. Viet Nam: Borderless Histories.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... TRAN, NHUNG TUYET, AND ANTHONY REID, editors. Viet Nam: Borderless Histories. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. ix + 370 pages. Maps, photographs, index, bibliography, glossary. Cloth US$65.00, 41.50 [pounds sterling]; ISBN...

DeBernardi, Jean. The Way that Lives in the Heart: Chinese Popular Religion and Spirit Mediums in Penang, Malaysia.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... DEBERNARDI, JEAN. The Way that Lives in the Heart: Chinese Popular Religion and Spirit Mediums in Penang, Malaysia. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2006. xx + 372 pages. Maps, figures, table. Cloth US$65.00; ISBN 0-8047-5292-3. ...

Cooper, Thomas L. Sacred Painting in Bali: Tradition in Transition.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... COOPER, THOMAS L. Sacred Painting in Bali: Tradition in Transition. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2005. viii + 184 pages. Maps, color plates, glossary, bibliography, index. Hardcover US$45.00/24.99 [pounds sterling]; ISBN 974-524-034-6. This is...

Prasad, Leela, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, and Lalita Handoo, eds. Gender and Story in South India.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... PRASAD, LEELA, RUTH B. BOTTIGHEIMER, and LALITA HANDOO, eds. Gender and Story in South India. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. vii + 151 pages. Paper US$17.95; ISBN 978-0-7914-6872-2. As with...

Guppy, Shusha. The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... GUPPY, SHUSHA. The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005. xix + 209 pages. List of Persian words, notes, glossary. Cloth 20.00 [euro]; ISBN 1-85043-427-1. Long ago, in a girls' dormitory at the...

Stilo, Donald L., transcription, translation, and annotation. Vafsi Folk Tales: Twenty Four Tales in the Gurchani Dialect of Vafsi as Narrated by Ghazanfar Mahmudi and Mashdi Mahdi and Collected by Lawrence P. Elwell-Sutton.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... STILO, DONALD L., transcription, translation, and annotation. Vafsi Folk Tales: Twenty Four Tales in the Gurchani Dialect of Vafsi as Narrated by Ghazanfar Mahmudi and Mashdi Mahdi and Collected by Lawrence P. Elwell-Sutton. Supplied with...