particularly the early politics of research, publish- The Rulings of the Night An Ethnography of

ing, funding, and attaining positions and status. Nepalese Shaman Oral Texts. GREGORY G.
While it would be interesting to ascertain more MASKARINEC. Madison: University of Wis-
precisely what impact Elsie's sentiments, style, and consin Press, 1995. xi + 276 pp., illustrations,
insights on race might have had on the apparently figures, map, glossary, references, index.
different approach Malinowski used in his later
writing on Africa, these letters provide only an out- WILLIAM F. FISHER
line from which to speculate about Elsie's and other Harvard University
women's impact on Malinowski's career. Although
The shaman strikes his drum with single loud
Wayne provides some explanation in her preface
strokes, marking the conclusion of his preparations
for the gaps in the sequence of this correspondence
and his initiation of the public performance. With a
(letters were lost or were deemed repetitive), the
dramatic introduction, the shaman quickly gains
flow of the letters remains somewhat disjointed;
the audience's attention and begins to reorient his
they do not generate a clear feeling of dialogue or a
audience from the mundane world to another
complete exchange of sympathies and ideas be-
world. Gregory Maskarinec's insightful analysis in
tween Elsie and Bronio. Even where we might hear
The Rulings of the Night focuses on words over ac-
more of her own words and thoughts on certain
tions and emphasizes the importance of oral texts in
matters, there are instances, as in volume 1, page
the establishment of these other worlds by Nepal-
98, where Elsie's letters on her activities on behalf
ese shamans. Maskarinec undertakes a complex
of nurses' conditions have been omitted.
discursive analysis of several complete repertoires
However, for those who may suggest we should of shamanic texts based on his 15 years of contact
not compare the writing styles or careers of travelers with shamans in Jajarkot and Rukum Districts of
or someone like Elsie, who lack formal anthropo- western Nepal, including six years of continuous
logical training, with that of a Malinowski, these let- residence from 1977 to 1983. The oral texts that lie
ters remind us that many of the earlier anthropolo- at the heart of his work were learned from 15 Nep-
gists were trained initially in a variety of other alese jhangaris, or shamans, who work within a
disciplines, receiving their anthropological training 100-square-mile area of western Nepal.
in the field. Unmasking this further highlights the Drawing from Shirokogoroff's discussion of the
importance of relationships and collaboration in Tungu of central Asia, Maskarinec defines shamans
the creation of an anthropological career. as "persons who have mastered spirits and who can
Moreover, the richness of the footnotes and cor- introduce these spirits at their will into themselves
respondence from and interviews with students like and use their power over spirits in their own interests,
Audrey Richards and friends of the Malinowskis particularly helping other people who suffer from
that Wayne includes in these two volumes under- spirits" (pp. 98, 113). Texts, he demonstrates, are
scores the importance of diverse, supplemental bio- central to the performance of the spiritual intercessors
graphical material in telling any story of lives. In- who concern him, the jhangaris of western Nepal
deed, in his diaries, which provide some contrast to (and who, he argues, are the only local spiritual in-
th'e letters in revealing more vividly Malinowski's tercessors who can be called shamans), in a way that
emotional state and turmoil, especially over his re- they are not to other spiritual intercessors in Jajarkot and
lationships with both Nina Stirling and Elsie Mas- Rukum. Thus an understanding of jhangari oral
son, Malinowski reminds us that what is written in a texts, Maskarinec argues, is crucial to any discussion
diary is not what "surges in your memory"; rather, of what shamans do and what they hope to accomplish.
what we remember is a "complex vision of what In his stimulating analysis Maskarinec clarifies
you have lived through at the time and many other much about the ritual language of shamans, includ-
associations" (p. 94, A Diary in the Strict Sense of ing who is speaking and who is being spoken
the Term, Harcourt, Brace, 1967). It is what we to—issues that are often obscured in the spectacle
have not written that may be the more important or of shamanic performances. His analysis is intended
more satisfying record of how we have lived. As to reveal shamanic language—including secret
such, diaries and letters remain incomplete records mantras—as intelligible and to make the creative
of the full range of emotions and truths contained in role of this language accessible to the average
events or relationships. Still, it is in the diary, not reader. More than this, Maskarinec argues convinc-
these letters to her, that Malinowski touchingly de- ingly that these "polished, well-constructed . . . and
scribes Elsie as like someone "whose presence fills meticulously memorized" (p. 6) oral texts "speak a
a landscape with a deep silence" (p. 126). world" (pp. 157-158). Through the recitation and
We finish The Story of a Marriage wishing for performance of these texts, "shamans create the
more of the untold story, gleaned perhaps from stu- conditions they treat" by replacing the "chaotic, un-
dent and colleague memories, as in Hortense Pow- balanced, inexpressible suffering of a patient with
dermaker's chapter on studying with Malinowski in orderly, balanced, grammatical, and eloquently ex-
Stranger and Friend (W. W. Norton, 1966), which pressed states" (p. 9). Indeed, Maskarinec's focus is
explicitly addresses his ambivalent relationships not on the contribution that shamans make to heal-
with women; or from the tales of Yale colleagues ing, but on the contribution they make to meaning.
about the struggles over various Malinowski materi- Maskarinec did not arrive at his current position
als left behind when he died suddenly in 1942 in easily. Through the years, he came to reject as mis-
New Haven (personal communication); or from perceptions his earlier conclusions, in which he
more of Helena's and her sisters' own telling of family privileged the drama of the cure over the text. He
history, as in her 1985 American Ethnologist article. now takes speech events—which he first thought to

reviews 771
be meaningless, and which his informants insisted one possible cause, and only some causes may be
were meaningless—and reveals both their mean- effectively treated by the intervention of a shaman.
ingfulness and the context within which this mean- Throughout, Maskarinec remains less focused on
ing is created (p. 24). In emphasizing the creative the social or political situatedness of shamans than he
power of words, Maskarinec appears to go beyond is focused on the coherence he finds in the shamanic
the position held by the shamans who taught him: worldview as expressed through the performance of
for Maskarinec, the words of the shamanic texts do these memorized texts. The world created by the texts
not merely describe or signify another world or is for him "an autonomous system of conditioned ac-
other worlds, they also create these worlds. The re- tors participating in a fully conceived reality," even if
ality of spirits lies not in their existence in some that reality is a momentary coherence that flares in-
other world but in their manifestation as discursive tensely and slowly fades (p. 75). He rejects the temp-
events (p. 237). Thus his concern is not with some tation to rationalize the multiple forms of ritual activ-
world to which language refers, but to the public ity present in the same geographic area into some
discourse that the texts allow, and for which they regional system: the presence of multiple forms of rit-
are necessary. Maskarinec sees his work as a new ual activity in western Nepal, he concludes, is merely
way of describing those social actors who "authori- accidental (p. 73). At the same time, he resists any at-
tatively create and maintain a life world in and tempt to conceive of his set of shamans, despite "in-
through their words" (p. 243). Following Richard triguing similarities," as part of some "fictive construct
known as classical Asiatic shamanism" (p. 115), or
Rorty, he takes human beings to be "generators of
what John Hitchcock, working in an area to the east
new descriptions rather than beings one hopes to
of Maskarinec's research area, called Dhaulagiri Sha-
be able to describe accurately" (p. 243).
manism ("A Nepalese Shamanism and the Classic In-
Calling upon his own intellectual ancestors and ner Tradition," History of Religions, 7(2): 149-158).
inspiration, Maskarinec situates his discussion of They are, as Maskarinec insists, "a set of unique persons
shamanic oral texts within a consideration of the with unique resources, with their own contexts and
general properties of language and social action. their own configurations in time and space" (p. 115).
He argues that the analysis of a particular language
This tight focus emerges from Maskarinec's deter-
(here the language of the shamanic texts) enables mination to know something really well, a determi-
the analyst to unpack the specific "form of life per- nation that heightens his focus on language and
meated and vitalized by" that language (p. 12). But shamanic texts (p. 235). Through this quest for
just as Maskarinec avoids blindly adopting the knowledge he moves from his initial response to
views of his shamanic teachers, he keeps his dis- what appeared to be meaningless sounds to the dis-
tance from the conclusions of certain Western phi- covery of their meaning, finally achieving a compe-
losophers of language. He neither adopts nor ap- tence that, in some ways, is broader than that of
plies a fully conceived inflexible theory, but instead practicing shamans (p. 236), insofar as his knowl-
finds his way with the aid of a few particular philo- edge of repertoires exceeds that of any one of the
sophical dispositions (p. 12). shamans with whom he worked.
In the tradition of ethnomethodology, Maskarinec Where the shaman's work ends with another dra-
wants to put actual social phenomena at the center matic flourish based around the cure, Maskarinec
of his study—albeit events identified by the partici- remains focused on the text. Given his persistent fo-
pants as extraordinary and as requiring extraordi- cus on texts, some readers may want more attention
nary intervention (pp. 13-14). But while these to certain aspects of the texts themselves. Their tex-
events seem at first to be extraordinary, Maskarinec tual and ethnographic context is underpresented,
points out that the texts "demonstrate the interrelat- and we learn little about who uses specific texts, the
edness and everydayness of events like illness, circumstances under which they are used, and the
death, witchcraft, sorcery, astrological impasses, repertoires of which they are a part. Thus, while an
childlessness," and so forth, as well as the intercon- encounter with texts clearly transformed Maskarinec's
nection of these events with spiritual worlds (p. 20). understanding, readers may find themselves unable
Maskarinec's argument is generally clear, stimu- to proceed as far along this path of transformation
lating, and compelling, although occasionally as they may like.
things seem to fall too neatly into place. For exam- All in all, this is a remarkable book based on ex-
ple, while arguing that the performance of texts cre- ceptionally extensive and painstakingly thorough
ates the world shamans use and describing a set of field research. It will be of interest to graduate stu-
causes that not only justify shamanic interference dents, as well as to scholars of the Himalayas and of
but require it (see pp. 15, 26-27, 167), Maskarinec shamanic practices.
seeks to demonstrate that both the texts and the
cures are focused on the ontological conditions that
cause affliction rather than on the symptoms that
Organizing Women: Formal and Informal
express these afflictions (p. 26). He also argues that
Women's Groups in the Middle East DAWN
the etiology of affliction that he derives from the
CHATTY and ANNIKA RABO, eds. Oxford: Berg,
texts is accessible to shamans and ordinary villagers
1997. xv + 244 pp., notes, references, index.
alike. Yet any set of archetypal cases treated by sha-
mans—including the set listed by Maskarinec (p.
29)—includes causes (such as curses and spells by E. ANNE BEAL
witches) as well as symptoms (madness, reproduc- University of Chicago
tive disorders, miscarriages, aches, and pains). To This collection was inspired by the unexpected
be sure, these symptoms may arise from more than difficulties encountered by Chatty during her efforts

772 american ethnologist