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"First paperback printing 1997"--t.p. verso., Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required, 0520208927, American Council of Learned Societies History E-Book Project, (heb) heb09223.0001.001, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.09223, Permission must be received for any subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact info@hebook.org for more information.

"First paperback printing 1997"--t.p. verso., Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required, 0520208927, American Council of Learned Societies History E-Book Project, (heb) heb09223.0001.001, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.09223, Permission must be received for any subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact info@hebook.org for more information.

The 2006 return of the body Phạm Công Tắc, one of the founding spirit mediums of Caodaism and its most famous 20th century leader, re-awakened controversies about his life and legacy among Caodaists both in Vietnam and in the diaspora. This paper argues that his most important contribution lay in formulating a utopian project to support the struggle for independence by providing a religiously based repertoire of concepts to imagine national autonomy, and a separate apparatus of power to achieve it. Rather than stressing Tắc’s political actions, which have been well documented in earlier studies (Blagov 2001; Bernard Fall 1955; Werner 1976), I focus instead on a reading of his sermons, his séance transcripts and commentaries, histories published both in Vietnam and in the diaspora, and conversations with Caodaists in several countries when the appropriateness of returning his body was being debated.

The 2006 return of the body Phạm Công Tắc, one of the founding spirit mediums of Caodaism and its most famous 20th century leader, re-awakened controversies about his life and legacy among Caodaists both in Vietnam and in the diaspora. This paper argues that his most important contribution lay in formulating a utopian project to support the struggle for independence by providing a religiously based repertoire of concepts to imagine national autonomy, and a separate apparatus of power to achieve it. Rather than stressing Tắc’s political actions, which have been well documented in earlier studies (Blagov 2001; Bernard Fall 1955; Werner 1976), I focus instead on a reading of his sermons, his séance transcripts and commentaries, histories published both in Vietnam and in the diaspora, and conversations with Caodaists in several countries when the appropriateness of returning his body was being debated.

Unrestricted, Based on two years of fieldwork, this dissertation is an ethnography of the Sakaliou clan, one of several dozen upriver, forest-dwelling clans in the Rereiket region of south Siberut, the largest of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Although it focuses on only one clan, it examines their social relations with other clans, with the spirits that live in the forest, and with the nonindigenous people who live on or come to visit the island, such as traders, government officials, and tourists. Its main argument is that the way Sakaliou engages in social relations within the clan, with other clans and spirits, and even with nonindigenous people is through various forms of reciprocity or gift exchange. Drawing on Rene Girard's theory of violence and the sacred, reciprocity is reconceptualized as a mimetic practice in which self is defined in relation to other through the exchange of an object that has no value outside of the relation it defines. By way of the object, reciprocity creates or recognizes a similarity between self and other that can mitigate mimetic rivalry or generate it, depending on the exchange. If mimetic rivalry can result in violence, then exchange can be seen as the deferral of violence, the exchange of objects instead of bodies or heads. This view of exchange is more or less explicit in the myth, ritual, and taboo of the indigenous religion, a blend of animism, ancestor worship, and shamanism, but it is so fundamental to Sakaliou's perspective that it not only shapes their relations with other clans, it also shapes their relations with nonindigenous people. Despite a century of colonialism and national modernization campaigns, Sakaliou continues to engage traders, government officials, and tourists on their own terms: defining self in relation to other, controlling mimetic rivalry, and deferring violence through the reciprocal exchange of objects. The dissertation is divided into two parts.; The first focuses on social rela

The purpose of this study was to discuss as fully as possible the handweaving education of Manaitoba in the 1940's. Two relatively extensive projects in weaving education were begun and ended in the province during this decade. It was hypothesized that there were identifiable social causes for the increase in the local interest and activity in handweaving, as manifested primarily by these projects, and the decline of this interest. In examining this hypothesis, a wide variety of sources were investigated including numerous archives, contemporary publications, and the personal records of participants in the two projects. A number of these participants were also interviewed. The first project was organized by a French language, Roman Catholic adult education association (La Societe d'Enseignement Postscolaire du Manitoba) and the second was sponsored by a prairie grain company (Searle Grain Company Ltd.). Both of these undertakings had strong ties with similar endeavours begun in Quebec in the 1930's. The origins, operation and demise of La Societe's and Searle Grain's programs were recorded and analyzed with respect to the stated hypothesis. In order to provide the proper perspective for this analysis, the textile traditions in Manitoba (including attempts at commercial textile production, such as the Buffalo Wool Company) were investigated and discussed, as was the Manitoba handweaving of the 1950's.