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The article reports that a recent book on contemporary Appalachian life explores some key issues related to motivation for change and resistance to it. Jack Weller begins his study of Appalachian people by recounting his initial frustration due to the failure of the standard ways of working with individuals and communities as he automatically applied them in Appalachia. He mentions the passive and sullen quality of the people and the utter lack of communication between him, as a minister and a helping person, and the people, who seemed, outwardly at least, to be in need of some guidance in the solution of their problems. The realization slowly came to him that although he and the Appalachians spoke the same language they just did not communicate with each other. The Appalachians, their culture and their complex of problems are literally a world away from India and its people. But what Weller says about the Appalachian mountaineers sounds very similar to what one hears about the Indian people and their attitudes to change.

This article presents an analysis of the meaning of food offerings in Ceylon. One of the unexpected rewards of anthropological analysis is to discover the meaning of customs for which the people themselves have no explanation. It is as if the culture had overlooked the need to tie down certain customs with proper justifications. Such sometimes provide important clues to some of the major principles around which the culture has developed. Certain food habits of the Sinhalese are allegedly a good example. The Sinhalese villagers do not like being watched while eating. In addition, they will almost cook indoors. In the villages, they will also eat indoors with the shutters or windows firmly closed. But the shutters are closed because there are allegedly hungry demons hovering around especially when food is being prepared or consumed, and they must not be allowed to see it. Allegedly, the Sinhalese had no explanation as to why the demons, who are apparently resourceful and capable at other times, could not come in through the cracks and why they were so concerned with food consumption. The Sinhalese are Buddhists and the Buddha's recommendation is well known, which is that life is full of sorrow.

This article examines whether a local religious congregation can be considered as a subculture. An argument for considering the congregation as a subculture is the relation of pastor and people. The pastor is the key person in any church and may be considered as the representative of a more developed culture to a less developed culture bringing the enlightenment of a higher culture to a lower culture. A more rigorous argument for considering the local congregation as a cultural entity is to examine it using culturological categories. If the techniques used by anthropologists to analyze and describe a culture can be used with a local church, the designation of a local congregation as a subculture has some validity. The use of subculture as a model structure for examining the local congregation has value even if issue is taken with the theory involved. A better understanding of what the local church is all about can be used by the top denominational leadership to make training and promotional programs more useful at the level of the people. The local pastor will better understand what is happening to him and what he is doing. The ordinary man in the pew might even get the message and discover that his church is a very human organization.