Book Reviews 733

published in Ethiopia by an ethnic group. The booklet describes the geography of Gurage; the administrative division of the country; the economy and occupation of the inhabitants, with subdivisions on farming, animal breeding, commerce, and artisan- ship; and the social life, dealing with the traditions and customs, hospitality, internal security, the Gurage house, family life, holidays, funeral and mourning ceremonies, religion, and entertainment. The English booklet is an abbreviated version of the Amharic text, and the arrangement also differs in the two booklets. Linguistically, the importance of the Amharic text lies in the fact that we find geographic names in the Amharic alphabet which we knew only in phonetic transcription, and some of the names occur here for the first time. The Gurage form for some technical terms is also given in the Amharic script.

The description is rather naive, from an ethnographic point of view. Many state- ments will have to be verified and stronger proofs offered to convince the reader. For instance, speaking of the false banana enset, the authors say (p. 10) that there are many facts which lead us to believe that enset originated in Ethiopia and a few lines below, although this belief is not based on written historical proofs, many centuries ago. . . when some people were starving with hunger they suddenly found the enset tree. When speaking of health the authors say, One of the famous native doctors, Fankil, effected several miraculous cures. He succeeded in replacing the bones of the legs of two men with the bones of a sheep. This is not a tale but a fact. Aside from some inaccuracies of this type, the booklet is very valuable since it is written by the Gurages themselves, and describes a region which is extremely interesting from ethnic, religious, and social points of view.

Gosforth: The Sociology of an English Village. W. M. WILLIAMS. Glencoe: The Free

Reviewed by HAROLD ORLANS, National Science Foundation Having read few community studies which were notable for their intellectual or

esthetic achievement, it is a pleasure to review one which is commendable in both respects. W. M. Williams, a social anthropologist of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, spent more than eighteen months in Gosforth, an isolated Cumberland parish two miles from the Irish Sea. It would be interesting to know what he set out to do, how he grappled with his data, and how much of the data this book represents, but we are not told these things. We are presented with a modest, perceptive account not only of the economy, family, and social structure, but of the quality of life in this inbred, sternly independent community. Current traits are seen in their historic per- spective and, rather than attempt the delineation of the entire English culture, atten- tion is focused on distinctive local features (which may satisfy the American reader less than the British). It is done with the apparent effortlessness that masks the art of un- pretentious scholarship and economical writing.

Williams observes that many Gosforth ways resemble the Norse culture which was established in the area after the Viking invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. Cumberland was not regarded as part of England until the twelfth century. The pro- found influence of South English and urban culture in the ensuing centuries has been least felt on the farms, to which Williams accordingly devotes more attention than would be warranted by their population relative to that of the village.

Most of the farmhouses were built before 1800; in some cases, their red sandstone walls are more than three feet thick. Inhabitants bear the identical surname and Christian name recorded in sixteenth century registers, and there is a marked re-

Press, 1956. x, 246 pp., 12 maps, figures, tables. $5.00.

134 American Anthropologist [59, 19571

semblance among kinfolk which is thought locally to embrace character as well as physique. Blood or marriage links most families; two-thirds of householders and half of their wives were born within a ten mile radius. Gosforth is the apotheosis of small towns. You cant blow your nose in Gosfer without ivverybody knows about i t ; and half of em knows about it afore you does it. In the heyday of this familistic society, sons inherited the farm or craft of their fathers; exact payment for goods or services was unknown; and twelve or fifteen people, family and laborers alike, ate at the long table still to be found in most farm kitchens.

But the number a t table is dwindling. Perhaps the most interesting part of Williams narrative concerns the schisms between different social classes and geographic groups, villagers and farmers, and lowland and upland farmers. Broadest of all is the conflict between those who have adopted the new ways of life and those who retain the old standards. With the exodus of farm labor (Gosforths population of 723 in 1951 was little more than half what it had been eighty years before) and the concomitant mechanization and commercialization of agriculture, the introduction of new industries (including the Atomic Energy Station of Sellafield in the adjoining parish), and the general strengthening of the village and money economy, there seems little doubt as to which group will ultimately win out. All in all, every development that has taken place in parish affairs in recent years has emphasized and reflected an urban way of life . . . . If the present change continues to its logical conclusion, then the sociologist of fifty years hence may well find it difficult to distinguish Gosforth from any other rural parish in England.

A few minor faults may be mentioned. The account of the life cycle is grievously shortened by a leap from marriage to the death bed; on page 134 fox hunting and beagling are popular and on page 135 not very popular; the originality claimed for the authors method of class determination can hardly be sustained; and several tables would be improved by the addition of totals. But it would take far weightier faults to offset the excellence of this work.

The Bilateral Network of Social Relations in Kankllma Lapp District. ROBERT N. PEHR- SON. (Indiana University Publication, No. 3, Slavic and East European Series, Vol. 5). Bloomington : Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folk- lore and Linguistics, 1957. ix, 128 pp., appendices, 12 charts, 3 tables. $2.50.

Reviewed by D. B. SHIMKIN, Washington, D. C. The untimely death of Robert Pehrson lost to anthropology an able field worker

and a highly promising theoretician. His monograph and Ian Whitakers fine study complement each other for they present together a many-faceted model of Swedish reindeer-Lapp social structure. (See also American Anthropologist 58 : 1136-41.) Both works manifest an ecological approach which emphasizes relationships between the demands of contemporary extensive herding and the social organization. Both discuss the kinship structure and its functioning in detail, and both draw attention to such special institutions as godparenthood and the ceremonial, mutual, host relationship with traders (verdi).

The differences between the two reports comprise some aspects of coverage, a num- ber of variant findings, and, above all, differences in stress. Pehrsons materials are richer in case data, which bear on conflicts (pp. 36-38), the social significance of attend- ance a t a wedding (pp. 62-64), and shifts in marital residence (pp. 64-67). He also con- tributes new facts on such topics as joking relationships (p. 33 ff.) Whitaker, on the other hand, has a fuller treatment of the elementary family, especially parent-child