The Japanese have ambivalent attitudes toward death, deeply rooted in pre-Buddhist traditions. In this scholarly but accessible work, authors Iwasaka and Toelken show that everyday beliefs and customs--particularly death traditions--offer special insight into the living culture …
Series foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Note on transliteration -- Chronology -- 1: Land and history -- 2: Pastoral nomadism -- 3: Religion -- 4: Literature -- 5: Traditional and contemporary art -- 6: Cuisine and dress -- 7: Gender, courtship, and marriage -- 8: Festiv…
"In this review of Jewish culture and history, Ivan Marcus examines how and why various rites and customs celebrating stages in the life cycle have evolved through the ages and persisted to this day. For each phase of life - from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and the ad…
"Celebrated as an aquatic form of divinity for thousands of years, the Yamuna is one of India's most sacred rivers. A prominent feature of north Indian culture, the Yamuna is conceptualized as a goddess flowing with liquid love -- yet today it is severely polluted, the victim of…