AN    INTERNATIONAL     JOURNAL     OF
CULTURAL  AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 38, no. 1 (Winter 1999)

THE SATURDAY MORNING INFORMAL SERVICE: COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY IN A REFORM CONGREGATION

Reiko Itoh
University of Pittsburgh

Leonard Plotnicov
University of Pittsburgh

This article examines the Saturday Morning Informal Service of a Reform Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh. The service consists of traditional prayers, Torah study, singing, a rabbi's anecdotes, and sharing of personal information. Lacking a stated goal or even a standard name, the group provides a variety of benefits that address the worshipers' individual needs. Among the most important are fellowship and community, but in particular a sense of place, lending meaning to the members' identity as Jews. (Reform Judaism, community, search for identity, ritual innovation)

THE BERBER AGDAL INSTITUTION: INDIGENOUS RANGE MANAGEMENT IN THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS

Hsain Ilahiane
University of Arizona

This article examines the historical organization of the agdal institution and identifies its constraints and opportunities among Berbers of southeast Morocco. There are many types of agdals at different levels of Berber social organization and conflict is ever present. Analysis of the agdal arrangements for the communal use of pasture demonstrates how pastoral groups manipulate kinship and historical opportunities to negotiate order, grass, and subsistence in the highly variable environment of the High Atlas mountains. Technological innovation has exacerbated conflict among the users of pasture, but agdal management attests to its resilience. The persistence of conflict in the Aït Yaflman confederation over the use of agdals is rooted in the historical and environmental conjunctures of sixteenth-century Morocco, and the amplification of these historical forces by French colonial and postcolonial policies of resource management. (Agdal, Berbers, ecology, history, Morocco)

SHAMELESS CREATURES: AN ETHNOZOOLOGY OF THE AMAZON RIVER DOLPHIN

Mark A. Cravalho
The Federal University of Bahia

The rural population of Brazilian Amazonia of mixed African, European, and indigenous ancestry possesses a rich corpus of beliefs and practices concerning the Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). Some of these dolphins are believed capable of transforming into human beings at night and causing harm to humans on land. In general, the beliefs about these animals are isomorphic with understandings about human conduct and express preoccupations of these people, as well as explain some episodes of illness. Dolphin narratives encountered in the village which was the focus of this study are more conservative than some in a larger-scale study by Slater (1994). (Amazon peasants, Amazon folklore, ethnozoology, ethnomedicine)

REREADING RELATIONSHIPS: CHANGING CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY AMONG KUBO OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Monica Minnegal
The University of Melbourne

Peter D. Dwyer
The University of Melbourne

Through a ten-year period and in contexts of increased sedentism and monetization, Kubo people have altered the emphases of identity construction. An emphasis upon the social identity of individuals as a basis for action has shifted toward expressions of the importance of groups. An emphasis upon the future in the constitution of personal relationships and identity has shifted toward expressions of the importance of the past. And an emphasis upon personal action as the basis for establishing relationships and rights to land has shifted toward expressions of the importance of prior convention. These changes are seen as reflecting the disembedding tendencies of modernity. (Kubo, Papua New Guinea, social identity, social change, modernity)

SLED DOG RACING: THE CELEBRATION OF CO-OPERATION IN A COMPETITIVE SPORT

Sharon F. Kemp
University of Minnesota Duluth

To prepare for distance sled dog racing, a highly competitive sport, mushers embody mainstream American values of individualism and competition. Yet the race as ritually constructed subordinates that competitiveness to a celebration of co-operation. Using Turner's idea of communitas, this article examines how the sled dog community is constituted. It argues that the race is constructed as a liminal experience; outside roles and statuses are leveled and an alternative moral order emerges. This dynamic is explored further in tensions existing between traditional mushers and those who reflect the competitive values of American society, and in comparison with rodeos, where co-operation in competition also exists. (Sled dog racing, communitas, values, sports, co-operation)