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The article describes and compares two museums: the National Palace Museum in Taiwan and the Museum of History in Hong Kong. The two present widely divergent versions of Chinese “history.”

(1984). Women’s Property in Republican China: Rights and Practice. Republican China: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1-12.

G.J. Abbink, Serena Nanda, Cultural anthropology, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company (second edition), 1985, 398 pp. - H.J.M. Claessen, Patrick Vinton Kirch, The evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge etc. Series: New Studies in Archaeology, edited by Colin Renfrew and Jeremy Sabloff, 1984. 314 pp., index, glossary, bibliography, maps, and figures. - H.J.M. Claessen, Jarich O. Oosten, The war of the gods. The social code in Indo-European myths, London etc.: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. 175 pp., bibl., figs. - H.J. Duller, P.W. Preston, New trends in development theory. Essays in development and social theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1985, 200 pages. - H.J. Duller, M. Stiefel, Production, equality and participation in rural China, UNRISD, Geneva & Red Press, London, 1983, 172 pp., W.F. Wertheim (eds.) - M. Grijns, Kirsten Hastrup, Basisboek culturele antropologie. Bewerkt door Yme Kuiper & Nellejet Zorgdrager. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1983, 353 pp., Jan Ovesen (eds.) - Simon Kooijman, Jelle Miedema, De kabar 1855-1980. Sociale structuur en religie in de Vogelkop van West-Nieuw-Guinea. Dissertatie Katholieke Universiteit van Nijmegan, Dordrecht 1984: ICG printing BV. Gelijktijdig verschenen als Verhandelingen 105 van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, Dordrecht 1984: Foris publications. - Adam Kuper, R.H. Barnes, Two crows denies it: A history of controversy in Omaha sociology, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska press, 1984. - C.L.J. van der Meer, Steven Piker, A peasant community in changing Thailand, Anthropological research papers, no. 30, Arizona State University, 1983. - J. Miedema, Mark S. Mosko, Quadripartite structures: Categories, relations, and homologies in Bush Mekeo culture, Cambridge: University Press, 1985, XIII + 298 pp. - David S. Moyer, Rodney Needham, Against the tranquility of Axioms, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983, xi + 182 pp. - Anke Niehof, Imke Swart, Die Traditionellen Grundlagen der Erziehung im Zentralen Java, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983. (130 pp.) - J.H.B. den Ouden, R.S. Khare, The untouchable as himself. Ideology, identity and pragmatism among the Lucknow Chamars, Cambridge studies in cultural systems, Cambridge University Press, 1984. - Rien Ploeg, James A. Boon, Other tribes, other scribes; symbolic anthropology in the comparitive study of cultures, histories, religions, and texts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. xiv + 303 pp., appendixes. - Frank N. Pieke, Rubie S. Watson, Inequality among brothers: Class and kinship in South China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xiii + 193 pp., 3 maps. - Rien Ploeg, Durk Hak, Watching the seaside. Essays on maritime anthropology. A. H. J. Prins; Festschrift on the occasion of his retirement from the Chair of Anthropology, University of Groningen, University of Groningen, 1984, 251 pp., ill., diagr., Ybeltje Kroes, Hans Schneymann (eds.) - Rien Ploeg, Ladislav Holy, Actions, norms and representations. Foundations of anthropological inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. VIII + 134 pp., Milan Stuchlik (eds.) - Rien Ploeg, Nancy L. Hamblin, Animal use by the Cozumel Maya, Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1984. 206 pp. - Ronald H. Poelmeijer, Lilly Eversdijk Smulders, Een jaar bij de yogiýs van India en Tibet, Deventer 1983. - Ype H. Poortinga, Dean Peabody, National characteristics, Cambridge/Paris: Camnbridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de lýHomme, 1985. - Karen Portier, Khin Thitsa, Nuns, mediums and prostitutes in Chiengmai: A study of some marginal categories of women (41 pp.). - Karen Portier, Signe Howell, Chewong women in transition: The effects of monetization on a hunter-gatherer society in Malaysia (34 pp.). - Karen Portier, Maila Stivens, Sexual politics in Rembau: Female autonomy, matriliny and agrarian change in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia (50 pp.) - R. de Ridder, Dennis Tedlock, The spoken word and the work of interpretation, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. ix + 365 pp., 8 ill. - R. de Ridder, Dennis Tedlock, Popol Vuh, The definitive edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. 380 pp., 32 ill. - G. van Roon, Dietmar Rothermund, Die Peripherie in der Weltwirtschaftskrise: Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika 1929-1939, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schýningh, 1983, 295 pp. - Thilo C. Schadeberg, Gýnter Dabitz, Geschichte der erforschung der Nuba-Berge, Arbeiten aus dem Seminar fýr Výlkerkunde der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitýt Frankfurt am Main, Band 17, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985. 280 pp., maps, tables, illus. - L. van Vroonhoven, Ger van Roon, Derde Wereld in depressie, Leiden: Nijhoff, 1985, 139 p. - Wim van Zanten, Nigel Phillips, Sijobang, sung narrative poetry of West Sumatra, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, no. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. xi + 255 pp., photos, texts and translations, short glossary of Minangkabau words, Bibliography, index.

Prior to the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949 the formal apparatus of the Chinese imperial state rarely extended below the hsien, or county level. There was, in effect, ‘local self government’ and in certain parts of China this meant rule by powerful, localized descent groups. While some Chinese patrilineages remained small and politically insignificant, others grew until they resembled petty states. These large lineage organizations, which I prefer to call ‘dominant lineages’, made dependents out of neighbours, controlled market centers, and maintained their own militias and local defence corps. In this paper the formation of one such dominant lineage is described in detail.

Personal naming provides an insight into the construction of gender and person in Chinese society. The process of naming marks important social transitions for Chinese men; the more names a man has the more socialized and also, in a sense, the more individuated he becomes. By contrast, married women in rural China are essentially nameless. If personhood is a process of social growth, judged against the standard of men, the evidence presented here suggests that Chinese women do not, indeed cannot, attain full personhood.