ETHNOLOGY 971

sale changes in work opportunities, residential relationships, and scale of administrative jurisdictions that swept Japan in the interval revolutionized Toyodan’s insular lifestyle. In Shin-machi labor-intensive “cast” industries (furriery, drum-making, butchering), which had set the community off from the majority, soon ceased to economically vital. With the abuses of outcastism increasingly spotlighted by national civil rights debate, the small elite group is no longer able to exploit the pro- letarians as scapegoats in their drive for middle- class respectability. Reduction of inside-outside conflict as well as that between uppers and lowers, Donaghue found, virtually obliterated the “functional prerequisites” of community solidarity. Now with Shin-machi’s “cast” walls penetrated by leveling force of equal economic opportunity, the Bumku-min are being dis- persed into the City, its administration directly affects the remaining residents’ lives, and they are increasingly pressured to “pass” to ordinary status and identity.

The results suggest that neither calling for upgrading living conditions in the special com- munity nor its total extinction is a final solution to the problem. Although sympathizing with the aims of activist movements such as the Buraku Emancipation League, Donaghue also questions whether radical politicization is the key to effective affirmative action. Most of all, his restudy shows that the Bumku-min them- selves are not united on strategy for achieving liberation, many still preferring gradualism through programs enhancing public under- standing than through private “escape from identity.” Limited to one, atypical case, the monograph does not consider other theoretical dimensions, for instance, the contention of the Buraku Research League that the modem Buraku-min’s plight is attributable to a bourgeoisie-capitalist cabal to exploit them as “class” labor. Nor does it explore the emerging confrontation with discrimination outside the special community, for example, among young Buraku-min intellectuals who, having achieved basic equal-opportunity goals but exposed to an ideological power struggle between the Buraku Emancipation League and the Japanese Com- munist Party, are promoting a new militancy against deeper rooted symbolic handicaps. One of these, beliefs relating to marriage, as Dona- ghue emphasizes, is so embedded in the fabric of society that its elimination could be more difficult than extinguishing the Buraku com- munity.

T h e Decades in Shiwa: Economic Develop ment and Social Change in a Japanese Farm- ing Community. Mitsunr Shimpo. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1976. xxvi + 141 pp. $15.00 (cloth).

Keith Brown University of Pittsburgh

The stated objective of this well documented monograph by a sociologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada is to describe the process of social change associated with the industrializa- tion of small-farm agriculture in a rural Jap- anese community. The village is in Iwate Pre- fecture in northeastern Japan. Shimpo con- ducted fieldwork in Shiwa from February to November 1968, and in subsequent years re- ceived additional documentary information from hu associates there. His data are derived from interviews and personal observations in the village and from the extensive records of a local agricultural cooperative, his account of which is the best we have in English, Shimpo fears that without continuous devel-

opment in agriculture, small-scale farmera throughout Japan will be forced to leave their farms and move to the cities. The technological developments described by Shimpo have made agriculture in Shiwa, and at a national level in Japan, relatively efficient and productive, in spite of the small size of the individual land- holdings imposed by the postwar land reform. However, the small landholdings also mean that profits are dispersed so thinly that few can sur- vive by farming alone.

Shimpo argues that Shiwa remains a viable fanning community because of innovative ef- forts by the local cooperative to raise production and increase diversification. Equally important, it would seem, in keeping farmers in the village, is the close proximity of Morioka, a mid-sized city and one of the most delightful prefectural capitals in all of Japan. The jobs that Morioka provides mean that the villagers can commute to the city and eat their wage-earned cake while enjoying the clean air, spacious housing, and some profit and security from weekend and women-folk farming on their small land- holdings in Shiwa.

Development in agriculture in Japan depends upon a healthy industrial sector to absorb the labor freed by mechanization, chemical weed killers, and other technological innovations. Where outside employment opportunities are not available, balancing increased production

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costs with earnings only from the farm may make labor-intensive agriculture the most prof- itable, if the landholder chooses to remain on the farm at all. Many remote mountain villages in the same prefecture have been losing popula- tion for several decades, and it would be helpful if Shimpo someday could apply his perceptive and sympathetic eye to the comparative poten- tial for agricultural development in one of those villages as well.

In addition to providing us with useful infor- mation on the organization and activities of the ubiquitous agricultural cooperative in rural Japan, this book offers a valuable analysis of the social significance of various technological developments in Japanese agriculture. His treat- ment of the emergence of new cooperative forms organized to acquire and coordinate the use of high-cost equipment properly balances his description of the demise of some of the more traditional neighborhood, kinship, and village solidarities. The very poignant portrayal of the increased familial isolation of the elderly in the village is only one example of the depth of Shimpo’s analysis of the changing agricultural scene in Japan. In this book Shimpo has given us a short, tight, and very useful case study of rural development and change.

Rtsourca and Population: A Study of the Gurunge of Nepal. Alan MacFarlane. Studies in Social Anthropology, 12. London: Cam- bridge University Press, 1976. Xviii + 364 pp. $32.50 (cloth).

Spirit Powmion in the Nepal Himalayas. John T . Hitchcock and Rex L. Jones, eds. War- minster, England: Ark & Phillips, 1976. (Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Inter- national Scholarly Book Services [ISBS], Beaverton, Oregon.) xxviii + 401 pp. E10.00/$27.50 (cloth)

The Gurungn of Nepal: Conflict and Change in a Village Society. Donald A. Messerschmidt. Warminster, England: Ark & Phillips, 1976. (Distributed in the U.S. by ISBS.) viii + 151 pp. n.p. (cloth), f3.50 (paper).

Harvey S. Blustain Cornell University

Although the Gurungs constitute less than 2% of the Nepalese population, there have been at least seven major ethnographic studies of them. The first, Bernard PignMe’s 1966 Les Curungs, presented a general survey of Gurung

life. The latest two works focus on more specific aspects of this Himalayan group.

Messerschmidt’s primary concern is an exam- ination of conflict between the two major strata of Gurung society- the higher Char Jat and the lower (and generally poorer) Sora Jat. In ex- plaining the political rift between these two sub- tribes, he shows how the Sora Jat identification with national programs and reforms has challenged the means-legends, court action, economic control-by which the Char Jat had traditionally ensured their dominance.

Most of the book is an ethnography of a Gurung village. Except for the use of Turner’s four-stage “social drama” model as a framework within which to discuss events among the Gurungs, there is little concern with theoretical issues. On the other hand, because he provides a broad description of Curung social organiza- tion, he is able to demonstrate effectively how conflict extended to all facets of village life. On the whole, Messenchmidt’s book is organized and concise. This, plus its wealth of excellent photographs, makes it well suited as a case study for a course in political anthropology.

Macfarlane’s study deals almost exclusively with the ecology, economy, and demography of a Gurung community. Starting from the basic premise that “population growth . . . is clearly one of the most powerful forces shaping the world today” (pp. 5-6), and using a theoretical framework drawn from both Malthus and Boserup, Macfarlane claims that political events in Nepal over the past two centuries have al- lowed for the expansion of population to the point where the Gurungs have gone from a surplus of land and a shortage of labor to the reverse situation. This, along with declining in- come from mercenary service in the British ar- my, threatens not only the quality and quantity of resources, but also what Macfarlane sees as the basically egalitarian nature of Gurung soci- ety. On this latter point, he provides an in- teresting contrast to Messerschmidt’s analysis of Curung conflict.

What makes the book remarkable is the range and quality of the data. Whether discussing firewood consumption, diet, or fertility, Mac- farlane presents an impressive amount of de- tailed quantitative data. Methodical in his presentation, he is careful to inform the reader where and how he derived his information. Even when employing such constructs as pro- duction and consumption units, he is explicit about the methodology by which these measures were obtained.