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Performing Grief: Bridal Laments in Rural China . Anne E. McLaren. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008. x + 209 pp. $54.00. ISBN 978-0-3232-2

(Johnson quite consciously avoids the word “religious” in this context) in Shanxi villages, and what one might think of as “religion” in the West, or even in Japan. The argument is given in his choice of words: Shanxi village ceremonies are equated with spectacle and sacrifice, not worship, prayer, transcendence or salvation; with people acting almost by habit, not out of catharsis or inspiration; they evoke familiarity, but not awe or deep questions of human existence, pity, terror or transcendence (p. 173). That is not to say that rituals are undirected. In the way the book is organised, Johnson detects at least two sorts of rituals, that is, those centred around times of the year, such as the lunar New Year, and those offered at designated temples, known as the sai. The former tend to be conducted by a single village, the latter by village alliances. Being conducted by a single village, seasonal celebrations such as those conducted at the lunar New Year, were highly “autarkic,” defined as being conducted “with no reference to outside ritual or ideological authority” (p. 141). The sai, conducted on a larger scale, are less autarkic (p. 179), being led by specialists employing written manuals. Status does not seem to matter, for the specialists include such low-status people as hereditary entertainers and relatively high-status “masters of ceremonial” drawn from the literate members of the village. How autarkic an institution could be if it relies on tradition for its ultimate justification is a question Johnson has not explored, and is unlikely to be revealed by singlevillage studies often made at the point ceremonies occur. One must, therefore, hold that concept in abeyance despite its utility in providing a thread through the book. Yet, building on the concept of ritual autarky Johnson makes a bigger claim, namely that village rituals, even the sai, are conducted without the help of Daoists. The ethnography supports the claim, but the style of the ritual texts, the quite frequent reference to priests and monks in temple steles, and our sheer ignorance of what went on in the villages beyond living memory, all advise caution in coming to terms with that statement. An interesting thought, it may be, but it will need more research to make it stick.