Bali has long been reputed for its capacity to maintain a distinctive social and cultural “Balineseness” in face of sweeping change. One persistent component on anthropological lists of Balinese institutions has been the island's “ancestor cult,” often presented as a static custom of principally theological significance. This paper portrays some complexities in the formulation, maintenance, and recent intensification of ancestor lore in a particular group through time. Our subject is a large Sudra group in Tabanan district: how its members explain the origin of their house in the classical era, account for its trials and accomplishments during the Dutch colonial period (1906–1948), and with little sense of discontinuity justify its role in modern Balinese politics, from Indonesian independence through the national elections of 1971. We first detail legends, rituals, and stories—cultural forces in their own right–celebrating central ancestors and leaders from the group's classical, colonial, and modern history. We then describe practical social, political, and economic matters indirectly involved in these traditions. Finally, general conclusions are drawn regarding the significance of ancestors in Balinese society, where legends and rituals commemorating specific deceased leaders are no mere antiquarian escape from the present nor a pale reflection of more practical realities, but an active commentary on, and a contributing force to, a group's internal dynamics and self-esteem.

In its most general sense, social change involves change in the normative order of a society. Some would say that this necessarily involves a change in the patterns by which wealth is distributed. Others look for basic ideological shifts. Still others seek basic changes in the organizational modes by which functions are fulfilled. In each of these approaches, change involves mobility for some portion of the population. The means by which upward mobility is achieved often indicate the outlines of emerging social structures. Pursuit of mobility in a changing social order has entrepreneurial aspects because entrepreneurship involves the creative manipulation of existing relationships in unprecedented (non-normative) ventures. As such, it always proceeds in a normative limbo, relying on conventional expectations to support the unexpected. This study reports on a type of entrepreneurial career crafted in part from two seemingly divergent normative orders. It partakes of resources in the caste and the legal systems in India to produce an, as yet, nonroutinized pattern of personal mobility which, since its occurrence is widespread in urban centers, may be the basis for the formattion of a new class with considerable political and economic significance in the emerging Indian social structure.

The profound impact of the civil service examinations upon students' lives marks one of the most important developments in Sung education. During the Sung, the whole process of education gradually became geared to the purpose and demands of the examinations; the new important role of the examinations in the recruitment of government officials in turn resulted in the transformation of Chinese society.

It can be argued that full assimilation of Chinese immigrants into an alien society has proceeded longer and on a larger scale in Thailand than anywhere else. It was Chinese potters who built the first kilns at Sukhothai and Sawankhalok; Thai tradition says that King Ram Kamhaeng, who threw off Khmer domination and invented the Thai script, personally went to China to bring back five hundred artisans. And Chinese traders at Ayutthaya contributed decisively toward its becoming very large and very rich. Then, and later at Thonburi and Bangkok, Chinese skill and labor were crucial; successful immigrants were given great responsibilities and corresponding rewards as servants of the throne, and at all levels of the social scale were welcomed as husbands and sons-in-law. Though greatly altered by modern nationalisms on both sides, the mutual openness of Thai and Chinese has persisted, perhaps more strongly than contemporary observers have appreciated.

On the night of May 2–3, 1935, 65,000 partially-armed peasants shattered the tranquility of the countryside surrounding Manila. Between sunset and sunrise dissident bands seized three communities and threatened ten others in Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite. Throughout the night confusion mounted. Hard-pressed Constabulary units from the provinces and Manila fought three engagements with Sakdalistas, picked up persistent reports of an impending attack on Manila, and heard recurrent and highly disturbing rumors that Japanese aircraft, equipped with arms and ammunition for the rebels, would fly over the trouble zone at dawn.

Experiments in the field of technological change and rural community development in many underdeveloped areas of the world have brought into sharp focus the importance of cultural factors in the acceptance or rejection of the programs of directed change sponsored by external agencies. There has been a growing realization among rural extension experts and technical assistance workers that even some of the less involved technological or economic innovations have latent cultural and social dimensions that need careful consideration if the success of these programs is to be assured. Detailed case studies of specific action programs have revealed that the secondary and tertiary ramifications of given innovations are of critical significance in determining their ultimate acceptability. With this understanding planners and their staff members no longer approach an underdeveloped community with the naive assumption that it will enthusiastically adopt superior tools and techniques when they are placed within its reach; instead, considerable emphasis is now laid on adapting modern techniques to the culture and values of the community in which the program has to operate.

There has been much speculation as to the degree to which the Indonesian revolt reflects Japanese war-time propaganda. There has been much less mention in this connection of the one and a quarter million Chinese residents in the Indies. Yet, ten years ago many Netherlands colonial officials regarded this community as a fecund source of discontent. They were not altogether inconsistent when they complained, on the one hand, of Chinese “imperialism” and, on the other, of Chinese communism. Evidence of the former they saw, more especially, in the activities of the Chinese Bureau for Overseas Affairs in Nanking. These activities were intended, of course, to strengthen the loyalty of nationals abroad and to give them that protection of the motherland which they had been lacking for centuries. But it was inevitable that they should reflect, and to some extent feed, the resentment over the discriminations experienced by these nationals in every part of the Nan Yang (South Seas). The pamphlets distributed in the 'thirties by the Bureau harped on the “unequal treatment” of Chinese abroad, on the cruelty of many of the immigration laws–including those of the Indies. They did not go in for theoretical discussions and did not advocate socialism. Neither did the textbooks used in many Chinese schools or the subsidized Chinese newspapers, though some of the Shanghai-trained teachers may have been communists.

Since the Communist Chinese take-over of Tibet, climaxed by the Tibetan revolt and the subsequent flight of the Dalai Lama, increased interest in that land and its culture has called attention to the meagerness of information concerning details of Tibetan daily life, economy, and politics. In a series of interviews widi members of the Sakya ruling house undertaken by the authors, it has been possible to secure considerable data concerning die administration of what is perhaps Tibet's most ambitious irrigation project, and the role the Sakya government played in that administration.

The development of Chinese family law in Malaysia and Singapore provides an interesting case study of an attempt to fuse elements of two disparate legal systems in a foreign social climate. The present court system of Malaysia and Singapore and the adjective law are based in large part upon principles of English common law, while the substantive family law applied to the Chinese people is in part a reflection of “traditional” Chinese law. These diverse legal orders function in a social setting which, although substantially influenced by Chinese tradition, is nevertheless a distinct environment, and which, on the other hand, certainly bears little resemblance to the native habitat of the common law.

In early 2013, India's then comptroller and auditor general (CAG), Vinod Rai, while delivering a speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School, wondered whether his office should be confined to being “mere accountants.” That this question could be raised in a public forum, and that too outside India, spoke to the transformation in recent times of Rai's stature and the office that he held. The winds of change were reflected in the Indian Supreme Court's rejection in 2013 of a public interest litigation challenging the authority of the auditor general, who is a constitutional authority, to conduct performance audits of the government. Significantly, the Court ruled, the “CAG is not a munim [accountant] to go into the balance-sheets. The CAG is a constitutional authority entitled to review and conduct performance audit on revenue allocations . . . and examine matters relating to the economy and how the government uses its resources.”

Louis Dumont has the unique advantage of combining field experience, large ideas, and a basic knowledge of Sanskrit. The patience to master a difficult archaic language, no longer the spoken vehicle of current thoughts in any defined society, is very rare in a scholar devoted to analysis of actual social groups, real people. Dumont is the only person to acquaint himself with traditional societies in India and with the cultural continuity within which they, and their neighbors, are intelligible as a unit. The large and daunting literate past of India is open to him; and there are few who can compete with this combination of skills. Nevertheless his study of the relationship between king and brahmin in traditional and (so far as is relevant) modern Indian society—a study found principally in one essay—impressed me in two ways, which, in association, did not sustain admiration. His ideas need to be placed alongside another interpretation of the facts, in order that a clearer perspective may be obtained. It is not the case that his reading of archaic and ambiguous materials is wrong; we do not yet know enough about the history of India to say that. But there is a real chance that the talent to generalize from the particular (which is one of the strengths of anthropologists) has here run a little ahead of itself. My aim is not to discourage the use of Sanskritic materials, still less to imply that there are “real experts” in competition with whom the anthropologist who emulates Dumont's efforts must remain silent. I value the stimulus Dumont's ideas have offered; and I know they will continue to excite response and encourage further research, even when they arouse suspicion. Let us attempt a new evaluation of the facts, and set that beside Dumont's findings.

Yüan opera, if we limit our material to the one hundred examples found in the Yüan-ch'ü hsüan (YCH), seems to be a well defined genre, the numerous formal peculiarities of which can be shown to have evolved from earlier entertainment forms in a manner truly comforting to the literary historian. Analyzed, Yiian drama shows a highly consistent structure with the following features:

1. Four “acts” with the option of a demi-act, “wedge,” which can appear between any two acts, or at the beginning of the tsa-chü (Yüan opera).

2. Within each act all arias were sung to tunes of the same mode.