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CLOTH THAT DOES NOT DIE The Meaning of Cloth in Bunu Social Life Elisha P. Renne
University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1996. xxi + 269 pp., 25 b/w & 9 color photos, 1 map, appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. $40 hardcover.
The title of Elisha Renne's book refers to the Yoruba incantation that translates as "Cloth only wears, it does not die." According to Renne (pp. 9-10):
This incantation may be intoned when particular medicinal substances are given to patients. Its imagery suggests that while individuals and cloth may wear out, children and new cloths will replace them. The incantation relates cloth to ideas about individual morality, social continuity, and the circularity of time and of space-represented by the regeneration of ancestral spirits in individual bodies and by connections between earthly and spirit worlds. Using cloth, Buns villagers address the problem of how to maintain continuity in social life, despite the disruption of conflict, disease and death.
Thus explained, the title is indeed fitting of this volume, which explores cloth in Bunf Yoruba society both literally and as a metaphor for a larger social context.
The text begins with a short foreword, written by Annette Weiner, and a preface that describes Renne's field experience, methodology, and the twists and turns that brought her to her topic. An extended introduction summarizes the main points of the book and locates it within a theoretical, historical, and geographical framework. The chapter includes short overviews of "Cloth in West Africa and Nigeria" (pp. 10-13), which suggest how Renne sees this study contributing to the current literature, and "Bin7 Yoruba Society" (pp. 13-20), which includes discussions of history and social, economic, and local political organization.
The eight chapters that follow stand alone as individual essays, each revolving around a theme, and are brought to...