Ethnologia Europaea

In maritime households in the North Atlantic region, a number of ways have been devised for coping with the economic instability which arises from the household's reliance upon a resource that cannot be kept under direct human control. Depending upon the local labour-market opportunities, these coping strategies include the participation of women in a range of productive activities which augment, or stabilise income from the men's efforts at sea. The involvement of women in small-scale farming and fish-processing work has been well documented in the literature; less well known are cases where women were migrant labourers for at least part of their careers, and where the successful establishment of a new household depended upon the migratory labour of women. The occupational patterns of women in the Fife Coast fishing villages, although they have now passed into history, continue to be important element in the sense or the past that local women have, and in the ideas they have about themselves in comparison with other women who do not share a fishing background.

This paper reviews the entry "Zigeuner" in thirty editions of general encyclopaedias in the German language between 1819 and 1986. The entries were found to be largely repetitive, stereotyped, and much of the "information" plainly fictive. While the homogeneity of "Gypsies" is concluded explicitly in almost all these editions, there is a chronological variation in the stereotypes. The entries exhibit both racism and romanticism, both fear and fascination. On the whole it seems that what are supposed to be facts about "Gypsies" were and still are more often than not facts about their social environments.

Using methods from qualitative cultural analysis, the author has investigated aspects of social and cultural integration of between 12 and 15 million people who were forced in the years 1944 and 1945, to leave German settlements in middle, south-east and eastern Europe and settle in West Germany and the later German Democratic Republic. He describes and analyses acculturation: as a process which is extended over three generations, inquires after the function of oral traditions, the general significance of lost properties and objects of material culture for the individual and collective memory, and the meaning of journeys back to the former settlements. Thereby are general questions raised that attend the present task of research into the processes of world-wide migration.

According to an East -Finnish custom that came to an end around the beginning of the 20th century, the karsikko (conifer shorn of branches) and the cross-tree were prepared when the deceased was taken for burial. The Roman-Catholic Church and the Reformation introduced into folk beliefs the idea that the deceased did not journey all the way to the community of the dead. Restoring the social order of the community that had been disturbed by death then required that the dead be placed in the intermediary stage dictated by the tripartite division of the rite of passage in status. It was also necessary to establish a boundary between the living and the dead as a precaution against the undesired return of the deceased.

Totenmasken sind besondere Abbildungsformen des menschlichen Gesichts, die wir zumeist nur van berühmten Persönlichkeiten kennen. Anlaß für eine Reflexion der Bedeutung van Totenmasken gaben die Überreste einer Sammlung van Masken, die Kriminellen nach der Hinrichtung abgenommen worden waren. Ob Berühmtheiten oder Verbrecher - in beiden Fällen sind die dreidimensionalen Abbildungen Ausdruck eines physiognomischen Interesses, das im 19. Jahrhundert verschiedene Bereiche der Wissenschaft und des Alltagslebens durchdringt. Die Totenmasken von Hingerichteten waren Studienobjekte für Kriminalisten und Schreckgespenster in Wachsfigurenkabinetten. Ermittelt werden sollen Sinn und Funktion dieser Abbildungsform und damit verknüpfte symbolische Zeichen. Die Totenmasken von Hingerichteten erscheinen als Trophäen aus dem Kampf gegen das Verbrechen und als wissenschaftliche Studienobjekte im Dienste der Physiognomik.

To study innovations in material culture means to look at a lot of differences in historical and present times. Starting with an example of the late 17th century we will look at the changing kinds of treasuring up of silver stocks. Besides this the reasons for innovations are discussed - why do people cease to use one object and start to use another. Is it due to changing attitudes or to create advantage and what can be said about the importance of norms and values? Concerning the differences in historical times and nowadays we will focus on the sources and methods, especially concerning social conditions and present lifestyle. Recent German studies such as Gerhard Schulze's and the Outfit-Studies are presented and discussed briefly. Finally some reasons for the differences such as the rapidity of change, the question of supply and demand, the social rank orders and others are taken into account and underlined.

During World War II, many studies of 'cultures at a distance' were conducted. Ruth Benedict was one of the most prolific writers in this field. While working for the Office of War Information she produced several memoranda on societies and cultures involved in the war. One of these was the Netherlands. This paper focuses on, firstly, how the present author discovered Benedict's texts on the Dutch. Secondly, it discusses why and for whom she wrote this material. Lastly, it quotes one of her memoranda, entitled A Note on Dutch Behavior, at length.