Examining the power of ritual to produce social transformation, Kratz describes changes in Okiek life and ceremonies in Kenya from 1900 to 1990. Taking girls' initiation into womanhood as her central topic, Kratz considers dramatic structure, costume, song, ritual space, and the discourse, rhetoric, and poetics of ceremonial performance. This study of aesthetics and change among the Kono of Sierra Leone addresses the issue of Western bias in aesthetic critique. Maintaining that an anthropology

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... f aesthetics should focus on exploring the conditions under which evaluation occurs and the consequences of that evaluation, Hardin moves away from the "art as a reflection of culture" model and locates aesthetics more centrally within social theory. I7b&willus., I map 352 pp. Cloth: I-56098-235-7H $47.00 ASTONISHMENT AND POWER Kongo Minkisi/The A r t of Renee Stout Wyatt MacGaffey and Michael D. Harris Astonishment and Power explores a complex central African visual tradition-powerful figures or assemblages known as minkisiand its resonance in the work of a contemporary African American woman artist. Frequently mischaracterized as "fetishes in the West, minkisi occupy a central place in Kongo culture-at the intersection of the physical and spiritual worlds-and also in Kongo history. 69 color, 58 b&w illus. 224 pp. Paper: I-56098-274-8P $34.95 Fetish #3 by Renee Stout. Photo courtesy of Barbara KornblatL