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Klappentext "Remains of Ritual!" Steven M. Friedson's second book on musical experience in African ritual! focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. Friedson presents a multifaceted understanding of religious practice through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country. Each chapter of this fascinating book considers a different aspect of ritual life! demonstrating throughout that none of them can be conceived of separately from their musicality--in the Brekete world! music functions as ritual and ritual as music. Dance and possession! chanted calls to prayer! animal sacrifice! the sounds and movements of wake keeping! the play of the drums all come under Friedson's careful scrutiny! as does his own position and experience within this ritual-dominated society. "The great merit of this book is that it expresses beautifully and graphically the being-there and being-away of ethnographic experience, as well as giving us vivid glimpses of Ewe life."--Wyatt MacGaffey "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute " Zusammenfassung A book on the critical role of music in African ritual which focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. It analyzes their practices through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country.
