REVIEWS • 101

sense of animism that the editors and organizers of this conference find in northern beliefs. The other chapters contribute rich comparative material to support this very broad idea. Chapter 13, by the famous Hungarian ethnologist Hoppal, provides perhaps the best history of the animism concept in both the British and the Russian traditions (this chapter should really be read first). Excellent ethnographies of contemporary ritual practice in Siberia among Sakhas (Yamada) and Khanti (Pentikainen) go far in substantiating this “feel of oneness ” in both classic shamanist and non-Ainu contexts. The very fine set of chapters from some of the top anthropologists in North America take the concept in a somewhat different direc-tion. Ridington stresses the power of “transformative ex-periences ” to help living people achieve an understandin