"Ruth Underhill's intriguing memoir traces the story of her life, delving into the Depression, the famous anthropologists in her circle, and her fieldwork with a keen ethnographic eye. Underhill describes the Victorian society that first bound her and then ultimately enabled her success as a major figure in anthropology"--

Among the topics considered in this classic study are world origins and supernatural powers, attitudes toward the dead, the medicine man and shaman, hunting and gathering rituals, war and planting ceremonies, and newer religions, such as the Ghost Dance and the Peyote Religion.