Introduction / Roy W. Hamilton --
PART 1: LABOR, RITUAL, AND THE CYCLE OF TIME --
Labor, ritual, and the cycle of time / Roy W. Hamilton --
Rice festivals in Northeast Thailand / Suriya Smutkupt, Pattana Kitiarsa --
Body art and cyclic time: rice dancing among the Tharu of Nepal / Gisèle Krauskopff --
Rice culture in Manipur, India / Mutua Bahadur --
The purification of rice fields in Java with an apotropaic plank / Stephen C. Headley --
Rice harvest rituals in two highland Tai communities in Vietnam / Vi Văn An, Eric Crystal --
PART 2: THE GRANARY: A HOME FOR THE RICE SPIRITS --
The granary: a home for the rice spirits / Roy W. Hamilton --
The granary of the Tharu of Nepal / Kurt W. Meyer, Pamela Deuel --
PART 3: RICE FESTIVALS: COMMUNITY AND CELEBRATION --
Rice festivals: community and celebration ; The Pahiyas Festival of Lucban, Philippines / Roy W. Hamilton --
The gods walk on rice in Selat, Bali / David J. Stuart-Fox --
Offering the new rice to the Buddha in Mae Chaem, Northern Thailand / Roy W. Hamilton, Thitipol Kanteewong --
The Ghost Festival of Dan Sai, Loei Province, Thailand / Ruth Gerson --
The Ma'Bua' Pare Ceremony of the Sa'dan Toraja of Sulawesi, Indonesia / Eric Crystal --
Trò Trám Festival and the veneration of Ngô Thị Thanh in a Vietnamese village / Vũ Hông Thuât, Roy W. Hamilton --
Of mites and men: the Shōrei Festival at Mount Haguro, Japan / Toshiyuki Sano, Roy W. Hamilton --
PART 4: THE GODDESS OF RICE --
The Goddess of Rice / Roy W. Hamilton --
Ponniyamman, a Tamil rice goddess from South India / Nanditha Krishna --
Sri and Sedana at Pura Besakih, Bali / David J. Stuart-Fox --
Sacred food / Roy W. Hamilton --
Lakshmi of the house: rituals, realities, and representations of womanhood in modern Bengal / Sohini Ray --
The art of rice in Balinese offerings / Francine Brinkgreve --
Sake in Japanese art and culture / Mariko Fujita --
Straw matters / Roy W. Hamilton --
PART 7: RICE, SELF, AND STATE --
Rice, self, and state / Roy W. Hamilton --
Rice in the human life cycle: traditions from Tamil Nadu, India / Nanditha Krishna --
Wrapping the body with images of rice: kimono patterns from the Edo Period / Toshiyuki Sano --
Images of rice in imperial Chinese culture / Francesca Bray --
PART 8: THE FUTURE OF RICE --
The future of rice / Roy W. Hamilton --
Let's hope the bile is good / Aurora Ammayao, Gene Hettel --
Mbok Sri dethroned: changing rice rituals in rural East Java / Rens Heringa --
The descent of good fortune and material wealth: a contemporary Javanese shadow puppet play / Roy W. Hamilton with Kik Soleh Adi Pramono --
Social and agricultural change in Korea's rice farming communities / Kwang-Kyu Lee --
Rice in South Korean life: the transformation of agricultural icons / Michael Reinschmidt.
