Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles

This volume of essays grew out of a symposium organized by Judith Hoch-Smith and Anita Spring for the 1974 American Anthropological Association meetings in Mexico City. The two-part symposium was enti­ tled "Women in Ritual and Symbolic Systems: I. Midwives, Madonnas, and Mediums; ll. Prostitutes, Witches, and Androgynes. " The sym­ posium participants were asked to explore theological, ritual, and sym­ bolic aspects-both positive and negative-of the feminine cultural domain, using ethnogra...