Recent anthropological studies on material culture have questioned conventional analytical frameworks that presume that material is always an object for human subjects. In masked performances, an actor tries to be someone else by submitting him/herself to a mask, which is a material object. In such moments, the relation between an actor and a mask is something that cannot be reduced to subject-object opposition. This study describes the Balinese masked dance drama topeng as an assemblage of human and materials. It examines some of the characteristics of that assemblage, and points out the mutual and dynamic qualities in the relation between an actor and a mask. In addition, the paper examines some important effects of the materiality of masks on that assemblage. By drawing attention to how the mask works as a material and physical thing, this study sheds light on some of the characteristics of the human-material relationship. After making a quick review of previous studies of topeng in chapter 2, the paper explains the setting and overall process of topeng performances in chapter 3. Topeng performances are held during a ritual. It uses no script or stage props. Assembling at the site are a few actors, their masks, musical instruments, a group of musicians and the audience. Also, the actor invokes invisible spirits in his mask, or invites them to the mask. Those humans and non-humans-or visible and invisible beings-interact and form the topeng performance. In chapter 4, I analyze the topeng performance in more detail, especially focusing on the interaction between the actor and masks. A previous study discussed the fact that an actor gains a kind of dual consciousness, in which he/she manipulates the mask while being manipulated by that mask [COLDIRON 2004]. However, the relation between a mask and an actor is more flexible and dynamic. A mask sometimes functions as a material object, while at other times it behaves as something more than an object. Likewise, a topeng actor shows puppet-like behavior [cf BELO 1977; COLDIRON 2004], subjecting him/herself to the mask, its character, music, or dance form, while sometimes-especially in comic scenes-unveiling the personal identity behind the mask, or even uncovering and emphasizing the material aspect of the mask. In addition, in the last scene, the social status of the actor recedes further. The actor and the mask, as a "temporal body" and a "temporal face," become a pure conduit of supernatural power of the legendary figure called Sidakarya. This paper also discusses other human and non-human participants in that dynamic assemblage, such as musicians, the audience, and supernatural beings. The interaction between an actor and musicians, the recursive relation between the deities and masks and people, and the behavior of the mercurial audience all make the assemblage emergent, transient, and somehow fragile. After the performance, the audience and gamelan players leave, ending the assemblage. However, the masks, brought back to the actor's home, continue to exist, and are taken care of by the actor or related people. Chapter 5 briefly examines the offstage long-term assemblage, consisting of the masks and the surrounding people. By looking at that enduring assemblage, we understand that masks are not static but rather evolving entities. A mask and its performance with the owner (actor) change. By being repeatedly used for topeng performances, consecrated, and constantly receiving offerings, a mask accumulates its enchanting and spiritual power. Through physical changes across the ages, or by accident, a mask also obtains a new face. The combination of mask and actor is not static either. For example, a mask may be borrowed by another actor, or inherited by the actor's child or grandchild, and used from generation to generation. Therefore, in a sense, an actor is a "temporal body" for a

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This article aims to develop a new approach to "things," inspired by the 19th-century French sociologist Gabriel Tarde, whose reputation has been recently resurrected by a new generation of anthropologists and sociologists. Under the influence of actor-network theory (ANT) and a revival of an interest in materiality, 'things' have recently attracted fresh attention from anthropologists. The new interest in things has grown against the backdrop of the recent reexamination of the culture/nature dichotomy that once served as a fundamental framework of anthropology. That framework presumes the contrast between the singular "nature," which serves as a given condition for human action, and multiple "cultures," which are products of human creative actions. In that framework, anthropologists drawing on modern science, which permits direct access to the singular nature or the "world itself," hold a privileged position letting them interpret and analyze a variety of cultures, or "worldviews." However, that framework has been undermined by a recent development in science and technology studies (STS), which has revealed that scientific facts-a prime example of singular nature-are not just existing "out there," independent of human actions, but only emerge in the complex interventions made in laboratories. That finding has stimulated an "ontological turn" in anthropology, led by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Marilyn Strathern. They have questioned the universal applicability of the nature/culture dichotomy, and have warned of the danger of automatically interpreting indigenous accounts as cultural views of a singular nature. Viveiros de Castro argues that it is not self-evident that non-Western people and Euro-Americans employ the same ontology, beautifully demonstrating how a discreet exploration of people's ontology can yield productive insights. As a consequence, those studies have led to the new possibility of an anthropology that does not focus on epistemology, but rather on ontology-namely, the question about how things are constituted. One can regard Tarde as a precursor of such an ontological exploration. His social monadology-which argues that entities, humans, societies, celestial bodies, etc. are formed from the associations of minute monads-provides significant insight here. Drawing on the Newtonian theory of mechanical relationships among celestial bodies and their constituents, Tarde argues that monads maintain relationships with external entities within themselves, calling such relations "mutual possessions." In addition, he also indicates the potentiality of things in relation to a feature of associations among monads. He argues that monads engage with each other by one facet of their being, and escape it by the other facets. Thus, there always remains the possibility of a different world by making an association involving other facets of monads. That apparently weird claim has an interesting resonance with ANT and Strathernian anthropology, which argue that relations not only appear as external ties that connect entities, but are also embodied in the very things they connect. Categories such as wife and husband, which presuppose the marriage relation and co-implicate each other, are good examples of that. In a similar vein, ANT argues that a technical object is designed to embody the relations with its users, using the environment and related technologies, because the stable relations with those entities are necessary for the function of the object. Those relations usually remain invisible, but become visible in specific occasions when the actual environment of usage does not match the one assumed in the designing process. Technology transfer is a typical case of such a situation. Following the parallel between Tarde and current works in ANT and anthropology, this article

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Goddess Chellattamman's visit to the Minakshi temple, which is an episode of the delegation of power from a superior god to an inferior goddess-and which at the same time is a story of an unconsummated marriage-is used as an example to illustrate relational divinity (hierarchy) viewed from below and substantial divinity (transcendence) viewed from above in C.J. Fuller's The Camphor Flame. In this paper, I offer a different reading of the event by (a) situating it in the context of a South Indian ontology, and (b) analyzing it not in terms of structure, but assemblage. A person in South India, according to an old logic of beings "excavated" by David Shulman et al, is an individuated but fluid being. Moreover, a person is continuous with other persons. Seemingly antithetical beings, such as Shiva and its foe Mahishasura, for instance, can be each other's double, respectively. I argue that a person folds other persons within as an internal difference (intension). Such internal difference has the potential of external individuation (extension). For that reason, I use the imagery of assemblages on the move to describe such beings and their milieu. Once a year, Chellattamman, a "village goddess" whose temple is located near the northern gate of the Minakishi temple, comes to this great temple expecting to marry to Sundareshwara (Shiva) in a minor ritual known as her coronation. Yet the great vegetarian deity does not allow the inferior meat-eating (and hence polluting) goddess enter his chamber. The enraged goddess returns to her temple and receives a nocturnal animal sacrifice. Chellattamman's love for Sundareshwara is deflected in the ritual in such a way as to transform it into the power to protect Minakshi temple's northern gate. Viewed from the structural perspective, the episode exemplifies the hierarchical relationships between superior and inferior deities, and the transcendence of great divinities. Is the nature of Chellattamman, then, antithetical to that of great Sundareshwara and his consort Minakishi? If one places the episode in the unifying structural frame of reference of Dumont et al, Chellattamman and Minakishi are conceptualized as separate parts that constitute the structured whole. That method enables one to present a coherent view of the relationships between different deities with reference to hierarchy, complementarity and transcendence. Yet there are remnants that cannot be explained away by the holistic model. In the ritual calendar, Minakshi is not always a consort of Sundareshwara. The goddess metamorphoses herself into the slayer of the buffalo-demon Mahisasura during the Navaratri festival. I therefore propose to look at the deities not in terms of hierarchy, of which the degree of relative purity and pollution is the index, but in terms of the durational metamorphoses of the nature of deities. Fuller and Logan note that Minakshi changes from the submissive married mode to the powerful and destructive single mode during the Navaratri festival. The number of arms, which indicates the state of power of the goddess, also changes from four on the first night to eight on the eighth night to two on the ninth night. On the eighth night, Minakishi, as the slayer, is dressed in a red sari, and an animal sacrifice is offered to the goddess. Nevertheless, the actual sacrifice is offered to Chellattamman. On the ninth night, the goddess is dressed in a white sari and is seen worshipping Shiva. The white sari indicates that Minakshi becomes a widow after killing Mahisasura. On the following morning, the hair of the goddess is washed to remove the sin and the pollution. It is evident that Minakshi is heavily polluted after the battle. There is a similar myth in North Kerala. Kundora Chamundi (a consort or daughter of Shiva) was created by Shiva to kill the buffalo-demon Darikan. Chamundi successfully killed the demon

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The anthropology of agriculture, especially ethnoagronomy, has explored the local/indigenous cognition of the environment, which is considered to be guiding practices, that is, transactions between humans and the environment. Previous studies of that perception have applied linguistic methodologies and investigated local classifications of plants and animals to extract the system of knowledge underpinned by locally shared logics. The perception and approach intend to position local knowledge as a more sustainable and rational one under given circumstances than Western/modern knowledge. However, it is also pointed out that local knowledge is not always logically designed to guide practices, but actual practices are led by a bundle of individual experiences or knowledge along with a situation. In the post-Green Revolution era of India, it no longer seems to be an adequate approach to derive such local knowledge, underpinned by Indian cosmology or inner logic, from linguistic data analysis either, hi a village of northeastern Kerala, for instance, countless number of actors, such as governmental officers, local/international NGOs, and agri-business entrepreneurs introduce different things and words (ideas) to promote organic agriculture, including organic certification, bio-input, and an ancient farming calendar. Each farmer then selects and applies things or words in a rather situational manner. In such a situation, not only is the local/Western binary of knowledge obscure, but local, Western, traditional, and "re-traditional" knowledge are also intertwined in farmers' dialogues and practices. Therefore, this paper avoids the assumption that local shared knowledge shapes farming activities tentatively. Instead, it attempts to perceive that collectives of symmetric non-human and human actors (actants) form farming practices, and attempts to describe the process of the assembly and separation of actants, especially focusing on non-humans. That is because local peculiarities are still embedded in the way of assembly and separation and in the performance of the assembling, even though observers can neither assume them nor hypothesize a logical system from them. Besides, some words perform as non-human actants, or comprise hybrid actants with other non-human actants. Thus, this paper follows certain actants, including such "thing-like" words. To do so, I especially focus on the practices of three farmers in a village in Kerala who changed their ways of farming after converting to organic agriculture. The examples show that farmers' initial performances are gradually directed by certain active non-humans, such as the regulation of organic agricultural certification, a traditional farming calendar, and plants and insects. In addition, a scrutiny of the process by which the actants assemble can shed light on locally specific ways of assembly and the performance of humans, non-humans, and words. The appearance, assembly and performance of actants are random and situational, so all an observer can do is to find changes in farming practices, following the process of those changes, while keeping an eye on the active actants. Even so, that approach indicates one way to disentangle the intermingled farming practices and figure out the spatially and historically localized aspects of farming practices.

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