Analyses of phuki and sand guthi among the Newars have already been done by a few authors. Here, in dealing with the intra-caste organization of a Newari village (in Kathmandu valley in Nepal), an attempt is made to consider and analyze them from different aspects. The concept of phuki is re-interpreted and the change in their size and internal organization is examined. phuki The word "phuki" has a wide range of meaning. which is largely attributed to the fact that "phuki" is not only a relationship term but is inseparably connected with a ritual unit. 1. "phuki" may sometimes be used only for referring to real brothers. This usage is rather rare and could be found only among the young people who have not completed their socialization. It is interpreted as an incipient stage of the recognition of the concept "phuki". 2. On the other hand, the usage of "phuki" could extend to all men (male) who are considered to be related to each other agnatically. Secondarily and indirectly, their family members are included among the phukis (phukita) . This is the range of people to whom the expression "bhu ba" phuki" (splitted phuki) is applied. For the analytical purpose, I use the expression "extended-phuki" for this social level. 3. The meaning of phuki in the common usage falls between I and 2 above. 3-a. The most usual range of phuki coincides with the unit of people who perform dea pujd (the worship of digu deo) together. (1 call this "deo puja unit" because the expression "deo pujd guthi" is not used in this village.) Generally there are several deo puja units within an extelrded-phuki. A deo pujd unit usually consists of a few households formally represented by their heads who are closely related to each other agnatically. But owing to personal likes and dislikes, a deo pujd unit may not always consist of the nearest kin. Sometimes, even real brothers are found to belong to different deo puja units and are called "bhu bd phuki". 3-b. Death pollution affects near kin. And they have an obligation to observe a certain length of period for mourning which varies according to the distance from the person from whom the pollution originates. Among them, those who observe it for twelve days are sometimes said to be phuki. In this usage the range of phuki may differ from that of deo puja unit because in this case the principle of genealogical distance is more strictly applied. When we look at the size of deo puja units we find that most of them consist of not more than five households and that the agnatic distance between the heads of those rarely goes beyond that of FBS. By this fact we can say that deo puja units in this village are much smaller than those in other places reported by other authors. As the people who call each other phuki are said to have an obligation to co-operate in the daily life, and as the unity of the phuki is most clearly represented in that of deo puja unit, we can suppose that there is a rather low necessity for the wider co-operation of kin at present. sand guthi Sand guthi is an intra-caste funeral organization, through the membership of which people's caste identity is re-assured. Here, caste-wise variety in the size and internal organization of the various sand guthis can be found. Some are large and limited within the boundary of the village while some are small and spread beyond it. This is mainly attributed to intra-caste demographic condition. In some cases, apparent internal differentiation could be found. The most typical is that of Jyapu caste.

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This paper is a part of ms' research report on the Louli district of western Sumba, carried out from December 1974 to February 1975. The aim of this report is to describe the formation of a village by clans and the internal structure of a house cluster which constitutes a clan. In Louli the greater portion of the population still believes in "Merapu" which is a personal or impersonal, supernatural power, and they are beholders of an animistic native religion. The highest Merapu is a mysterious clan ancester elevated to the status of god. Ritual life' around Merapu occupies the most important part of their life. On Sumba, a clan is patrilineal and exogamous. Traditionally marriage has adopted a non-reciprocal circulating connubium among three clans. In Louli there are two kinds of clans, each of which forms a clan-federation. Every village without exception appears as a kind of compound body of several clans, and in the village, members of these two clan-federations co-exist peacefully. Among the villages, traditionally, a rigorous hierarchy has been constructed, that is, a stem village-a branch village-a permanent farm-hut. This hierarchy never chenges even if the stem village is reduced to only one house ; in other words the fixed prestige of each village never changes. This prestige is supported by a privileged position and the right to perform clan-rituals. The stem village is always the core village of one clan. The houses of leading clan members of the stem village have a certain pattern. Except for the branch house, they have a greatly magicoreligious nature based on the special role of rituals, such as a house name, a house god (merapu) and a house treasure which can not be divided. This nature of the house bears close resemblance to the Japanese "Ie". The number of these houses in one clan never changes. Besides, all houses are divided into sets of pairs. The relationship of each pair is called "Goba Kadu". Goba Kadu functions on occasions of traditional rituals, that is, two houses exchange betel nuts, animal meat and rice. This exchange is entirely ritualized, and has no economical merit. The clan ceased to be the land-owning unit in the distant past. Today all land is divided among individual house (households) , a household being the most elemental social unit. There never was a political leader of a clan, there being only a religious leader. Accordingly it seems that both a clan and the clan-federation are a kind of the 'ritual community', of which Goba Kadu is the most elemental unit. Now, in western Sumba the other characteristic features of the village formation is the village-association. Though in Louli there is only one case, we can find several cases in the neighbouring district, called Waijewa. In Waijewa one village consists of one clan, therefore the village-association entirely overlaps with the clan-federation. Perhaps this pattern of Waijewa is nearer to the original type of the traditional West-Sumba culture.

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Evans-Pritchard's monograph on the Azande witchcraft published in 1937 marked the beginning of contemporary social anthropological study of witchcraft and sorcery in African tribal societies. This fascinating topic has since been investigated by a number of anthropologists and their social function in particular societies has been described. Nevertheless, apart from a few brilliant exceptions, the comparative study of witchcraft and sorcery has made little progress. Harwood pointed out two major flaws in it : (i) the technical terms "witchcraft and "sorcery" have not been defined adequately enough to serve the needs of a comparative study; (ii) there were few ethnographies which have recorded case materials detailed enough to be reanalyzed. In a previous paper I indicated at least two problems caused by the terminological confusion. One has to do with criteria invoked to distinguish between witchcraft and sorcery and the other with the nature of evil by which the witch has been characterized. In this paper, I focus on the latter. My point of departure is a simple question : Is the witch really evil ? For my illustrative material, I draw mainly from Middleton's excellent and detailed ethnographies of the Lugbara, Uganda. First, I analyze a witchcraft case which actually took place in a certain "family cluster" and make three points (i) The vernacular notion Middleton translated as the process of "witchcraft" really has a morally neutral implication. For the native idiom (ole ro) also means a socially approved exercise of the mystical power he called "the ghost invocation". (ii) Though the original notion means neither good nor bad, its moral quality is necessarily determinded one way or the other, when ole ro takes place in the actual social context. One and same social event may be seen by different people as either good or bad ole ro. Their explanations are largely influenced by the political position of the explainers themselves and the way they are committed to the series of political affairs within the family cluster. (iii) The Lugbara are conscious of two opposite assessments that may be given to the single notion. They express it by saying that the approved mystical action is supported by the ghost but anti-social one is backed by the Spirit, Adro. I next examined whether analogous remarks can be found among the other societies : Azande, Nyakyusa, Safwa and Ndembu. I conclude by presenting a working hypothesis that the vernacular terms which have been translated as "witchcraft" or "witch" in many tribal societies originally have morally neutral implications with varying propensities toward one of the scale or the other So called "witches" seem to be rather morally ambiguous beings. Why, then, are the notions neutral and why are the actions of"witches"seen to be ambiguous ? In order to answer these questions theoretically, I turn to the theoretical framework of phenomenological sociologists, Schutz, Berger and Luckmann. The magico-religious experiences are more or less marginal situations of the life of the individual, which constantly threaten the reality of his everyday life. The magico-religious world is thus naturally dangerous for everyday life. But to maintain the everyday order, these marginal situations in both individual and social domains must be integrated within the symbolic universe. The political heretics stand on the marginal position in the legitimate symbolic universe. One of the important tasks which the political leader performs is to keep and control these deviants within the universe. To do so, I think, he must manipulate some magico-religious means which, of course, belongs to the marginal spheres.

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This is the second paper that discusses Japanese folk belief, especially the rites of passage, with the theoretical scheme of 'hare', 'ke' and kegare' concepts. The first paper was published in this journal in 1974 (vol. 38 No. 3 & 4) with the title of 'Japanese Folk Belief and its Structure'. In that paper a hypothesis was made that Japanese folk belief has its own structure, and has formed various kinds of religious through out its history. The concepts of 'hare', 'ke' and 'kegare' have been discussed by Japanese folklorists, and they have interpreted these concepts as the basic ideas of Japanese folk belief. One of the points of the discussion was to employ these concepts just as a theoretical scheme, and as independent concepts opposing each other. Furthermore, the relationship of these concepts was regarded to vary according to the contexts of the folk belief : in a context 'hare' was categorized into the 'ke' concept and in other contexts the 'kegare' into the 'ke' concept, and so on. In the paper, as the first step of a study on Japanese folk belief, the folk beliefs of three mura were analyzed and it was shown that the belief system differed between three mura. As the second step of that study, the author proposes to answer two questions on Japanese rites of passage. In defining Japanese rites of passage as the rites for an individual who is in his (or her) life-crises, the first question is : what sort of ritual meanings are associated with fact that the person concerned with a rite of passage has frequent contacts with his (or her) kin members and neighbors in giving and receiving food and in eating together ? The second question : concidering Japanese memorial services of the dead ('hoyo' or 'kuyo') as the rites of passage of the deceased, what sorts of ritual meanings lie behind the fact that the rites of passage for a living person (the rites from the person's childbirth to death) and the rites for the dead person (from his or her funeral ceremony to the final anniversary) are performed at the almost identical period ? According to Victor Turner's argument that rites of passage are a liminal period and the person concerned is a liminal person. And furthermore, according to Mary Douglas's hypothesis that a 'liminal' and 'ambiguous' being is a polluting one, the persons performing Japanese rites of passage are in a situation of 'kegare'. As a matter of fact, a newborn baby and the mother are regarded as polluted and polluting beings in Japanese folk custom and are often separated from other family members. The spirit who died recently is regarded as the most 'filthy' being and the 'filthiness' is gradually weakened by the process through which the spirit is given memorial services by his or her living offsprings. A newborn baby and the newly dead spirits are considered as liminal beings becaused they are not alive and not dead. They are considered so filthy that they pollute persons in close contact with them. The more filthy the persons are, the more frequently they receive rites. Other than a newborn baby and new dead spirits, the persons at the critical or unlucky ages ('yaku-doshi') are also considered as being polluted and polluting persons. In Japanese folk belief the persons involved in rites of passage are generally considered as being polluted or 'kegare' and tends to pollute close people and may contaminate the purity of the fire in the house.

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