Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power.
Edited by Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden

2001
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN 1560988401, 432 pages

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Book Description From the Back Cover

"From the ancient Near East to modern-day North America, communal consumption of food and drink punctuates the rhythms of human societies. Feasts serve many social purposes, establishing alliances for war and marriage, mobilizing labor, creating political power and economic advantages, and redistributing wealth.

"This collection of fifteen essays combines ethnographic and archaeological perspectives to examine the cultural, economic, and political importance of feasts..." Read More

Table of Contents

1. Digesting the Feast--Good to Eat, Good to Drink, Good to Think: An Introduction (Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden)

Part 1: Ethnographic Perspectives

2. Fabulous Feasts: A Prolegomenon to the Importance of Feasting (Brian Hayden)

3. Theorizing the Feast: Rituals of Consumption, Commensal Politics, and Power in African Contexts (Michael Dietler)

4. Of Feasting and Value: Enga Feasts in a Historical Perspective (Papua New Guinea) (Polly Wiessner)

5. Akha Feasting: An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective (Micheal J. Clarke)

6. Polynesian Feasting in Ethnohistoric, Ethnographic, and Archaeological Contexts: A Comparison of Three Societies (Patrick V. Kirch)

7. Feasting for Prosperity: A Study of Southern Northwest Coast Feasting (James R. Perodie)

8. The Big Drink: Feast and Forum in the Upper Amazon (Warren R. DeBoer)

9. Feasts and Labor Mobilization: Dissecting a Fundamental Economic Practice (Michael Dietler and Ingrid Herbich)

Part 2: Archaeological Perspectives

10. The Evolution of Ritual Feasting Systems in Prehispanic Philippine Chiefdoms (Laura Lee Junker)

11. Feasting and the Emergence of Platform Mound Ceremonialism in Eastern North America (Vernon James Knight)

12. A Case of Ritual Feasting at the Cahokia Site (Lucretia S. Kelly)

13. Feasting on the Periphery: The Production of Ritual Feasting and Village Festivals at the Ceren Site, El Salvador (Linda A. Brown)

14. Feasting in the Ancient Near East (Denise Schmandt-Besserat)

15. Garbage and the Modern American Feast (Douglas C. Wilson and William L. Rathje)