Polish Customs, Traditions, & Folklore is organized by months beginning with December and Advent, St. Nicholas Day, the Wigilia (Christmas Eve) nativity plays, caroling and then New Year celebrations. It proceeds from the Shrovetide period to Ash Wednesday, Lent, the celebration of spring, Holy Week customs then superstitions, beliefs and rituals associated with farming, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, midsummer celebrations, harvest festivities, wedding rites, nameday celebrations, birth and death rituals. Line illustrations enhance this rich and varied treasury of folklore. Many of the customs and traditions found herein are extinct even in today's Poland. World wars, massive immigration, the loss of the oral tradition, urbanization and politics have changed the face of a once agrarian people and their accompanying life style. In the U.S., the desire for membership within the "melting pot", marriages outside one's ethnic group, movement to the suburbs away from the "old" communities where customs and traditions were …

Gift-giving is extremely important in Japanese society, not only at the personal and household levels, but at the national and macroeconomic levels as well. This book is the first in English to document the extraordinary scale, complexity, and variation of giving in contemporary Japan.

"For one whole winter we were cut off from the world and immured among the Greenlanders. I dwelt in their huts, took part in their hunting, and tried, as well as I could, to live their life and learn their language. ..."- Dr. Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930)