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Abstract
This article discusses the two ends of the life-history process: the reasons for its undertaking and the research assumptions these engender, and the impact of the published account on readers. In doing so, I draw on my own experience in the research and writing of Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling woman (Gmelch, 1986/1991) and upon the responses of Traveller and non-Traveller readers to this life history. (Ethnographic research; life-history interviewing, editing, and narra-tive construction; literary criticism)

After discussing anthropology's concept of "culture", the author points out that in Asia as elsewhere in the contemporary world, an essentialist appeal to primordial roots and common cultural heritage serves to mobilise tremendous energies. He attempts a brief characterisation of Bali in cultural terms. (DÜI-Sen)

Attempts to elicit women's autobiographies among the Kwaio (Malaita, Solomon Islands) yielded little, seemingly confirming views that women's voices in tribal societies are "muted," women's views perspectival and partial. Further efforts yielded rich, insightful, self‐accounts from 15 Kwaio women. The historical, ethnographic, and sexual‐political contexts of these self‐accounts are examined. What women can and will say about themselves and their society can never, I conclude, be taken as direct evidence of what they know and don't know, or of "women's status."