Replies should go directly to Paul Barclay, perhaps with copies to the
ATHG  and H-World listservs.

>Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 20:02:01 -0400
>From: whitney howarth <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Feasting, Drinking, Negotiating
>Sender: H-NET List for World History <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-to: H-NET List for World History <[log in to unmask]>
>Original-recipient: rfc822;[log in to unmask]
>
>Date: May 31, 2001
>From: Paul Barclay
>         Lafayette College
>         [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Dear H-World community,
>
>I am looking for scholarly literature which addresses the use of alcohol
>and feasting ceremonies in diplomacy and trade--I am particularly
>interested in colonial situations and/or instances where local economies
>are being linked to the global system.
>
>The example I am researching is the Taiwanese frontier in the
>late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a place where Japanese
>merchants, travelers, ethnographers, and officials made some efforts to
>learn, or at least participate in, prescribed rituals for drinking
>alcohol, feasting, and dancing in order to successfully negotiate with
>different local peoples (today known as Taiwan Aborigines).  For a time,
>these feasts became a focal point of Japanese colonial policy, as a way
>to bring together local leaders to (from Japan's perspective)
>communicate orders or (from a local perspective) reaffirm an alliance.
>
>I know there was also a policy by U.S. officials in northern Luzon
>ca.1900 to organize large feasts to 'pacify' or 'organize' small-scale
>polities on the Cordillera. These 'canaos' included the distribution of
>alcohol as well.
>
>There are some interesting examples and some theorization about the
>function, meaning, and significance of feasting, ceremony, and alcohol
>in colonial travel in:
>
>Johannes Fabian, _Out of our Minds:  Reason and Madness in the
>Exploration of Central Africa_, U.Cal. Press, 2000.
>
>Any other suggestions?  Thanks in advance.