On the Spanish‐Moroccan Frontier: A Study in Ritual, Power and Ethnicity. HENK DRIESSEN

versies surrounding bullfighting and its ”place” in Spain. In h is introduction, Mitchell contradicts his earlier (1 988) insistence that those who knew and could tell us about the essence and meaning of bu llfights were the bullfighters, aficionados, and critics. In Blood Sport he claims these people ”have taken bullfight- ing out of context in judgmental or passionate or fetishistic or aesthetic ways” (p. 10). He proposes to ”start all over again, from a new perspectiveq (p. 1 0), to understand bullfighting holistically, ”in the con- text of Spanish society and history and politicsq (p. 10). Although Mitchell has left out the context of culture, this is an anthropological step fom/ard. Similarly, whereas in his earlier work Mitchell criti- cized those who mistook metaphor for essence, in Blood Sport he says he is ”prepared to assert that bullfighting has been nothing less than a microcosm of the Spanish social order,” replicating ”almost every feature of the Spanish political system” (p. 132). Mitchell&#39;s agenda is obviously quite ambitious. But he says he wants to ”approach bullfighting in the same way a bullfighter approaches a bull’’ (p. 11), with nerve, tenacity, and finesse. This he does. He dares; he takes intellectual risks. At times he is unabashedly arrogant. I certainly do not agree with all he says, but I admire his style, respect his schol- arship and use of the literature, and am awed by his prolificacy. Mitchell begins his book with a hair-raising tour of festal Spain, contextualizing the bullfight and bull-baiting with the many other categories of vic- tims of a symbolic or inanimate nature that are used in fiestas throughout the annual calendar. He then enters the ”uncertain but fascinating terrain of speculation” (p. 36), suggesting that the origin of modern bullfighting, following Alvarez de Miranda, was in the medieval nuptial bull. Having ”con- firmed” (p. 49) bu|lfighting’s roots in archaic super- stitions, the author then traces the rise of the modern spectacle, which he sees as inexorably linked to the 18th-century urban phenomenon of Spanish ma- jismo. Basically, if the young, cocky, and delinquent majos had not been fighting bulls, they would have been fighting each other (Wt 67, 81). Mitchell then tackles the social history of the Spanish bull and bullfighter. Summarizing Spanish works, he proposes that although Spanish nobles stopped patronizing the bullfight in the 18th cen- tury, they continued controlling the spectacle by breeding the bulls on their ranches, mimicking their own marriage and breeding patterns. Mitchell then discusses the pathology of the bullfighter himself and the reasons anyone in his right mind would do such a thing, citing studies about the bullfighters’ masochistic tendencies (guided by verguenza torera) or the envious spirit of self-affirmation elic- ited by rivals. This section is full of very readable, almost gossipy, descriptions of famous toreros’ lives and psychologies. The book&#39;s pivotal chapter is devoted to showing how the rise of modern bullfighting is connected to ”Spain’s social and political backwardness” (p. 12). For Mitchell, the bullfight mirrors the uses and abuses of power in 19th- and 20th-century Spain. He writes on corruption, fraud, and internal patron- age in the bullfight, the matador as padrino, the matador as demagogue, and the distorted notions of power, authority, and democracy reinforced through public behavior at bullrings (p. 132). Seemingly tacked on to the book&#39;s end is a chapter in which Mitchell comes to terms with the psy- chosexual aspects of the bullfight (again), insisting that despite many other analyses to the contrary, the bullfight is not ”about sex” (p. 156). Perhaps, he suggests, it is about maleness, but not sex. What is titillating about the spectacle (he refuses to call it a ritual) is the ”structural link between violence and eroticism” (p. 168) and the ”intoxicating and addic- tive nature of voyeurism” (p. 168). The book con- cludes with an essay and taurine bibliography by Rosario Cambria. Mitchell is clearly on top of the Anglo and Spanish taurine literatu re and often makes superb summaries and analyses of the many intellectual debates that have dealt with this topic for the last 200 years. Owing to this competence, perhaps, Mitchell has an excessive tendency to want to support all he says with citations and footnotes (90 in one chapter). His reliance on literature rather than fieldwork is another anthropological flaw, especially in some cases where the literatu re is mistaken (some of his descrip- tions of fiestas differ from my observations, that is, Baena [p. 15] and Denia [p. 19]). Furthermore, not only does he assume the existence of something ”Spanish” since the Middle Ages, he also assumes that fiestas are ”time|ess” (p. 24) and ”have remained more or less the same for centuries” (p. 1 8), claiming that ”Spain” has not been overly contaminated by ”modern” concepts of time, rationality, and deco- rum (p. 46). This idea should be clarified. Finally, although Mitchell criticizes intellectuals who do not have a ”healthy tolerance of ambiguityq (p. 158), V Mitchell&#39;s often overly aggressive attacks on taurine ‘ commentators imply that he himself is uncomfort- able with the bul|fight’s multivocality. ‘ On the Spanish-Moroccan Frontier: A Study in Ritual, Power and Ethnicity. HENK DRIESSEN. A Explorations in Anthropology Series. BAR-- BARA BENDER, JOHN GLEDHILL, and BRUCE KAPFERER, series eds. New York and Oxford: Berg (distributed In the United states and can- ada by st. Martin&#39;s Press), 1992. x + 238 pp., &#39; maps, photographs, tables, glossary, notes, references, Index. KAREN LEONARD University of California, Irvine As Driessen tells us in his preface, this book is neither a monograph nor a study with a sharply demarcated problem and argument; it is a set of reflections on life in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco with important Christian, Muslim, Jewish, ’ and Hindu communities. He uses both written ahd oral sources, along with participant observation, to show the development of Melilla as a trading port, then a colonial base, and finally a multiethnic en- clave rather ambivalently positioned vis-a-vis Spain and Morocco. reviews 1115