Rainbow in the Rock
Subtitle: The People of Rural Greece
By: Irwin Taylor Sanders
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1962
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 363
Subjects: Greece -- Rural conditions.
First sentence: The Legend -- When God was building the earth, he lavished all goods such as water, pasture, forests, and rich soil on the countries of the world. Then suddenly he remembered that he had forgotten Greece. What could he give to this country since he had given all the riches to the others? He started stroking his beard thoughtfully. All at once an idea struck him when he saw the rainbow hanging over his head. Reaching up, he chopped a piece off, stooped and picked up a little soil and many stones, and kneaded the whole thing together in the palm of his hand. Then, opening his palm, he blew the mixture into the sea, and Greece came into being. [1]

In its symbolic meaning, the rainbow of the legend is the Greek people who are as colorful at the sun-drenched rocks on which their nation grew to greatness. 

The fact that the Athenian civilization with its poets, philosophers, dramatists, and sculptors had its origin in a city of less than two hundred thousand people on the rocky Attic plain has been a source of wonder to all who know anything of ancient Greece. But today, there is also a miracle of Greece at which to wonder.
Notes: --MAPS--   
 The Regions of Greece - 13; 
 Northern Greece and Thessaly - 21; 
 Average Annual Precipitation - 24: 
 Central Greece and Peloponnesos - 30.     

--TABLES--   
 1. Business and services in eight Greek villages - 39; 
 2. Causes of death in Greece, 1950, by number and rate - 49; 
 3. Sources of caloric intake, Greece and the United States - 142; 
 4. Age of marriage, ten Greek villages, 1951 - 159; 
 5. Curriculum for six-year grammar school, with hours allotted per subject - 251; 
 6. Curriculum for boys' high school, with hours allotted per subject - 252.      

--ILLUSTRATIONS--    
(Photographs by the author, following page 272.)
 1. The Acropolis, its profile held unobstructed by city ordinance, shades the Athenian in legacy from the Golden Age.  
 2. Kyparissia (Cypress Village) of Peloponnesos, amid its pattern of mountain, and field, and cypress trees that hide a cemetery.  
 3. The square of Metsovo, Epirus, village of the shepherd Koutso-Vlachs; the children quieted while a vivid funeral procession passed along this road.  
 4. The village of Valtetsi, near Tripolis, Peloponnesos, is abandoned for half the year as the shepherds follow pasturage. The walls remain broken, testimony of wartime guerrilla raiders.  
 5. A Peloponnesian home, walled from the road, hugs a rock slope near Megalopolis.  
 6. Plowing and olive grove near Lechonia, Thessaly. The olive harvest will draw a crowd of young people to the groce to rake or beat or gather as their foreman orders.  
 7. A wheat combine traces the plain of Thessaly, below Mount Parnassus.  
 8. On the tenth day after transplanting, Macedonia; his hoe is said to be short-handled so that he can watch the fragile tobacco leaves as he moves.  
 9. Our hosts in a Peloponnesian village; Xxenos is the password for stranger and guest. Their hospitality was radiant; their posing was a serious project.  
 10. Mr Papaspyropoulos and his wife. He wrote the account of Ano-Kleitoria, Peloponnesos.  
 11. At the oven for Sunday afternoon lamb and rice, Attica.  
 12. A widow at the look, Salamis. For two years there must be no levity in her presence.  
 13. Lunchtime in Thessaly in a day of spring plowing.  
 14. A girl at work at the kneading trough in the village of Malakassas, Central Greece.  
 15. The schoolmaster and his pupils by their century-old school, Kyparissia, Peloponnesos. Originally the school was privately endowed.  
 16. A school building under construction in Malakassa village, new promise for two dozen children. The Save the Children Federation provides the materials; Malakassa, the labor.  
 17. A monk on the ageless journey to Salamis with casks from his monastery to be filled or to sell.  
 18. Godparents hold the child before the priest for a controlled moment in the exuberance of a baptism, Macedonia.  
 19. Porto Raphti, Attica, at the close of day.
Table of contents: title: PART ONE: SURVIVAL; label: I.
title: The People of Greece
pagenum: 3; title: The Legend; title: The City Greek; title: The Island and Seafaring Greeks; title: The Greek Villager; label: II.
title: Mountains, Plains, and the Sea
pagenum: 12; title: The Regions of Greece; title: Attitudes and Beliefs about Nature; title: The Montains; title: The Plains; title: Mountains versus Plains; title: The Sea; label: III.
title: The Village Setting
pagenum: 36; title: The Plateia; title: Location; title: The Importance of Roads; title: Village Hygiene; title: The Village House; title: PART TWO: LAND; label: IV.
title: Land as a Birthright
pagenum: 59; title: A Handful of Earth; title: The Cycle of Land Ownership (Attica); title: Land Reform (Thessaly); title: Pressure on the Land; title: Land Use in Greece; label: V.
title: The Peasant at Work
pagenum: 75; title: The Cycle of the Seasons in the Peloponnesos; title: Yannes Needs a Horse; Alekos Buys a Tractor; title: The Harvesters of Chalkidike (Macedonia); title: Tobacco Growing in Thrace; title: Harvesting Olive in Southern Greece; label: VI.
title: The Changing Life of the Shepherd
pagenum: 97; title: Transhumance in the Peloponnesos; title: The "Nomads" of Epirus; title: The Disappearing Tselingata; title: Stress and Strain; title: PART THREE: FAMILY
pagenum: 127; label: VII.
title: Woman's Work Is Never Done; title: Getting Along with the Lord and Master; title: The Wife and Her In-Laws; title: Childbirth and Child Care; title: Food and Clothing; title: Farm Tasks; title: Keeping the Family Well; label: VIII.
title: Courship and Marriage
pagenum: 156; title: Selecting a Mate; title: The Dowry; title: The Engagement; title: Marriage; label: IX.
title: Ceremonies and Holy Days
pagenum: 176; title: A Village Baptism; title: The Annual Village Festival; title: Religious Holiday and Namedays; title: PART FOUR: COMMUNITY; label: X.
title: Mutual Aid and Cooperatives in Rural Greece
pagenum: 191; title: A Potato-digging Group near Thebes; title: Traditional Patterns of Mutual Aid; title: The Agricultural Cooperative Movement in Greece; title: How the Villagers View Cooperatives; label: XI.
title: The Village Coffeehouse
pagenum: 205; title: Coffeehouse Types; title: Coffeehouse Attractions; title: The Coffeehouse Clientele; title: The Coffeehouse as a Mixed Blessing; label: XII.
title: Local Government
pagenum: 218; title: Greek Traditions of Local Government; title: The Community Council; title: The Village and the Central Government; title: The Peasant and Politics; label: XIII.
title: The Village School
pagenum: 241; title: What Will Happen to Us if We Can't Read?; title: Local Support for the School; title: The Village Teacher; title: The School Curriculum; title: Language: Popular or Pure; label: XIV.
title: Religion and the Greek Peasant
pagenum: 258; title: Orthodoxy and Greekness; title: The Village Priest and His Parish; title: The Bishop of Messenia and His Good Works; title: The Peasant Confronts Death; label: XV.
title: The Village Community
pagenum: 275; title: The Village Notables; title: Social Class in the Village; title: Village Organizations; title: The Sense of Community; title: PART FIVE: CHANGE; label: XVI.
title: Social Change in Rural Greece
pagenum: 291; title: Cataclysmic Change; title: Sociocultural Drift; title: Planned Change; label: XVII.
title: Social Consequences of Foreign Aid
pagenum: 305; title: Foreign Aid Means Social Change; title: Social Dimensions of Aid; title: Epilogue
pagenum: 324; title: Bibliography
pagenum: 329; title: Notes
pagenum: 335; title: Index
pagenum: 357