Remains of ritual: northern gods in a southern land – By Steven M. Friedson

I read this book three times before writing this review. The first time through was frustrating: the organization of information seemed jumbled up and the writing style needlessly arty. Rather than review it then, I let the book "lie fallow" on the shelf for a few months. On second reading, the book's design drew me in and I came to appreciate its many well-written, evocative passages, as well as its strongly argued ideas and conclusions. Rather than aggravating me with an authorial persona as ethnographer-hero, Steve Friedson's adventures in Ghana held my attention. I enjoyed meeting the text's cast of characters and was able to project myself into the intense world of spirit possession in the Ewe Brekete shrines that the book successfully conjures. I appreciated the opportunity to learn a great deal about Ewe culture and I empathized with the author's control over the pace at which information was disclosed. Frankly, two readings were insufficient for fully digesting the text's data and argument, so I started to re-read it immediately after finishing the nostalgic final passage. As a reader I was not ready to leave the two worlds that the text successfully conjures: the world of the author, as well as the world of the practitioners of the Brekete shrine system.