Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in the Australian desert, Dussart (anthropology and women's studies, U. of Connecticut) looks at rituals and their function, and particularly the role of women, among the Warlpiri people of the Yuendumu settlement. She shows how female ritual leaders, whose authority depends on complex networks of relatives of both sexes, sustain the Warlpiri cosmology and also exercise power over material issues such as mining disputes, land reclamation, and the production of paintings. Contending that kinship may override gender in the shaping of ritual, Dussart argues against a reductive notion of pan-Aboriginality and also explores the pre- eminence of kin and gender relations in the construction of social identity. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR