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CHOICE Review

Originally published in 1950, Hansen's work in this new edition provides a valuable scholarly source for current research in material culture. Because Hansen applied her training as a tailor's cutter in Paris to analyzing costume, the work contains precise descriptions and sketches of costume cuts, materials, fabrication, and adornment. It focuses on the collection of 400 Mongol costumes acquired by Henning Haslund-Christensen during two expeditions (1936-37, 1938-39) to Central Asia, now preserved in Denmark's National Museum and the Mus'ee de l'Homme in Paris. Hansen's catalog study covers body garments, hats, and footwear. Most interesting are the intricate shaman costumes (worn by males and females) consisting of trousers, caftan, shield-shaped breast-cover, skin boots, and elaborate headdress. One example from Barga, Zabaikal District, representing the deer, has an enormous iron headpiece with "branched horns" and hanging fabric panels. The caftan is adorned with metallic bells, plates, anthropomorphic figures, and long chains, all of which are said to represent bones of the animal's skeleton. Hansen clearly demonstrates through analysis of cut, construction, and adornment that Mongolian costume has Chinese and Indian (via Tibet) influences, but she provides little functional or symbolic interpretation. Advanced undergraduates and above. B. B. Chico; Regis University (CO)