diucrtation (Haward 1964) w~" T h e C h a t DMCC &&onin S a h t c h m a n . Canada," for which she did field m a r c h among the PI& C m and Dakota in that province. The Northem P l a h hsl bem her area of primary raeuch. both ethnographic (Cm, Dakota, Blackfoot. Saulteau) and archaeological (Francoh' H o w . a contact-period fur trade p t ; the M m e Mountain "medicine wheel"; biaon driva); much of her fieldwork h a been in collaboration with her huband, Th~mpl F. Kehoe. Her She served on the board of governon of the latter.Her primary profaional activity WM in an editorial businem that #he cstabluhed and ran, in which she called henelf a wordsmith. She w e d academic. buineu, and p v e mmmt profemiondo in editing and pobhing manusctipu of variolu types. She was a h actin in conununity &ah, plnicularly the women's mowmmt. In all this time. ihe continued a red interat in anthropology, especially in the are-of European anthropology; the V i n l p and the mgsl; and the role of the nonpemn in diffrrent laietics.Dody Ginti died on 6 Febmary 1981 of cancer.Copyright @ 1981 by the American Anthropological Association THE PREPONDERANCE OF WOMEN in possession cults may be causally associated with sumptuary rules and economic patterns that limit women's access to adequately balanced nutrition, particularly the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women. This proposal is based on two hypotheses: (1) if individuals' intake of vitamins and minerals necessary for normal metabolism is insufficient over a prolonged period, then they will develop symptoms of deficiency; and (2) if deficiency symptoms are endemic in a class of a population, then these symptoms will be culturally recognized and labeled. One label, we suggest, for nutritional deficiency symptoms common in women in many societies of Eurasia, Africa, and their transoceanic colonies is "spirit possession." Two kinds of explanations dominate the anthropological literature on spirit possession: one is psychiatrically oriented, claiming that such a condition is evidence of psychological disturbance; the other is quasi-political, claiming that such conditions are really roles performed by overtly powerless people to gain otherwise unobtainable goods or attention. This literature assumes that low status-that of women and that of lower-class men in relation to upper-class male controllers of power and wealth-in itself engenders frustrations that actuate such states of dissociation among low-status individuals. These explanations propose that personating a spirit relieves such frustrations. Cynical anthropologists further allege relief is achieved by constraining those in power to gratify the wishes of the deprived. Both explanations are handicapped by dependence upon inferences about unconscious processes or about unacknowledged deception.Our suggested explanation for women's preponderance in spirit possession groups derives from demonstrable relationships between diet and behavior. There is a strong correlation between populations subsisting upon diets poor in calc...