Examines the caste, marriage patterns, ethnicity and religious institutions in the Tamil-speaking Hindu and Muslim communities situated along the eastern coastline of Sri Lanka, exploring the sources of their ethnic and political hostilities in the modern

"Crucible of Conflict" is an ethnographic and historical study of Hindu castes, matrilineal family structure, popular religious traditions, and ethnic conflict. It is also the first full-length ethnography of Sri Lanka's east coast, an area that suffered heavily in the 2004 tsunami and that is of vital significance to the political future of the island nation. Since the bitter guerrilla war for an independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka broke out in 1983, the easternmost region of the island has emerged as a strategic site of conflict. Dennis B. McGilvray argues that any long-term resolution...

The four papers collected here and published in 1982 are all concerned with caste ideology and caste interaction in different locales of South Asia.