This anthropological account of a Catholic community in East Africa reveals how Catholicism came to have widespread acceptance in Southern Tanzania and how this history currently affects practicing Catholics. Maia Green provides a descriptive account of those considering themselves Catholics in Eastern Africa in relationship to Western assumptions of "conversion." She thus encourages a new approach to the consequences of large-scale shifts in religious affiliation. The book also contains information about other ritual practices concerning kinship, aging and death.

This anthropological account of a Catholic community in East Africa reveals how Catholicism came to have widespread acceptance in Southern Tanzania and how this history currently affects practicing Catholics. Maia Green provides a descriptive account of those considering themselves Catholics in Eastern Africa in relationship to Western assumptions of "conversion." She thus encourages a new approach to the consequences of large-scale shifts in religious affiliation. The book also contains information about other ritual practices concerning kinship, aging and death.