Introduction PART I Intercultural communication and the anthropologist 1 Communicational distortion and the constitution of society: indirection as a form of life 2 On the ontological status of honour 3 Not talking about sex in India: indirection and the communication of bodily intention 4 Talk, silence and the material world: patterns of indirect communication among agricultural families in northern England PART II Indirection beyond language 5 Eating your words: communicating with food in the Ecuadorian Andes 6 Sunglasses, suitcases and other symbols: intentionality, creativity and indirect communication in festive and everyday performances 7 Trust, privacy, deceit and the quality of interpersonal relationships: `peasant´ society revisited 8 The temple and the theme park: intention and indirection in religious tourist art PART III Bodily possibilities 9 Dance, dissimulation and identity in Indonesia 10 Don´t talk – blend: ideas about body and communication in aikido practise PART IV Intricacies of language explained 11 Licence revoked: when calypso goes too far 12 Indirect speech: heteroglossia, politeness and rudeness in Irula forest festivals 13 Straight talk, hidden talk and modernity: shifts in discourse strategy in Highland New Guinea 14 Unwrapping rudeness: inverted etiquette in an egalitarian enclave PART V English – with diplomacy 15 Ambiguity and verbal disguise within diplomatic culture 16 Delay and deception in Thai–British diplomatic encounters of the early nineteenth century 17 Diplomacy and indirection, constraint and authority