The Great Chain Of Humanity

'It was nighttime in Kerala," writes Eliot Stein, "and everything was black."

- Eliot Stein

The palm trees bent along the Pamba River, their fronds welcoming him to a dizzy, endless horizon. "I followed the wafting trail of smoke through a mangrove forest and into the jungle," on the southwestern coast of India, "to look for a woman known as 'The Secret Lady Keeper""-and we follow, too, entranced by Mr. Stein's quest and by his refined, poetic prose. In this and other similar pursuits, he means to find the lost labors of humankind, age-old practices hovering at the edge of extinction, and the few remaining people keeping these traditions alive. It is for these people that Mr. Stein has named his book "Custodians of Wonder."