Symbols

1
Symbols

• 23.10.2003

2
Readings

• Gossen, G. 1997. Temporal and Spatial Equivalents
  in Chamula Ritual Symbolism. (In Lessa and Vogt)
• Ortner, S. 1973. On Key Symbols. In American
  Anthropologist 75 1338-1346. (Reprinted in
  Lambek Lessa and Vogt)

3
Discussion topics

• On definitions and theory
• Leach
• Hallpike
• Douglas
• Turner

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Symbolization

• Firth
• Symbolization is a universal human process
• part of the living stuff of societal
  relationsihips.
• Cassirer (Essay on Man, 1944)
• language and symbolism as the essential
  characteristics of human culture
• symbolic representation
• central function of human consciousness
• basic to our understanding of all human life
  language, history, science, art, myth and
  religion
• Humans animal symbolicum
• Language most important kind of symbolization
• Rise of symbolic communication - human life was
  radically transformed.
• Not just a broader reality, but a new dimension
  of reality

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Symbols general (I)

• Cassirer
• sign vs symbol
• Belong to two different universes of discourse
• sign
• belongs to the physical world of being
• an operator
• Has an intrinsic or natural connection between
  the sign and the thing it signified
• symbol
• Artificial
• a designator
• belongs to the world of meaning.

6
Symbols general (II)

• Raymond Firth
• a distinction between four different signs
• index
• directly related to what is signified
• part to whole
• particular to general
• Eg. footprint of a lion
• signal
• the dynamic aspect of an index
• Eg. the voice of a lion
• icon
• a sign with a sensory-likeness relationship
• Eg. statue of a lion
• symbol
• a complex series of associations
• no direct relationship between the sign and the
  signified
• Eg. Lion as the symbol of bravery

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Symbolic anthropology (I)

• symbolic anthropology
• broad tendency in the anthropology of the late
  1960s and 1970s.
• the study of culture as a system of meaning
• More characteristic of American anthropology
• Three key figures
• Clifford Geertz
• Victor Turner
• David Schneider
• all at the University of Chicago around 1970
• Marshall Sahlins

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Symbolic anthropology (II)

• The founding texts
• Turner's Schism and Continuity in an African
  Society (1957)
• Schneider's American Kinship A Cultural Account
  (1968)
• Geertz's essays of the 1960s and 1970s
• collected in his Interpretation of Cultures
  (1973)
• Influence on British, Scandinavian, Dutch and
  French anthropology slightly later
• late 1970s
• British anthropology
• Leach
• Douglas

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Symbolic anthropology (III)

• influenced by Levi-Strauss's structuralism
• treating culture as analogous to language
• Two important differences from structuralism
• 1) resistance to scientistic methodology
• most clearly articulated in Geertz's post-1970
  writings.
• 2) emphasis on cultural particularism
• has deep roots in American anthropology
• symbolic structures culture-specific

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Symbolic anthropology (IV)

• Anthropologists role
• understanding via the decoding or interpretation
  of key symbols and rituals
• Firth
• attempt to understand the disjunction
• a gap between the overt superficial statement
  of action and its underlying meaning
• Tikopia
• A man rubbing a wooden pole with coconut oil and
  claiming it to be a body washed with power

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Theoretical approaches to symbolism (I)

• Four anthropological approachs to symbolism
  (Morris)
• 1) Structuralist approach
• Study of underlying formal structures or patterns
  within a symbol system.
• Leach and Lévi-Strauss
• 2) social-structuralist approach
• relates symbols to social categories
• Douglas
• 3) archetypal forms
• Jung symbols are of an unconscious nature
• Eliade - panhuman mythical paradigm
• 4) symbolism as a cognitive mechanism
• Dan Sperber
• 5) Interpretative approach ?

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Theoretical approaches to symbolism (II)

• Two current approaches in analyses of symbolism
  (Lessa Vogt)
• 1) processual symbology
• social-structuralist approach
• how symbols trigger social action
• the process by which symbols acquire public and
  private meanings
• 2) The study of symbolic classification
• structuralist approach

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Critique of symbolic anthropology

• Whose is the alleged meaning of the symbol?
• the ethnographer's?
• the informants?
• everybodys?
• Symbolic anthropology unable to deal with history
  
• symbolic systems - atemporal
• like structuralism

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Symbols certain features (I)

• Universal or culturally particular?
• Certain predominant themes
• predominance of right over left
• prominence of the colors red, white and black
• Common images
• Freud gt childhood experiences
• Jung gt archetypes
• Turner -gt bodily processes
• General view
• no universal meaning to any single motif
• symbols and what they signal are culturally
  constructed
• one cultures symbolic analogy is another
  cultures puzzle

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Archetypes

• Jung
• forms of images of a collective nature which
  occur practically all over the earth as
  constituents of myths and ideas and at the same
  time as autochtonous, individual products of
  unconscious origin Even complicated archetypal
  images can be spontaneously reproduced without
  any possible direct tradition.
• eg. Cross

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Symbols certain features (II)

• Turner
• Religious vs scientific symbols
• Religious symbols are multivocal
• can encompass many referents
• Mudyi tree among the Ndembu
• Some symbols more crucial
• Ortner key symbols
• Schneider core symbols
• Turner dominant symbols

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Symbols certain features (III)

• Ortner
• two ways how to determine a key symbol
• 1) analyzing the social system for its underlying
  elements, values, etc. and finding in the culture
  a figure or an image
• Schneider conjugal sexual intercourse (US)
• Benedict Chrysanthemum and Sword (Japan)
• 2) Looking for the key symbol in the society and
  interpreting its meaning
• the natives talk about it a lot
• the natives are not indifferent to it
• it comes up in many contexts
• greater cultural elaboration surrounding it
• greater cultural restrictions related with it

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Symbols certain features (IV)

• Ortner
• Summarizing vs elaborating symbols
• summarizing symbols
• sum up, express, and represent what the system
  means
• flag, cross, Harley Davidson
• Elaborating symbols
• concepts to think with
• sort out complex and undifferentiated feelings
  and ideas
• create order
• root metaphors
• cow among the Dinka
• living organisms in general
• Machines
• wheel
• key scenarios
• Horatio Alger myth

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Leach (I)

• structural analysis of symbolic systems
• Culture and Communication (1976)
• culture as a system of communication
• the task of the anthropologist - to decode the
  messages embedded in the symbolism
• study the semantics of cultural forms.
• sign vs symbol
• Sign
• expresses a relationship that is intrinsic /
  metonymic
• Symbol
• the relationship is metaphorical
• symbols cannot be understood in isolation
• there is no universal symbolism
• symbols are always potentially polysemic

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Leach (II)

• Magical Hair (1958)
• Response to Bergs The Unconscious Significance
  of Hair (1951)
• cutting of hair as a symbolic form of castration
• genitals unconsciously associated with hair.
• Leach - concordance between ritual symbolism and
  social structure
• related to ideal social categories
• long hair unrestrained sexuality
• short hair restricted sexuality
• close shaven hair celibacy
• this pattern is related to social status
• Burmese hill tribes
• unmarried girls - short hair
• married women long hair
• important role of hair rituals in rites of
  passage

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Hallpike

• Social Hair (1969)
• Critique of Leach
• hair in case of both sexes
• cutting hair in case of both sexes
• cutting of beard rituals rare
• Cutting hair
• Does not symbolize castration but social control
• long hair being outside society
• ascetics, hippies, women
• cutting hair - reentering society, living under a
  strict code of rules.
• monks, school children, soldiers, neophytes
• examples from the bible
• hairiness asceticism, spiritual power (Elijah,
  John the Baptist)
• growing long hair separation from society to
  God (Nazarites)
• shaving hair rejoining society (when Nazarite
  lepers are cured)
• covering hair discipline (womens acceptance of
  husbands authority)

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Douglas (I)

• Purity and Danger (1966)
• Structuralist approach
• On classification
• Natural symbols (1970)
• Critical of Lévi-Strauss and structuralism
• Provides techniques for the analysis of symbolism
• only indicates to underlying universal structures
  
• tells us little about cultural variations
• concordance between symbolic patterns and social
  experiences
• no universal patterns of symbols.
• quest for natural symbols is unrewarding.
• Rather explains variations in cosmological ideas

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Douglas (II)

• Christianity
• individualistic and non-ritualist
• Religious behaviour
• gt an expression of a specific type of social
  structure.
• two scales of social control - grid and group
  
• Grid
• order, classification, the symbolic system
• the degree to which a cultures symbolic system
  is ordered and codified (to constitute a coherent
  world-view)
• Group
• the degree to which the individual is controlled
  by social relationships

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Douglas (III)

• relating specific cosmological ideas with varying
  types of social constraints.
• Eg. weak grid and weak group
• a lack of public classification social
  groupings are fluid and flexible
• few social constrains on the individual
• gt benign and unritualistic cosmology
• Eg. Strong grid and strong group.
• strong social controls over the individual
• cosmology tends to be regulative
• routinized piety toward authority and its symbols

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Douglas (IV)

• gt two forms of religion
• Religion of control
• Religion of escstasy
• spirit-possession cults, Pentecostalist sects and
  millenarian movements
• a reflection of social situations that are in a
  sense anomic or unstructured. Douglas argues that
  
• against conventional theories of religions of
  ecstasy
• seek to understand such phenomena in terms of
  deprivation and oppression
• eg. Navajo Peyote cult - result of the breakdown
  of the community and atomism of personal life

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Douglas (V)

• Bodily symbolism and cosmological patterns are a
  reflection of social structure.
• Mbuti vs Hadza
• Mbuti - no conception of pollution
• Hadza men - fear contact with menstrual blood
• the contrast is reflected in the two cultures
  social organization
• Mbuti - a very fluid social life, in terms of
  both social categories and groups,
• Hadza - a strongly marked sexual division.
• gt concordance between the symbolism, expressed
  as pollution belief, and the social structure

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Turner (I)

• Schism and Continuity in an African Society
  (1957)
• On the Ndembu of Zambia
• how political stability is maintained without a
  strong centre of authority.
• The Forest of Symbols Aspects of Ndembu Ritual
  (1967)
• Drums of Affliction A Study of Religious
  Processes among the Ndembu of Zambia (1968)
• Central role of rituals in conflict resolution
• two types of rituals
• life-crisis rituals
• mukanda, or boys circumcision rite,
• the nkanga or girls puberty ritual.
• Rituals of affliction
• associated with various misfortunes
• Hunting, reproductive and curative rites

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Turner (II)

• analysis ritual symbolism
• general definition of symbol
• as naturally typifying or representing something
  else
• Elsewhere
• symbol as a storage unit, the basic unit or
  molecule of ritual behavior
• various characteristics of ritual symbols

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Turner (III)

• 1) The property of condensation
• distinction between two classes of symbols
  (following Edward Sapir)
• referential symbols
• ordinary speech and writing
• flags
• signals
• condensation symbols
• condensed forms of substitutive behaviour
• allowing for the ready release of emotional
  tension
• emotional quality of this class of symbols
• their condensation of many meanings in a single
  form
• gt symbols are multivocal and may stand or many
  things

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Turner (IV)

• 2) polarization of meaning
• Sensory pole of meaning
• referents of a natural or physiological
  character,
• arouse desires or feelings
• ideological, or normative, pole of meaning.
• referents that refer to principles of social
  organization,
• to the norms and values inherent in the social
  structure
• anthropological studies mainly focus on this pole

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Turner (V)

• 3) three levels of meaning
• exegetical meaning
• the level of indigenous interpretation (either
  layman or ritual specialist)
• Anthropological mainly focus on this
• operational meaning
• how the symbol is utilized within the ritual
  context
• positional meaning
• determined by its relationship with other symbols

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Turner (VI)

• various detailed analyses of Ndembu rituals and
  ritual symbols
• Eg. analysis of the nkanga, the girls puberty
  ceremony
• performed when the young girls breasts begin to
  develop
• the initiate is wrapped in a blanket
• placed at the foot of a mudyi tree which exudes
  white latex
• The mudyi tree dominant symbol, symbolizing
• human milk
• the social tie between mother and child
• matrilineal kinship
• the unity and continuity of Ndembu society
• women as a group
• the novice
• life and learning
• gt multiplicity of meanings
• gt expresses both social and organic phenomena

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Turner (VII)

• Colour symbolism
• Turner
• at the apex of the total symbolic system of the
  Ndembu is the colour triad, white-red-black
• the only colors for which the Ndembu have primary
  terms
• Other colors derivative or consist of a
  metaphorical phrase
• Features of Ndmebu color symbolism
• white as dominant and unitary, red as ambivalent,
  and black as silent partner
• Each has certain basic meanings
• White - health, life, prosperity, purity,
  authority
• Black - badness and evil, misfortune, disease,
  witchcraft and sorcery, sexual passion, darkness
• Red - power, strength, menstrual blood murder,
  hunting

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Turner (VIII)

• cross-cultural analysis of color classification
• black, red and white have frequent ritual
  significance
• wide agreement about their symbolic connotations
• Eg. the Upanishads and other hindu texts.
• The four varnas (a term that mean color)
• each associated with a color and with parts of
  the body
• Brahman White Head
• Kshatriya Red Arms
• Vaisya Yellow Belly
• Sudra Black - Feet
• gt this color schema based on psychobiological
  experiences
• the emissions of the human body
• milk, blood and excreta
• kind of primordial classification of reality
• provides the basis of other classifications