Ritual

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Ritual

• 13.11.2003

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Readings

• Leach, E. R. 1966. Ritualisation in Man in
  Relation to Conceptual and Social Development. In
  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
  of London, 251 403-408. (Reprinted in Lessa and
  Vogt).
• Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process Structure
  and Anti-Structure. Chicago Aldine Publishing,
  pp. 94-113, 125-30. (Reprinted as Liminality and
  Communitas in Lambek).

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Discussion topics

• Definitions of ritual
• Types of ritual
• Anthropological approaches to ritual
• Van Gennep
• Gluckman
• Turner
• Death and body in ritual

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Definitions of ritual

• Durkheim (Elementary Forms of Religious Life)
• Rites are rules of conduct which prescribe how a
  man should comport himself in the presence of
  sacred objects.
• Marrett (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• Ritual is a term of religion defined as the
  routine of worship. Ritual is to religion what
  habit is to life.
• Turner (Drums of Affliction)
• Prescribed formal behaviour for occasions not
  given over to technological routine, having
  reference to beliefs in mystical beings or
  powers.
• Firth (Elements of Social Organization)
• Ritual may be defined as a kind of patterned
  activity oriented towards the control of human
  affairs, primarily symbolic in character with a
  non-empirical referent, and a rule socially
  sanctioned.

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Characteristics of ritual

• So ritual is
• generally related to religion
• always associated with action
• always associated with formality
• Involves forms of action
• different from everyday life
• or with different purposes
• Eg. ingesting bread during holy communion
• difference relates to the meaning attached to the
  ritual act
• use of symbols
• ritual has a communicative role
• Debates upon the term and approaches
• C. Bell (1992) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice
• C. Humphrey, J. Laidlaw (1994) Archetypal
  Actions of Ritual
• Separate criteria recognized by actor and
  observer

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Types of ritual I

• La Fontaine
• Calendrical rites
• concerned with the natural world
• should guarantee success and wealth
• Rites of transition
• concerned with the social world
• changes in the individuals status, role or
  position
• life-crisis rituals
• concerned with age and transition from one age
  group to another
• initiation rituals
• performed when becoming a member of a particular
  group

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Types of ritual II

• Titiev
• calendrical rites
• ritual is regular (eg. Cargo rituals)
• critical rites
• ritual is occasional (Curing and magic)
• van Gennep
• rites of passage
• rites of separation
• rites of transition
• rites of incorporation

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Anthropological approaches to ritual

• Two main approaches to the function of rituals
• Functionalist approach
• supports social structure
• bolsters prevailing social order
• Mertons latent function
• Marxist approach
• legitimizes social authority
• conceals prevailing social order
• Other approaches
• Psychoanalytical
• Structuralist
• Practice-centered

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Functionalist approach to ritual

• British functionalist anthropology of the 1950s
  and 60s
• Emphasis on integrative function of ritual
• Influence of Durkheim
• Function of ritual
• to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to
  god
• God - a figurative expression of society itself
• gt ritual serves to attach the individual to
  society
• ritual is a direct representation of society to
  itself
• gt studying ritual tells us important things
  about society
• Gluckman, Turner

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Marxist approach to ritual

• Maurice Bloch
• From Blessing to Violence (1989)
• Ritual
• a form of ideology
• provides an alternative to everyday life
• highly formalized
• gtrestricts debate and contestation
• Prey into Hunter (1992)
• ritual
• demonstrates the power of the transcendental over
  the everyday
• transcendental
• often takes the form of a sacred king

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Other approaches to ritual I

• Psychoanalytical approach
• Bruno Bettelheim Symbolic Wounds Puberty Rites
  andThe Envious Male (1954)
• study of mens circumcision ritual
• pregnancy envy
• bleeding after circumcision an analogue of
  menstruation.
• Structuralist approach
• Edmund Leach - Time and false noses' (1955)
• Rituals structure time
• Time not experienced with sensory organs
• Rituals divide time into intervals

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Other approaches to ritual II

• Practice-oriented approaches
• focus on practice and agency
• potential disjunction between different
  interpretations of ritual by participants
• symbols involved in ritual can be read and
  interpreted in different ways,
• Eg. anthropological approaches to carnival
• carnival
• a moment of genuine potential dissent
• with very real political consequences.
• Abner Cohen (1993)
• study of the Notting Hill carnival in London.
• the object of political, ethnic and racial
  conflict.
• a means of expressing these differences
• means by which these differences were constructed.

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Van Gennep Rites of passage I

• The Rites of Passage (1908)
• The life of an individual in any society is a
  series of passages from one age to another.
• Society is like a house, with different rooms,
  doors and windows
• limen threshold
• Many later anthropologists influenced by Van
  Gennep
• Leach, Douglas, Gluckman and Turner
• Focus on life crisis rituals
• birth, puberty, marriage and death
• diminish the negative effects of these changes
• An underlying pattern common to all transition
  rituals

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Van Gennep Rites of passage II

• three ritual phases
• Rite of separation a preliminal phase
• purification rites
• the removal of hair
• scarification
• Rite of transition - liminal phase
• person is symbolically placed outside society
• has to observe certain taboos or restrictions
• normal rules of the community are suspended
• rite may be seen as a symbolic death, leading to
  a rebirth
• Rite of incorporation postliminal phase
• completes the transit to a new status
• lifting of restrictions
• wearing of new insignia

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Victor Turner liminality

• Betwixt and Between (1967)
• accepts Van Genneps tripartite analysis of
  rituals
• explores the nature of the liminal phase
• interstructural situation
• Various characteristics of the liminal period
• an ambiguous condition
• initiates may be seen as sexless or bisexual, or
  considered unclean or polluting
• treated as an embryo or a newborn infant, or
  thought of as dead
• role reveals or a suspension of normative
  obligations
• seclusion - initiate is separated from normal
  life
• stress on the absolute authority of the ritual
  elders
• secret, esoteric knowledge the sacra
• the crux of liminality

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Victor Turner communitas I

• The Ritual Process (1974)
• liminality is an expression of communitas
• dualistic model of social life
• social structure
• communitas
• social structure
• a system of social relationships, structural
  positions and statuses
• implies hierarchy and exploitation
• Communitas
• metaphorical concept
• difficult to define
• opposite to social structure
• marginal behaviour, groups and movements

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Victor Turner communitas II

• Features of communitas
• 1) certain values
• submissiveness
• silence
• humility
• anonymity
• spontaneity
• immediacy
• homogeneity
• comradeship
• equality
• simplicity
• sacred
• transition

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Victor Turner communitas III

• 2) certain groups, movements and behavior
• marginal states and outsiders (counterculture)
• shamans, diviners, mystics, mediums, priests,
  those in monastic seclusion, hippies and gypsies
• advocates of poverty and renouncement of worldly
  property.
• St Francis of Assisi, Buddha, Gandhi and Tolstoy
• millenarian movements, cults and sects
• reduction of all to the same status
• minimization of sexual distinctions
• abolition of rank
• total obedience to the prophet or cult leader
• Pilgrimages
• retirement from the world
• stress of equality and on the social bond among
  pilgrims

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Victor Turner communitas IV

• 3) Tendency to become social structure
• Instutionalization
• Sect -gt church
• Routinization of charisma (Weber)
• Charismatic authority
• Traditional authority
• Legal-rational authority

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Critique of Turner

• Social structure
• All structural relationships assumed by Turner to
  be unequal, impersonal and alienating
• communitas
• ignores the hierarchical nature of religious
  institutions themselves
• ignores the relationship between religion and
  political authority
• fails to recognize the ideological nature of
  religious symbolism

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Max Gluckman rituals of rebellion I

• social equilibrium as problematic
• conflicting values and principles
• conflicting interest groups.
• gt ritualised conflicts rituals of rebellion
• exaggerate the real conflicts
• have a positive functional value
• cathartic
• eliminate the threat of disunity

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Max Gluckman rituals of rebellion II

• Rituals of Rebellion in South East Africa
  (1963)
• two examples of rituals of rebellion
• agricultural rites performed by Zulu women
• Incwala ceremony of the Swazi

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Max Gluckman rituals of rebellion III

• Agricultural rites performed by Zulu women
• at the beginning of the planting season
• done in honor of the female spirit Nomkubulwana
• associated with rains and fertility
• Involved obscene behavior by women and girls
• wearing mens garments
• milking the cows
• walking naked
• singing lewd songs
• In ritual temporary dominant role of women,
• contrasted markedly with the patriarchal norms
• generally women considered subordinate to men
• Ritual as an act of rebellion
• gt conducive to social well-being.

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Max Gluckman rituals of rebellion IV

• The Incwala ceremony of the Swazi
• a royal ritual extending over many days
• performed annually on the occasion of the first
  fruits
• Involved
• sacred songs
• expressing the idea that the king was hated and
  rejected by his subjects
• king walked naked in front of his people
• ritual of (symbolic) rebellion
• functions as a mechanism of social unity
• such rituals
• in loosely integrated state systems
• where strong tensions among different structural
  principles
• not controlled in distinct secular institutions

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Critique of Gluckman

• Norbeck African Rituals of Conflict (1963)
• Zulu ceremonies
• no mention of rites that are the male rites of
  rebellion.
• transvestism, sexual license, and obscene
  behavior
• characteristic of many types of ritual
• particularly widespread in boys circumcision
  rituals.
• Incwala ceremony
• a ritual drama portraying the dangers the King
  must face
• admits that rituals may be a periodic relaxation
  of social rules
• Beidelman Swazi Royal Ritual (1966)
• inadequate interpretation
• Too much emphasis on conflict
• Too little on cosmology
• Incwala
• Symbolic separation of the king from other people
• Freeing him to assume the mystical powers
  associated with the kingship

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Other examples or ritual of rebellion

• Slaves and slave owners in ancient Rome
• Teachers Day in Soviet Union
• Carnivals
• Vappu

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Death and body in ritual I

• Death
• central topic in the anthropological study of
  religion
• reason for the emergence of religion
• Tylor and Frazer
• Malinowski
• fear of death

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Death and body in ritual II

• Death as process
• Metcalf and Huntington - Celebrations of Death
  The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (1992)
• death rituals among the Berawan and in Western
  societies
• death in most cultures is not a momentary event
  but a process
• rite of passage
• three stages live, dying and dead
• Hertz
• study of burial practices in Borneo
• the dead are buried twice
• Transition to the world of spirits
• The fate of the body - a model for the fate of
  the soul

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Death and body in ritual III

• body of the leader
• symbol for communal unity and well-being
• Subject to various rituals
• aging and death of the leaders body
• a danger to the whole community
• kings (symbolically) killed before becoming weak
  (eg. Shilluk)
• kings buried alive (eg. Dinka)
• kings effigy during interregnum (France,
  England)
• 'Le roi est mort! Vive le roi!'
• Lenins mausoleum in Moscow
• Lenins body symbolic of the continuity of the
  political system
• various myths concerning Lenins body

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Death and body in ritual IV

• Western societies
• death as something terrible
• dead persons body to look like natural, healthy
  and comfortable
• washed, combed, embalmed
• Cremation vs burial
• Dying as business
• How to die?
• Immortality
• Social
• Physical
• Cryonics freezing human bodies after death
• Cells, embryos and lower organisms
• Robert C.W. Ettinger (1962)
• The Prospect of Immortality."
• "Man Into Superman."
• www.cryonics.org

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Emotions in death rituals

• Death rituals
• not sad events in all cultures
• Godfrey Wilson (1930s)
• study of Nyakyusa rituals
• happy and noisy events
• Affirmation of life
• death is laughed at
• sadness as gendered
• women cry, men dance
• Radcliffe-Brown - Andaman Islanders (1922)
• crying during the death rituals is often
  ceremonial
• reciprocal crying (meeting of friends, war) vs
  unilateral crying (death)

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Symbols in death rituals I

• Sound symbolism
• Metcalf and Huntington (1992)
• drums among the Berawans in Borneo
• Rhythm heartbeats
• Loudness vitality
• Color symbolism
• Eg. Turner
• Different colors symbolize mourning in different
  cultures
• West black
• Madagascar red
• Borneo white

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Symbols in death rituals II

• Cutting hair when mourning
• Burial as symbolic of sexual intercourse (eg.
  Baras)
• Rebirth into the other world
• Brezhnevs funeral
• Death as purification
• rites of passage as death of certain human
  features
• Bloch - 'Prey into Hunter (1991)
• Orokaiva rituals in PNG
• spirits of the ancestors chase children
• promise to kill them and take them to initiation
  hut
• when get out of the hut, join the hunt for pigs
• Newborn possess both the features of humans and
  pigs
• Pig soul mortal
• Human soul immortal
• gtpigness killed during the ritual