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… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

ritual theory

ritual for the Body Politic on ritual politics, the how and why; Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Catherine Bell’s Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, Lisa Lucero’s The Politics of Ritual and Ritual, Politics, and Power, David I. Kertzer.

curated by

amma birago

for zora neale hurston

Kertzer's book on the relationships among ritual, politics and power could not have come at a better time to enliven social-scientific debate on the fascinating theme of legitimacy. What is it, for example, that keeps people in different societies firmly united, despite their individual differences in belief? What keeps most post-colonial African leaders in power, despite their lack of appeal among the rural masses, who constitute the bulk of the population? … These questions, and others, Kertzer attempts to answer by investigating the socialization role of ritual in different political systems. Ritual, Politics, and Power, David I. Kertzer, A review by Francis B. Nyamnjoh Lisa Lucero’s The Politics of Ritual Ritual has an enduring life because it demands a time outside of time, where one‘s focus, often a collective focus, is magnified. It is an opportunity to qualify some of the ineffable qualities of human existence in more material, observable and practicable ways. And in this sense, it is hard to imagine humanity without ritual. In my more recent research I have been less focused on the canonical forms of ritual and more interested in the ritualized aspects of political performance and how these may intersect with different forms of spectacle.

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Since societies are processes responsive to change, not fixed structures, new rituals are devised or borrowed, and old ones decline and disappear. Nevertheless, forms survive through flux, and new ritual items, even new ritual configurations, tend more often to be variants of old themes than radical novelties.

Ritual, Politics, and Power. By David I. Kertzer. Kertzer's book on the relationships among ritual, politics and power could not have come at a better time to enliven social-scientific debate on the fascinating theme of legitimacy. What is it, for example, that keeps people in different societies firmly united, despite their individual differences in belief? What keeps most post-colonial African leaders in power, despite their lack of appeal among the rural masses, who constitute the bulk of the population? … These questions, and others, Kertzer attempts to answer by investigating the socialization role of ritual in different political systems.

… a history of rituals is a history of reproduction, contestation, transformation, and-if we accept carnival as a ritual-deconstruction of authority. How can a new church, school, kingdom, colony, nation, party, "Common Market," or other "imagined community" come into being except through its own characteristic rituals? Can a state be unmade by a carnival? History, Structure, and Ritual, John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan

In tribal societies, as Turner argued, religion, economy, law, politics, and other cultural domains are essentially interwoven. Tribal rituals, therefore, must have some religious component, since tribal religion in both mythology and ritual practices has not (yet) split off from other sectors of tribal culture. In industrial societies, on the other hand, the several institutions have become independent of each other, each of them dealing with certain needs and questions which these societies face (law, politics, economy, religion, etc.). Mathieu Deflem, Ritual, anti-structure, and religion A discussion of Victor Turner's processual symbolic analysis

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell

A ritual "is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism and performance. ―A ritual is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests. Rituals may be seasonal, hallowing a culturally defined moment of change in the climatic cycle or the inauguration of an activity such as planting, harvesting, or moving from winter to summer pasture; or they may be contingent, held in response to an individual or collective crisis. Contingent rituals may be further subdivided into life-crisis ceremonies, which are performed at birth, puberty, marriage, death, and so on, to demarcate the passage from one phase to another in the individual's life-cycle, and rituals of affliction, which are performed to placate or exorcise preternatural beings or forces believed to have afflicted villagers with illness, bad luck, gynecological troubles, severe physical injuries, and the like. Other classes of rituals include divinatory rituals; ceremonies performed by Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

political authorities to ensure the health and fertility of human beings, animals, and crops in their territories; initiation into priesthoods devoted to certain deities, into religious associations, or into secret societies; and those accompanying the daily offering of food and libations to deities or ancestral spirits or both. - Victor Turner ritual as traditional, collective representation, implying that the notion of individual or invented ritual was a contradiction in terms.‖ The tendency to think of ritual as essentially unchanging has gone hand in hand with the equally common assumption that effective rituals cannot be invented. Until very recently, most people‘s commonsense notion of ritual meant that someone could not simply dream up a rite that would work the way traditional ritual has worked. Such a phenomenon, if it could happen, would seem to undermine the important roles given to community, custom, and consensus in our understanding of religion and ritual. The fundamental efficacy of ritual activity lies in its ability to have people embody assumptions about their place in a larger order of things. This new ritual paradigm has more subtle ramifications as well. Traditionally, for example, the legitimate authority and efficacy of ritual were closely intertwined. For invented rites, which are not deeply rooted in any shared sense of tradition, however, legitimacy and authority tend to be construed more lightly and on quite different grounds. For that reason, perhaps, much greater weight appears to fall on the dimension of efficacy. The fundamental efficacy of ritual activity lies in its ability to have people embody assumptions about their place in a larger order of things.

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell Human beings have been involved in ritual activities of some sort since the earliest hunting bands and tribal communities about which we have information. Yet it is only in the late nineteenth century that people began to perceive all such activities under the rubric of ―ritual‖ and identify them as ―data‖ against which to test theories concerning the origins of religion and civilization. In doing so, people were asking new types of questions about history and culture and beginning to look for new forms of evidence. Ritual is a form of nonverbal communication, but, like linguistic communication, its signs and symbols have meaning only by virtue of their place in systems of relationships with other symbols. Although ritual conveys information about the most basic conceptual categories and ordering systems of the social group, it is used primarily to transform one category into another while maintaining the integrity of the categories and the system as a whole. In other words, only ritual can transform a boy or girl into an adult, an animal into a gift to the gods, and the realm of the gods into a presence responsive to human needs while still maintaining all the boundaries that enable these categories to organize reality. Political Rites As a particularly loose genre, political rituals can be said to comprise those ceremonial practices that specifically construct, display and promote the power of political institutions (such as king, state, the village elders) or the political interests of distinct constituencies and subgroups. In general, political rites define power in a two-dimensional way: first, they use symbols and symbolic action to depict a group of people as a coherent and ordered community based on shared values and goals; second, they demonstrate the legitimacy of these values and goals by establishing their iconicity with the perceived values and order of the cosmos. As such, political ritual is something very different from the use or threat of coercive physical

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

force, although those who claim power can do so with both weapons and ritual, and ritual itself can include the display of weapons. It is through ritual, however, that those claiming power demonstrate how their interests are in the natural, real, or fruitful order of things. When effective, the symbolic imagery and structural processes of political ritual - what Roy Rappaport calls its ―sanctity‖ - can transform ―the arbitrary and conventional into what appears to be necessary and natural.‖128 When ritual is the principal medium by which power relationships are constructed, the power is usually perceived as coming from sources beyond the immediate control of the human community. For this reason, more ritual attended the coronation of Louis XVI, who claimed the ―divine right of kings,‖ than usually accompanies the inauguration of an American president or a British prime minister. the annual return to the Bastille - whether it be a matter of intellectual reconsideration, emotional identification, or just the hype of Independence Day advertising and consumerism - creates a steady rhythm of imagery that helps to define French national life.

Rites of passage have a similar effect on cultural understandings of human life. The biological processes of birth, maturation, reproduction, and death are rendered cultural events of great significance. By attaching cultural values to such natural phenomena—for example, in the way a son‘s role in continuing the family lineage is attached to experiences of procreation and childbirth—a society‘s worldview appears nonarbitrary and grounded in reality. The ritual observation of other life-cycle events, such as circumcision or marriage, makes them intrinsically natural parts of biological- cultural passage, as natural as greetings to the newborn and farewells to the dead. Whether the social order is overturned and inverted or paraded in strict visual ranks, such symbolic embodiments of the community suggest its powerful ability to reshape itself. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. All rituals, it seems, are in Turner's perspective religious; they all "celebrate or commemorate transcendent powers" (V. Turner and E. Turner 1982:201). Still, Turner did view rituals in modern industrial society as having some characteristics different from the tribal rituals he studied in Ndembu society. In tribal societies "all life is pervaded by invisible influences" (Turner 1976a:507). In this way, tribal societies are wholly religious, and ritual actions surrounding their religions are "nationwide"; they are oriented towards "all members of the widest effective community" (Turner 1977b:45). In modern societies, on the other hand, religion is "regarded as something apart from our economic, political, domestic and recreational life. Mathieu Deflem, Ritual, anti-structure, and religion A discussion of Victor Turner's processual symbolic analysis

What roles might the concept of ritual play in the study of contemporary society and culture? As one of the founding concepts of our discipline, ritual has long been a cornerstone of anthropological thought: from the works of Emile Durkheim through Gregory Bateson, Claude Levi-Strauss, Mary Douglas, and Victor Turner, countless classics have been built upon this infinitely perplexing and thus fascinating aspect of human life. In recent decades, however, ritual has undergone a rapid retreat from the forefront of anthropological consideration. Although ritual‘s role in the initial formation of anthropology does not grant it permanent immunity to transitions in scholarly interest, its recent departure also should not be casually interpreted as proof of irrelevance. Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

Ritual, Kevin Carrico Online journal, Cultural Anthropology

Denis Fleurdorge Online journal, Cultural Anthropology My approach is not intended to present the political field as an autonomous and closed social domain, but to retain the idea that political practices, in this case ritual, participate to a great extent in a larger whole, as one of the dimensions of a given society (cultural labeling/marking). Rituals are not situated alongside but rather within society, along with a number of other social dimensions: religion, beliefs, institutions, social practices, economy, art, etc. Finally, in general throughout my research, I consider it important to identify a system, namely ―political ritual,‖ in which the various elements or components can be considered as recurring ritual structures, and can thus underpin a functional and permanent frame for understanding the ritual phenomenon. By reaching an understanding of the different modes of expression and representation of ―presidential practices,‖ it is not only possible to establish an inventory of the composite elements of this ―system,‖ but also to develop an interpretation of the relationships between these different elements, as well as their relationship to other social ―systems.‖ Denis Fleurdorge Online journal, Cultural Anthropology

Danny Kaplan Online journal, Cultural Anthropology … why and in what ways they sustain and nourish national sentiments, particularly as social rituals could offer myriad alternative forms of collective identification. My main research interest is in how rituals provide a sense of social belonging, which transforms into a sense of national identification. My engagement with ritual as a mechanism of national solidarity came from a practical question. My approach to ritual follows the elementary Durkheimian view of ritual as a cyclic, recurrent activity that provides symbolic confirmation of collective values and emotions shared by members of the community and reinforces their sense of stability, security, and belonging. Kalman Applbaum, Survival of the Biggest: Business Policy, Managerial Discourse, and Uncertainty in a Global Business Alliance Part of the process of trying to fix social reality involves representing it as stable and immutable or at least controllable to this end, at least for a time. Rituals, rigid procedures, regular formalities, symbolic repetitions of all kinds, as well as explicit laws, principles, rules, symbols and categories are cultural representations of fixed social reality, of continuity. They represent stability and continuity acted out and re-enacted: visible continuity. By dint of repetition they deny the passage of time, the nature of change, and the implicit extent of potential indeterminacy in social relations. They are all part of what we have called the "process of regularization." Whether rituals, laws, rules, customs, symbols, ideological models, and so on are old and legitimized by tradition, or newly forged and legitimated by a revolutionary social source, they constitute the explicit cultural framework through which the attempt is made to fix social life, to keep it from slipping into the sea of indeterminacy (1975: 221). Kalman Applbaum on Sally Falk Moore's processual approach (1975, 1978)

Myron Joel Aronoff, Culture and Political Change

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

Rituals shape public perceptions of ongoing reality through the dramatic enactment of myths, not through the construction of detailed rational models of objective reality. Mythic thinking is projective and condensational. It is a process in which private concerns become translated into public images that acquire meaning on multiple levels. This translation process is facilitated in rituals by the presence of powerful figures with whom the individual can identify. The pronouncements of an attractive or respected figure become models for the individual‘s thinking. More importantly, the actors in rituals literally act out the possible concerns of the audience. The struggle between candidates becomes the struggle between groups, or the battle of good and evil, or the representation of such life concerns as economic security or social harmony. Rituals shape public perceptions of ongoing reality through the dramatic enactment of myths, not through the construction of detailed rational models of objective reality.

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Ritual and Society. Theory, the history of interpretation Catherine Bell … The failure to recognize the enduring role played by redundant communication, drama, personalization, and stylized choice in political rituals risks a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of political processes like elections. The tendency to regard defining properties of rituals as unfortunate departures from true political norms only results in unworkable reform proposals. … Rituals are the means for changing and reconstituting groups in an orderly and sanctioned manner that maintains the integrity of the system. These groups include religious associations, totem clans, phratries (exogamous kinship groups), castes, professional classes, age groups, families, the political and territorial community, the world of the living, the world before it, and the world of the dead after it. “Life itself,” wrote van Gennep, “means to separate and to reunite, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn.” These changes can occur smoothly and meaningfully as part of a larger, embracing, and reassuring pattern only by means of their orchestration as rites of passage.

Ritual, Kevin Carrico Online journal, Cultural Anthropology How does ritual frame our social experiences? What are the relationships between ritual symbols across social fields? Who exercises control in rituals; or do rituals exercise control upon their actors? Ritual is arguably a universal feature of human social existence: just as one cannot envision a society without language or exchange, one would be equally hard-pressed to imagine a society without ritual. And while the word ―ritual‖ commonly brings to mind exoticized images of primitive others diligently engaged in mystical activities, one can find rituals, both sacred and secular, throughout ―modern‖ society: collective experiences, from the Olympics to the commemoration of national tragedies; cyclical gatherings, from weekly congregations at the local church to the annual turkey carving at Thanksgiving to the intoxication of Mardi Gras; and personal life-patterns, from morning grooming routines to the ways in which we greet and interact with one another. Ritual is in fact an inevitable component of culture, extending from the largest-scale social and political processes to the most intimate aspects of our self-experience. Yet within this universality, the inherent multiplicity of ritual practices, both between and within cultures, also reflects the full diversity of the human experience. It was then neither pure coincidence nor primitivist exoticization that placed ritual at the center of the development of anthropological thought: it was instead ritual‘s rich potential insights as an object of sociocultural analysis.

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

Toward this goal, we aim to raise a number of questions for reflection and discussion: What, in fact, is ritual? Where does ritual originate? What forms does ritual take, and how do these various forms constitute ―ritual‖? What are ritual‘s effects, and how are they achieved? How does ritual frame our social experiences, and how does actors‘ input in turn re-frame ritual? What are the relationships between ritual symbols across social fields (religious, political, sexual)? Who exercises control in rituals; or do rituals exercise control upon their actors? And how, in the end, does the study of ritual processes contribute to an understanding of contemporary sociocultural processes? Ritual, Kevin Carrico Online journal, Cultural Anthropology

A review of Kertzer’s Ritual, Politics, and Power Michael S. Kimmel SUNY at Stony Brook Durkheim … theoretical meaning of ritual events, … in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life that "it is by uttering the same cry, pronouncing the same word, or performing the same gesture in regard to some object that they become and feel themselves to be in unison."

In Ritual, Politics, and Power, his interesting examination of the role of ritual in political life, David Kertzer, an anthropologist, argues that ritual is the social glue that holds society together and provides a symbolic mechanism for sustaining a political opposition. The study of ritual has a long lineage in sociology, from Durkheim's pioneering efforts to understand the origins of religion in social ritual to Edward Shils's description of the latent content of the coronation ceremonies and Erving Goffman's brilliant deconstruction of the ritual enactments of the self. Kertzer embraces an essentially Durkheimian position about the function of ritual in social life, seeing a functionalist symmetry between the need of the individual for rituals that tie her or him to the larger community and the "need" of a society for symbolic mechanisms to express harmony and consensus. Kertzer surveys the function of ritual in a variety of cultures, ranging from underdeveloped nations seeking to appropriate the symbols that have long been used to keep them down to the advanced capitalist nations, which offer a highly differentiated set of rituals to meet specific political needs. One gets a good sense of the commonalities among a disparate set of cases: President Reagan at Bitburg cemetery, Parisian communards in 1871, Lenin's exhortations to Russian workers, the Palio of Siena, Italy, Louis XIV laying hands on seriously ill 17th-century Frenchmen. Kertzer makes three important arguments from this wide range of cases, two that involve the function of ritual and one that concerns its structure. Structurally, Kertzer insists that solidarity, maintained by ritual, is experiential and not cognitive, not an event in a society's history that simply happens but a constant process of renewal. Ritual builds solidarity without requiring the sharing of beliefs. Solidarity is produced by people acting together, not by people thinking together.

"Ritual may be vital to reaction but it is also the lifeblood of revolution. David Kertzer Solidarity is not based on shared beliefs or ideas, Kertzer argues: "Ritual builds solidarity without requiring the sharing of beliefs. Solidarity is produced by people acting together, not by people thinking together" (p. 76). Functionally, Kertzer argues that ritual serves both individual and social requirements. Individuals require ritual to identify with the polit- ical regime, an identification that is possible only in symbolic form, as the individual experiences a nonrational connection with the community. This "identification of Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

the local with the national can take place only through the use of symbols that identify the one with the other" (p. 21).

it may also be a weapon in political struggle. Ritual is vital to challenging, as well as maintaining, the political regime. "Ritual may be vital to reaction," he writes, "but it is also the lifeblood of revolution" (p. 2). In a cleverly titled chapter, "Rite Makes Might," he emphasizes the use of ritual as a resource in political struggle among contenders for power

Equally vital, Kertzer argues, is that ritual is functionally necessary for the ruling regime to maintain its grasp on political power. By stressing the "importance of ritual in legitimating political systems and political power holders" (p. 38), Kertzer underscores the difficulty of distinguishing be- tween the manipulation of symbols to evoke false consensus that is based on an obscuring of power and a genuine expression of the Rousseauian general will that comes from a political community incapable of self- expression without political leaders. In fact, Kertzer seems to think that each political regime has a mixture of the two motives for ritual. Both arguments lead to Kertzer's most interesting claim: that ritual is politically neutral, independent of the ideology of political values. Thus ritual may not simply be, as functionalists would have had it, a vehicle for creating or expressing consensus; it may also be a weapon in political struggle. Ritual is vital to challenging, as well as maintaining, the political regime. "Ritual may be vital to reaction," he writes, "but it is also the lifeblood of revolution" (p. 2). In a cleverly titled chapter, "Rite Makes Might," he emphasizes the use of ritual as a resource in political struggle among contenders for power. What is more, the political neutrality of ritual means that rituals created in one context can be appropriated and used in other contexts. A review of Kertzer’s Ritual, Politics, and Power Michael S. Kimmel SUNY at Stony Brook

Ritual, Politics, and Power, David I. Kertzer A review by Francis B. Nyamnjoh Kertzer's book on the relationships among ritual, politics and power could not have come at a better time to enliven social-scientific debate on the fascinating theme of legitimacy. What is it, for example, that keeps people in different societies firmly united, despite their individual differences in belief? What keeps most post-colonial African leaders in power, despite their lack of appeal among the rural masses, who constitute the bulk of the population? … These questions, and others, Kertzer attempts to answer by investigating the socialization role of ritual in different political systems. Kertzer takes issue with a number of assumptions and misconceptions in the West about the political significance of ritual in the procurement, consolidation, and perpetuation of power in different polities. According to Kertzer, some Western intellectuals, rendered myopic by excessive Cartesian rationalism, have tended to associate ritual exclusively with the political universe of so-called "primitive," "nonliterate," "simple," "nonstate," "traditional," or "underdeveloped" societies, thus giving the term a restricted and preponderantly religious definition. In the same way, anthropology has been made to appear as the study of backward societies lacking the complexity of modern states, while sociology has often been restricted to the study of industrialized or Western-type societies.

Thus, while reactionaries "design and employ rituals to arouse popular emotions in support of their legitimacy and to drum up popular enthusiasm for their policies," revolutionaries are interested in rituals that "elicit powerful emotions to mobilize the people to revolt."

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

Defining ritual broadly as "symbolic behavior that is socially standardized and repetitive" or as "action wrapped in a web of symbolism," Kertzer argues convincingly that the political action and power of all societies are enveloped in ritual, and he maintains that it would be difficult to imagine any society functioning otherwise. Using various examples selected from different parts of the world or points in history, he shows how politi- cal systems have employed and continued to employ ritual to create or rein- force their symbolically constructed versions of reality. As he observes, it is our symbols and rituals, not rational debates, that build our political understanding and permit us to make sense of the world around us. Symbols and rituals are responsible for our picture of the world, which, because of its "emotionally compelling" nature, discourages any critical reexamination or debate. Kertzer disagrees with those who argue that ritual can only serve as a conservative force and never as an impetus for change, and he sees it as having the potential for both legitimation and delegitimation. As he observes, "Ritual may be vital to reaction, but it is also the lifeblood of revolution." Thus, while reactionaries "design and employ rituals to arouse popular emotions in support of their legitimacy and to drum up popular enthusiasm for their policies," revolutionaries are interested in rituals that "elicit powerful emotions to mobilize the people to revolt." Kertzer's contribution is an alternative interpretation to Durkheim on ritual, one that, unlike the traditional perspective, recognizes social conflict, thus providing for political and religious pluralism. Thanks to ritual, he argues, bonds of solidarity are possible in any political organization or movement, whether or not there is consensus or uniformity of belief. Viewed in this way, there is no reason why the impact of ritual should be limited only to small-scale societies, religious organizations, or movements with common values and shared beliefs. Ritual, Politics, and Power, David I. Kertzer A review by Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Victor Tuner. Symbols in African Rituals. The Continuing Efficacy, African Ritual Symbols Nevertheless, from the comparative viewpoint, there are remarkable similarities among symbols used in ritual throughout sub-Saharan Africa in spite of differences in cosmological sophistication. The same ideas, analogies, and modes of association underlie symbol formation and manipulation from the Senegal River to the Cape of Good Hope. The same assumptions about Africa. Yet the needs and dangers of social and personal survival provided suitable conditions for the development of rituals as pragmatic instruments (from the standpoint of the actors) for coping with biological change, disease, and natural hazards of all kinds. Social action in response to material pressures was the systematic and systematizing factor.

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell Of course, the expectations of what it means to work are also not the same as for traditional rituals, for which no one asked whether the rite worked, just whether it was done correctly. In some societies and cosmologies, correct performance of a ritual made it effective whether you wanted it to be or not. This new ritual paradigm has more subtle ramifications as well. Traditionally, for example, the legitimate authority and efficacy of ritual were closely intertwined. For invented rites, which are not deeply rooted in a any shared sense of tradition, however, legitimacy and authority tend to be construed more lightly and on quite different grounds. For that reason, perhaps, much greater weight appears to fall on the dimension of efficacy. There is increased pressure for the invented rite to show that it ―works‖; this is what legitimates the rite since there is no tradition to do this. Of course, the expectations of what it means to work are also not the same as for traditional rituals, for which no one asked whether the rite worked, just whether it was done correctly. In some societies and cosmologies, correct performance of a ritual made it effective whether you wanted it to be or not. Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

The ritualized body produced in ritualization brings what it has come to possess during ritual into social life. Bell introduces the term ―ritual mastery,‖ based on Bourdieu‘s ―practical mastery‖ (schemes for ordering the world used by social agents that come to be embodied during practice), to refer to practical mastery in the context of ritualization. Bell writes, ―I use the term ‗ritual mastery‘ to designate a practical mastery of the schemes of ritualization as an embodied knowing, as the sense of ritual seen in its exercise‖ (107). With the term, Bell emphasizes that ritual is not a static, existing object but something embodied in specific contexts through work. Ritual mastery involves a circularity, where a ritualized person uses ritualization schemes to affect non-ritualized parts of life and to make them more coherent with the ritualized. Along with circularity, ritualization also relies on constant deferral of meaning and purpose. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Since societies are processes responsive to change, not fixed structures, new rituals are devised or borrowed, and old ones decline and disappear. Nevertheless, forms survive through flux, and new ritual items, even new ritual configurations, tend more often to be variants of old themes than radical novelties. A ritual is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests. Rituals may be seasonal, hallowing a culturally defined moment of change in the climatic cycle or the inauguration of an activity such as planting, harvesting, or moving from winter to summer pasture; or they may be contingent, held in response to an individual or collective crisis. Contingent rituals may be further subdivided into life-crisis ceremonies, which are performed at birth, puberty, marriage, death, and so on, to demarcate the passage from one phase to another in the individual's life-cycle, and rituals of affliction, which are performed to placate or exorcise preternatural beings or forces believed to have afflicted villagers with illness, bad luck, gynecological troubles, severe physical injuries, and the like. Other classes of rituals include divinatory rituals; ceremonies performed by political authorities to ensure the health and fertility of human beings, animals, and crops in their territories; initiation into priesthoods devoted to certain deities, into religious associations, or into secret societies; and those accompanying the daily offering of food and libations to deities or ancestral spirits or both. Africa is rich indeed in ritual genres, and each involves many specific performances.

Each rural African society (which is often, though not always, coterminous with a linguistic community) possesses a finite number of distinguishable rituals ... At varying intervals, from a year to several decades, all of a society's rituals will be performed, the most important …being performed perhaps the least often. Since societies are processes responsive to change, not fixed structures, new rituals are devised or borrowed, and old ones decline and disappear. Nevertheless, forms survive through flux, and new ritual items, even new ritual configurations, tend more often to be variants of old themes than radical novelties. Thus it is possible for anthropologists to describe the main features of a ritual system, or rather ritual round (successive ritual performances), in those parts of rural Africa where change is occurring slowly. The ritual symbol is ''the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior . . . the ultimate unit of specific structure in a ritual context." This structure is a semantic one (that is, it deals with relationships between signs and symbols and the things to which they refer) and has the following attributes: (i) multiple meanings (significata) -- actions or objects perceived by the senses in ritual contexts (that is, symbol vehicles) have many meanings; (ii) unification of apparently disparate significata -- the essentially distinct Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

significata are interconnected by analogy or by association in fact or thought; (iii) condensation-- many ideas, relations between things, actions, interactions, and transactions are represented simultaneously by the symbol vehicle (the ritual use of such a vehicle abridges what would verbally be a lengthy statement or argument); (iv) polarization of significata--the referents assigned by custom to a major ritual symbol tend frequently to be grouped at opposed semantic poles. At one pole of meaning, empirical research has shown that the significata tend to refer to components of the moral and social orders -- this might be termed the ideological (or normative) pole of symbolic meaning; at the other, the sensory (or orectic) pole, are concentrated references to phenomena and processes that may be expected to stimulate desires and feelings.

To understand the meaning of any ritual, it is important to consider it in relation to the other symbols and beliefs found in the society.

Victor Turner. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure In several African cultures, particularly in West Africa, a complex system of rituals is associated with myths. These tell of the origins of the gods, the cosmos, human types and groups, and the key institutions- of culture and society. Some ritual episodes reenact primordial events, drawing on their inherent power to achieve the contemporary goals of the members of the culture (for example, adjustment to puberty and the healing of the sick). In this section, Turner discusses the relationship of myth and ritual. Some anthropologists have argued that myth and ritual are very closely related, and that every ritual is the acting out of a myth. However, in the part of Africa Turner studied, there are rituals for which the culture does not know a myth. It could be argued that such rituals once were related to a myth that has been forgotten by the society. Turner does not comment on this issue. In several African cultures, particularly in West Africa, a complex system of rituals is associated with myths. These tell of the origins of the gods, the cosmos, human types and groups, and the key institutions of culture and society. Some ritual episodes reenact primordial events, drawing on their inherent power to achieve the contemporary goals of the members of the culture (for example, adjustment to puberty and the healing of the sick). Ritual systems are sometimes based on myths. There may coexist with myths and rituals standardized schemata of interpretation that may amount to theological doctrine. But in wide areas of East and Central Africa, there may be few myths connected with rituals and no religious system interrelating myths, rituals, and doctrine. In compensation, there may be much piecemeal exegesis of particular symbols. Rites of passage represent one group of rituals that first allowed Turner to notice the importance of liminality, a concept he defines below. Van Gennep defined rites of passage as "rites which accompany every change of place, state, social position and age." He has shown that all rites of passage are marked by three phases: separation, margin (or limen, signifying "threshold" in Latin), and aggregation. The first phase (of separation) comprises symbolic behavior signifying the detachment of the individual or group from an earlier fixed point in the social structure. During the intervening liminal period, the characteristics of the ritual subject are ambiguous; he passes through a cultural realm that has none or few of the attributes of the past or coming state. In the third phase (reaggregation or reincorporation), the passage is consummated. The ritual subject is in a relatively stable state once more and by virtue of this, has rights and obligations vis-à-vis others of a clearly defined and structural type. The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (" threshold people ") are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. As such, their ambiguous and indeterminate attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols in the many societies that ritualize social and cultural Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

transitions. Thus, liminality is frequently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon. I prefer the Latin term "communitas" to "community," to distinguish this modality of social relationship from an " area of common living." The distinction between structure and communitas is not simply the familiar one between "secular" and "sacred," or that, for example, between politics and religion. Certain fixed offices in tribal societies have many sacred attributes; indeed, every social position has some sacred characteristics. But this "sacred" component is acquired by the incumbents of positions during the rites of passage, through which they changed positions. Something of the sacredness of that transient humility and modelessness goes over, and tempers the pride of the incumbent of a higher position or office. Liminality implies that the high could not be high unless the low existed, and he who is high must experience what it is like to be low. Victor Turner. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell ―The implicit dynamic and ‗end‘ of ritualization - that which it does not see itself doing - can be said to be the production of a ‗ritualized body.‘ A ritualized body is a body invested with a ‗sense‘ of ritual. This sense of ritual exists as an implicit variety of schemes whose deployment works to produce sociocultural situations that the ritualized body can dominate in some way. This is a ‗practical mastery,‘ to use Bourdieu‘s term, of strategic schemes for ritualization, and it appears as a social instinct for creating and manipulating contrasts. This ‗sense‘ is not a matter of self-conscious knowledge of any explicit rules of ritual but as an implicit ‗cultivated disposition.‘ Ritualization produces this ritualized body through the interaction of the body with a structured and structuring environment. ‗It is in the dialectical relationship between the body and a space structured according to mythicoritual oppositions,‘ writes Bourdieu, ‗that one finds the form par excellence of the structural apprenticeship which leads to the embodying of the structures of the world, that is, the appropriating by the world of a body thus enabled to appropriate the world.‘ Hence, through a series of physical movements ritual practices spatially and temporally construct an environment organized according to schemes of privileged oppositions. The construction of this environment and the activities within it simultaneously work to impress these schemes upon the bodies of participants. This is a circular process that tends to be misrecognized, if it is perceived at all, as values and experiences impressed upon the person and community from sources of power and order beyond it. Through the orchestration in time of loose but strategically organized oppositions, in which a few oppositions quietly come to dominate others, the social body internalizes the principles of the environment being delineated. Inscribed within the social body, these principles enable the ritualized person to generate in turn strategic schemes that can appropriate or dominate other sociocultural situations‖ (98-99). “[R]itualization cannot be understood apart from the immediate situation, which is being reproduced in a misrecognized and transformed way through the production of ritualized agents”. ―[R]itualization not only involves the setting up of oppositions, but through the privileging built into such an exercise it generates hierarchical schemes to produce a loose sense of totality and systematicity. In this way, ritual dynamics afford an experience of ‗order‘ as well as the ‗fit‘ between this taxonomic order and the real world of experience‖. Ritual mastery is the ability - not equally shared, desired, or recognized - to take and remake schemes from the shared culture that can strategically nuance, privilege, or transform, deploy them in the formation of a privileged ritual experience, which in turn impresses them in a new form upon agents able to deploy them in a variety of circumstances beyond the circumference of the rite itself‖.

Political Rites Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

As a particularly loose genre, political rituals can be said to comprise those ceremonial practices that specifically construct, display and promote the power of political institutions (such as king, state, the village elders) or the political interests of distinct constituencies and subgroups. In general, political rites define power in a two-dimensional way: first, they use symbols and symbolic action to depict a group of people as a coherent and ordered community based on shared values and goals; second, they demonstrate the legitimacy of these values and goals by establishing their iconicity with the perceived values and order of the cosmos. As such, political ritual is something very different from the use or threat of coercive physical force, although those who claim power can do so with both weapons and ritual, and ritual itself can include the display of weapons. It is through ritual, however, that those claiming power demonstrate how their interests are in the natural, real, or fruitful order of things. When effective, the symbolic imagery and structural processes of political ritual - what Roy Rappaport calls its ―sanctity‖ - can transform ―the arbitrary and conventional into what appears to be necessary and natural.‖128 When ritual is the principal medium by which power relationships are constructed, the power is usually perceived as coming from sources beyond the immediate control of the human community. For this reason, more ritual attended the coronation of Louis XVI, who claimed the ―divine right of kings,‖ than usually accompanies the inauguration of an American president or a British prime minister. the annual return to the Bastille - whether it be a matter of intellectual reconsideration, emotional identification, or just the hype of Independence Day advertising and consumerism - creates a steady rhythm of imagery that helps to define French national life.

Lisa J. Lucero, The Politics of Ritual The Emergence of Classic Maya Rulers The Acquisition of Political Power How competing interest groups acquire and maintain sociopolitical control. For Mann (1986) the four sources of social power are economic, ideological, military, and political. Earle (1997) views economy, ideology, and the military as of political power expressed in the expansion and domination of the political economy. While there are alternative pathways to power (e.g., Flannery 1972), more centralized political systems develop when more sources of power are controlled and integrated (Earle 1997: 210–11). The ultimate success and duration of different strategies depend on local circumstances (cf. Fried 1967: 37–38; Trigger 1991)—how people interact with other people and their surroundings. Leach (1966) has argued that ritual pervades all aspects of human existence, and this is a claim that anthropologists generally accept. This being the case, it is not surprising that ambitious people transform ritual action into political fortune. Ritual can integrate religious, social, economic, and political life, for example, creating and maintaining alliances through marriage and longdistance trade (e.g., Friedman and Rowlands 1978), warfare (e.g., Carneiro 1970), and such integrative events as the construction of public works (e.g., Service 1975:96), religious ceremonies, political rallies (e.g., Kertzer 1988), and feasts (e.g., Hayden 1995, Hayden and Gargett 1990). Through ritual, political actors can incorporate people as active participants in political change. Leaders— lineage elders and heads of military societies, kinship groups, and religious sodalities—often promote political change because through ritual they can claim that their actions benefit all members of society (Godelier 1977:111– 19; Kertzer 1988:30). They organize the building and maintenance of religious structures, subsistence technology including irrigation systems, and canoes or roads for trade and craft production facilities and lead raiding parties— all activities that typically involve ritual. In sum, while there are various ways of acquiring political power, an economic foundation, namely, surplus Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

goods and labor, is required. Ritual expansion occurs in tandem with political change, both funded by surplus goods and services. Rituals express and explain the changes that are occurring. Ritual is not a source of political power in the same manner as the military, the economy, and ideology but rather advances political agendas based on these intersecting sources of power. It allows ambitious people to modify the worldviews and codes of social behavior that explain ―why specific rights and obligations exist‖ (Earle 1997:8, 143–58; see Blanton et al. 1996; Wolf 1999:55).3 Most social processes of ―historical importance‖ are at the same time strongly self-determined (internally determined by the structure of the social group itself). . . . The self-determination of sociohistorical events is here understood in the sense that factors external to the human group concerned (natural environment and contacts with neighbor cultures) are effective solely insofar as they succeed in changing the essential processes . . . those of material production, social relations, and spiritual life.

Lisa J. Lucero, The Politics of Ritual The Emergence of Classic Maya Rulers ―The decisions of the individuals participating in a given historical event are motivated by biological, psychological, intellectual, and other factors - but they will be effective solely provided they fit a social scheme‖ (Bunge 1959:276). Bourdieu (e.g., 1977, 1990), Giddens (e.g., 1979, 1984), and others emphasize the importance of the dynamic relationship between structure (material and social) and practice. Structure provides choices and constraints or limits within which individuals practice or act but does not determine behavior. This leaves the door open for variability and change. Such behavior feeds back into the structure, transforming it, and as a result the process of social change is often incremental and frequently comes from within a social group (Giddens 1979: 223; 1984:247). As actions are reproduced, it is possible for agents to affect change. Traditional rituals are an ideal way for emerging rulers to insert and justify their own political agendas ―just because of [their] conservative properties. New political systems borrow legitimacy from the old by nurturing the old ritual forms, redirected to new purposes‖ (Kertzer 1988:42). ―Memories associated with . . . earlier ritual experiences color the experience of a new enactment of the rites. Rites thus have both a conservative bias and innovating potential‖ (p. 12). Thus, such strategic rituals are successful because they incorporate familiar, traditional beliefs and practices into more elaborate forms that situate the growing political power of particular interest groups (cf. Bourdieu 1990:109–10; Flannery 1972; Weber 1958[1930]:55). Political aspirants incorporate existing ―principles of legitimation‖ (Earle 1989) but do not expropriate them. The successful application of acceptable, albeit reinterpreted, family or domestic ritual activities increases the prestige of sponsors and legitimizes political authority, including rulers‘ control of critical resources and their ability to acquire surplus from others. Such rituals integrate larger numbers of people than the small-scale household or community rites from which they derive. For example, when Enga big men of precolonial Papua New Guinea became increasingly involved in external exchange networks, the growing economic differences were situated within traditional ancestor and bachelor cult rituals (Wiessner and Tumu 1998:369): Equality, reaffirmation of group structure, and improvement of group fortunes remained at their core, counteracting the inequalities and individualism fostered by growing exchange networks. As ancestral cults became linked to networks of exchange, however, tribal leaders did restructure them from inwardly oriented rituals to events that had bearing on issues of broad regional significance. Sacred rites for an exclusive circle of men were then reduced in proportion to public celebration, and the interdependence of male and female principles were more overtly expressed. Overall, though bachelor‘s and ancestral cults did much to alter values and structure group relations, they never ruptured the ethics of potential equality of male clan members or the principles of symmetrical reciprocity between those who engaged in exchange. When rulers sponsor public events (e.g., feasts and ceremonies), they touch emotions (Rappaport 1999:49, 226), but these events are temporary and soon forgotten. Political actors need strategies that result in long-termbenefits. Therefore they typically associate themselves with rituals that revolve around vital elements of life (e.g., rain, agricultural fertility, and ancestor veneration) conducted according to set schedules in special places (Cohen 1974:135). Their association with traditional or social conventions leads to the sanctification or uncritical acceptance Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

of their special powers (Rappaport 1971; 1999:281; see also Geertz 1980:129–31; Webster 1976) because subjects believe that the holders of exclusive knowledge and skill are closer to the supernatural realm (Friedman and Rowlands 1978). In time they become directly involved in the continuity of natural forces (e.g., Helms 1993:78–79). Participation in public rites does not mean that people are being hoodwinked: ―acceptance is not belief. . . . Acceptance . . . is not a private state, but a public act‖ (Rappaport 1999:119–20). Public ceremony thus promotes solidarity, not to mention political agendas.

Lisa J. Lucero, The Politics of Ritual The Emergence of Classic Maya Rulers As is illustrated by the T‘ang rites mentioned above, however, domestic rituals never leave the home. Rulers replicate and expand them but do not replace or restrict them. While all members participate in the larger-scale ceremonies, everyone still performs the domestic rituals from which former ceremonies derived. Royal rites are superimposed on traditional ones (e.g., Godelier 1977: 188). The fact that everyone, high and low, performs the ―same‖ rites promotes solidarity and a sense of belonging (e.g., Kertzer 1988:19). For example, in 19th-century Madagascar, all members of Merina society conducted new-year renewal ceremonies in which they called upon their ancestors to bless them, and the same ritual bath was repeated in every household, from commoner to royal (Bloch 1987). These rituals, which took place at the beginning of the agricultural season, involved blessings from superior to junior: master to servant, ancestors to elders to children, father to son, and king to subjects. They not only served to legitimize authority but, more significant, also provided a forum for advancing royal power, particularly after the often violent succession of a new king. In addition, gifts were presented from junior to senior, resulting in the king‘s receiving large amounts of tribute. Kus and Raharijaona (1998, 2000) discuss the traditional rites and other features (e.g., palace layout, cardinal directions, sacred places, and objects) co-opted by Merina royals to emphasize their sanctified right to rule and their ties with their subjects. Once in power, rulers can create new rituals for public as well as private or restricted consumption. For example, early Frankish kings in the Middle Ages were anointed with the same oil used to baptize the first Christian Frank, St. Clovis (Giesey 1985). The king‘s first entrance into Paris was celebrated by enactments of Clovis‘s baptism along his route. After 1550, however, the content of celebrations in Paris shifted to the king himself. In the 18th century the entrance into Paris was dropped, to be replaced by another set of rites revolving around the ―cult of the Sun King.‖ Traditional rites were initially replicated, then expanded, and later transformed. When the French kings had acquired enough economic power they could replace earlier rites with both public and private/restricted ones.

Lisa J. Lucero, The Politics of Ritual The Emergence of Classic Maya Rulers Identifying Ancient Ritual

The most promising prehistoric evidence of the relationship between ritual and politics is the social variability resulting from the dynamic relationship between structure and practice and the way in which political aspirants expanded upon that variability (Walker and Lucero 2000). Variability and expansion leave telling evidence in the archaeological record (Schiffer 1976:7). For example, Flannery (1976) proposes that during the more egalitarian period in Oaxaca, all members of society practiced bloodletting using stingray spines. By the Middle Formative, however, ―chiefly‖ individuals appear to have used jade spines, community leaders stingray spines, and the rest imitation spines made from mammal bones. Chiefs conducted bloodletting rites in increasingly public arenas. The temporal variability in artifacts and location may indicate the expansion of traditional rituals for larger-scale religious and presumably political activities. GUNNERY AND SLAVERY … A similar scenario is observed in western Europe from the Neolithic through the Iron Age. The contexts of ritual deposits did not change through the millennia, but the types of materials used and the quality of manufactured goods increased and ―what started as an informal transaction between the living and the gods was transformed into one of the central political activities in prehistoric society‖ (Bradley 1990:202). Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

In most societies, rituals are multiple and redundant. They do not have just one message or purpose. They have many, and frequently some of these messages and purposes can modify or even contradict each other. Nonetheless, ritual practices seek to formulate a sense of the interrelated nature of things and to reinforce values that assume coherent interrelations, and they do so by virtue of their symbols, activities, organization, timing, and relationships to other activities. Yet rituals seem to be invoked more in some situations than others. What might these situations have in common? It appears that ritual is used in those situations in which certain values and ideas are more powerfully binding on people if they are deemed to derive from sources of power outside the immediate community.

History, structure, and ritual. John D. Kelly … the definitions of ritual that have been offered have tended to share a presupposition about their object. In part because many rituals are indigenously represented as "ancient" and unchang-ing, rituals unlike riots, for examplecarry an albatross of connections to "tradition," the sacred, to structures that have generally been imagined in stasis. While riots are obviously events in history [it took an E. P. Thompson (249) to demonstrate that they also exist as types of events in cultural fields], scholars have had a great deal of difficulty conceiving of rituals as anything more concrete than types of events. Until recently the unique ritual event has been an anomaly, understood only when the function or transformation is discovered that identifies its place in structure. It is the possibility that rituals are historical events that now intrigues many anthropologists. To review these changes in problematics, fascinations, and agendas in the anthropology of ritual, we examine powerful images that have come to stand for ways of connecting ritual, structure, and history. … the reconsiderations of the nature of "ritual." … …In this review, we examine the fate of only three important anthropological images of ritual, in the turn to history: the divine king, the cargo cult, and carnival. We choose each for particular problems that have come to surround the image. Recent reconsiderations of the rituals and histories of kingship have reopened basic questions about the power of rituals to structure society. Do the rituals of kings make structureo r superstructure?D o rituals make structure only in some societies, or in all? The questions about divine kings changed when anthropology abandoned evolutionary historical models, and they have changed again as anthropology returns to history. Next, the cargo cult is important in the anthropological imagination as an image of ritual in social change among "others" who are not simply different from, but also connected to a colonizing Europe. In the turn to history, anthropologists now ask, what is the role of ritual in a terrain of first encounters, missionization, colonized societies, exploitation, and nationalist struggles? Finally, carnival is of interest especially as a favorite image of anti-structure, from the Manchester school to the postmodemists. How does carnival anti-structure relate to structure and to history?

Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner's Processual Symbolic Analysis (Mathieu Deflem) Rituals as Symbolic Action Turner (1967:19) defined ritual as "prescribed formal behavior for occasions not given over to technological routine, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings and powers." Likewise, a symbol is the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior; it is a "storage unit" filled with a vast amount of information (Turner 1968a:1-2). Symbols can be objects, activities, words, relationships, events, gestures, or spatial units (Turner 1967:19). Ritual, religious beliefs, and symbols are in Turner's perspective essentially related. He expressed this well in another definition: Ritual is "a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goal and interests" (Turner 1977a:183). Rituals are storehouses of meaningful symbols by which information is revealed and regarded as authoritative, as dealing with the crucial values of the community (Turner 1968a:2). Not only do symbols reveal crucial social and religious values; they are also (precisely because of their reference to the supernatural) transformative for human attitudes and behavior. The handling of symbols in ritual exposes Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

their powers to act upon and change the persons involved in ritual performance. In sum, Turner's definition of ritual refers to ritual performances involving manipulation of symbols that refer to religious beliefs.

The tendency to think of ritual as essentially unchanging has gone hand in hand with the equally common assumption that effective rituals cannot be invented. Until very recently, most people‘s commonsense notion of ritual meant that someone could not simply dream up a rite that would work the way traditional ritual has worked. Such a phenomenon, if it could happen, would seem to undermine the important roles given to community, custom, and consensus in our understanding of religion and ritual. As Ronald Grimes notes, ―Psychologists have treated private ritual as synonymous with neurosis. Theologians have regarded self-generated rites as lacking in moral character because they minimize social responsibility. And anthropologists have thought of ritual as traditional, collective representation, implying that the notion of individual or invented ritual was a contradiction in terms.‖

Lisa J. Lucero, The Politics of Ritual: The Emergence of Classic Maya Rulers. When rulers sponsor public events (e.g., feasts and ceremonies), they touch emotions (Rappaport 1999:49, 226), but these events are temporary and soon forgotten. Political actors need strategies that result in long-term benefits. Therefore they typically associate themselves with rituals that revolve around vital elements of life (e.g. rain, agricultural fertility, and ancestor veneration) conducted according to set schedules in special places (Cohen 1974:135). Their association with traditional or social conventions leads to the sanctification or uncritical acceptance of their special powers (Rappaport 1971; 1999:281; see also Geertz 1980:129–31; Webster 1976) because subjects believe that the holders of exclusive knowledge and skill are closer to the supernatural realm (Friedman and Rowlands 1978). …domestic rituals never leave the home. Rulers replicate and expand them but do not replace or restrict them. While all members participate in the larger-scale ceremonies, everyone still performs the domestic rituals from which former ceremonies derived. Royal rites are superimposed on traditional ones (e.g., Godelier 1977: 188). The fact that everyone, high and low, performs the ―same‖ rites promotes solidarity and a sense of belonging (e.g., Kertzer 1988:19). Identifying Ancient Ritual The most promising prehistoric evidence of the relationship between ritual and politics is the social variability resulting from the dynamic relationship between structure and practice and the way in which political aspirants expanded upon that variability (Walker and Lucero 2000). A similar scenario is observed in western Europe from the Neolithic through the Iron Age. The contexts of ritual deposits did not change through the millennia, but the types of materials used and the quality of manufactured goods increased and ―what started as an informal transaction between the living and the gods was transformed into one of the central political activities in prehistoric society‖ (Bradley 1990:202). The material aspects of ritual that leave traces in the archaeological record include ceremonial and religious structures, temples, caches of ritual objects, and burials (e.g., Bradley 1990:10–14). Because the Maya performed rituals for nearly every construction phase during the building and rebuilding of houses, palaces, and temples, events in the life histories of structures result in the creation of interconnected sequential deposits including fill, artifacts in fill, floor features, and artifacts on floors (Walker and Lucero 2000). Ceramic vessels smashed and burned on floors differ ritually from whole vessels found in fill under floors. The pots themselves became part of the life history of the structure (e.g., Gillespie 2001) as their roles changed from domestic vessel to ritually deposited item, whole or broken (Thomas 1991:57, 63).

… a history of rituals is a history of reproduction, contestation, transformation, and-if we accept carnival as a ritual-deconstruction of authority. How can a new church, school, kingdom, colony, nation, party, "Common Market," or other "imagined community" come into being except through its own Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

characteristic rituals? Can a state be unmade by a carnival? History, Structure, and Ritual, John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan

In tribal societies, as Turner argued, religion, economy, law, politics, and other cultural domains are essentially interwoven. Tribal rituals, therefore, must have some religious component, since tribal religion in both mythology and ritual practices has not (yet) split off from other sectors of tribal culture. In industrial societies, on the other hand, the several institutions have become independent of each other, each of them dealing with certain needs and questions which these societies face (law, politics, economy, religion, etc.). Mathieu Deflem, Ritual, anti-structure, and religion A discussion of Victor Turner's processual symbolic analysis

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell The goal of ritualization is a strategic way of acting ritualization of social agents. Ritualization endows these agents with some degree of ritual mastery. This mastery is an internalization of schemes with which they are capable of reinterpreting reality in such a way as to afford perceptions and experiences of a redemptive hegemonic order. Ritualization always aligns one within a series of relationship linked to the ultimate sources of power. Whether ritual empowers or disempowers one in some practical sense, it always suggests the ultimate coherence of a cosmos in which one takes a particular place. This cosmos is experienced as a chain of states or an order of existence that places one securely in a field of action and in alignment with the ultimate goals of all action. Ritualization is probably an effective way of acting only under certain cultural circumstances‖. In brief, it is my general thesis here that ritualization, as a strategic mode of action effective within certain social orders, does not, in any useful understanding of the words, ‗control‘ individuals or society. Yet ritualization is very much concerned with power. Closely involved with the objectification and legitimation of an ordering of power as an assumption of the way things really are, ritualization is a strategic arena for the embodiment of power relations. Hence, the relationship of ritualization and social control may be better approached in terms of how ritual activities constitute a specific embodiment and exercise of power‖. ―The deployment of ritualization, consciously or unconsciously, is the deployment of a particular construction of power relationships, a particular relationship of domination, consent, and resistance. As a strategy of power, ritualization has both positive and effective aspects as well as specific limits to what it can do and how far it can extend‖. ritual as a form of activity that relies on strategies to render certain ritual activities distinct, relies on the body which is shaped by and shapes the environment, and generates traditions, and defines, empowers, and constrains agents.

Ritual, Politics, and Power. By David I. Kertzer. Kertzer's book on the relationships among ritual, politics and power could not have come at a better time to enliven social-scientific debate on the fascinating theme of legitimacy. What is it, for example, that keeps people in different societies firmly united, despite their individual differences in belief? What keeps most post-colonial African leaders in power, despite their lack of appeal among the rural masses, who constitute the bulk of the population? … These questions, and others, Kertzer attempts to answer by investigating the socialization role of ritual in different political systems. Kertzer takes issue with a number of assumptions and misconceptions in the West about the political significance of ritual in the procurement, consolidation, and perpetuation of power in different polities. According to Kertzer, some Western intellectuals, rendered myopic by excessive Cartesian rationalism, have tended to associate ritual exclusively with the political universe of so-called "primitive," "nonliterate," "simple," "nonstate," "traditional," or "underdeveloped" societies, thus giving the term a restricted and preponderantly religious definition. Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

In the same way, anthropology has been made to appear as the study of backward societies lacking the complexity of modern states, while sociology has often been restricted to the study of industrialized or Western-type societies. Defining ritual broadly as "symbolic behavior that is socially standardized and repetitive" or as "action wrapped in a web of symbolism," Kertzer argues convincingly that the political action and power of all societies are enveloped in ritual, and he maintains that it would be difficult to imagine any society functioning otherwise.

Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa Terence O. Ranger In this concrete situation of contemporary Africa we are asking what the possibilitiesa re for the powerlessa nd impoverished masses to participate in the kind of [liberation] theology we described... People at the grassroots react in face of a growing sense of powerlessness and exploitation. The preponderant reaction is that of people everywhere who... become convinced that indeed they are... powerless, ignorant, or out of touch with the mainstream of history. They develop reflexes of inferiority... They try to insulate themselves in a little world of their own.... [They] are likely to develop strategies of survival that in the long run prove self-defeating. Sometimes they take refuge in... some type of religious cults, or other distracting hobbies.... People get used to living in a dream world. It becomes difficult for them to analyse events and realities soberly.... And yet it is the people at the grassroots that have the potential for meaningful change. Kalilombe remarks that "history has demonstrated time and again that peasants' potential for bringing about meaningful and lasting change is rarely activated from within themselves alone.... As a rule the decisive factor comes from outside." But from whom? Not from local African prophets, living in their dream world; not from leaders of mass nationalism, "who themselves belong to the powerful classes" and who now oppress the people in their turn; not even from leaders of armed revolution who have all too often used "the masses to further their own selfish aims [which] has led the people to become suspicious of any revolutionary firebrands claiming to join with them for liberation." What is needed is true religious liberation (Kalilombe, 1984): … capable of unleashing a power among those who have hitherto been powerless.... People begin to think for themselves in a critical way....

". . . Kertzer argues convincingly that the political action and power of all societies are enveloped in ritual, and he maintains that it would be difficult to imagine any society functioning otherwise. Using various examples selected from different parts of the world or points in history, he shows how political systems have employed and continued to employ ritual to create or reinforce their symbolically constructed versions of reality. . . . - Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Political Psychology

Culture, Ideology, and Their Materialization. Each human being, influenced by experience, has an individualized reality. To exist outside of an individual's mind, culture is created in daily practice (Bourdieu I977, Giddens 1984). Materialization is the transformation of ideas, values, stories, myths, and the like, into a physical reality-a ceremonial event, a symbolic object, a monument, or a writing system. If we think of culture as norms and values held in people's heads, it is difficult to understand how culture could be broadly shared at all. Human societies are inherently fragmented, representing many voices that reflect differences of age, sex, occupation, locality, class, and individuality (Keesing 1985). Each human being, influenced by experience, has an individualized reality. To exist outside of an individual's mind, culture is created in daily practice (Bourdieu I977, Giddens i984). Creating material representation is a central part of this process. Small groups, living closely together as in an extended family, might have the intimacy and communication to share, to some degree, a particular understanding of the world. Beyond the family group, however, values and norms are materialized to be shared more broadly. The forms of this materialization range from storytelling and other performances through the making of symbols and the construction of mounds and pyramids to writing in all its forms. In speaking of materialization we emphasize the on- going process of creation and do not assume the primacy of ideas. In fact, ideas and norms are encapsulated as much in their practice and in the conditions of daily life as in individuals' minds. To materialize culture is to participate in the Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

… part of the ongoing process by which the community was continually redefining and renewing itself. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, on Victor Turner, Rituals & social equilibrium.

active, ongoing process of creating and negotiating meaning. Because ideology is part of culture, materialization of ideology is a similar process, usually undertaken by dominant social segments. Its goal is to facilitate shared experiences of political culture such as those described by Kus (1989

Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions: Catherine Bell

The fundamental efficacy of ritual activity lies in its ability to have people embody assumptions about their place in a larger order of things.

When new forms of capitalism develop in local communities, do expressive and mutual modes of behavior expand or decline? When the demands of efficiency increasingly drive material life, do social bonds and ceremonial moments deteriorate or increase? But it could also be claimed that economic motivations are heightened by the promise of social prestige gained through expenditures in support of public rituals; a more subtle argument might suggest that ritual has positive spillovers to economy by the employment it generates and the materials it requires, some of which are destroyed and must be replenished. Through the social relationships they generate, rituals also can provide a framework of trust within which self-interested trade and material acquisition may be conducted.

ritual BodyPolitic on ritual politics, the how and why; Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Catherine Bell’s Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, Lisa Lucero’s The Politics of Ritual and Ritual, Politics, and Power, David I. Kertzer.

curated by

amma birago

for zora neale hurston

Nature yields nothing without ceremonies. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms