Week 4 - Rituals Flashcards
Rituals
a patterened form of behaviour, generally communal and consisting og prescribed actions and words
Characteristics of Rituals
- sometimes reenact myths and stories
- sometimes involve certian attire or locations
- can be reliving an important event
- usually deep and meaningful
Victor Turner’s Definition of Rituals
sterotypical sequence of activites involving gestures, words, or objects performed in a sequestered place and designed to influence preternatural (magical) entites or forces on behalf of the actor’s goals or interests
“Ritual defined in its most general or basic term is a…”
Performance planned or improvised, that effects a transition from everyday life to an alternative context within which the everyday is transfromed
Examples of different kinds of rituals
- Personal Routines ( brushing teeth)
- Ceremonies (graduations, weddings)
- Socially Scripted Rituals (shaking hannds, holding the door)
- Religious/Sacred Rituals
How do social rituals become sacred rituals? (ex: drinking tea)
when it’s goven some symbolic meaning
Why are rituals so rigid?
- gives sense of unity
- believed to have concequences in current or after life if rituals done incorrectly
- rituals can fail -> you might not get what you want from it, it depends on your beliefs
- to separate it from the profane
10 characteristics of Religious Rituals.
1) involve magic, the supernatural, mythical beliefs
2) highly formaized or structures patterns of behaviour
3) rituals are beliefs in action
4) out of the ordinary (i.e. Sacred)
5) performed in a sacred place (often sequestered)
6) have a goal or aim
7) serve a function for the people concerned
8) often transformative or mediative
9) serve to provide sense of solidarity
10) symbolic
Why are rituals not oly performative or informative, but also transformative as well?
they establish certian states of being (like wellness), certian kinds of persons or social statueses, a certian kind of society, etc.
what is social action (religious or otherwise)?
interaction between agents both natural and supernatural
What are the 5 types of rituals?
1) Technical Rituals (control nature)
2) Therapy and Anti Therapy Rituals (control health)
3) Ideological Rituals (control hearts and minds)
4) Salvation Rituals (control individual destiny)
5) Revitalization Rituals (control communal destiny)
Techical Rituals
- rituals intended to achieve natural or supernatural effects through “technique” -> the more or less mechanical manipulation of objects and words which is more or ledd guaranteed to bear results
- “Spiritual Cause and Effect” -> do X, and Y will result
What are the 3 types of Technical Rituals?
- Divination
- Protective Rites
- Rites of Intensification
Divination Rituals
using some material object or substance to discern information from the gods or spirits
Protective Rites
aimed at coping with uncertainty of nature (ex: stormy seas, floods, crop failure, disease, bad luck, etc.)
Rites of Intensifications
rituals perfromed to enhance or reinforce the social bonds within a community -> actions designed to bring communities together, creates sense of unity that encourages people to see themselves as members of community
Examples of Rites of Intensification (Technical)
- Harvest Festivals
- Religious Holidays
- Communal Prayer Sessions
Therapy and Anti-Therapy Rituals
designed to control human health -> rituals intended to cure (therapy) or to cause (anti-therapy) sickness and misfourtune
Examples of Therapy or Anti-Therapy Rituals
Shamanism, Witchcraft, Sorcery to cure or inflict harm -> may use spiritual., magical, and/or material means (ex: medical plants)
Ideological/Political Rituals
individuals, groups, or societies in its entirety are moved, influences, and manipulated
Examples or Ideological/Political Ritual
- Rites of Intensification
- Taboos and ceremonial obligations or courtesies
- Rites of Rebellion
Definition of Rites of Intensification (Ideological/Political)
to control the behaviour, mood, and values of groups for the community as a whole -> often occur during times of crisis, change, or challenges to ensure social solidarity
Example of Rites of Intensification (Ideological/Political)
- Sermons exhort audience to support values of the religious community, hymns, rituals that relieve history of the religon
- rituals for group welfare: mass, communion, feast days, etc
Taboos
ritual aviodances that serve to regulate human behaviour
Ceremonial Obligations or Courtesies
positive actions which serve to regulate human behaviours
Taboos and Ceremonial Obligations
beliefs and behaviours that center around things ppl must or must not do or touch
Examples of Taboos and Ceremonial Obligations
dietary restrictions, dress etiquette, etc
Rites of Rebellion
comment upon, criticize, and even invert everyday social relations and structures
how do rites of rebellion contribute to order and stability?
allows ppl to vent their frustrations
Examples of Rites of Rebellion
Mardi Gras, Carnival, Halloween
Revitalization Rituals
- attempt to resolve serious problems through a spiritual. or supernatural intervention
- response to critical challenges with a new vision intended to breathe new life into a staggering social, natural, and supernatural order
Examples of Rites of Revitalization
- fundamentalism
- millenarian sects (end of times or transformative event) and messianic cults
- some new religious movements
John Frum Cargo Cult in Tanna
- in response to colonialism and promise of material abundance
- based off belief of mythical “John Frum” who’s expected to bring material wealth and prosperity
4 typesof Salvation Rituals
- Rites of Passage
- Pilgrimage
- Possession
- Mystic Experience
Rite of Passage
- rituals that serve as mileposts or landmarks that guide travelers through the life cycle -> after which nothing is quite the same as it was before
- ceremony desgined to transition individuals between life stages
Examples of Rites of Passage
- Quincenera
- Bar Mitzvah
- Conformation Graduation
- Baby Shower
- Baptism
3 Stages of a Rite of Passage
1) Separation
2) Liminality
3) Reincorporation and Acceptance
Separation (Preliminal) Phase of a Rite of Passage
- individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter next stage of life
- symbolic death of old state
- removal from society
- rituals symbolize cutting or separating (removal of hair)
- seclusion
Transitional (Liminal) Phase of a Rite of Passage
- time where individuals undergo trials, tests, or activities designed to prepare them for their new social roles
- person is in between states
- symbolically placed “outside” society
observes certain taboos and restrictions
Liminal Period, Initiate Life
- separated from life and secluded is in an ambiguous condition
- has nothing -> no status, property, rank or kinship position
- maybe seen as sexless or bisexual, or considered unclean or polluting
- treated as embryo, new born infant ot thought of as “dead”
- suspension of normal obligations
- stress on servility to absolute authority of the ritual elders
- secret, esoteric knowledge
Communitas
- unstructured and egalitarian bonds between people
- typical of the liminal state of a rite of passage
- communal bond that results from social leveling and shared experience of liminality
- among initiates there is often complete equality
- comradeship transcends distinctions of rank, age, kinship position
- transgresses or dissolves norms that govern institutionalized relationships
- emerges where structure is not
- has aspect of potentiality
Incorporation (Postliminal) Phase of a Rite of Passage
- individuals return to community w/ new socially recognized status
- symbolic reborn
- completes transitions to a new status
- lifting of restrictions
- wear new clothes and insignia
Liminal Period - Betwixt and Between
- structually dead
- ordeals and humiliations represent the partial destruction of previous state
- prepares them to cope with new rights and responsibilities
- initiate is reshaped and molded physically and psychologically so that society’s values can be inscribed on their body or mind
Rituals and Symbolism - Ndembu
- significance of the milk tree
- significance of colour -> white and red
- ritual circumcision -> “ the life of an adult male, who as a hunter and warrior has to shed blood”
Rituals and Symbolism - Xhosa
- circumcision and specific garments and colours of clay (white and red)
- similar to Ndembu rituals, Xhosa symbols demonstrate multivocality
Multivocality
a single symbol that can stand for multiple things
How are we interpreting Initiation Ceremonies in Light in Light of Turner’s Ideas
- basic model of society is a “Structure of Positions”
- rites of passage seen as movement from structure to anti-structure and back to structure
- period of margin or “liminality” is an interstructural situation
- becomes an important period in which to understand social structure or organization
What does Turner believe about the Liminal Phase?
believe it
s where the building blocks of society are exposed and open for comparison
Pilgrimage
- inherent aspect of pilgramage is movement, both in sense of moving out of one’s everyday space and of moving to and through pilgramage space
- exiting mundane state and crossing a threshold into a different place and different time = into liminality
Pilgrimage Space
a space/path that is well marked by ancestors/spirits who came before
What did Turner write about a pilgrim’s commitment?
is to “full physicality,” to being there, and the pilgrim thus “becomes himselff a total symbol” who enacts and embodies the message and power of the place and it’s history
