| RELIGIOUS RITES |
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| 4 THE CONCEPT AND FORMS OF RITUAL |
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Man is sometimes described or defined as
a basically rational, economic, political, or playing species. Man may, however,
also be viewed as a ritual being, who exhibits a striking parallel between his
ritual and verbal behaviour. Just as language
is a system of symbols that is based upon arbitrary rules, ritual may be viewed
as a system of symbolic acts that is based upon arbitrary rules. (see also
meaning) |
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The intricate, yet complex, relation
between ritual and language can be seen in the history of various attempts to
explain ritual behaviour. In most explanations, language becomes a necessary
factor in the theory concerning the nature of ritual, and the specific form of
language that is tied to explanations of ritual is the language of myth.
Both myth and ritual remain fundamental to any analysis of religions. |
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Three general approaches to a theory
about the nature and origin of ritual prevail. |
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The earliest approach was an attempt to
explain ritual, as well as religion, by means of a theory concerned with
historical origin. In most cases, this theory also assumed an evolutionary
hypothesis that would explain the development of ritual behaviour through
history. The basic premise, or law, for this approach is that ontogeny
(development of an individual organism) recapitulates phylogeny (evolution of a
related group of organisms), just as the human embryo recapitulates the stages
of human evolutionary history in the womb--e.g.,
the gill stage. The solution to explaining the apparently universal scope of
ritual depended upon the success in locating the oldest cultures and cults.
Scholars believed that if they could discover this origin, they would be able to
explain the contemporary rituals of man. |
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There are almost as many solutions as
authors in this approach. In the search for an origin of ritual, research turned
from the well-known literate cultures to those that appeared to be less complex
and preliterate. The use of the terms primitive
religion and primitive cultures comes from this approach in seeking an
answer to the meaning of ritual, myth, and religion. Various cultures and
rituals were singled out, sacrifice
of either men or animals becoming one of the main topics for speculation, though
the exact motivation or cause of sacrificial ritual was disputed among the
leading authors of the theory. For W.
Robertson Smith, a British biblical scholar who first published his
theory in the ninth edition of Encyclopædia
Britannica (1875-89), sacrifice was
motivated by the desire for communion between members of a primitive group and
their god. The origin of ritual, therefore, was believed to be found in totemic
(animal symbolic clan) cults; and totemism, for many authors, was thus believed to
be the earliest stage of religion and ritual. The various stages of ritual
development and evolution, however, were never agreed upon. Given this origin
hypothesis, rituals of purification, gift giving, piacular (expiatory) rites,
and worship were viewed as developments, or secondary stages, of the original
sacrificial ritual. The Christian Eucharist
(Holy Communion), along with contemporary banquets and table etiquette, were
explained as late developments or traits that had their origin and meaning in
the totemic sacrifice. |
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The influence of Robertson Smith's
theory on the origin of ritual can be seen in the works of the British
anthropologist Sir James Frazer,
the French sociologist Émile
Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud,
the father of psychoanalysis. Although they were not in complete agreement with
Smith, sacrifice and totemism remained primary concerns in their search for the
origin of religion. For Frazer, the search led to magic, a stage preceding
religion. Both Smith and Frazer led Durkheim to seek the origin of ritual and
religion in totemism as exemplified in Australia. Durkheim believed that in
totemism scholars would find the original form of ritual and the division of
experience into the sacred and the profane. Ritual behaviour, they held, entails
an attitude that is concerned with the sacred; and sacred acts and things,
therefore, are nothing more than symbolic representations of society. In his
last major work, Moses and MonotheismFreud also remained convinced that the origin of religion and ritual is to
be found in sacrifice. (see also
sacred and profane) |
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The second approach to explaining ritual
behaviour is certainly indebted to the work of such men as Smith, Freud, and
Durkheim. Yet very few, if any, of the leading contemporary scholars working on
the problems of religion, ritual, and myth begin with a quest for origins. The
origin-evolutionary hypothesis of ritual behaviour has been rejected as quite
inadequate for explaining human behaviour because no one can verify any of these
bold ideas; they remain creative speculations that cannot be confirmed or
denied. (see also functionalism) |
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Turning from origin hypotheses, scholars
next emphasized empirical data gathered by actual observation. Contemporary
literature is rich in descriptions of rituals observed throughout the world. If
the term origin can be used as central to the first approach, the term function
can be used as indicative of the primary focus of the second approach. The
nature of ritual, in other words, is to be defined in terms of its function in a
society. |
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The aim of functionalism is to explain
ritual behaviour in terms of individual needs and social equilibrium. Ritual is
thus viewed as an adaptive and adjustive response to the social and physical
environment. Many leading authorities on religion and ritual have taken this
approach as the most adequate way to explain rituals. Bronislaw
Malinowski, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Clyde Kluckhohn, Talcott
Parsons, and Edmund Leach, all English or American anthropologists, adopted a
functional approach to explain ritual, religion, and myth. |
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Most functional explanations of ritual
attempt to explain this behaviour in relation to the needs and maintenance of a
society. The strengths of this approach are dependent upon a claim that it is
both logical and empirical. It is a claim, however, that is open to serious
criticism. If the aim of functionalism is to explain why rituals are present in
a society, it will be necessary to clarify such terms as need, maintenance, and
a society functioning adequately, and this becomes crucial if they are to be
taken as empirical terms. From a logical point of view, functionalism remains a
heuristic device, or indicator, for describing the role of ritual in society. If
it is asserted that a society functions adequately only if necessary needs are
satisfied; and if it is further asserted that ritual does satisfy that need,
scholars cannot conclude that, therefore, ritual is present in that society
without committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. To assert
that the need is satisfied "if and only if" ritual is present is a
tautology and a reversal of the claim to be empirical. |
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A third approach to the study of ritual
is centred on the studies of historians of religion. The distinction between
this approach and the first two is that though many historians of religions
agree with functionalists that the origin-evolutionary theories are useless as
hypotheses, they also reject functionalism as an adequate explanation of ritual.
Most historians of religions, such as Gerardus van der Leeuw in The Netherlands,
Rudolf Otto in Germany, Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade in the United States, and
E.O. James in England, have held the view that ritual behaviour signifies or
expresses the sacred (the realm of transcendent or ultimate reality). This
approach, however, has never been represented as an explanation of ritual. The
basic problem with it remains that it cannot be confirmed unless scholars agree
beforehand that such a transcendent reality exists (see also RELIGIONS:
ory and phenomenology of religion ). |
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Ritual behaviour, established or fixed
by traditional rules, has been observed the world over and throughout history.
In the study of this behaviour, the terms sacred (the transcendent realm) and
profane (the realm of time, space, and cause and effect) have remained useful in
distinguishing ritual behaviour from other types of action. (see also
sacred and profane) |
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Although there is no consensus on a
definition of the sacred and the profane, there is common agreement on the
characteristics of these two realms by those who use the terms to describe
religions, myth, and ritual. For Durkheim and others who use these terms, ritual
is a determined mode of action. According to Durkheim, the reference, or object,
of ritual is the belief system of a society, which is constituted by a
classification of everything into the two realms of the sacred and the profane.
This classification is taken as a universal feature of religion. Belief systems,
myths, and the like, are viewed as expressions of the nature of the sacred realm
in which ritual becomes the determined conduct of the individual in a society
expressing a relation to the sacred and the profane. The sacred is that aspect
of a community's beliefs, myths, and sacred objects that is set apart and
forbidden. The function of ritual in the community is that of providing the
proper rules for action in the realm of the sacred as well as supplying a bridge
for passing into the realm of the profane. |
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Although the distinction between the
sacred and profane is taken as absolute and universal, there is an almost
infinite variation on how this dichotomy is represented--not only between
cultures but also within a culture. What is profane for one culture may be
sacred to another. This may also be true, however, within a culture. The
relative nature of things sacred and the proper ritual conducted in relation to
the sacred as well as the profane varies according to the status of the
participants. What is set apart, or holy, for a sacred king, priest, or shaman
(a religious personage having healing and psychic transformation powers), for
example, will differ from the proper ritual of others in the community who are
related to them, even though they share the same belief systems. The crucial
feature that both sustains these relations and sets their limits is the ritual
of initiation. |
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Three further characteristics are
generally used to specify ritual action beyond that of the dichotomy of sacred
and profane thought and action. The first characteristic is a feeling or emotion
of respect, awe, fascination, or dread in relation to the sacred. The second
characteristic of ritual involves its dependence upon a belief system that is
usually expressed in the language of myth. The third characteristic of ritual
action is that it is symbolic in relation to its reference. Agreement on these
characteristics can be found in most descriptions of the functions of ritual.
(see also religious
belief, religious symbolism) |
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The scholarly disputes that have arisen
over the functions of ritual centre around the exact relation between ritual and
belief or the reference of ritual action. There is little agreement, for
example, on the priority of ritual or myth. In some cases, the distinction
between ritual, myth, and belief systems is so blurred that ritual is taken to
include myth or belief (see also MYTH
AND MYTHOLOGY: and religion ). |
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The function of ritual depends upon its
reference. Once again, although there is common agreement about the symbolic
nature of ritual, there is little agreement with respect to the reference of
ritual as symbolic. Ritual is often described as a symbolic expression of actual
social relations, status, or the role of individuals in a society. Ritual is
also described as referring to a transcendent, numinous (spiritual) reality and
to the ultimate values of a community. |
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Whatever the referent, ritual as symbolic
behaviour presupposes that the action is nonrational. That is to say, the
means-end relation of ritual to its referent is not intrinsic or necessary. Such
terms as latent, unintended, or symbolic are often used to specify the
nonrational function of ritual. The fundamental problem in all of this is that
ritual is described from an observer's point of view. Whether ritual man is
basically nonrational or rational, as far as his behaviour and his belief system
are concerned, is largely dependent upon whether he also understands both his
behaviour and belief to be symbolic of social, psychological, or numinous
realities. It is difficult to imagine a Buddhist, a Christian, or an Australian
aborigine agreeing that his ritual action and beliefs are nothing but symbols
for social, psychological, or ultimate realities. The notion of the sacred as a
transcendent reality may, however, come closest to the participant's own
experience. The universal nature of the sacred-profane dichotomy, however,
remains a disputed issue. |
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What is needed is a new theory that will
overcome the basic weaknesses of functional descriptions of ritual and belief.
Until such a time, ritual will remain a mystery. The progress made in the study
of language may be of help in devising a more adequate explanation of nonverbal
behaviour in general and of ritual in particular. |
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Because of the complexities inherent in
any discussion of ritual, it is often useful to make distinctions by means of
typology. Although typologies do not explain anything, they do help to identify
rituals that resemble each other within and across cultures. |
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All rituals are dependent upon some
belief system for their complete meaning. A great many rituals are patterned
after myths. Such rituals can be typed as imitative rituals in that the ritual
repeats the myth or an aspect of the myth. Some of the best examples of this
type of ritual include rituals of the New Year, which very often repeat the
story of creation. In a passage from an Indian Brahmana (a Hindu scripture) the answer to the question of why the
ritual is performed is that the gods did it this way "in the
beginning." Rituals of this imitative type can be seen as a repetition of
the creative act of the gods, a return to the beginning. |
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This type of myth has led to a theory
that all rituals repeat myths or basic motifs in myths. A version of this line
of thought, often called "the myth-ritual" school, is that myth is the
thing said over ritual. In other words, myths are the librettos for ritual. The
works of such scholars as Jane Harrison and S.H. Hooke are examples of this
theory. Although it cannot be denied that some rituals explicitly imitate or
repeat a myth (e.g., a myth of
creation), it cannot be maintained that all rituals do so. The ritual pattern of
the ancient Near East, which Hooke considers basic to the festival celebrating
the creation, is itself a typological construction. In any case, although there
is a combat and killing narrated in the festival myth, no known evidence exists
of ritual killing or of king-sacrifice in the ancient Near East. Nevertheless,
some rituals do repeat the story of a myth and represent an important type of
ritual behaviour, even though the type cannot be universalized as a description
of all ritual action. |
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Rituals may also be classified as
positive or negative. Most positive rituals are concerned with consecrating or
renewing an object or an individual, and negative rituals are always in relation
to positive ritual behaviour. Avoidance is a term that better describes the
negative ritual; the Polynesian word tabu
(English, taboo) also has
become popular as a descriptive term for this kind of ritual. The word taboo has
been applied to those rituals that concern something to be avoided or forbidden.
Thus, negative rituals focus on rules of prohibition, which cover an almost
infinite variety of rites and behaviour. The one characteristic they all share,
however, is that breaking the ritual rule results in a dramatic change in ritual
man, usually bringing him some misfortune. |
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Variation in this type of ritual can be
seen from within a culture as well as cross-culturally. What is prohibited for a
subject, for example, may not be prohibited for a king, chief, or shaman.
Rituals of avoidance also depend upon the belief system of a community and the
ritual status of the individuals in their relation to each other. Contact with
the forbidden or transgression of the ritual rules is often offset by rituals of
purification. |
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Negative ritual, as noted above, is
always in polarity with positive ritual. The birth of a child, the consecration
of a king, a marriage, or a death are ritualized both positively and negatively.
The ritual of birth or death involves the child or corpse in a ritual that, in
turn, places the child or the corpse in a prohibitive status and thus to be
avoided by others. The ritual itself, therefore, determines the positive or
negative characteristic of ritual behaviour. (see also birth rite,
death rite) |
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Another type of ritual is classified as
sacrificial. Its importance can be seen in the assessment of sacrificial ritual
as the earliest or elementary form of religion. See below under Sacrifice
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The significance of sacrifice in the
history of religions is well documented. One of the best descriptions of the
nature and structure of sacrifice is to be found in Essai sur la nature et le fonction du sacrifice, by the French
sociologists Henri Hubert and Marcel
Mauss, who differentiated between sacrifice and rituals of oblation,
offering, and consecration. This does not mean that sacrificial rituals do not
at times have elements of consecration, offering, or oblation but these are not
the distinctive characteristics of sacrificial ritual. Its distinctive feature
is to be found in the destruction, either partly or totally, of the victim. The
victim need not be human or animal; vegetables, cakes, milk, and the like are
also "victims" in this type of ritual. The total or partial
destruction of the victim may take place through burning, dismembering or
cutting into pieces, eating, or burying. |
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Hubert and Mauss have provided a very
useful structure for dividing this type of ritual into subtypes. Though
sacrificial rituals are very complex and diverse throughout the world,
nevertheless, they can be divided into two classes: those in which the
participant or participants receive the benefit of the sacrificial act and those
in which an object is the direct recipient of the action. This division
highlights the fact that it is not just individuals who are affected by
sacrificial ritual but in many instances objects such as a house, a particular
place, a thing, an action (such as a hunt or war), a family or community, or
spirits or gods that become the intended recipients of the sacrifice. The
variety of such rituals is very extensive, but the unity in this type of ritual
is maintained in the "victim" that is sacrificed. |
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Any typology of rituals would not be
complete without including a number of very important rites that can be found in
practically all religious traditions and mark the passage from one domain, stage
of life, or vocation into another. Such rituals have often been classified as rites
of passage, and the French anthropologist Arnold
van Gennep's study of these rituals remains the classic book on the
subject. See below under Rites of passage
; Death
rites and customs . |
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The basic characteristic of the
life-crisis ritual is the transition from one mode of life to another. Rites of
passage have often been described as rituals that mark a crisis in individual or
communal life. These rituals often define the life of an individual. They
include rituals of birth, puberty (entrance into the full social life of a
community), marriage, conception, and death. Many of these rituals mark a
separation from an old situation or mode of life, a transition rite celebrating
the new situation, and a ritual of incorporation. Rituals of passage do not
always manifest these three divisions; many such rites stress only one or two of
these characteristics. |
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Rituals of initiation into a secret
society or a religious vocation (viz., priesthood, ascetic life, medicine man)
are often included among rites of passage as characteristic rituals of
transition. The great New Year's rituals known throughout the world also
represent the characteristic passage from old to new on a larger scale, that
includes the whole society or community. (see also
initiation rite) |
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One of the dominant motifs of the
life-crisis ritual is the emphasis on separation, as either a death or a return
to infancy or the womb. In India, a striking example is the Hindu rite of being
"twice born." The young boy who receives the sacred thread in the upanayana
ritual, a ceremony of initiation, goes through an elaborate ritual that is
viewed as a second birth. Rituals such as Baptism in early Christianity, Yoga in
India, and the complex puberty rituals among North American Indian cultures
exemplify this motif of death and rebirth in rites of passage. (see also Hinduism) |
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Rituals of crisis and passage are often
classified as types of initiation. An excellent description of such rites is
found in Birth and Rebirth by Mircea
Eliade. From Eliade's point of view, rituals, especially initiation
rituals, are to be interpreted both historically and existentially. They are
related to the history and structure of a particular society and to an
experience of the sacred that is both transhistorical and transcendent of a
particular social or cultural context. Culture, from this perspective, can be
viewed as a series of cults, or rituals, that transform natural experiences into
cultural modes of life. This transformation involves both the transmission of
social structures and the disclosure of the sacred and spiritual life of man. |
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Initiation rituals can be classified in
many ways. The patterns emphasized by Eliade all include a separation or
symbolic death, followed by a rebirth. They include rites all the way from
separation from the mother to the more complex and dramatic rituals of
circumcision, ordeals of suffering, or a descent into hell, all of which are
symbolic of a death followed by a rebirth. Rites of withdrawal and quest, as
well as rituals characteristic of shamans and religious specialists, are
typically initiatory in theme and structure. Some of the most dramatic rituals
of this type express a death and return to a new period of gestation and birth
and often in terms that are specifically embryological or gynecological.
Finally, there are the actual rituals of physical death itself, a rite of
passage and transition into a spiritual or immortal existence. |
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The various typologies of ritual that
can be found in texts on religion and culture often overlap or reveal a common
agreement in the way in which ritual behaviour can be classified. There is a
striking contrast in the use of these typologies to interpret the meaning of
ritual. In general, this contrast can be described in terms of two positions:
the first emphasizes the sociopsychological function of ritual; the second,
although not denying the first, asserts the religious value of ritual as a
specific expression of a transcendental reality. |
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Ritual behaviour is obviously a means of
nonverbal communication and meaning. This aspect of ritual is often overlooked
in the stress on the relation of ritual to myth.
Thus, the meaning of ritual is often looked for in the verbal, spoken, or belief
system that is taken as its semantic correlate. The spoken elements in a ritual
setting do often reveal the meaning of a ritual by reference to a belief system
or mythology, but not always. Such a connection has led to an overemphasis on
the importance of the belief system or myth over ritual. To assert that myths
disclose more than ritual ever can is an oversimplification of the complex
correlation of these two important aspects of religion. A partial explanation of
this emphasis is undoubtedly the fact that a vast amount of data, both primary
and secondary, is literary in form. Theories about ritual are either deduced
from the primary literature of a religious tradition or are translated into
written language as a result of observation. |
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Ritual can be studied as nonverbal
communication disclosing its own structure and semantics. Scholars have only
recently turned to a systematic analysis of this important aspect of human
behaviour; and progress in kinesics,
the study of nonverbal communication, may provide new approaches to the analysis
of ritual. This development may well parallel the progress in linguistics and
the analysis of myth as an aspect of language. |
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A complete analysis of ritual would also
include its relation to art, architecture, and the specific objects used in
ritual such as specific forms of ritual dress. All of these components are found
in ritual contexts, and all of them are nonverbal in structure and meaning. |
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Most rituals mark off a particular time
of the day, month, year, stage in life, or commencement of a new event or
vocation. This temporal characteristic of ritual is often called "sacred
time." What must not be forgotten in the study of ritual is a
special aspect of ritual that is often described as "sacred space."
Time and place are essential features of ritual action, and both mark a specific
orientation or setting for ritual. Time and space, whether a plot of ground or a
magnificent temple, are ritually created and become, in turn, the context for
other rituals. Examples of ritual time and ritual space orientation can be found
in the rituals for building the sacrifice in Brahmanic Indian ritual texts; for
the building of a Hindu temple or a Christian cathedral; and for consecrating
those structures that symbolize a definite space-time orientation in which
rituals are enacted. The shape, spatial orientation, and location of the ritual
setting are essential features of the semantics of ritual action. (see also
sacred and profane, sacred
place) |
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When particular ritual objects, dances,
gestures, music, and dress are included in the study of ritual, the total
structure and meaning of ritual behaviour far exceed any one description or
explanation of ritual man. Most descriptions are selective and are dependent
upon the theory and intent with which rituals are to be studied. |
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In recent years there has been little
consensus among scholars on an adequate theory, or framework, for explaining or
describing ritual. Though the term has often been used to describe the
determined, or fixed, behaviour of both animals and men, the future study of
ritual may disclose that this behaviour, found throughout history and cultures,
is as unique to man as his capacity for speaking a language and that change in
ritual behaviour is parallel to, or correlated with, change in language.
Although great progress has been made in the analysis of man as the species who
speaks, the syntax and semantics of ritual man are yet to be discovered. |
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(Ha.P.) |
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