On Giving Salt to Buffaloes: Ritual as Communication

Abstract

In recent work on the anthropology of religion, Wallace (1966: 233) suggests that ritual is without each ritual being a particular sequence of signals which, once announced, allows no uncertainty, no choice, and hence . . . conveys no from sender to receiver. Wallace is apparently using the word information in too narrow sense. Ritual acts are necessarily repetitive but, far from erasing information, this repetition assures people that the basic values and institutions on which their society rests still retain their validity. Such reassurance is conveyed in the symbolism of ritual, and apparently has the effect of reducing anxiety in community. The present essay will analyze particular Indian ritual so as to show that this (like any other calendrical ritual) does indeed communicate very important message: All is going to be well for our community! The process of communication takes many forms in modern India. Some flows to the populace from the mass media of radio, press, film, and poster; other reaches people through the link? ages in different types of personal chains or networks. Some of these net? works are official; they link villagers with panchayat board, with district government officials, and then with the state governments. Others are unofficial, but very deeply entrenched and important in daily life. Their structure and use vary according to whether they link village and town, village and village, or the members of single hamlet. Village-and-town networks operate through the linkage of villagers who spend considerable time in town and have influential or knowledgeable friends there. Inter? village networks may link persons in neighboring villages who co-operate to stage annual festivals, or they may be based on pattern of marriage and visiting relationships. The intravillage networks may also have kinship basis, but there are further types of network within the village which link individuals to certain centers of influence and information?the village headman and council, the educated younger men, the festival committee, and the gossiping groups. These village networks can be defined as the sequences of personal contacts that must be made if anyone is to influence or be influenced by people in any of the loci of power, i.e., those groups of people who control an optimum of locally useful information. 411