Ritual Procedures Research Articles

‘Master and Servant’: A Divinatory Class Dream

LOVE divination, the discovery of one's future spouse by recourse to certain ritual procedures, was widespread throughout the British Isles. While only the bare bones of the process are found in most surviving accounts, in-depth study of several rituals concerned with the summoning of 'fetches has uncovered a number of statements dealing with the specific results obtained by these prognostications. These accounts may be divided into two groups. The first constitutes evidence of a straightforward anthropological or ethnological nature. The second group, the focus of this work, embodies floating traditions which either never occurred, or which have outstripped any original factual basis. Several of these fall into a category which I have previously termed 'Master and Servant.'2 In this paper it is hoped to discuss this tradition at some length and to illustrate its place as a divinatory 'class dream.'

Challenge and Response: Pesiqta Derab Kahana, Chapter 26 as an Oblique Reply to Christian Claims

Some years ago in an examination of the text noted above, I hypothesized that it could well be a response to some Christian theological position being set forth and argued against Judaism in Galilee in the fourth and fifth centuries. My choice of doctrine was that of the atonement: Christ's atoning death for the sins of humankind. The chapter, to be dealt with below in detail, is in its entirety an argument for the atoning efficacy of the death of righteous persons, that is, a doctrine of vicarious atonement. The material included centered upon the lesson read in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus. This details the ritual procedures that were to take place once a year on the tenth day of the seventh month in the cult center, in order to expiate for the ritual uncleannness and acts of rebellion, that is, “all the sins of the people.” It concludes with the words: “This shall become a rule binding on you for all times, to make for the Israelites once a year the expiation required by all their sins.”

Selective primary health care: strategies for control of disease in the developing world. XXII. Tetanus: a preventable problem.

Tetanus, although an eminently preventable disease, remains common and uncontrolled in many developing countries. The persistence of tetanus is attributable to health service policies that ignore the disease because of a dearth of reliable epidemiologic and economic information. In many developing countries there have, as yet, been few public or professional demands for preventive action. For the prevention of neonatal tetanus, the immediate priority is immunization timed to produce and maintain protective levels of maternal antitoxin during pregnancy. This strategy should be accompanied by the extension and improvement of scientific standards of midwifery. To protect the rest of the population from wound tetanus, the strategy of first choice consists of continuous multiple-antigen immunization in infancy and childhood. Such a program should be reinforced by the routine administration of a toxoid booster following all accidental wounds as well as before all ritual procedures known to carry risk. These strategies, which are of proven efficacy and adaptable to local conditions of the large populations still in need of protection, together provide powerful justification for the expansion of primary maternal and child health services. Careful measurement of the incidence of neonatal tetanus would provide a good indicator of the degree of effectiveness such services have attained in many rural communities.

Doctoral Theses in France: A Case of 'Reformitis'

In every country the status of doctoral theses is the outcome of a long university tradition. Changes tended to occur gradually over long periods in the absence of actual reforms. Until quite recently, in many countries there were no statutes setting out the relevant procedures under which doctorates were awarded or the conditions under which they were prepared, but merely a time-honoured practice. In Europe a common medieval tradition, whose ritual procedures have been in part conserved, slowly branched out into distinct national practices which have followed the changes in the

Deux fêtes de village en Corée

The Korean village as a basic sociological unit is held together by religious festivals (tongje) celebrated at regular, mostly annual, intervals. Two villages in the south-west of Korea are presented as typical examples. The first, Kuryong, is an agricultural community located at the foot of a mountain. The second village, Suri, is situated on an island off the west coast of the Korean peninsula. Its inhabitants live mostly on fishing and the gathering of seaweed. Both villages hold an annual festival at the beginning of the lunar year. The protective deity feasted in the agricultural village is at the same time the deity of a mountain east of the village — a feature not uncommon in Korea. The festival is conducted by six officiants who are male representatives of the community selected a few days prior to the ceremony. The central rite consists in the offering of incense, wine and food to the deity, accompanied by numerous prostrations and prayers for protection of the village. Ritual purity is strictly observed and women are excluded from the ceremony. The community participates only in a final reunion. A very similar ceremony is found in the village on the island. However, in Suri, the ceremony of offerings and prayer to the protective deity — residing on top of the island hill — is only one part, called sangdangje, of a larger festival. The other part, hadangje, takes place on the beach. Women play an active role, all villagers participate and a large part of the ceremony consists of improvisation and merry-making. The deity being feasted is the dragon king present in the form of a puppet. The villagers approach him with offerings of wine and money and the deity, through a spokesman, gives words of praise or admonition in an improvised dialogue with the fishermen. A strong sexual symbolism and much spontaneity characterize the festival in which no taboos of purity are observed. At the end, the dragon king is sent off into the sea in a small boat bearing impurities and misfortune away. Comparing these two village festivals, it appears that they belong to two entirely different types. The first, with its strong emphasis on ritual purity and fixed ritual procedure, is related to Confucian ancestor worship and was introduced in the villages by the educated elite. In contrast to this, the second festival seems to be much older and to have a popular and indigenous origin. Traces of similar festivals held in the same region during the first centuries A.D. can already be found in the San-kuo chih. What Christian Deschamps describes here for Korea is of great interest to historians of Chinese religion. The ceremony of sending off the Dragon King's boat, as practiced in the Suri village, resembles the Chinese Pestilence King Exorcism still practiced in Taiwan as well as in mainland China (see Kenneth Dean's report in this issue of the Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie, p. 203). The tension between indigenous cults and the Confucian administrators who try to replace these festivals with their official rites is a phenomenon well known throughout Chinese history. Jean Lévi's study (in this issue, p. 81) throws new light on these perennial efforts of the Chinese government to "civilise" local customs.

An Approach to Kuranko Divination

An account and analysis of divinatory practices among the Kuranko of northeast Sierra Leone is presented, using the usual methods of ethno-graphical research, and also extrapolating from and discussing the author's own experiences of consulting diviners. Apart from examining the status of beliefs associated with Kuranko divinatory practices, this paper investigates some aspects of the method of participant observation in the human sciences. A praxeological interpretation of Kuranko divination and sacrifice is given, emphasizing the psychological and existential transformations which follow from and are enabled by the ritual procedures.

Ritual Resolution in Meta' Legal Process

Specialists in conflict resolution by ritual means, such as the much discussed Nuer Leopard-Skin Chief, have long been familiar in the anthropological literature (Evans-Pritchard I940, I956; Howell I954), and a number of studies have shown how disputes may be resolved by linking social conflict and supernatural danger (Fortes I940, I945; Harper I957; Huber I959; Llewellyn and Hoebel I94I; Schneider I957; Winans and Edgerton I964). However, relatively little progress has been made in understanding ritual conflict resolution as a legal phenomenon. Specialists in the anthropology of law have rarely integrated it into their discussions of the variability of human legal systems (Nader I969; Nader and Yngvesson I973; Pospisil 197I). Moreover, those scholars now writing on ritual conflict resolution generally stress the symbolism and ritual involved while de-emphasizing conflict resolution itself (Douglas I966; Lienhardt I96I; Turner 1968, I969). As a result the debate continues as to how ritual conflict resolution really worked in classic examples such as the settlement of homicide cases by the Leopard-Skin Chief (Beidelman I971; Greuel I97I; Haight I972), and many important questions regarding the role of ritual resolution procedures in human legal systems remain unanswered. The purpose of this paper is to define those factors that are essential to the operation of ritual conflict resolution as a legal process. Data from Meta' society in the United Republic of Cameroon will be used to illustrate three distinct kinds of cases in which this approach to legal problem solving was employed in pre-colonial times.' The focus is on the immediate pre-colonial period (ca. 900o), as it was at this time that the Meta' relied on ritual resolution most extensively.2 As will be seen, the relationships of the disputants and the issues at stake may have varied from case to case, but common factors underlay the working of ritual conflict resolution in every instance. Specifically, ritual resolution is shown to have operated as a process of psycho-social intimidation.

Multiple identities: gender, power and the production of anthropological knowledge

This article discusses my "outsider within" status in terms of gender, age, nationality, race and perceived positionality and alliance with the "Whiteman" (by virtue of my western educational status) during my fieldwork. My research centered on the contentious debate over female circumcision in Southwest Cameroon. It examines the gulf between perceived anti-female circumcision activism and the quest for anthropological knowledge through ethnography. My multiple identities expose illuminating insights about the larger global context of power in which the ritual procedure is intertwined and how they may be shaping the practices on the ground, as well as on the political complexity of both theoretical and applied research.

Death: Myth and Ritual

dead illustrate the function of myth, translating the real and punctual -into terms of the ideal and durative, projecting ritual procedure to the plane of the ideal situation.4 Rituals of kenosis rather than those of plerosis relate to death, especially the mortification and purgation elements in the seasonal pattern.5 The concept that to primitive community life is not consistent progress from birth to death, but a series of leases annually or periodically renewed is illuminating.6 Rites of kenosis (emptying) portray and symbolize the eclipse of life and vitality at the end of each lease, which is usually related to the seasonal variation in the

Self-Realization and the Ancestors: An Analysis of Two Japanese Ritual Procedures for Achieving Domestic Harmony

R. P. Dore in his book City Life in Japan suggests that the types of moral dilemmas faced by Japanese have changed as the bonds of the traditional family become weakened because of societal change through a process of individuation. This is a process in which one sets oneself apart from some larger wegroup, such as the family, in order to progressively select personal goals rather than collective ones (1958: 381). Traditionally, conflict of personal loyalties such as that between one's lord and one's family constituted the type of moral dilemma explicitly recognized and expressed in moral instruction. However, according to Dore, the type of moral dilemma faced by Japanese today is likely to involve conflicts between, on the one hand, particularistic loyalties, and on the other, either individual aspirations ... or generalized principles of conduct which are held to be applicable to all (1958: 381). I shall focus on one current type of moral dilemma, namely, that pertaining to conflict between loyalty to one's family and to one's individual aspirations. In the first part of this paper I shall describe by means of a number of examples how this type of dilemma is manifested in particular conflict situations which involve youths. In the second part I shall show how the dilemma and the conflict are resolved through religious belief and ritual which involve the ancestors. My thesis is that for some youths who are caught in this dilemma in which individual aspirations are pitted against family obligations, resolution of the dilemma is possible by equating one's aspirations with one's family obligations. This can be achieved through ritual action without a sense of personal loss, even when individual and family goals

Ritual and Social Change

My sense of the honour conferred upon me by the invitation to deliver this fifth Malinowski Memorial Lecture is equalled only by my strong sense of unworthiness. But, worthy or unworthy, one can but do one's best, and today I shall try to review some recent trends in a field in which, as a student, I have always found Malinowski's contribution especially stimulating and enlightening. This is the field of ritual behaviour, that, broadly, to which anthropologists refer when they speak of myth, magic and religion. Research in these topics, based largely on the vast amount of excellent fieldwork carried out since Malinowski published his essay on 'Magic, science and religion' in I926 (i926a), has moved far beyond where he left it. But after reviewing some recent work in this field I am left with the suspicion that in at least some respects he understood better than some of his modern critics do what ritual is really about. In spite of all that has been said and written about this side of human behaviour (and I am afraid that I must confess to only the slenderest acquaintance with this great corpus of writings), anthropologists still seem to find some difficulty in formulating a working definition of ritual. Thus it has been, and still is, the subject of several different and seemingly incompatible theoretical approaches. With due humility, then, I set out in this lecture to see if it may be possible to state with more clarity than has sometimes been achieved just what it is that we social anthropologists are studying when we investigate what we sometimes call magicoreligious institutions. I shall ask you to bear with me if I ask once again the age-old question: what, if any, is the essential difference between 'ritual' procedures and so-called 'practical' or 'scientific' ones? And, without claiming that I am saying anything that has not been said, and said many times, before, I shall argue that there is a difference, and that it is a crucial one. I shall try to convince you, first, that when we speak of ritual we are speaking of something which is basically expressive, even dramatic, whereas when we speak of science or scientific activity as such, however 'primitive', we are not. I shall argue that this is in fact an essential part of what we mean by ritual. Second, I shall follow a theme of Professor Raymond Firth's (I964: 238. Cf. i95i, passim) in arguing that magical and religious rites are, in consequence, very much more like the arts, like poetry, painting and sculpture, for example, than they are like science as we tmderstand it in this century. Thus comprehending them is very much more like understanding a work of art, such as a play, than it is like understanding science. Third, I shall argue that the instrumental efficacy of ritual procedures (where, as is generally the case, they are thought to have such efficacy) is thought, when and where it is deeply thought about, to lie at bottom in just this very expressiveness. And I shall, finally, suggest that a fresh look at some of the rituals of social change

Myth and Story

I. Sciences are like small children that constantly outgrow their clothes but are compelled, all too often, by the negligence or penury of their guardians, to make with last year's outfit. Of no science, perhaps, is this more true than of Mythology. During the past fifty years, the science of mythology has reachedif not maturity, at least adolescence. In the first place, thanks to archaeological excavations in the Near East, we now possess a richer body of ancient mythological literature and a wider acquaintance with ancient religious beliefs and practises than ever before 1). Consequently we are now in a position to recognize a number of controlling processes and patterns hitherto unsuspected. In the second place, the intensive work of field anthropologists has now made it clear that Myth can no longer be studied merely as a branch of literature or art, but belongs also-and more fundamentally-within the realm of religion and cult, mythological stories being recited, in many societies, not for entertainment or diversion, but as part and parcel of ritual procedures 2). Nevertheless, the full implications of these developments do not appear even now to have been adequately apprehended. For, altholgh the field of inquiry has certainly been enlarged, the science of mythology continues to be dominated, by and large, by the perspectives of

Remnants of a rain‐cult among the Acewa

SYNOPSIS The author draws attention to the functional significance of rain‐godesses in the traditional culture of the Cewa, a matrilinial people of Central Africa, and mentions a minor revival of the rain‐cult during a drought in 1948. He gives an account (originally rendered by a member of the Cewa) of the actual procedure during ceremonial quests for rain. The account describes briefly the status and mode of life of Cauta the female rain deity, gives an indication of the ritual procedure and sacrifice during rain ceremonies and contains a song sung on these occasions. The author concludes by drawing a distinction between Cauta the rain‐deity, and the Asumphi or rain‐priests drawn from the Banda‐clan, and mentions the use made of a type of trapdoor spider by these rain‐priests in order to forecast the advent of rain.