SLFK 214, February 19, 2004
Last class - remnants of ancestor cult
Ideas of sacrifice
Entering earth
Body decay and become one with soil/ancestors
Then video which combines very solemn honoring of the dead ancestors at the cemetery with a fairly raucous construction and parade of an effigy, culminating the sacrifice of the effigy
This is a typical yearly cycle rite
It has elements like communitas - people get outside those fenced-in yards and have a party in the streets and fields
Status reversal - not just honoring the dead, but berating them
Note content of the laments
And the spirit represented by the effigy is also concrete and in a rather graphically sexual way
What about grannies? Why is it grannies rather than young women who sing the erotic songs?
Return of the dead doesn't just happen at any old time
Unless they are unquiet dead
There are certain portals in time that permit contact between spheres of being
To understand these, go back to the concrete stuff we have already done
How to deal with continuum of space
Make divisions
And some cultures are more boundary conscious than others and more protective of the boundaries
Week ago I reviewed the village stuff I had showed earlier
Then Katia's apartment in the city - St. Petersburg
Within the boundary, there is a special point
It is the point of boundary crossing = doorway, gateway, can even be window
Doors and gateways are important in all cultures - just treated differently
Already did orientation of door toward street - and you saw extreme protection of door in Katia's apartment
Further American material
Welcome mat
Seasonal decorations
All go on door
Russian: shield and protect the door, gate, etc.
Russian concentration of power in the doorway examples
Cure of Volodia - he is made to sit on threshold
Women uttering charms do it in the icon corner
Even more obvious:
Looking at a funeral through a window
Must keep children, who don't know better from doing this
Looking a funeral with NO WINDOW, quite okay
But window concentrates the power of the dead
Looking through the window near the stove to foretell the future of the newborn
Otherwise, the future is not known
Looking through a knot in aspen wood to identify witches
Russian idea of devils
They are kind of ubiquitous badness
But can't get at you unless there is some sort of an opening
You do something that you shouldn't do
You say something that you shouldn't say and that creates an opening for the devil
Leaving diapers out past dark
Not crossing self at start of meal, bread making
Please note that START of an activity is an opening of sorts
Saying the name of a relative
Parents cursing children
Note YAWNING as a way for devils to get in
Importance of the door elsewhere
American decorate door for all holidays
Shiite Muslims and the door
Hebrews and the scroll
Where does mistletoe go?
Quite a variety of gateways and openings
There are concrete openings, which open to the outside, the street
And then there are more abstract openings
Icon corner is an opening into the world of the sacred
That is where you say prayers
Receive guests
Whisper charms over water
Mirror is used in fortune-telling
Not a real gateway, but a way of gazing into the future
Using things other than the door to access the spirit world
Russians and fortune-telling in the bathhouse, barn, etc.
Door is human or animal entry
If you want access to the spirit of the barn, you use entry that is not human
Like window, or, better still, a crack in the wall
Spirit tells you appropriate future
Please note American use of doorways with life
As in carrying the bride over
And non-human entrances for spirits, as in chimneys for babies, witches and Santa Claus
So far - doorways and other boundary crossing points in space, but some are pretty abstract
Time is intangible
People deal with time as they deal with space: setting up boundaries and points of crossing where the power of the boundary is concentrated
This is how people deal with time in terms of a human life and this is how people deal with time in terms of the calendar year.
Human life is continuous
Yet we establish categories such as childhood, adulthood, old age
How do you know when childhood ends and adulthood begins?
Drinking age?
Ability to get license and drive car?
Puberty?
Certain conventions which require setting up a boundary between one stage of life and the next and creating a gateway through which you pass to get to the next stage
That gateway is ritual
Same thing happens with calendar year
When does winter end and spring begin?
When does the new year begin?
All of this is a convention which does not seem like a convention, because we all accept the same one
Ritual is that thing which marks the time gateway
Concentrated and deep experience
Turner calls it communitas
There are rituals that go with space, by the way, certainly among the Slavs
Sending off recruit ritual
Even leaving the house for a small trip
Sest' na dorogu
The gateway or limens is not just an opening between one time and the next or one space and the next
It is a category onto itself
It is a point OUTSIDE ALL ORDER
Quite contradictory
Because ritual is HIGHLY structured
That precisely that feature permits you to let go of structure and restrictions
Allows grannies to sing erotic songs
College as a ritual
Uses space, food, clothing to tell you that you are in a special place
Where you live
Where you eat
They take away your car
Social ideals in college
Anti-war
Animal rights
Inversion of social norms
Where students pee and vomit
Why do you do it?
Social advancement
And it is fun and hard at the same time
Ritual usually considered to be of 2 types
Ritual of the life cycle
Marriage
Rituals connected to birth, like baptism, welcoming the child
Funerals
Could have initiation
These are usually seen as linear
A person progresses from one stage to the next
Because of this linear idea, these are called rituals of status elevation
As a person moves through life, he or she goes from one stage to the next
Person does not just progress
People really need categories, need to be able to make distinctions: this is a child and this is an adult, for example
There are obligations and privileges that come with adulthood and same for childhood
People need to know which ones are operative in a given case
Other distinctions that people want to know: this is a married person and this is a single person - again, certain rights and obligations
Testing of the rights and obligations of a "committed relationship" on Temptation Island - perhaps because this is a relatively new category; we don't know what the boundaries and characteristics are and need to establish
There is very little legislation about a committed relationship - again, need to test and establish; sometimes done in court cases, as in palimony trials
The various wedding/courtship shows on TV
Bachlorette
Joe Millionaire
Concomitant legislation seeking to define marriage
Structure of a status elevation or life cycle rite
Person is separated from previous status
Person is placed in a transitional state and subjected to ritual humiliation
A kind of bringing-down in preparation for lifting up
Person is incorporated into a new and higher state
Pledging a fraternity or sorority
Separated from previous state - you declare your intention to rush
You do things that are different from the people who do not rush
You get a bid - this distinguishes you from people who did not get one
Transitional period or limens - pledge period and esp. hell week
Extreme humiliation of hazing - like being left naked somewhere in the middle of Albemarle County
Not washing and/or being made to do lots of heavy work (like repairs) on the fraternity house
Incorporation - the actual initiation rite - you get tokens like pin
You learn secret words, handshakes
You get to eat there, live at the house the following year
Football initiation rites
Where did you get these ideas?
Same sort of structure for marriage
And basically all life cycle rites
Other ritual type is yearly cycle and these are the ones we will do here
PLEASE NOTE that I will describe all Russian and Ukrainian yearly cycle rituals for them; this will be the ONLY PLACE where they get a full description. All of their readings have partial descriptions only.
Yearly cycle rituals are things like Easter, Christmas, Hanukah, Ramadan, etc.
They happen at regular intervals, in fact, usually tied to the turning points in the year - the solstices and equinoxes
They happen every year - and are thus cyclical rather than linear
These are oscillating rituals - rituals of status reversal
In these - also a transition period or limens
What happens in the yearly cycle limens is not humiliation of the one who is about to be elevated
Rather there is GENERAL status reversal - ALL people in what are considered elevated positions are humiliated in a way
People who are in lowly positions get to rule
Halloween - Kids rule rather than adults
Thanksgiving - feed the homeless
Easter - Pope washes the feet of a beggar
Christmas - collect for the poor
Dogwood festival in Charlottesville - parade of the people from various old folk's homes
Humiliation of the mighty - Shriners ride little silly cars in a parade
Pope washes feet - as above
Adults get tricks played on them at Halloween
Often prominent citizens go around collecting money at Christmas
The limens of the yearly cycle permits general reversal of behavior
There are certain things you are not supposed to do - for the brief period of the yearly cycle festival, you are allowed to do them
Many have to do with restricted body functions
Almost all American holidays have you overeat: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter
Kids get to overdose on candy on Halloween and Easter
Certain degree of sexual license for Mardi Gras
Spring break is a yearly cycle rite of sorts - a non-sectarian and non-religious version of Mardi Gras
Limens of the yearly cycle, then, permits:
1) Status reversal and release of some of the tensions that come with unequal status
People in low positions get to get out of them for a while
People in high positions get rid of the responsibilities and restrictions of their positions for a while
2) Reversal of norms - you get to do things that are normally prohibited or restricted
Indulge in sexual activity
Overeat
Destructive behavior - like smash things
Piñata, wasting energy for Christmas
Another feature of the limens - it is an opening during which you can access the other world - and have a magical effect
Limens is precisely not the norm - above: backwards behavior
In the limens you are outside the norm - and can access other realms
Affect the future - for yourself
Wishbone at Thanksgiving
Candles at birthday
Affect communal future - usually crop fertility, some animal (livestock) fertility
Pumpkins at Halloween (and other dead vegetation)
Christmas tree (evergreen and ever fertile) and other evergreens
Fertility symbols at Easter - egg, bunny
Every ritual is a magic act - perhaps not consciously recognized as such, but …