SLFK 214, March 18, 2004
Ritual involves lots of peculiar behavior
When you see a bunch of Ukrainians dancing around in costume, you think they are weird
Esp. the cross-dressers, people dressed as death
When Americans do the same thing at a different season, as in Halloween, this is fine
When you see various mock sacrifices among the Slavs, this looks strange
When American kids bite the heads off of chocolate animals, this is fine
You will see picnic with the dead and this seems strange
But kids hunting for Easter eggs in the cemetery is fine
Including having the minister's wife dressed as a pagan fertility symbol
Recall the waste of time on pysanky and tell them about workshop March 27, 2-4, Cabell 118
Also, the Easter egg kits are available at the bookstore
Basically, there is lots of strange behavior
Your own seems normal
Or maybe you notice that something funny is going on
Trying to make sense of it all
Bogatyrev - written about 70 years ago - though very modern in lots of ways
A lot of the interpretations that he complains about don't exist anymore in scientific circles - though they do very much in popular understandings on magic and folklore - thus worth going through here
Complains about old methods of finding out the meaning of magic acts by trying to figure out
When they were borrowed
From where they were borrowed
What they meant by looking at a primitive group where a meaning for the magic acts is still articulated - he will later spend a great deal of time talking about magic acts where the purpose of them is known and articulated and where the purpose of them is no longer known
Explain why the when and the where of borrowing cannot be known based on the serendipity of collecting
As for interpreting meaning, old method:
Basically - your own culture does X
To figure out what this means you say:
This primitive group does X, therefore, X must have a one point had the same meaning in our culture as it does in that primitive culture
Or- a long time ago, among the Germanic peoples (which is what English belongs to) or the Indo-European peoples, this meant X
We are an Indo-European people, therefore it originally meant X
Looking back in time
Looking at contemporaneous "primitives"
Problem with looking back in time
How do you know it meant X at the time that it was borrowed?
How do you know it wasn't reinterpreted in the process of borrowing
Or over time
Problem with looking at contemporary "primitive" cultures - the same act can be interpreted to mean different things - even within very closely related groups
His table and iron chain example
Lets look at American example
The lights at Christmas/New Years - Holiday Season
If some Indo-European peoples say that they do fire magic (things with lights) to insure the continuation of the solar cycle and the return of the sun at the point of the winter solstice, then this must be why Americans do it
Fairly ridiculous - not much concern with the return of the sun
BUT other meanings might be appropriate
Sympathetic magic and idea of plenty - even if you are not aware of this meaning
How do you know? Check other related behavior
Showing your wealth to your neighbors for status and prestige (and continuation of both) in the future - this is a realistic interpretation, too, and one that might even be conscious - the showing off in front of your neighbors
People get interviewed on TV about how much they spend - so showing off how much you spend is a motivation fairly near the surface
Neighborhood decoration contests
Law suits that lights are too bright - curtailing display put on by neighbor
Looking NOT to the past - whether own past or among people who seem like own past (the "primitives") this is the diachronic approach
But looking WITHIN own culture for similar uses, for parallels - this is the synchronic approach
If you look at lights at Christmas/New Years synchronically:
Lots of OTHER acts aimed at prosperity
At insuring standing within the community
This is a more likely meaning
Sending cards to everyone, usually detailing all your and your family's successes over the past year
Gifts to all - again, display of wealth
Parties that those in power throw for employees and the like
Consider how important the Christmas season is considered to be to the American economy
Very nice section on the multiplicity of meaning
Same thing can mean a whole lot of different things
To different people, in different neighborhoods
The tying legs of table together
For health
For protection of livestock
To stop rumors
To protect household
To protect trees
Among other
You can say that there is a basic protection meaning - but quite a variety of particulars
But you should not say that this is the simplest meaning - therefore it is the original one
Or this is the most primitive meaning - and therefore it is the original
Or this is the first recorded (talk about recording just a bit)
You should take synchronic look - what it means in the culture NOW
There will be no SURVIVALS - something that does not have meaning will be lost
So - with lights - it might have started out as some sort of sun magic thing
But it kept on going because it was a good way to show off in front of the neighbors (a meaning that people are aware of)
Because it fits the general potlatch structure of American culture (something people are not aware of) potlatch is extravagant expenditure for future good
Give other American potlatching examples
So, what makes sense to look for is general principles
Two very basic ones are law of similarity and
Law of contact
Contact - if 2 things have been in contact, you can act on one and influence the other -basic voodoo principle
You can take an article of clothing, and influence its owner (wearer)
Same with hair, lost teeth, nail clippings, etc
Another way to put it - once in contact, always in contact
Contact law is law of objects
Russian examples:
Foot prints
Milk from affected cow to summon witch
Egg ceremony, wax ceremony
Beating with pussywillows
American examples: celebrity touching
T-shirts of famous athletes
On a more mundane level - tokens from boyfriend/girlfriend
Pictures, mementos
Ritual contact - urge to BE THERE
Law of similarity is law of actions
You do something in pantomime and it will occur in real life the next day
Old- act out killing and animal (stab paintings on cave wall) and you will succeed in real hunt
Above - you act as if you have lots and money and you will indeed prosper
Ukrainian, Russian, American weddings go by this principle
People rationalize this to say that if you act as if you have money, your standing in the community will go up and you will actually get more money - through better business deals, or more customers = more business, etc.
Overeating at holidays or general holiday excess
If you do it then, the non-holiday times will go well also
What happens on New Years will affect the rest of the year
Pressure to have a good time on holidays and fears, guilt if you don't
Visualization - used in sports, seems very closely related to law of similarity
More classic stuff
Summer "dummy" wins out over winter one in video
Cookies to all = prosperity to all, community unity
"Dead" water
Role of individuality shows that there is a real hodge-podge
Any person may have one reason, or the other, or some combination
I call this the law of multiplicity - all folklore stuff has multiple meanings and functions
The stuff that survives is capable of multiple interpretation, fits lots of people's ideas and needs and that's what keeps it alive
How easily things DO get reinterpreted
Ring Around the Rosie
Farmer in the Dell
The analogy stuff I showed last time with the trees
Pop culture becomes folk:
Yellow ribbons
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Parodies of it also exist
White Christmas
From my work on Brama - how much people want one and only one interpretation or answer
But this is NOT how things work
Bogatyrev says that primitive stuff will survive among peasants in the present and lower classes everywhere, including in the biggest cities
I say that we are all VERY capable of primitive thinking and DO IT ALL THE TIME
Trick is to become aware of this fact and try to detect the principles of "primitive" thinking
Usual way is with focus groups, study groups, surveys
Folklore and uncovering basic principles is more efficient and more interesting
Frazer terminology
Homeopathic magic - like acts
Contagious magic - once in contact, always in contact
A bit about James George Frazer - he notes a peculiar rite at Delphi and sets about trying to interpret it
Writes TWELVE volumes of a book called the Golden Bough
Draws all sorts of parallel and even only vaguely related rites to try and interpret
Talks about all sorts of thinking which he calls primitive
Tries to come up with a history of the development of human thought
He is not so much the point here although you should know who he was because, in his own way, he influenced modern thinking as much as Freud or Darwin
More apropos here are the various principles
Homeopathic and contagious already done - similarity and contact
Acting directly upon intended target
Acting indirectly
A lot of 1 is done to self
Bathe in 1st dew for beauty
Though can be done to others
Giving cookies to horses, cattle so that they will be healthy, fat all year
A lot of this is done for health reasons, prosperity
Bathing a child in lubiistok so he or she will be loved
Putting money in the shoe of a bride
Acting indirectly - clucking like chicken so that chickens will do well
YOU do it, but supposed to affect chickens
Doing something to the table for the sake of the orchard
Throwing cookies in the air so that crops will grow tall
Same for swings at Maslenitsa
American Christmas gift-giving to kids might be like that
Supposedly giving candy to kids at Halloween was a way to pass it on to the dead, much like amongst the Slavs
American indirect - volunteering at old age home, or other community service
Not for sake of old folks, but for sake of future employer, resume
Positive and negative
Positive = to make something happen
Negative = to avoid something happening = magic of taboo (this is not allowed)
Positive = to make crops grow well
To give self health, luck
Examples: American - pick 4 leaf clover, carry rabbit's foot
Take lucky pencil to exam
Certain uniforms in sports, not shaving before big match
Bouquet at wedding, garter
Russian and Ukrainian: cookies, guy in river
Red strings at wedding
Negative = to avoid getting sick, to avoid something bad happening to your crops, your children
Ukrainian examples of diapers left after dark
Not giving pregnant woman what she asks for
Step on dead water
Sewing on holidays, chopping wood on holidays
Sitting at corner of a table, shaking hands across threshold
American positive - to give self luck (penny, birthday candles)
Negative - no walk under ladder
No spill salt
Basically all of the bad luck stuff that should be avoided
Notice that there is a great deal of negative magic among the Slavs and not so in West
In West - perhaps no gain weight over holidays
Must have good time over holidays
Material from them?
Double reality
You do this in this world and it will affect X in the next
Mother eats fruit and takes it away from own dead children in the afterlife
Can work either way - if she has plenty to eat, then so will they; this is parallelism
OR by inversion - if she has it here, then they won't have it there
Typical presentation of the other world - object broken in this world are whole in the other and reverse
Double reality is the "belief," if you can call it such, behind commercials
If you get object endorsed by famous person, beautiful person - you somehow draw on the fame or beauty of the person in the commercial
People will come to events just to be around famous person
Principle of mana- not much discussed by Bogatyrev
Object in contact with that desirable person somehow confers desired qualities on anyone who acquires the object
If you use a particular product, such as Aleve, you will not only get pain relief, you will get popularity
Principle behind Ralph Lauren clothing, or Tommy Hilfiger
Selling a life style
You wear this clothing, you not only get clothing, you get the whole package of the lovely life style
A bit more on double reality
And the special connecting object
A kind of KEY
As in the incantation
Which, in turn, is a key to the other world
As is amulet
Focusing on an object to achieve a connection to the other world
Where things are beautiful
Or where they can be magically set right
The whole idea behind commercials is that people, at some level, believe in magic
Not on a conscious or articulate level - they would never say that they do
Americans say they don't believe in magic
But principle behind even airing a commercial is that it will appeal precisely to this desire for the magical
A magical transformation
A magical solution
A magical cure
In ritual - special object associated with the ritual
Christmas tree
Turkey at Thanksgiving, even though lots of people don't really care for it
The candies at Halloween are not very good
The chocolate of the Easter bunny, the Santa not good either
The candy hearts at Valentine's are perfectly awful
Motivated and unmotivated magic actions
Motivated: You know why you are doing what you do
This awareness permits flexibility, substitution, variation
You don't know why you are doing it, but you know that it is important - Unmotivated
Tends to lead to rigid adherence
You no longer know which is/are the important part or parts, so you carefully try to preserve ALL, just in case you omit or change the important one and create a hell of a mess
Interesting section on how effective a ritual can be even if you have no idea what or why
Sometimes more effective - perhaps more mystical
Like a church service in a foreign language - Latin, for example
Look at the American stuff from last time and start of today - which you just do
Things feared - forgetting to send someone a Christmas (Holiday) card
Forgetting a gift
Forgetting Valentine's card
Gift for Mom on Mother's Day
Forgetting anniversary
Commercials that play on this fear
Last minute gifts
In Slavic material - great deal of fear
The lights stuff - no fear, but people get a big kick out of it no matter to what extent they understand why
American handing out candy on Halloween - do they know why?
Yet this is a super fun holiday
Ritual becomes a game - and flexibility returns
No longer taken seriously
Fear of messing something up and getting horrid results is gone
Magic acts rationally explained
Not in Bogatyrev- give it a new meaning that makes sense
Chopping down the Christmas tree and father/son bonding
Instead of vegetation fertility and sacrifice
Unmotivated acts can be very meaningful (you don't have to know why you are doing something to be deeply affected by it)
Anne on body and blood of Christ and human sacrifice so that there will be universal peace and harmony - may be a whole lot more spiritually effective and uplifting NOT to think of this as body and blood and not to think of human sacrifice
Americans can be deeply affected by Christmas, Halloween, without knowing either Christian or pagan meaning
An American motivated act might be New Year's resolutions
How about gift giving? During Holiday Season?
How about during wedding?
What happens when people take these traditional and inarticulate magic acts and start articulating? Please give X gift.
Charging people for the meal after the wedding - they don't show up and don't bring gift, but parents of bride already ordered and paid for meal
Similar - writing in to Ann Landers that gift was not suitable to the expense that went into the meal provided.
Original purpose of meal and of lots of group eating during rituals is solidarity
This fits American synchronic beliefs
Date meal
Business lunch
Charging people for meal is making the gift and meal a business transaction and not a ritual (or a magic) act
Magic acts performed by several people or one person
Rituals often belong to the first category
Group songs - like Christmas carols
Russians (and Ukrainians) also have very interesting Christmas plays
Going out trick-or-treating on Halloween
Singing Happy Birthday
One person - as under direct and indirect action - often to affect self
New Years' resolutions
Russia and Ukraine - conjuring on certain holidays to get babies, husband
Magic acts with or without verbal formulas
Verbal formulas are things like songs above
They are also things like incantations
Ryan says that the purpose of the incantation is stated
And Bogatyrev pretty much tells you the same thing
To the extent that informants will use the verbal accompanying formulas to explain what a magic act means
Verbal formulas often exist in positive/negative pairs
May X happen and may Y not happen
May the cows give lots of milk and may no one become jealous and give them the evil eye
Theory - as of the Sokolovs - that action takes precedence over words
Hard to say
The words often describe what you are doing
My lectures on oral composition - as in connection with a wedding
I explain that you describe what you see, what you do
Action is primary and description comes later? Almost impossible to tell now, esp. with the fluidity of rites
Things are added and taken away and reinterpreted
American example of words and actions is Farmer in the Dell, which is now a game
Certain actions go with the words
Was once an incantation for agricultural prosperity
Dualism
This is the fine line between magic and the church
You know from Ryan that some of the material magica are religious items
Including prayers folded up and used as amulets
Use of icon to ward off fire
In Bogatyrev - priest asked (or expected) to control the weather
How practitioners see a particular rite may vary
They won't see the pagan element in what they consider a religious rite
Or they will interpret a pagan rite as a religious one - or vice versa
Sometimes practitioner will think that something is sacrilegious and do it anyway, but this is rare
I fully agree with Bogatyrev and people don't do stuff that they think is wrong
Particular days and times
Usually liminal times - margin between one year and the next, one day an the next
Bogatyrev makes the very good point that mundane things can become materia magica if acted upon during one of these special times
Well water drawn at dawn
Water blessed on the Epiphany
Herbs gathered on the Eve of Ivan Kupalo
American lucky T-shirt, lucky pencil
Can be lucky act, like not shaving