SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

i}o I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes
tendon to the "structure of the linguistic sign" (Mukafovsky i977b):68). Just
as great architecture is really about architectural design, great poetry, according
to these two theorists, is about the structure of language. In a parallel fashion,
ritual can be interpreted as hyperstrucTïïfèïsocraTacïion, in which segmentation,
hierarchy, and stereotypy are not just contingent aspects of performance but are
the means of calling attention to the structiiredness of action.
r\ The second aspect of ritual which generates the paradox noted above is that
Rituals are context specific. Rituals are often assigned to very restricted temporal
intervals: calendrical or seasonal rites that take place at the passing of the New
Year, or when the Pleiades rise at sunset, or when the Tigris and the Euphrates
overflow their banks. In addition, rituals are prescribed for certain places: on the
altar within the central chamber of Ezekiel's imaginary temple (J. Z. Smith
1987:62—63), over the "domestic fire" burning in the northeast corner of the
house where Vedic texts say invisible spirits dwell (B. Smith 1980), or along the
sightlines of megalithic stones pointing to sunrise at the equinox. Ritual rules
alsosdefine the social roles allowed to participate in or take on assigned responsibilities
for the performance, and specify the prior conditioning required for all
participants. Only initiates knowledgeable of the sacred myth and purified by
batrnng can march along the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis to participate
in the "mysteries," where the main priest, torchbearer, and herald come from
specific aristocratic families (Burkert 1987:37). For the Baruya of Papua New
Guinea, the master of male initiation ceremonies, the controller of powerful ritual
sacra, must come from the founding clan, also named Baruya, which represents
the society as a whole (Godelier 1986). Mayan shamans cure their patients
by maintaining verbal deictic linkage with them throughout the ritual discourse
(Hanks 1990:240). But the word "contextual" can also be taken in a performative
sense, that rituajs change_grjmodjfj^jth^^
A college student
approved to undergo the rite of fraternal initiation cannot stay in the library; a
couple about to get married must appear in person before a minister or magistrate
and witnesses must sign a document testifying to their physical presence; a
Catholic priest delivers a blessing upon those in attendance and, in fact, only
upon those within the arc of the cruciform hand gesture. The effectiveness of
ritual does not usually extend beyond the spatial and temporal contexts of the
occurrence of the actions, and when it does the extension is carried by some
material vehicle—water, stones, relics—eno!pjved^Mb^ejient-with durative sacred
powers.
So the paradoxical dimensions of ritual are, first, excessive formality and,
second,, contextual anchoring. At first glance these seem to be strange if not contradictory
"thUfgy to put together, since the formal pattern of ritual action, like
the formal pattern of architecture and poetry, might suggest that rituals are relatively
decontextualized in several related senses. First, ritual appears decontextualized
in being "distantiated" from the intentions of participants, as in the me-
The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life I 131
dieval doctrine of opus operatum ("the work accomplished") which guarantees
the efficacy of the sacraments apart from the spiritual standing or intentional
state of the officiant or recipients or as in the operation of the Hawaiian temple
rituals in which the authority of ritual officials derives from the superior authority
of the ritual text (Valeri 1985:342). This implies that the meaning of a ritual
is recoverable across the variability of particular contextual enactments.
Second, ritual is decontextualized in being "decentered," that is, freed from
the limitations of contextual specification and reference. Highly conventional,
rule-governed performances can transcend contextual" reference and be interpreted
as referring to general rather than particular contexts. In many cases the denial
of referential specificity enables rituals to concentrate on reference to eternal
or universal truths, in much the same way that, as Mukafovsky' (19773:84^)
argued^th~e~aesthetic function of a work of art is freed from particukr dénota-'^
tional value. There is a sense in which the hyperstructure of ritual can be appreciated
outside the actuaf context of occurrence because it displays a completely
self-contained conventional shape. At the recent consecration of the first female
bishop of the Episcopal Church, the ceremony was taken out of the Boston cathedral
(which is, after all, the proper "seat" of the bishop) and put into a civic
building in order to handle the crowds and media. This is one of the most highly
structured ritual performances in the Episcopal Church, and one in which the
indexical or contextual features are highly evident—especially the focal act of
"laying on hands" that physically guarantees the historical chain of contiguity
from St. Peter to the present. But this ritual could be decentered and moved to a
nonreligious environment precisely because of its power to overcome the limitations
of a particular context. So this sense of decontextualization is evident in
the character of ritual to survive radical spatial dislocation^.
Third^ ritual is decontextualized by encouraging a phenomenological
"bracketing^ of the surrounding social world and by creâtlnglTcofiërent world
within the ritual sphere. In ritual time and space, mundane concerns are suppressed
and the universe for assigning truth-value is marked off as a "separate,
self-contained world ruled exclusively by the comprehensive and exhaustive order
of the ritual" (Heesterman 1985:3). By replacing everyday social logic with a
special set of equivalences, rituals can make symbolic assertions which cannot be
held up against the standards of mundaneffiuniis and goals—despite the fact that
rituals may function specifically to legitimate real political power (Kertzer
1988:51). Alexander (1986) argues that part of the, dynamic of the Watergate
hearings was that Congress constructed thç event as a^ptual rather than as a
purely political process, thus bracketing the question of personal motives, partisan
strategies, and historical details.
Fourth, ritual is decontextualized in being "self-referential." In other words,
the hyperstructured components of ritual form a network of mutual implication
(each part in the sequence is linked to previous and subsequent parts) and inter-
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