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