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- X.
i) z I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life rial metareferenge (rules for ritual action, like liturgical rubrics, become part of the structure of the ritual). The self-referentiality of ritual is also manifest in the taxonomic relationship among different ritual sequences: a particular ritual is taken to be asubspecies of aTfïorëHipmêratxategery (a minor sacrament vs. a major sacrament) or else in systematic opposition to parallel ritual actions within the same culture (male initiation vs. female initiation in Baruya; Luakini vs. Makahiki rites in Hawaii) or to analogous rites in contradictory traditions (Hebrew sacrifice vs. Canaanite sacrifice). In semiotic terms, then, all these dimensions combine so that the prescribed series of actions in ritual is understood as a £type"father tha
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