On not understanding symbols

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

Previous articleNext article FreeOn not understanding symbols Toward an anthropology of incomprehensionRoger M. KEESINGRoger M. KEESINGPDFPDF PLUSFull TextEPUBMOBI Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreA major thrust in contemporary social anthropology has been a deepened concern with meaning—with the ways in which "a particular system of symbols…confers order, coherence, and significance upon a people, their surroundings, and the workings of their universe" (Basso and Selby 1976: 3). In anthropology this focus has most often been narrowed to ritual, viewed as a domain where cultural symbols are used in quintessential form.In their concern with meaning, anthropologists have undoubtedly become better interpreters of cultural symbols, both more clever and wise. But I am concerned that in their sheer interpretive virtuosity, many symbolist anthropologists may be overlooking, even disguising, some mundane realities of the ritual process. Too often they assume, without examination, that when culturally patterned meanings can be discerned in ritual, native participants have access to these meanings—and that rituals "work" because they evoke and orchestrate shared understandings.Here I will suggest that native actors participating in ritual need not share the same meanings; that a great many of them probably make very superficial interpretations of ritual symbols; and hence that the evocation and orchestration of "deep" interpretations of symbols among a congregation cannot be necessary to the performance or perpetuation of ritual. I will deal almost entirely with ethnographic material from the Kwaio of Malaita. But as Devil's Advocate I will generalize the argument to suggest that the same is probably true of most societies anthropologists study. Let me set out the argument more explicitly.My thesis briefly summarized is this: 1. The symbolic systems of a community are structured, as it were, in layers—from outer, transparent, meanings down to inner ones, access to which requires increasing degrees of esoteric knowledge / poetic imagination / philosophical insight / and global perspective.2. Distribution of the knowledge required for deep interpretations is a matter of the political structure of the community. Who knows what depends on age, sex, sacredness, etcetera, and on the intellectual abilities and personal predilections of individuals.3. Because meanings depend so heavily on what individuals know, the same ritual sequence or myth may evoke highly diverse meanings for members of the community—from literal, superficial, mundane constructions to "deep" and global ones (see Sperber 1975: 119–49).4. The "function" of ritual, and ritual symbols, in the community thus cannot be to evoke shared understandings of the latter sort—even if a highly coherent structured system of symbolism is part of the cultural heritage of a community.5. The existence of such a coherent symbolic structure requires only that enough members of the community have access to the deeper symbolic layers of the culture to perpetuate these structures, progressively add to and modify them, and maintain their coher-ence—and these need be only a small minority in each generation.At first glance, such propositions may seem easily accommodated within symbolist anthropology. But my doubts are aimed not only at "overinterpretation" of cultural symbols, but also at a way of thinking about "culture" that has underlain much of the anthropological quest for meanings (Keesing 1974, [1987a; cf. Keesing 1990]);1 a view of culture as transcending partial realizations in the minds of individuals that disguises the social and political contextualization and historical dynamics of knowledge in communities [Keesing 1982c; cf. Keesing 1991].Before I turn to the Kwaio data, an epistemological caution is needed. Most interpreters of ritual symbolism assume that native actors understand meanings at unconscious "levels" whether or not there is a public exegesis. The evidence supporting a symbolic analysis, where there is no exegetic tradition, must be indirect. Internal consistency and coherence, elegance, and sheer plausibility become prime criteria that the analysis is correct—sometimes supported by the idiosyncratic exegesis of a Muchona the Hornet (Turner 1967: 131–50) or Ogoternmeli (Giaule 1965). Within such an epistemological paradigm it is virtually impossible to demonstrate that some or most native actors do not make the interpretations, and construe the meanings, attributed to them. One must attempt to do so by indirection—by showing, for example, that knowledge is distributed in the community in such a way that only some people command the information they would need to make "deep" interpretations of symbols, that only a limited number of individuals in each generation contribute to the creation and modification of ritual, that native actors regard one another as more or less knowledgeable about symbolic meanings, and so forth. I shall adduce evidence of these sorts for the Kwaio—evidence that, within the prevailing paradigm, can only be suggestive, not conclusive. But that in itself should serve, in Devil's Advocacy, to make a wider point: that symbolist anthropology teeters precariously on a thin database, propped up by the faith of the anthropological community.Kwaio religionThe Kwaio of Malaita, Solomon Islands, are one of a dwindling number of Pacific peoples whose traditional religion and ritual system is still fully followed [Keesing 1982a]. About 2,000 Kwaio speakers living in the mountainous area above the east coast of Malaita continue to practice their ancestral religion in communities that are sociologically substantially intact.Kwaio propitiate adalo, the "shades" of the dead,2 both immediate forebears and ancient ancestors, to sustain a protective mantle of mana,3 and thus to maintain stability, good living, and prosperity (Keesing and Fifi'i 1968; Keesing 1970, 1976, 1977). Maintaining ancestrally defined boundaries between the polluted and the pure, the sacred and the profane,4 male and female, the ancestors and the living, is an everyday preoccupation. Focal concerns in ritual are with restoring proper boundaries when they have been breached by pollution, by death, or by procedural error; and in doing so, restoring mana.In very young childhood, all Kwaio learn that their immediate social world includes unseen spirits. They see their elders talking to them, receiving messages from them. The occurrence of rain, one's illness, the death of a pet pig, are talked about as the result of ancestral displeasure. A child learns that the complicated rules the adalo impose, and enforce as all-seeing in and around the clearing, are a matter of life and death—what foods can and cannot be eaten, what water can be drunk by whom, where the water bamboos must be put, and where one sleeps and sits and defecates.5 House and clearing are partitioned by invisible lines, to which rules separating male and female attach. A boy of five or six partakes of sacrifices in shrines, undergoes a sacrament, and stays in the men's house with his male relatives overnight before he is desacralized. A young girl takes part and undergoes a sacrament, and stays in the men's house with his male relatives overnight before he is desacralized. A young girl takes part and undergoes a sacrament when her group stages a major ritual cycle.6 Divinations, magical cures, and procedures are part of daily life in a tiny Kwaio settlement. Some of the more complex ritual sequences, particularly those preceding a mortuary feast, are likely to have taken place in one's immediate group every three or four years, through one's childhood. A girl will have seen a rather different range of ritual events than a boy, from a different perspective; she is likely to have attended a mother in childbirth seclusion, and to have gone through elaborate rites of purification.There are few procedures, in Kwaio ritual, that are esoteric and hidden from public view. What happens in a shrine or a men's house can be seen and heard by all males beyond infancy. There are no initiation rites, no esoterica restricted to elders. I am not dealing with a case where ritual is hidden in folds of secrecy from which women, young people, initiates, commoners, or non-priests are excluded.Kwaio religion is unusual in another respect: the virtual absence of myths. Kwaio oral tradition centers around epic narratives recited with chanted accompaniment at feasts. Most of the narratives recount chains of killings in the distant or fairly recent past; some describe other events in the lives of powerful ancestors. They describe a world like the one Kwaio live in and, with few exceptions, events that are naturalistic rather than "superempirical" (Keesing 1978). Kwaio rituals do not enact or dramatize mythic events, as is so common in the aboriginal Americas, Australia, and other parts of the tribal world.Kwaio cosmological schemes define states and categories, establish oppositions of sacredness and pollution, nature and culture, ancestors and living, and map out the spatial correlates of these states. But there is little concern with explicating natural phenomena, or how the world got to be as it is—these are not matters of interest. The myriad detailed rules and taboos and procedures are accepted simply as "customs that originated with the ancestors" [Keesing 1982b; see Akin 2005]. Kwaio are pragmatically concerned with following the rules of human life, and singularly unconcerned with explaining its ultimate nature.Kwaio ritualKwaio ritualize their encounters with their adalo, particularly their collective encounters. These encounters are precipitated by illness, death, or misfortunes, which are attributed to ancestral displeasure because of desecration, defilement, or other human errors; or they are initiated to maintain a protective mantle of mana [see Keesing 1984]. These collective encounters bring a kin group into intimate, immediate contact with ancient ancestors and their awesome powers and dangers. The procedures for engaging in transactions with adalo, for enlisting their powers, and for then progressively removing the dangerous sacredness of these encounters are elaborate and complicated.The death of a decent group's priest is a time of special disruption and danger. Although in everyday life the living and dead are in constant communication, they exist in separate realms. The priest, as intermediary, is exposed to powers and dangers: he is, as it were, irradiated by sacredness. His death opens a kind of door between the living and dead, exposing descent group members (and close cognates and spouses) to sacred powers.While the bereaved group is in liminal sacredness, they are subject to food taboos, mourning restrictions, and rules isolating them from normal social life. Through a series of rites of desacralization, the restrictions that set them apart are progressively lifted; the boundaries and categories of regular life are restored.My primary "text" will be a ritual procedure that occurs in the sequence after a priest's death. In slightly modified form, it occurs in the sequence of desacralization rites after a high sacrifice; and in attenuated form, prior to a mortuary feast. Hence it is a procedure every Kwaio adolescent boy will have seen (and many will have participated in), and one Kwaio girls and women will know about although they are not allowed to see it. This sequence, beritauna, illustrates the themes and styles of Kwaio ritual, and will serve our purposes well. I will give a composite version, glossing over minor variations between the rite as performed by various kin groups.The rite physically circles around a lean-to shelter (taualea) in which the pigs to be sacrificed at the "feast of the dead" are tethered. The main mortuary feast then spans the next two days, coming to a climax the evening of the second day with the presentation of valuables to the men who buried the dead [Keesing 1982].In preliminary stages, the toualea has been constructed; a sacred post (bounimae), or "post of the dead," is planted in the ground inside the toualea, which is then thatched with fishtail palm fronds [Keesing 1982: 164–167]. A bunch of immature areca nuts, a cluster of complete taro plants with small corms (fo`ofo`o), sometimes an immature coconut, and a sprig of evodia (la`e) bespelled by the priest are hung up in the toualea. The pigs for the feast have been tethered in a prescribed order, with a prominent place reserved for pigs brought by the out-married women of the kin group. The cast of characters in beritauna is as follows: the man who has succeeded the dead priest; the man who has been in liminal seclusion keeping taboos for the death; a secondary priest who conducts rites for the kin group's women; and young men of the group (their number determined by the number of pigs tethered for the feast). Prior to beritauŋa, the participants, who have been in mourning dishevelment, shave and cut their hair in a specified order, decorate themselves, and go off into the forest to wash and then ritually rehearse the magic (`uiŋa). At this stage, women and girls retire to the dwelling houses and must stay there until the beritauŋa has been completed.When the men and boys performing the rite come back into the clearing, sacralized by their ritual purification and `uiŋa, each holds leaves of green cordy-line; the priest, leading them, holds an immature coconut and a sprig of evodia (la`e).I will quote verbatim a Kwaio priest's account of the procedure. Then they go up to the taualea, led by the priest, each one holding his cordyline. They shout as they enter the clearing [so the women will go into the house out of sight]. They go inside the taualea, entering the right side and circle to the right [counterclockwise], and stamp their feet when they get around, with the priest beside the bounimae: "two" they count. Then they go around again: "four." And then again: "six." And again: "eight." Then they crouch down at the foot of the sacred post. They tania adola [lit., "hold the ancestors"].The priest holds the coconut [at this stage referred to as siufa, from siu or "wash"]. The priest calls on the adalo naa mamu [the ancestor that conveys powers of attracting wealth, for this particular kin group] He calls the ancestor, the others repeat after him. He begins with the first siufa ["washing"], and goes on until ten; each time the others repeat. The priest says "siufa maamamu [I mamu-ize the attraction of pigs]," and the others repeat. The priest says "siufa maamamu [I mamu-ize the attraction of money]," then the others. He says "siufa maamamu [I mamu-ize the attraction of men]," then "siufa maamamu [I mamu-ize the attraction of women]," then "siufa maamamu [I mamu-ize the attraction of coconuts]." The others repeat each time. He names ten things [the rest being kinds of ritually used taro and fish]. Then the priest calls the names of the ancestors, from the most ancient to the most recent.Then the priest husks an immature areca [betel] nut, and mixes it with lime and evodia leaf in a bamboo tube [that has been hanging on the sacred post]. Then he paints the cheek of the consecrated pig tethered at the base of the sacred post, then the expiatory pig, then the women's pig, then the women's priest's pig, then the pig of the senior out-marrying women; then those brought by her juniors in order of age. Then the priest paints the betel mixture on the chests of the men. All this time, the women have been in the houses. The men go outside the taualea. The priest bespells a sprig of evodia, and then chews betel. He chews evodia with it, then ribasia [spits on the chests of] the men. Then they husk coconuts and make taro-and-coconut puddings [separate puddings for the priest, taboo-keeper, and women's priest, and one for the rest, each made with a different coconut husked in a specified order]. The priest chews betel and evodia again, and ribasia [spits on] the puddings. Then the men eat [cf. Keesing 1982: 164–67].The same ritual complexity continues in later phases. Who can eat the sacred parts of which pigs and other endless details continue to be specified. But for our purposes, this will be a large enough slice.Taking the beritauŋa rite as text, I will ask what these symbols and symbolic acts "mean" to the participants, spectators, and, in this case, the women temporarily excluded in the nearby houses.What do the symbols "mean"?The problem I in and beritauŋa and other Kwaio ritual is understanding of what the rites in of the they to and how the ritual acts or enact the major is if not among culturally such more or less interpretations are limited in two of many of the acts and in this public they are simply the way is the ways by the ancestors. the interpretations and understandings in this tradition are and may be by on esoteric knowledge about magic and ancestors, from and knowledgeable at the symbolic system in and on of to more deep and global interpretations of Kwaio ritual of is procedure in symbolist but my doubts these deeper symbolic structure to Kwaio some of All of of these as part of at the case of beritauŋa Kwaio actors is, almost all and know that beritauŋa is performed to and that mamu is the invisible attraction that will people and their valuables to the mortuary feast that the ritual in its most is the of that to and to is seen as at the living through the of ancestors. The of pigs will ancestral through the of This ancestral is then to by performance of magical beritauŋa, magic to the among the and magic to they do not go two of beritauŋa, as to ancestors and magic at are in the and in the rite The of the pigs with coconut water and of their with betel them so to that if necessary they will valuables to the of that is the for a But the and also the pigs consecrated to ancestors and the participants, and the men and boys who are and as for special The mamu be by participants what they in is a magical which the and so The immature and betel hung in the the of the feast to of and of the ancestors in the with their around the of the dead," is also The sacredness of the "feast of the dead" centers around this ancestral with the shelter and the within as as the ancestors who first the and still are its ultimate first of taro or before the living can so the senior members of the kin group and the of its the first to of a mortuary of the and used in the rite are at this of a in Kwaio is an of This is in Kwaio ritual, and Prior to a desacralization rite after the death of a priest, the bereaved group valuables to a who to for the the priest then bespelled of evodia and another into the to the that have been The of evodia as magical and is and by an also as an of the desacralization rite before and with in the beritauŋa and in many other prior to the of food with ancestors. evodia and upon food and those of it, is an of as a to the it the dangerous sacredness to which would the as of desacralization in these as as of attraction in other is tradition is less in regard to the the participants in beritauŋa are used over and over in Kwaio rites, and are in and around most The public tradition green in a way with ancestors, as for off and as of sacred are at this symbolic with and for many and procedures, this interpretive tradition no and no for hidden fishtail Because that is what on taualea. these and not Because they are the of the ancestors. A a Because what have to to get coconut are taro puddings with coconut used in some but puddings with coconut used in puddings or or The public tradition no it such when I first analysis of Kwaio in I of not with with a of ritual symbolism from and a superficial knowledge of and with I deeper The of Kwaio ritual a of meanings that be only in the or I would be symbols whose with one another in particular in of a a particular of to this and the of particular betel come through the of a Kwaio if I would come from about symbolism on the nature of the and the coconut water symbolic the "post of the dead" a of the betel and if so, it death, or to the would come from the cultural and natural of and what it about fishtail palm that make their fronds would come in part from global of from of and of I such as I a Kwaio Muchona on my A series of oppositions in Kwaio sacredness and as and this in the spatial of Kwaio and dwelling houses (Keesing The cosmological of sacred and polluted in many ritual The procedures after the death of a priest, a man of the bereaved group to his in the sacred men's out of of women and attended and by a young a of childbirth seclusion, where the mother to her in a in the forest the clearing, out of of and is attended by a young The of the in symbolic death and with the ancestors, as the of the mother life in turn by the of in Malaita, where a of sacredness and is around the of and and deeper symbolism I the ritual and of for a symbolic of the for the symbolism is less but green as symbolic of life, as symbolic of and of with its many with hence most secrecy or symbolism is of in the ritual of in Kwaio as in many other parts of is used as a of and The above the can be for the to ancient and men's house can be planted And the many green and of can serve as of used in green to and misfortunes, to ancient ancestors in first rites, or to ancestral communication, as in the a set of states and and between states and boundaries between are a focus of ritual and of everyday life. The world of the and the world the the the and the nature and and to the outside are all off as and between them are symbols of or from the to the from the sacred to the and so of Kwaio ritual procedure such and other of transactions with the analysis of the in such would from the major I shall Let me the symbolic I on the of my by the "post of the dead" The post is not physically four feet three to five in some for this of the rite is particularly of the ancestor from it is to the post is and is with consecrated forest other it is simply a of the as the public exegesis would have it, the post is an of the ancestors. is the of their in a rite whose includes living and dead of the group. the post back to ancient symbolism not only by its but by its being in the in Kwaio a of and by the post the between the world of the living and the world of the it an for the symbolic of and areca to post, I as the of the living by ancestors. The cut for the post in the fully of the rite is the of Kwaio ritual and and used in the more mundane version, the of which is to and is also an of ancestral in the evidence for a is less this is an it is a as in symbolism of and it is that the leaf is not the of in the world as in Kwaio the my Kwaio I have been both by in the and in my to whether such symbolic meanings are part of in the that understanding them is part of the cultural of fully native the between the interpretations and the deeper ones I the often and evidence I