' · I!jlf..! Copyri,t:h l h~ I'.-\J Puhlt¡ ;lt ioll 'AII ri!-:"h L' u ''oC "l\ ( 'd

ll i,l r ib rlrrd by [ '11<' .I"lm, II ()p k i l l ~ Uuivrrv i rv I' n'":!7L'j l\"Hl Il C1¡;r1 k , SI I( T I . l b I l ll IH ltt '. :v!;¡l yLll rd ::! l::! IH

A11 I i~hl.' le'\('1\ ("t I l llldc! tln- Iuu-ru.u ¡ona1.uul " ;11\ ' ; \ 11tl'l i( ;ll l ( ¿ 111\ l i g l l !

( i 'Il \(' ll\iol1'.

FromRitual

toTheatre

(F) 0 1 (t i O::! (JI 00 !I!I ~ IX

Li brarv n i CUllgrr...' c:.tla log in~ in pu blirarion Da la!-'J ••tll R tl'M I lo Tl u-au e: "l Iu. l Iuruau "i.. '1i, ,1l,llt ....... 0 1 I'b ~

I .ihr.uv o [ { ¿111gB"'" { ~ I I .. lo¡..: { ~ ll d ~o. : x l·l'l:n:J IISIi l\ : O-( l:i :i x::!li· lli-x rhuhISIi l\ : o-!n .'\X:.!li-I7·li I J;II WI The Human Seriousness of PlayI' l i l l l l ·¡j 111 111, ' ( ' ll i ll 'l l S I;lln ( j [ Atl ll'l i ¡OI (JI];I( Id ' [Ui ' l ldl " '!

Ill f ( ¿ ~' LVictor Turner

' 2S5 1 08836~ '

Pilozofickáfa kultaUniverzity Karlovy v Praze

PA.J Pu bl icatiuu s.\ 11;, ;, ;••,•• •1 I ,. ·,t< .n ";"-~ '\ "".1,,,,,,,.11 , .'1<

N",,' York

'L'his is 1111" li rsl \"Il lu mc .. 1' tll<' Pl' rtilrlllall('l' Studies Serit>s ediu-d by Hr..ok s.\11'N allJal a ,HlII R i,.han l Sd ll'l llllfT. 'I>he Series is ptJh] i ,~ hcd hy Perfl.nn illg

A r ts J. "I"' lal I' lll, lir ¡llio ll:ol .

( ;EN F.K AL INTRO IlLI( : I IO N T O T H E PER t"oR~IANC t: ST U 11 t :s St: K lt:S

VVha l is a pn fon nan. c ? A pla y? D auccrs dancin~? A n lllcr n ? W !l;tl Y( ' IIst'"C o n T V? Cif("ll~ a nd Carniva l? A pres~ r -onfe- re-nce hr wbo ever is Presi­drn!? 1111" ~ h()oliJl g: of 1I1t- Pope as po rtraye-d by lIIt·d i<l- o r lhe inSfan!

n-pluys uf 1.«" H arvey Oswald he lll!; shot? A nd do the-sc even ts h;l\"("anylhi ng: lo do wirh r itu al , a week with Gnl lnw~h In 11I t" w .MxIs oUlsitk 01'

\V rod aw , or a T 0l"'ug ura skcd d ance drama as performed in Pcliot an ,Bah? Pr-rformauc e is no I ll n~f" r c"a.~)" lO d efine or locatc: rhc ronccpt andst ru cture IMS spn-a d all ove-r lile plurc . I t is ct hnu- and in tereuhu ral ,historica l a nd ahistorir-a], aesrhctic a nd ri tual. s""io lngi l'a l a nd pclincal .Performa nce is a nrode 01'bc havior , an a pproach lO ex pe riencc; il is pla y,

spo rt, al'"sthd ics , popula r r-rue- r ta jnments , t".xpt-r imcmal lhe a l rt", a nd more .

Hui in nrrlcr fo r lhis hroad perspecrive In (kvd o p performa nce m ust 1)("wr-itte-n ;11"'UI with precision and in tul l detail. 'Fhe editors o f rhis se nesha ve dn iwwd it as a forum fo r iu vest i¡:at ing .....har per fo rmance is, Ilow ilwo rks , and what its plan: in posr-mod e- rn son t" ty may he . Pe rformanceSl udu-s i ~ 111.1 propt~ rly thean-icnl , eincmanc , aruh ropological , hi stor' ical, nr­an iSli(;- lIm u¡.:h Ilny of tht" HIOIJogl-aphs in thr- Series in co rporalf' one- 01'more o f t hcsr- disciplines . Be-c -ause wc are fostl-ring a new uppronch tu thesurdy uf pe-rforumncc, wc ha vo kr-pt ¡he Serie-s ope n-e uded in ordcr lO in­rorporate- JlC'W wnrk . Thc Sr-ries , WC" hope , will nu-asurr- 11](" rh-pt h and

hrr-arlth o r lhe ti l"ld - alld its ftTti li ty: from rircus lo Mahnu Mines , rode-u lo]walin g rit es , Hl.u k performance in South Afrir-a lo rhe Un iun Diry PnssinnPlay , Performance St udius will he valuable rol' scbolars in a l] a rcas (JI' 1)('1'­Ionu.uice as wr-ll as for theatre wo rkers who wa n t 10 rx pn nrl and d \Tlu'lIrhr-ir notinns 01' performance.

Brnoks r...l . ,Nall1a ra

Ri lha n l S.-h.'. -h' I,·r

Contents

I NT RO DUCT IO N 1 7

LlMINAL TO I.IM INOID, I N PLAV. FLOW, RITU Al.: 1 20A n Essa y in Com pa ra t ivo S )"ltlhol ogy

SOCI AL DRA M AS AND ST O RI ES A RO UT T lIEl\1 1 6 1

DR AM ATIC RIT U A L/RITU AL DR AM A: 1 89Per fonnauve a ud Rt"nex ivI~ Atll llfo pology

ACT Il':C I N EV ERYDAY 1.1 FE A N D 1 102EVERVDAV L1FE I N ACTI NG

INDEX I ¡:.n

From Ritua l to Thealre/88

Lc gcsse . Asmarom . Gada: Thrre A pproad lrJ ro rlrr Sfud}' uf Afritan SOCÚIy. Ne ..... York : Free Prcss,1973 ,

Mnn re , Sall y Fal k. I.aw fl f Pr ocess, London : Rcuth-dgt- ami Kcgan Pa ul , 197B.

M yerhoff Barbara . l.ijr H istory among rlrr EId"~"J : Priformanu, Viú bili f)', and Rm~mb"ing. n .d .

-, a nd Moo n- , Sall y Fa lk [ed s. ] ~{Il/ar R itual. Amsu- rda m : R oyal van Gon-UfIJ . 1977.

Pikc , Ke nne-rh L. Lan.t:uat:r in Rrlafion fa a U nijird Tlrrn~"J nf thr Struclurr of H uman lklral'ior. Glen ­elah-, California : Su nuue r ln st itu te uf Li ng u istics . 1954 .

R nppaport , Rov . Ecolo,t:.y. Meaning, and RrliKion, R ir hmond , C a lifo rn ia : Nonh AmericanRoo ks, 1 ~ 79 .

Sapi r , Edwa rd . •. EJlWr!{t'IHT 01 a C on re-pt of Persnnalitv in a St ud y of Cu lturt ·s . " J OlmMI ufSocial p~P(Ir(,/(/.P')· , 5, pp . 4 11H I6 , 1934 .

Spindter , (;eo rg-(' D . [ed.] Thr M ah n.t: of I\ y(hnlo,t:i(a/ An tlrropolo.(y, Herkelev: Univcrsiry nfC a lifo rn ia ¡'rt"!ls , 197R.

Tu rner, Vi " IOr. S(húm and C,l1lfimúfJ' 111 an Af Tican Saclrr, · A Stud y 11 Ndrmbu Vil/a,lfr L ifr. M"Il ­r-hcstcr : Mancheste r U ni"l"rsit y P rcss, 1957.

TIr, Forest 01Sy mf¡ o/J. A ,II)f(tJ 01Ndrmbu Ritual. lt hnt-a: Corne-ll Univr- rsity Presv, 1967 .

T hr Drums oJAffl ietin: A Stu dy of R rll:t:iouJ l'rocrHrJ among lh, Ndrm hu (1 Zambia, Ox ford : TbeCl a re ndon P ress , 1968 .

T hr R itual Process: Struaure and A nu-Snucture C hica go : Ald ine . 1969 ,

Dramas, Fields, and .\frfaphorr: ,~pmbo/ic A(tion in Human Socir~y . Irha r-a: C orncl l U niversi tyPress , 1974 .

Va nsina, J an K illJ:domJ uf the Saoanna Madison- Univcrsit y of \Visn msin Presa, 1966

Whi tf', H ayd cn . ,\frtahúto~y : The H istoncal Lmaginatian in N ll1rtrrntlr·Crnlury Eu ropt Balumore:J ohns H opki us Unive rs uv Pre-ss, 19 73 .

Dramatic Ritual/Ritual Drama

Performative and Reflexive

Anthropology

l 've long thought that teaching a nd lea rn ing a nthropology shou ld bemor e fun tha n they often are. Perha ps we should not mcre ly read a nd com ­me n t on et hnograp hies, bu t act ually pe rfor m the m. Aliena ted stu dentsspe nd many tedious hou rs in library ca rrels struggling with acco un ts ofaJien live s and even more ali en anthropological theories about the orderingof those lives . Whereas a nthropology should be about, in n .H. Lawrence 'sphrase , " m an alive" and "woman aJive ," th is living quality frequentlyfails 10 emerge from our pedagogics, perha ps, to cite Lawrence again ,because ou r "analysis presupposes a corpse ."

It is becoming inc rcas ing ly rec og nized that th e anthropolog icalmonograph is itself a rather r igid literary gen re whi ch grew ou t of th e no­tion that in the human sciences reports mu st be modeled ra ther a bject ly onth ose of the natural sciences . BU[ such a genre has no privileged position,especially now that we realize that in social Jife cognitive , affe ctiv e , andvolitional elements are bound up with one an other and are alike primary,seldo m fou nd in thei r pure form , often hybrid ized , and on ly comprehensi­ble by the invest iga tor as lived exp erience , his/hers as well as, an d in rela tionto, theirs,

Evcn t1H' ln-xt 01' cthnog ra phic film s fa il to co m munica te mu ch of what it

From Ritual to T he atr e/90

mean s to be a m ember of the soci ety film ed. A selected , ofte n slanted serie sof visual im ages is directed at a passive audience. Discussion 'in theclassroom then centers on the item s picked out fo r attent ion by th e filmmaker. T ho ugh a good teach er will p lau sib ly rela te th e movie toethnographic co ntexts drawn from the literatu re , much of th e socioc ultu raland psych ological complexi ty of tho se contex ts cannot be related to th e~lm. ,:nthropological monographs a nd mov ies may descr ibe or present theIncentives to action characteris tic of a given group, but only rarely willthese genres catch u p their readers or spectators full y int o the cu lture 'smotivat ional web .

How , then, may th is be done ? O ne possibility may be to turn the more~nteresting portio ns of et hn ographies in to playscrip ts , then to act them outIn class, a nd finally to turn back to et hnographies armed wi th theund erstanding that COmes fro m "getting ins ide the skin" of members ofot her cultures, ra ther than merely "taking th e ro le of the ot her" in one'so.wn cu lture. A who le new s~t of probl ems is generated by this apparen tlysHl~pl e .p ro cess. For each of Its th ree stages (et hnography in to playscr ip t,scr ip t I~to per:o~man~e, pe rformance into meta-e thn ography) revealsmany of the fra ilties 01 an thropology, that essent ia lly W estern trad it ionald iscipline . An~ the process forces us to look beyond p urely a nt hropologicalacco u nts- to lit erature, history, biography, inc ide nts of travel-for datathat may contri bu te to convincin g playscri p ts. W here soc ial dramas do findthei r cu ltural "doubles" (to reverse Antonin Artaud) in aesthe tic dramasa~d other gen res of cultu ral performance , ther e may we ll develop , asRichard Schcchner has argued , a convergence be twen them , so that theprocessual fo rm of social d ra mas is implici t in aesthetic d ramas (even if onlyby reversal o r nega tion) , whil e the rhetoric of socia l dramas-and hence thesha pe of argument-is drawn from cultural perfo rm an ces. There wa s a lotof Perry Mason in Watergate!

!he "~Iaying" of ethnography is a ge nui nely interdiscip linary en ter­prise , for If we are to satisfy ourselves of th e reliabili ty of our script and ourperformance of .it , we .will need advice from va rious nonan thropologicalso~rces . ~rofesslOnal s In the field of d ram a in our ow n cu lt ure-script­,":,nters, dl r~ctors, actors , even stagehands-draw on centur ies of profes ­sional exper-ience in performi ng plays . Ideally, we need to consult betterstill, bring i~ as part of the cast , members of the culture being enacted. W ema~, sometimes, be IU ~ky enough to enlist the aid of theat ri cal or folk pro­fession als from the society we are studying . But , in an y case , those whoknow the business from th e inside can help enormous ly .

.I was given an opportunity to test these speculations in practice when ,~It~ fellow s.ocial scientists A lexander Alland and Erving Goffman, I wasinvited by R Ichard Schech ner to take part in what was called "an in tensiveworkshop" to "explore the interface between r itual a nd the theat re . . .between social and aesthetic drama ," a nd other limi na lx-twcc-n lh t' soc ia l

D ramat ic Rituall91

sciences and performing arts . I had often th ou gh t about the relationshipbetween processual forms of social conflict in many societies, described byanthropologists and genres of cultural performance. Several years earlier,mutual friends had made me aware of Schechner 's in terest in th e same pro­blem from th e vie wpoint of theatre . The collabo ration of Colin T u rnbull(The Mountain People, 1972) and Peter Brook which converted Turnbull'sst udy of the Ik of Uganda into a series of dramatic episodes alerted me tothe poss ibili ty of turning su itable ethnographic data into playscripts . T ha texper iment pe rs u aded me tha t cooperation between anthropological andtheatrical people was no t only possible bu t also could become a majorteaching tool for both sets of partners in a world many of whose com­ponents a re begin n ing to wa nt to know one another. If it is true th at welearn some thing about ourselves from taking the role of others, an­thropo logists, those cu ltu ral broke rs par excellence, might be challenged tomake this an in tercultural as well as an intracultural ent erprise.

Though many social scientists frown on the terms performance and drama,th ey see m to be cen tral. Performance, as we have seen, is derived from theM idd le English parfournen , later parfourmen, whi ch is itself from the O ldFre nch parfournir-par (" thoroughly" ) plus fournir (" to furn ish ")-henceperformance does not necessa ri ly hav e the structuralis t im pli cation ofrnanifcstingjorm , but rathe r the p rocessual sense of " br ingin g to comple­tion " o r "accom plishi ng." T o perform is th us to complete a more or less in­volved pro cess ra ther than to do a single de ed or act. To performethnogra phy, then , is to br ing the data home to us in the ir full ness , in theple n itude of the ir ac tion -meani ng. Cognitive reduction ism has alwaysstru ck me as a kind of dehyd ration of soc ial life . Sure, th e patterns can beel icite d , bu t the wishe s and emotions, the personal and collective goals a ndstrategies , even the situational vulne rabilities, weariness, and mis takes arelost in the attempt to objectify and produce an aseptic theory of humanbehavior mode led esse n tially on eighteenth cen tury "scient ific" ax io ms ofbel ief about mechanica l causality. Fe elings and des ires are not a po llu tionof cogn itive pure esse nce , bu t close to what we humanly are; if an ­thropology is to become a tru e science of hu ma n act ion , it must take themjus t as ser iously as the structu res wh ich sometimes perh aps represent theexhau sted husks of action bled of its mot ivat ions.

The term drama has been cr iticized (b y Max G luc kman and RaymondFi rth, for exa m ple) as the imposi tio n on observat ional da ta of a schemaderived from culturalgenres , hence " loaded " and no t ' ' neu tral" enough forsc ie n tific use (Gluckman , 1977:227-4 3; Fi rt h , 1974:1-2). I have todi sagree , for my notebooks are filled with descrip tio ns of day-to-day even tswhich, adde d toge ther , undeniably po ssess dramatic form , representing ar-ourse of action. lz-t me try to de scribe what I mean by drama, specificallysocial drama, ( I,'tl l a Iull-r account of Illy theory of the social drama see my

From R it ual 10 Thea tre/92

Schism and Continuity in an Af rican Society, 1957 , and C ha pter T h ree abovc. }

I hold that the social drama form occ urs on all levels of social organiza­tion from sta te to fam ily . A social drama is in itiated when the peacefu ltenor of regular , norm-governed social life is int errupted by th e breach of arule controlling one of its sal ient relation ships. This leads swiftly or slowlyto a sta te of crisis, which , if not soon sealed off, may sp lit the community in ­to contending factio ns and coalitions . To preve nt this, redressioe mean s aretaken by th ose who cons ider themselves or a re con side red the mos tlegitima te or au thoritat ive rep rese ntatives of the rel evant community.Redress u sually involves ritualized action, wh ether lega l (in form al or in­formal courts), reli giou s (involving beliefs in the retributive act ion ofpowerful supern atura l entities, and often involving an act of sacr ifice), orm ilita ry (for example, feuding, headhunti ng, or engaging in organizedwarfare). If the situa tion does no t regress to crisis (which may re mainendemic unt il som e radical restructur ing of social relationships , someti me sby revo lut ion ary m ean s, is undertaken), the next phase of socia l dramacomes in to play, whi ch involves alternative solutions to th e problem . Thefirst is reconciliation of the connict ing part ies follow ing judicial , r itual, ormi litary p rocesses; the second , consensual recognition of irremediable breach,usually followed by the spa tial separat ion of the pa rt ies. Since social dramassuspen d norm al everyday ro le play ing, they interrupt the flow of social lifean d forc e a gro up to take cogn izance of its own behavior in relation to itsown values , even to que stion at times the value of th ose va lues. In otherwords, dramas ind uce and contai n reflexive processes and genera te cultura lframes in which re flex ivity can find a legitim at e place .

Wi th thi s processual form as a rou gh gu ide for our work at Schechn er'ssumm er institu te , I tr ied to involve ant hropology and dram a studen ts in thejoint task of writing scripts for and perform ing ethnographies. It seemedbest to ch oose parts of cla ssical ethnographies tha t lent themselve s todramatic treatment, such as Malinowski's Crime and Custom, with itsyou ng man th reatening su icide fro m a treetop when his father's ma trilinealkin urged h im to leave their villag e on his father's dea th (Crime and Custom ,1926 : p. 78) . But time being sho r t (we had only two weeks), I had to fal lback upo n my own ethnography both because I knew it best , and beca use Ihad already , to some exten t , written a scr ipt for a substantial am ount offield data in the form I have caJIed social drama. M y wife, Edie , and I tried toexplain to a group of about a dozen students and teachers , almost equallydivided between anthropology and drama, what cultu ra l assumpt ions laybehind the first two social dramas tha t I described in my book Schism andContinuity in A n African Society (pp . 95 , 116). It was no t enou gh to give thema few cognitive models o r structural principles. W e had to try to create th eillusion of wha t it is to live Ndembu village life . Could th is possib ly he don ewith a few bold stro kes , with a ges tu re or two? O f co urse not , hut th en' may

Drama tic R i tua ll~n

be ways of getting people bod ily as well as mentally involved in another(not phys ically present ) cu ltu re ,

The sell ing for all th is was an u pper room in the Per forming G arage , athe at re in Soh o wh ere Schechner 's com pa ny, The Performance Group, ha sgive n some nota ble perform an ces, including Dionysus in 69, M akbeth, AfothaCourage, and , more rece ntly , the Tooth of Crime and R umstick R oad (d irectedby Elizabeth LeCompte). I knew tha t Schec h ner set great store on what heca lls the "rehearsal process," wh ich essen tially cons ists of establishing ady namic relations hip , over whatever time it tak es, among playscript , ac­tors, director, stage , a nd props, with no in itial presumptions about theprimacy of a ny of the se . Session s often have no time limit ; in some, exer­cises of various kinds, includi ng breath ing exercises to loosen up actors,may go on for an hou r or so; in others, players may cast themselves ratherth an be cast by the di rector . In this complex process, Schechner sees th e ac­tor , in taking the ro le of anothe r-provided by a playscri pt- as m ovin g ,under the intuitive and experienced eye of the director/producer, from the"not-me" (the blu eprinted role) to the "not-nat -me" (the realized role) ,and he sees the movement itsel f as cons titu ting a kind of lim inal phase inwhic h all kind s of ex pe riential ex periments are po ssible, indeed mandatory .T h is is a different style of actin g from tha t wh ich rel ies on su perb profes­sional tech niq ue to imi ta te almost any W estern ro le wit h verisim ilitude .Schc chner aims a t poiesis, rat her than mimesis: maki ng , not fakin g, The rolegrows along with th e ac tor, it is truly "crea ted " through the rehearsal pro­cess which ma y sometimes inv olve painful moments of self-revelation . Sucha method is particu larly appropriate for an thropological teach ing becauseth e " m imetic" method will work only on fami liar material (Westernmodels of behavior) , whe reas the "poietic," since it recreates be haviorfrom within, can handle unfamilia r mate r ial.

In an experimental sess ion convoked by Schechner to rehearse Ibsen'sDoll H ouse, for exam ple, we ca me up with four No ras, one of wh om ac tuallymade a cho ice con tra ry to Ib sen's scr ipt. It happened th at in her personallife she her self was being confronted wi th a dilemma sim ilar to Nora 's:should she separate fro m her hu sban d , leave her two ch ildren with him (hewan ted thi s) , and embark upon an ind ependent ca reer? In reliving her ownproblem through enac ting Nora's, she began 10 wring her hands in apeculi arl y poignant , slow , com plex way. Eventually , ins tead of detonatingthe famou s door slam thai some critics say ush ered in modern the atre , sheru shed back to the group , signifying that she was not rea dy-at least notyet -to give up her child ren , thus throwing unexpected light on the ethica ltou ghness of Ibsen 's Nora. Schec hner said that the hand-wringing was" the bit of reali ty" he wo uld preserve from tha t particular rehearsal andembody in the No ra -ro le in subseque n t rehea rsal s. As th ese succeeded oneano ther' , .. hrinl la~( ' of suc h gest u res , inc ide nts , ren de rings of not-self in tonot -not -se-lf wOlll d III' 1'111 11l ~('lhn an d molde-d ar t jst ir-ally in to a processual

From R itua l to T heatre/94

u ni ty . D ep th , re flex ivity, a ha unting a m bigu ity m ay thus be infused into aseries of perform ances, each a unique event.

P arti cul a rly since I had no skill or ex pe rie nce in direction , the ta sk ofcom m u nica ting to the ac to rs th e se tt ing and atmosphere of daily life in avery di fferen t cultu re proved quite fo rmidabl e . In one's own society an ac­tor tries to real ize "individual character ," but ta kes part ly fo r grant ed th ecultu rally de fine d roles supposedly played by that character : fath er ,businessman , frie nd , lover, fiance , trade union leader, far mer , poet, a nd soon . These ro les are made up of collect ive representations shared by acto rsand audience, who a re usu ally membe rs of the sa me cultu re . By co ntrast,an actor who enacts ethnography has to lear n the cu ltu ra l ru les behind thero les played by the cha racter he is represen ting. H ow is th is to be done?Not , I th ink, by reading monographs in abstract ion fro m performa nce , thenpe rfo rm ing the part. T here must be a d ialect ic between performing a ndlearning . O ne learns throug h perfo rming , then performs th e understan­di ngs so ga ined .

I dec ide d faute de mieux to give a read ing pe rfo rm a nce myself of th e firsttwo social dramas, interpola ting expla natory co m me nts whenever it seem­ed necessary . The group had already read the rel ev ant pages from Schismand Continuity . The dramas were broadly about Ndembu village politics,competi tion for headmansh ip , ambition , jealo usy , so rce ry , the recruitingof facti ons, a nd the stig m atiz ing of r ivals , part icularly as these ope ra tedwith in a local gro up of m atrilineally relat ed kin and some of their relationsby m arriage and neighbors . I had collected a number of a ccounts of thesedramas from participants in them . My family and I had lived in th e villagethat was their "stage " or "arena" for at least fifteen months and knew itwell du ring the whole period of my field work- almost two -and-a-halfyears.

When I had finished reading the drama accounts , the act ors in thewo rk sh op told me at once that they need ed to be "put in the righ t mood " ;to " sen se th e atmospherics" of Ndembu village life. O ne of them hadbrought so me records of Yoruba music, a nd , thou gh this is a d ifferentmusical idiom fro m C en tral African music , I led them int o a dancing circle,showing the m to th e best of m y limited , a rth r it ic abi lity , so me of the movesof Ndembu d an cing. This was fun , but off-ce nter fun. It th en occ ur red tous that we mi ght recrea te with the limited props ava ila ble to us in thetheatre the key redressive ritual which was performed in th e second soci ald ra ma , a nd whose form we knew very well from having ta ken part in it onseveral occasio ns. T h is r itual , "name inheri tance" (Kuswanilca iJina), wasan emotional eve nt , fo r it marked the temporary end of a power strugglebe tween the stigm a tized cand ida te for headmanship, Sandombu , andMukanza, the suc cessfu l candidate , and his immediate mat rilineal kin.Sandombu had been driven by public pressure from the villa ge for a yea r,for it wa s alh-ged that 11(' had killed hy sOf(" ('ry Nyu muwaha, a co us in on his

D ramati c Rituall95

mo th er 's side whom he called " mothe r," a much loved old lady , sister ofMukanza. Sandombu had shed tears on being acc used (eve n his form erfoes admitted thi s), but he had been in exile for a yea r. As time went by ,members of the village remembered how , as a foreman , he had helpedthe m find paid labor in the public works departm ent ro ad gang, and how hehad alw ays been generous with food a nd beer to guests . The pretext to in ­vite him back ca me when a m inor epidemic of illness broke out in thevillage while at the same time m any people dreamed frequently ofN yamuwaha . Divination found that her shade was disturbed by thetro ubles in th e villa ge. T o appease her, a q uickset sapling of muyomhu tree , aspecies fo r memorializing the lin eage dead , was to be planted for he r. San­do mbu was inv ite d to do the ritual plant in g. H e also pai d the village a goatin co m pensat ion for hi s angry beh avio r the previous year. The r itual mark ­ed his reincorporation in to th e village, even though for mally it had to dowith the inher ita nce of Nyam uwaha 's name by her oldest daughte r ,M anyosa (who aft e rwards became m y wife ' s best friend in th e village) .

Stirred by the dancing and recorded drumming, I wa s moved to try torecreate the name-inheritance rit e in Soho . For the muyomhu tree, I found assubs titu te a brush handle . For ritual " white " beer a s libation , a cu p ofwater would have to do . There wa s no white clay to a no in t people with , butI found some clear white sal t, which I mo istened. And to pare the top of thebrush handle , as Ndembu shrine trees a re pared to reveal the white woodu nder the bark (an operation symbolically rel at ed to the purification that isci rcu mcision) , I found a sharp kit chen knife . Afterwards, I was told by oneof th e group that she was terrified that I would do something "grisly" withit! But truly there is often some element of risk or danger in the atmosphereof living ritual. And something numinous.

To translate this very specific Ndembu rit e into modern Americanterms, I took the role of th e new village headman , and with my wife's helpprepared the surrogate muyombu shr ine-t ree with knife and salt, and" pla n ted" it in a cr ack in th e floor. The next move was to per suade some­one to pla y Manyosa ' s rol e in this situat ion . Someone whom we shallcall Becky, a professional director of drama, volu nt ee red .

I a sked Beck y to give me the name of a recently deceased close femalerela tive of an older generation who had meant much in her life . Con­siderably moved, she mentioned her mother's siste r Ruth . I then prayed inC h ilu nda to " village ancestors. " Becky sat besid e me before the "sh r ine, "her legs extended in front of her, her head bowed in th e Ndembu positionof ritual modest y . I th en a no in te d the shr ine -tree wi th the im provisedmpemba, wh ite clay, symbol of unity wit h the ances to rs a nd the living com­munity , and drew three lines with it on the ground , from the shr ine tom yself. I then anointed Becky by th e o rb its of her eyes, on the brow, andabove the navel . I decl a red her to lx- " Ns wa nn- R ut h; " " successor 01Ruth. to ina \\'a ~' il ll' ll li fi l 'd with Ru th . ill anothe-r n 'p lac'ill l{ he- r , though no t

From Ri tual to Theatre/Ini

totally , as a struc tura l person a . I repeated th e anoint ing pro~ess wi t~ ~lt ~e r

membe rs of the group , not na mi ng them a fte r deceased kin but JoJnJO gthem in to the symbolic un ity of ou r rece n tly formed com m u nity of teachersand students. Then , Edie and I tied strips of white cloth arou nd eve ry­one 's brow s, and I poured ou t another libation of th e white beer at th e baseof the shrine-tree . There was dearly a double sy mbolism here , for I was us­ing W estern subs tances to re present Nde mb u obje cts w~i ch ~ h ems.c1v ~s hadsymbolic value in ritual, making o f them , as it were, situationa l indices ofcu ltural symbols. Surely, at so many removes , must not th e wh ole perfor­m a nce have seemed hi gh ly artificia l, inaut hen tic? Oddly enough , accor­

d ing to th e students , it did not.T he workshop group la ter reported that th ey had gone on di scu ssin g

wha t had occu rred for sev era l hours. T hey agreed that th e enactment of theNdembu ritual was the turning point which brought to them both the affec­tu al struct u re of the socia l drama a nd the ten sion between facti onalism andsca pegoatism, on th e one hand , a nd the deep sense of village " belongi.ngtogether" on the o ther. It a lso showed them how an enha nced c.ollectlvca nd individual understanding of the co n flict situ ation could be ac hieved byparticipatin g in a rit ual performa nce with its kinesiological as well as

cognitive codes. .In the following days , the group began work on the actual stag mg of the

r itual dra mas . One sugges tion favored a dualist ic approach : some even ts(for example , whe n Sandombu, the a mbitious claimant , having ki lled a nantelope, ga ve only a sm all portion of meat to his mot her' s brother, theheadman) would be trea ted reali stically , natural isti cally ; but th e world ofcultu ral be liefs , pa rticul arl y those con nected with sorcery a nd the ancestorcult, would be treated sym bolica lly. For exa m ple , it was widel y believed,not only by Sandombu's villa ge oppone nts but al so in Nde mbu society a tla rge , th a t Sa ndomb u had kill ed the headma n by paying a powerfulsorcere r to su m mon up from a stream a fa mil iar spiri t in the sha pe of ahuman-faced serpe nt, owned by (a nd also owning) th e headman , a nd bysho oting it wit h his " night-gu n, " a musket carved from a hum an tibia a ndprimed with graveya rd eart h . Such sna ke-fa m iliars, or malomb~, a rethought to have the faces of their owners a nd to creep about the Village atn igh t in visibly, listenin g, in wiretap fashion, to ~eroga~ory remark s m~deabou t the ir ow ne rs by r ivals . They grow by ea ting their shado ws, o r life­principles , o f the ir ow ners' foes , wh o a re u su ally th eir ow ne rs ' kin . Theyfun ction as a kind of Frazer ian " external sou l," bu t when they a redestro yed by magical means , such as the night-gu n , the ir owners a redes troy ed too . Chiefs a nd headmen ha ve "st ro ng malomba," and it takes

strong medicine to kill them . .. .Our cla ss sug-g-t'sled that Sa ndolllhu' s i!om!Ja fam iliar (tha t IS , hi s qllas l ~

para noi d undcrsr-H) SIH.l l ld Ill" IHT SC ' ll tC'cl as a kind of C"IIlII"I IS tCI the pla y . He­i ll ~ pI-ivy III lIw pll ii t i l -;II plnll ill ~: i ll IIw suu .uion , Ill!' illl11//1(1 ('llll id n- ]] the

Dramatic Ritua1l97

audie nce (in th e manner of Shakespeare 's R ichard th e Third) what wa s go ­ing on u nder the surface of kinsh ip -no rm- governed relat io ns hips in thevillage . One suggestio n wa s that we make a film , to be shown in thebackground, of a n ilomba cy n ically disclosing the "real" structure ofpol itical po wer relat ionships, a s know n to him , whil e the dramatis personaeof the soc ial drama, on stage and in the foreground , behaved with formalres tra int tow a rds one an other , with a n occasional ou tburst of a uthe ntichostil e feeli ng.

During the di scussion , a graduate student in a n thro pology ga ve th edra ma stude nts in the group some coge nt ins truct ion in the nature ofmatr ilineal kinship systems a nd problems, a nd , la te r , in the Ndembusyste m whi ch comb ined m atrilineal descen t with viri local marriage(re side nce a t the husban d ' s village), and as se rted the do minance of succes ­sio n of brothers to office over the suc cess ion of the sister's son-one of theca use s of dispute in Mukanza village where the d ra m as were set. T his in ­vocat ion of cogn itive mod els proved hel pfu l, bu t only because th e nonan­

thropo log ist s had been st imulated to want to know them by the enactmentof some Ndembu rit ual an d the witnessing of the d ra m atic narrative ofpo litical struggle in a m at rilineal social context.

To giv e a more pe rsonal idea of the va lues assoc iate d by the Ndembuwith matri linea l descent , my wife read to the women of th e whole class apiece she had wr itten abou t the girl s' puberty rit ual of the Ndembu . I haddescribed th is ri tual somewhat dry ly in the conventional an thropologicalmode in my boo k The Drums oj Affliction (1968 : chaps. V II -V IIl ). H er ac­count , however , grew from participation in a n intersubjective world ofwomen involved in th is com plex ritual sequence , and commu nicated viv id ­ly the feelings and wishes of wo men in th is rite de passage in a matr iline alsociety , Trying to ca pt u re the affe cti ve dimension th e reading revealed , thewomen in the dram a section of th e workshop attempted a new techn iq ue ofsta ging , T he y began a re hearsa l wit h a ballet , in which women crea ted akind of frame with their bodies, positi oning th emselves to form a circle , inwh ich the subseq ue nt male pol it ical ac tio n could ta ke place. T heir idea wa sto show that ac tio n went on with in a matr ilineal socioc ultu ral space .

Someh ow th is device didn't work-ther e was a cove rt conte m porarypo litic a l tinge in it which denatured the Ndembu sociocultu ra l process.T h is feminist mo de of staging ethnogra ph y assumed and enacted modernideologic a l notion s in a situa tion in which those ideas are simply irreleva nt.The Ndembu struggles were do mi nated by ind ividual cla shes of will andper so na l an d collective emot ional responses conce rned with ass umed ora llege d breaches of en titlement. What was dom ina nt was not the ge neralmatril ineal struc tures of in her itance , succe ssion , a nd social placement inlinea ges hut rather will , ambition , a nd polit ical goals . The matrilinealst rm- ru rr-s illl1 lWIHTl1 Ihe tac tics used by contes ta n ts overmaste red bytln-ir will I II ol u.u n II ' III po ra l power, but polit ics was m ainly in the hands of

From Rit ual to T hea trcl98

males. A scri p t sho uld thus focu s on power-struggling ra the r thanmatril ineal ass um ptions if it is to stay true to the ethnography . But perhapsthe ethnogra phy itself sho uld be put in question ? This was one view so me ofou r fe m ale cla ss members ra ised . And, indeed , suc h a q ue stio n is legiti matewhen one opens ethnographies out to the pc rfor rn ati ve process. Does amale ethnogra pher , like myself, rea lly understa nd or ta ke int o fulla nal yti ca l account the nat ure of ma tr ilinea l struc ture and its embod im e nt,no t only in wome n but also in me n , as a powerful fa cto r in all their ac­tions-poli tica l, legal, kinship, r itual, econo mi c?

Nevert heless , the fac t rema ined th at po litica l office , even in th ism a trili neal society, was largely a male affair , if no t a male monopoly .H e nce , the a tte m pt to bring into the foreground the female fra m ing ofNde rnbu soc iety d iverted a tten tion from the fact tha t these particula rdramas we re essentially m ale political struggles-even though co nducted inte rms of matrilineal descent. The real tra ged y of Sa nd om bu wa s no t th at hewas em bedded in a m atrilineal structu re (whet her matrilin eal , pa trilineal ,or bil ateral) which played do wn indi vidu al pol itical gi fts and played up ad­va ntages deri ved from positi ons assigned by birth . In ca pita list ic America ,or socialistic R ussia or C hina , a polit ica l a nim al like Sandombu mi gh t haveth r ived . In N dem bu vilag e politics , ho wever, a person with a m bit io n , b utproc rea tivel y ste ri le and witho ut Illa ny mat r ilineal kin , was almost fro m thesta rt a doomed man .

T he trouble was that time ra n ou t before the gro up had a cha nce to por­tra y Sa ndom bu ' s sit ua tion. Bu t all o f us , in an th ropo logy a nd drama , nowhad a problem to thi nk abou t. H ow could we tu rn ethn ography int o scr ip t,then enact tha t scri pt , then th ink about, then go back to full er eth nography ,then m ake a ne w scr ip t , then act it a ga in ? This in terpre tive circu lat ion bet­ween data , prax is , theo ry , and more dat a - a kind of hermeneu ticalC at he rine whee l, if you like-pro vides a merciless cr itique of et hnogra phy .T here is not hin g like act ing the part of a member of a no ther cu ltu re in acr isis situation charac te ris tic of th at cu ltu re to detect ina uthent icity in thereportin g usu ally made by w esterners a nd to rai se problems und iscussed orun resolved in the e thnogra phic na rrat ive . H owever , this very de ficiencyma y ha ve pedagogical me rit insofar as it motiva tes the studen t/acto r to readmore widely in th e literat ure on the cultu re.

It is hard, fur th ermore , to separa te ae sthe tic and per-torrna tive problemsfrom a nt hro po log ica l in terpreta tio ns . The most inc isively o r plain lyrep orted ex tend ed case hi sto ri es co nta ined in ethnogra phies still ha ve to befurther di stilled and abb rev ia ted fo r the pu rp oses of perfo rma nce . T o doth is telli ngl y a nd effect ively , sound kn owledge of the sa lien t soc iocu ltu ralco ntexts mu st combine with p re sentational skills to prod uce a n effect iveplayscript , one which effectively portrays both individu al psycho logy andsoci al process a rti r-ulnn-d ill n-rms of the model s provided by it pa rti cu la rcu hun- . 0 111 ' ;ulvall lagc' IIf sn ip l illg 1'II1IIIIgraphy ill thi s way is lhat it d raws

Dr a mat ic R itu al/99

at ten tion to cu ltural subsystems, such as that co nstitu ted by wit.chcra ft/d ivination/ performance of red ressive ritual, in a drama tic way . Theworkshop grou p 's sugges tion tha t a film or ba llet sho uld be perform ed inth e background of the nat ura listic d ra ma po rtraying the ilomba a nd o thercreatures of witchcraft (masks and m asq ue rad ing cou ld be em ployed )might be an effective de vice for reveal ing the hidden , perhaps eve n u n ­

conscious level s of action . It would also act as a viv id se t of foo tnotes on thecultu ral ass u m ptions of the Ndembu dramatis personae .

Our ex pe r ience of th e thea tre wo rk shop sugges ted a nu mber ofguidelines fo r how coll aboration between a nthropo log ists a nd practitionersof dra ma a nd dance , a t wh a teve r stage of tr aining, mi gh t be undert ake n .Firs t o f all , a n th ro po log ists m igh t pre sen t to the ir d ra ma co lleagues a ser iesof e thn ographic tex ts selec ted fo r the ir perfo rmative poten tial. T he process­ed ethno text would then be transformed in to a workable prelimi naryplayscr ip t. Here the kn ow- how of theat re people-their sense of dialogu e ;un derstandin g of se tt ing and props; ear for a telling, reve lato ryph rase- could co mb ine wit h the an th ropologi st ' s u nd erstanding of cu ltu ralmeanings, indi gen ou s rhetoric, a nd ma teri al cu lt u re . T he playscript , ofco u rse, would be subject to co ntin uo us modification d uring the rehearsalprocess , whi ch would lead up to a n ac tual performance . At th is stage, wewould need a n experienced d ire cto r, preferably one fa m iliar with an­th ro po logy a nd with non-W ester n th ea tre (like Schechner or Peter Bro ok ),a nd cer ta in ly fam ilia r with the soc ia l structure a nd the rules and th em esunderlying the surface struc tu res of th e cultu re being enacted. There wo uldbe a constan t back-a nd-forth mov emen t from a nth ropological a nalysis ofthe ethnography, whi ch provide s the details for enactment, to the sy nthcsiz­ing and in tegr ating ac tiv ity of d ramatic com position , which would includesequenc ing sce nes , rela tin g th e words a nd ac tions of the characters toprevious a nd fu ture eve nts, a nd re nd eri ng ac tions in appropr iat e stage se t­tings. Fo r in th is kind of e thnog ra phic drama, it is no t only the ind ivid ualcharac ters who have d ra matic importa nce but also the deep processes ofsocial life . From the a nth ropological viewpoint , there is d rama indeed inthe wo rking out an d mutua l co nfronta tion of sociocultu ral processes.So metimes. even , the actors on the stage almost see m puppets on pro .ce ssu a l str in gs.

S tudents of a nt h ropo logy could a lso help d rama stude nts dur ing rehea r­sal itself, if no t by direct par ticipation , a t least in the ro le of Dramaturv , aposit ion fou nded by Lessin g in eighteen th- cen tu ry Ger ma ny a nd defi nedhy Richard Hornby as "simply a literary adv isor to the [theate r ] d irecto r "(Script into Performance, 1977:63) . H orn by a nd Sche ch nc r e nvision theDramaturg as a so rt of str uc turalist litera ry crit ic who carries on his resea rchthrough a produr-tiun ruther than me rely ill his stud )' (p p. 197-199) . But thea nlhro polug il';ll /) " " f1tl/ ll f.t: 0 1" Ethnodmmature is no t so IIIlH'h conce rned witht lu- stnu t nr r HI II... 1'1.1 \' Sl l i p l [its e- lf a , k lilli,, · 1Il0 \T fnull l 'lhnog l"aph y 10

I

From R itual 10 Tlwa trc/lOO

literatu re) as with the fidelity of that scrip t to bo th th e descri bed fac ts andth e a nt hro pologica l analysis of the st ruc tu res and processes of the group .Incidenta lly, I am not ca lling for a mandatory exclus ion of a nt hropologistsfrom the act ing role! Indeed, I think that particip a tion in this ro le wouldsign ifica ntly enhance a nthropolog ists' "scientific" understanding of thecu lture bei ng stud ied in this dynami c fashion , for human scien ce is con­cerned , as we have sa id, with " man alive . " But I am aw are of theevasiven ess and voyeu r ism of my kind-which we rat ionalize as " objectivi­ty . " Perhaps we need a litt le mo re of the dsciplined abandonment thatthea tr e demands! H owever , as seco nd be st , we ca n settle for th e ro le ofE thnodramaturg ,

The movemen t from ethnogr aphy to performance is a process ofpragmati c reflexivity . Not the reflexivi ty of a narcissistic isola te movingamong his or he r memories a nd dreams, but the att em pt of representativesof one generic modality of human existence, the Western hist orica l ex­perience , to u nderstand "on the pu lses ," in Keat sian met aph or , othermodes hith erto locked away from it by cogn itive chau vinism or culturalsnobbe ry.

Hi storically, ethnod ramat ics is eme rging just when knowled ge is beingincreased abo ut ot her cultu res, other world views, other life sty les; whenw esterners. endeavor in g to trap non-Western phi loso phies, d ra m atics, andpoet ics in the corra ls of thei r own cogni tive constru ctions, find tha t theyha ve ca ug ht sublime monsters, Eastern dragons wh o are lords of fru ctil echaos , whose wisdo m makes our cogn itive knowledge look somehowshrunken , shabby, a nd inadequat e to our new apprehension of th e humanco ndition,

Car tes ian d ualism has insisted on separating subj ec t from obj ect, us fromthe m. It has, indeed , made voyeu rs of Western m a n , exagge ra ting sight bymacro- a nd micro-instrumentati on , the better to learn the struc tures of th eworld with a n "eye" to its exploi tati on . The deep bonds between body andmentality , u nco nscious a nd consc ious thinking , spec ies and sel f ha ve beentrea ted witho u t respect, as tho ug h irrelevant for a na lytical pu rposes .

T he reflexivi ty of performance d issolves th ese bonds and so crea tivelydemocr ati zes: as we become on earth a sing le noosphere, the Platonicclea va ge between a n aristocracy of the spirit and the "lower or foreignorde rs" can no lon ger be maintained . To be reflex ive is to be a t once one 'sown subj ect and di rect object. T he poet, whom Plato rej ected from h isR epublic, subject iv izes the obj ect , or, better, m akes intersubjectivity thecharac terist ica lly pos tmodern human mode.

It is pe rha ps perfect ly na tural tha t an anthro po logy of performancesho uld be moving to meet d rama tic performers who a re see king some oftheir theoretica l suppo rt from anthropology . With the renewed emphas ison society as a pron'ss puncr uun-d hy pe-rformances of va rious kinds, thereha s rk-vr-lopcd 11ll' vi e- w lhal sur h ~( ' Il n's ;I S rit uul , (T !"«' lll CHI Y, carniva l,

Dramatic Ritual/ lOI

festival , ga me, spec tac le, pa ra de , and sports event may co ns tit ute , onvar ious levels and in va r ious verba l a nd nonverbal codes , a set of int ersec­ting metalanguages . The gro u p or co m mu n ity does not merely " flow " inu nison at these perform ances, but , more actively , tri es to understand itselfin order to change itself. This d ialec tic be tween " flow " and re llexiv itycharac terizes perfor rnative gen res : a successfu l perfo rma nce in an y of thegen res transcends the opposition between sponta neous a nd self-co nsciouspatterns of ac tion.

If a nthropologists are ever to tak e ethnodramatics ser ious ly, ou rdisciplin e will have to become something more than a cogn itive ga meplayed in ou r heads and in scribed in-let' s face it- somewhat tedious jou r­nals. We will have to become perform er s ou rselves, a nd bring to human ,exis ten tial fulfillment wh at have hitherto been on ly mental istic protocols .We must find ways of overcoming the boundaries of bot h poli tica l andcogn itive structu res by dramatistic em pathy , sympat hy , frie ndship, eve nlove as we acquire ever deeper structural knowled ge in rec ipro city with theinc reasingly self-aware ethnoi, barbaroi, goyim, heat hen s, a nd marginals inpu rs ui t of common tasks and rare imaginative transcendences of thosetasks.

References

Firt h , R a ym ond . "Soc iety and its Symbols, " Tima Litaa')' S"ppfrmrnt, pp . 1-2 , Se ptem be r13, 1974 .

G luc kman , M a x. " O n Dra m a , a nd Games and Ath leuc Con lt'sU. " In Secular RItual. ed . S .Moore and 8 . Myerhoff , A ssen , H olla nd : R oya l va n G orcu m , PI' . 227-2 43, 1977 .

H ornb y. R ichard . Saipt into I'etformancc. Au st in a nd London : Uuivc rsitv orTexas 1' 1'(,,55 ,

1977 .

T urne r , Victo r. Schis m and Conl/rwifj' in an AJr/ carl .\·II( ir!}'_ Manches te-r: Maruhexu-r Univ ersityPress. 1 ~ 5 7 ,