Potential and effective meaning in therapeutic ritual

Anthropologists who accept the functionalist dogma that everything in a culture is related to everything else can easily demonstrate from their own point of view that any ritual is richly meaningful. If, then, the healing power of therapeutic ritual depends on making illness meaningful, any ritual, if seen from this perspective, should be efficacious. We must distinguish, however, between potential and effective meaning, i.e. what a ritual might mean and what it does mean to participants in it who generally lack an anthropologist's global view of their culture. Effective meaning can be assessed by examining a ritual's relevance to the situation in which it occurs and factors which facilitate or hinder communication of what it might mean to particular persons. This argument is illustrated by analyzing the meaning of a Chinese healing ritual in two different situations in which it occurs.     

Metaphors of Hierarchy in a Mayan Ritual

Conventional actions denoting differences in rank are considered a central part of a Mayan ritual honoring a local saint and provide the basis for the formal analysis presented here. The ritual elements—acts drawn from daily etiquette and other ritual contexts—are combined in a way consistent with classic theories of ritual. While providing the basis for a formal argument, ways of designating rank order are not treated as "empty ritual": they pose a moral problem for the participants that contributes to the meaning of the ritual itself.     

Shellfish, Gender, and Status on the Northwest Coast: Reconciling Archeological, Ethnographic, and Ethnohistorical Records of the Tlingit

Archeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical data provide ambiguous evidence of the dietary and economic importance of shellfish in Northwest Coast cultures. In the case of the Tlingit, I find that understanding shellfish from an emic perspective is critical to reconciling these equivocal data on economic importance. The Tlingit associated shellfish with poverty, laziness, and ritual impurity, and those who sought to be "ideal" persons avoided shellfish. An individual's rank and gender determined the degree to which such dietary guidelines were actually followed. The social and symbolic meaning of shellfish in Tlingit culture is partly explained by ecological factors, including the danger of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The analysis also reveals a number of biases inherent in the ethnographic and archeological data.     

Names and Peoples in Incaic Quito: Retrieving Undocumented Historic Processes Through Anthroponymy and Statistics

When analyzed statistically, the distribution of verbal elements in some written sources, like that of objects in archeological sites, yields culture-historical data independent of artifacts' intended meaning. A 1559 case study from highland Ecuador uses personal names and their parts to detect cultural differences in aboriginal society and their changing relation to superordinate Inca culture. This can be done even with undeciphered names from an extinct language, suggesting a fortiori that the method is generalizable.     

Words of power: Personal empowerment and healing

This paper examines instances of ritual use of words in a diverse selection of alternative healing groups in a modern society. These words are distinguished by their users' belief that they are endowed with a power, an effectiveness, separate from and in addition to their literal meaning. Three specific features of ritual language contribute to its effectiveness: (1) its function as an objectification of power, (2) its transformative functions — especially its metaphoric and metonymic usages, and (3) its performative aspects. This paper argues that one of the key factors in healing illness is mobilizing resources of power, especially enhancing the ill person's sense of personal empowerment. Ritual language use in alternative healing is one of the foremost elements in this empowerment, because it both represents and objectifies power. Within a belief system in which they are significant, words of power indeed have the power to effect healing.     

Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies

Economic intensification has been documented in a diversity of small-scale societies. The existing archaeological theory concerning such intensification has tended to privilege economic and political explanations and largely ignores social action and ritual performance as motivations for economic change. In this article, 1 use both ethnographic and archaeological data to argue that ceremonial feasting and the need for socially valued goods, which are critical for ritual performance and necessary for a variety of social transactions, create the demand that underwrites and sustains economic intensification in small-scale societies. Food for large-scale feasts is acquired through the intensification of food production and procurement targeted specifically for feasting, rather than from the surplus available from routine subsistence production. Large-scale demands for socially valued goods tend to result in specialization on the production of "extraordinary" material culture, which is characterized by two modes of circulation, in networks of social obligations or as offerings in sacred locations. [Key words.craft specialization, exchange, feasting, ritual]     

Explaining Religion without Explaining It Away: Trust, Truth, and the Evolution of Cooperation in Roy A. Rappaport's "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual"

Moving beyond the ecological functionalism of Pigs for the Ancestors, Roy Rappaport's subsequent work on ritual explored how the "obvious aspects" of ritual's formalism and the need to perform it literally embody in its performers expressions of sanctity and truth that counter the threats of lying and alternative inherent in symbolic communication. He recognized that symbolic meaning and truth presuppose social cooperation and trust between individuals, and ritual serves uniquely to reaffirm this mutuality at the level of both individual behavior and conventional meaning. Through a study of male greetings among olive baboons (Papio cynocephalus anubis), this paper illustrates how ritual in Rappaport's sense may indeed intensify cooperation in socially complex but nonlinguistic contexts by establishing a behaviorally transparent means of certifying otherwise opaque individual intentions. Thus, not only may ritual sanctify symbolic communication, but it also may have played a crucial role in its evolution, [ritual, sociocultural evolution, religion and society, symbolic communication, olive baboons, primate social behavior]     

Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology

Two seemingly disparate areas of English language structure—the grammar of reported speech and of textual cohesion—are functionally related in that both entail a distinction between "wording" and "meaning." This is consistent with the Western ideological disjunction between language and reality, talk and action. Neither these language structures nor this linguistic ideology are found among the Ngarinyin people of northwestern Australia, suggesting a Whorfian hypothesis about their possible interrelationship.     

Ritual, Risk, and Danger: Chain Prayers in Fiji

Rituals that defuse immediate senses of danger can perpetuate senses of powerlessness. Ambiguous language used in defensive rituals can heighten people's senses of the risks they are confronting and also compel people to perform those rituals again in the future. In this article, I illustrate this argument by examining Fijian Methodist masu sema (chain prayers), which are conducted to defuse the dangers that beset society, including curses from demonic ancestors. I argue that Fijian cultural themes of present-day human powerlessness are generated largely by competition between Methodist and chiefly authorities. "Chain prayers" are attempts to negate the power of dangerous ancestors, but in requesting God's help, ritual participants cast themselves as powerless. Verbal ambiguity in chain prayers gives "demons" lives of their own, compelling their future circulation.     

The implications of ritual practices and ritual plant uses on nature conservation: a case study among the Naxi in Yunnan Province,Southwest China

Background

Conservation of biodiversity is primary important of today’s critically vulnerable environment. Efficient conservation can be possible only with the long-term participation and understanding of the communities. Ritual beliefs of the indigenous people are one of the important tools to understand the local communities and aid the nature conservation. In this paper, we documented contemporary ritual practices and ritual plant uses among the Naxi people and discussed the importance of traditional knowledge on ritual practice in the conservation of plants in the mountains presenting a case study of the Dongba culture.

Methods

This study was carried out from July in 2013 to July in 2014. To document and analyze the present state of the ritual plant used by the Naxi people we conducted an ethnobotanical survey. We interviewed local people including Dongba priests using the semi-structured questionnaire. During the field study, we participated in the local religious activities to witness the use of different plants in ritual activities of the Naxi people. We interviewed twenty-two key informants and eleven of them were male. All the specimens of documented species were collected and deposited at the herbarium of Kunming Institute of Botany.

Results

The survey results revealed the Naxi people possessed sound knowledge of the traditional ritual plants and great diversity of plants used in many of Naxi rituals and festivals. From the survey, we documented 32 ritual plant species belonging to 24 genera of 17 families used in various ritual activities. The ritual plants were grouped into two categories, namely those burned as incense, and those used for decoration. The incense plants like Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata and Pistacia weinmanniifolia were probably promising natural aromatic resource. Plants of genus Quercus were the most frequently used species. The places for ritual activities were diverse, such as the incense burners inside and outside the house and sacred trees at the Baishuitai. Local people except the young generation had an abundant of traditional knowledge.

Conclusions

Our study shows the live ritual activities and the beliefs of the residents are keeping the plant diversity and the entire forest preserved as sacred mountains. Our study emphasizes traditional belief and an alternative view of conservation that is not led mainly by governmental policies, as local practices and ritual plants uses play as constant reminders to the Naxi on nature conservation. However, further research is recommended for in-depth understanding the role of traditional belief in biodiversity conservation.

     

"Ma'iingan Is Just a Misspelling of the Word Wolf": A Case for Teaching Culture through Language

Framed by the English language and positioned as a distinct subject, Ojibwe culture and language are often appreciated by students rather than taught for a deeper understanding or fluency, or used as the language of instruction in tribal schools. Ojibwe culture and language have been "added on" to existing school curriculum, an approach that changes the meaning of culture. In this article I critique the add-on approach and propose that teaching through the Indigenous language (immersion) supports cultural and language revitalization in a more fundamental way.     

Scars of experience: the art of moxibustion in Japanese Medicine and Society

Beliefs and practices surrounding moxibustion, a cautery technique used in Japan, are analyzed to demonstrate that the concept of holism is culture-bound and that the practice of East Asian medicine is often reductionistic.Pluralistic traditional medical belief systems of historical and contemporary Japan are discussed with reference to moxibustion. Moxa is used in popular family medicine, for ritual purification, as a technique to cure disease or as part of a holistic approach to healing; its symbolic meaning changes according to its usage and it serves to unite disparate medical beliefs.Socialization practices concerning attitudes towards illness reflect pluralistic values derived from traditional medical systems. One dominant set of values encourages patient and family responsibility during the healing process, adaptation to psychosocial relationships regarded as causal in disease occurrence and avoidance of verbal analysis of problems. These concepts, fundamental to East Asian medicine, cannot be readily adapted in the West as part of a holistic approach to health care.     

Colonial Entanglements and the Practices of Taste: An Alternative to Logocentric Approaches

Anthropology has over the last quarter century privileged language, ideation, and meaning as central tropes in the study of culture. Meaning has been construed primarily in terms of linguistic signification, resulting in logocentric approaches to its study. This preoccupation endures despite the embrace of practice theory and renewed attention to object worlds. In this article, I explore the implications of logocentric approaches for the study of what Thomas terms "colonial entanglements. I argue that there are both theoretical and methodological reasons for deprivileging meaning (logocentrically conceived) and for focusing instead on the embodied forms of practical knowledge that framed colonial relations. I explore the value of a taste-centered approach that exploits the strengths of archaeological sources. As a form of embodied practical knowledge, extant practices of taste shaped the reception (and rejection) of exotic goods as well as their recontextualization. By creating what Hebdige terms "cartographies of taste" based on a study of past object worlds, we can explore how existing practices shaped the reception of new objects. By viewing these "cartographies" comparatively in time and space, we can contextually analyze diversions and continuities in the practices of taste through time in relation to the interplay of production and consumption, supply and demand, and thus enrich our understanding of colonial conjunctures. An archaeological case study from the Banda area in Ghana is used to illustrate the value of taste as a conceptual tool that emphasizes the importance of embodied knowledge in social life. [Keywords: logocentrism, embodied knowledge, colonial entanglements, material culture, Ghana]     

Clan, language, and migration history has shaped genetic diversity in Haida and Tlingit populations from Southeast Alaska

The linguistically distinctive Haida and Tlingit tribes of Southeast Alaska are known for their rich material culture, complex social organization, and elaborate ritual practices. However, much less is known about these tribes from a population genetic perspective. For this reason, we analyzed mtDNA and Y-chromosome variation in Haida and Tlingit populations to elucidate several key issues pertaining to the history of this region. These included the genetic relationships of Haida and Tlingit to other indigenous groups in Alaska and Canada; the relationship between linguistic and genetic data for populations assigned to the Na-Dene linguistic family, specifically, the inclusion of Haida with Athapaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit in the language family; the possible influence of matrilineal clan structure on patterns of genetic variation in Haida and Tlingit populations; and the impact of European entry into the region on the genetic diversity of these indigenous communities. Our analysis indicates that, while sharing a "northern" genetic profile, the Haida and the Tlingit are genetically distinctive from each other. In addition, Tlingit groups themselves differ across their geographic range, in part due to interactions of Tlingit tribes with Athapaskan and Eyak groups to the north. The data also reveal a strong influence of maternal clan identity on mtDNA variation in these groups, as well as the significant influence of non-native males on Y-chromosome diversity. These results yield new details about the histories of the Haida and Tlingit tribes in this region.     

The partial stream sampling assumption in intestinal perfusion studies

During the past several years, the technique ofin vivo intestinal perfusion with partial stream sampling has been increasingly widely used to gather information on intestinal absorptive processes in man. The basic technique involves infusion of test solution through a proximal opening; and aspiration of samples through one or more distal openings a fixed distance apart. Samples are analyzed for test solute concentrations; from such sample data, conclusions are drawn concerning alterations in stream concentrations between the sampling sites. An underlying assumption for the validity of such a method is: that sample concentrations are the same as average stream concentrations. This assumption has not previously been precisely stated. A precise statement of it is given here, together with an analytic proof of conditions necessary and sufficient for its validity. A brief verbal comment is included to clarify the practical meaning of the analytic statement.     

The Phylogenesis of Language: The Grammar of Gestures and the Manipulation of Words

Current studies on the origin of language clearly show the necessity to go beyond the debate of nature vs. culture in order to pursue an interdisciplinary perspective. The convergence of researches carried out in different fields – neurobiology, palaeoanthropology and linguistics – outlines in a rather clear and convincing framework the strong link between language and motility. Various sources of evidence demonstrate how the mechanisms of culture acquisition and transmission – imitation, language and dexterity – refer back to the same cerebral structures. Moreover, both the motor and the linguistic systems show an identical multileveled basic structure that allows humans high levels of expressiveness. Actions such as the production of tools or the throwing of objects, connected to the very first human behaviours, emerge through space-time concatenations related to the linguistic logic. The hypothesis of a coevolution of language and motor patterns and of a very remote origin of verbal communication is thus debated.     

Divergent modes of address and (re)contextualization in Loma ritual prayer

This article explains the ritual symbolism of a sacrificial rite characteristic of the so-called 'secret societies' of the conflict-ridden Upper Guinea forest and coastal region of West Africa. Whereas the political dimension of these secret societies or cults is relatively well known, very little knowledge exists about the ritual communication with imperceptible beings around which the cults are organized. It appears from the study of Loma ritual prayer that secret mask cults are typical self-referential entities constituted by a symbolism emerging from a reconfiguration in ritual speech of modes of relationships characteristic of the social structure of the Loma of Guinea and Liberia. Against recent anthropological theories of ritual which reject the idea that ritual can be defined as communication of meaning, it is argued that Loma sacrificial prayer conveys an essential 'message' about the secret cult's constitution. In addition to an analysis of the recontextualization of modes of relationships that typifies Loma ritual prayer, the article also pays attention to indexical expressions in prayer which serve to negotiate social relationships and power relations external to the ritual context.     

Ancient Egyptian verbal reduplication: typology, diachrony, and the morphology–syntax interface

We explore the diachronic development of verbal reduplication in Ancient Egyptian (Afro-Asiatic) by systematically comparing reduplicative stem formations in Old Egyptian (2500–2000 BC) and in Coptic Egyptian (3rd–12th c. AD). Old Egyptian is a language with a rich inventory of reduplication patterns, which have been reduced in the course of almost four thousand years of uninterrupted language history. Coptic retains only a limited number of reduplicative stem formations, frequently with concomitant loss of the simple stem. We show that the decreasing productivity of verbal reduplication in the language correlates with broad morphological and syntactic changes in the verbal domain.