va Side view of Chivsluk. ‘The dengns on the mask are im white, red and block THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS Aspects of Ndembu Ritual VICTOR TURNER Cornell Paperbacks CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDONon ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS Classes and the Geometrical Theory of Points.” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, XXI. 1959. Lascaux. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1931. The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony. Lon- versity Press Leib, Arthur. 1946, Folklore, LVI, 128-133. “ Richacds, A.J. 1956. Chisungu, London: Faber & Fgber. Skeat, W. W., and Blagden, C. O. 1906, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, London: Macmillan. Smith, Robertson W. 1912, “A Journey in the Hedjaz.” In J. S. Black and mga. London: Cambridge University Pres. ‘Turner, Victor W. 1961. Ndembu Divination: Its Symbolism: and Tech- niques (Rhodes-Livingstone Paper 31). Manchester University Press. de FOubengut. Pans: Vergiat, A. M. 1936. Les Rites Secrets des Pr Payot. fo tof hues, The eno Laie Blof and Rituals Rbade Lis ne Institute Paper 32). Manchester University Press Zachnet, R. C. 1962, Hinduism. London: Oxford University Press. | 1 i 1 CHAPTER IV Betwixt and Between: The Limmal Period in Rites de Passage” 2s thi popes Tish fo consider seme ofthe soaceultral popes of as “nites de pasage.” If our base model of society 1s thet of a “structure of positions.” we must regard the period of margin or “liminality” as an interstructural situation. I shall consider, notably in the case of initiation rites, some of the main features of instruction among the simpler societies. I shall also take note of certain symbolic themes that concretely express indigenous concepts about the nature of “interstructural” human beings. Rites de passage axe found in all societies but tend to reach theit maximal expression in small-scale, xelanvely stable and cyclical socie ties, where change is bound up with biological and meteorological rhythms and recurrences rather than with technological snmnovations. nites indicate and constitute transitions between states. By T mean here “a relatively ixed or stable condition” and would ld nt meaning such scl constants, rte ice or calling, rank or degree. T hol of @ person as determined by his cae recognized of maturation as when one speaks of “the marred er Meeting of the American Ethnologieal Society in . First published in The Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society (1964). 9394 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS to ecological conditions, or tothe physical, mental or emotional condi- tion in which a person or group may be found at a p man may thus be in a state of good or bad health; a socie ‘war or peace or a state of famine or of plenty. State, in short, a more inclusive concept than s fice and refers to any type of stable is culturally recognized. One may, I sup- te of transition,” since J. S. Mill hes, after of progressive movement.” but I prefer to regard ‘ase of rites de passage even a transfon of being heated to boiling point, or a pupa changing from grub to moth, In any case, a transition has diferent culeural properties from those ofa state, as [hope to show presently. Van Gennep himself defined “rites de passage” as “ntes which The Sist_phese of separation comprises ifying the detachment of the ‘group either from an earlier fixed point ip the social OF etal conitions Ca rae lunge the interven i °) is ambiguous: he bas Few ox bone of the aiibutes of the past or coming state; in the third phase the passage is consummated. The ritual subjc, indie or eorporste, tine stable sate once more and, by virtue of this, has rights and obligations of a clearly defined and “structural” type, and is expected to behave in accordance with certain customary norms and ethieal standards. The most prom- inent type of rites de passage tends to accompany wha Warnes (1959, 303) has cal containment in his grave as a dead organism—punctuated by a num- ber of critical transition which all societies ntualize and to impress the significance of the individual and the group on living members of the community. “These are t However, | and others have shown, rites de passage axe not confined to cilturally defined lifecrises but may BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD 95 ‘accompany any change from one state to another, as when a whole tribe goes to war, or when it attests to the passage from scarcity toy, plenty by performing a first-fruits or a harvest festival. Rites de pas- X sage, 100, are not restuicted, sociologically speaking, to movements between ascribed statuses. They also concem entry into @ new achieved status, whether this be a political office ox membership of an ‘exclusive chub or secret society. They may admit perso ship of a religious group where such 2 group does whole society, yy them for the official dus penods, On the whole, init : nto social maturity or ccult membership, best exemplify transition, since they have well marked and protracted marginal or liminal phases, I shall pay only brief heed here to ntes of separation and aggregation, since these are ted an social structure than nites of con other aspects of passage nitual where the argument demands this. T may state here, partly as an aside, that I consider the term “ritual” to be more fittingly applied to forms of religious behavior associated with social transitions, while the term “ceremony” has a closer bearing on religious behavior associated with an the liminal perod, structurally, s members of society, most of us see only what we expect to see, and what we expect to sec is what we are conditioned to see when we have learned the definitions and classifica tions of our culture. A society's secular definitions do nat allow for the ate is Cif he can be seid to be anything). A set of essentially definitions co-exi ‘name and by a set of sym! employed to designate those who are tes of life. For example, among mwadi may mean various thi in circumcision rites,” or “a being initiated into very the Ndembu of Zambia xt may stand for “a boyf 96 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS designate undergoing his instalation rites,” or, yet agein, “the frst or ritual wife” who has important ritual dutie and “neophyte” have a similar breadth o would seem from this that emphasis tends to be laid on mm itself, rather than on the particular states between place what LeviStrauss might call “isomorphic” with structural and cultural processes. They give an outward and inward and conceptual process. The anal personae has,a twofold character. sified and not yet classified. In so far as er classified, the symbols chat represent them ate, in drawn from the biology of death, decomposit ther physical processes that have @ negative ti ration (frequently regarded 2s the absence ot in. some boys’ anitiatic fened to menstruating women, In 0 far a a neophyte is Stuctoly “dead” he or she may be tested, for a a long or chon period, as a corpse is customarily treated in hi , Stobacus’ quotation, probably from a lost work of and death comespond word for word and th 1961, 132]) The neophyte may be buried, forced to the posture and direction of customary burial, may be may be forced to live for a while in the company ‘monstrous mummers representing, inter alia, the dead, or worse still, the undead. The metaphor of dissolution 1s often applied to neo- phytes; they are allowed to go filthy and ides th, the generalized matter into which every specif down, Particular form here becomes general matter, names are taken 1d each is called solely by the gencric term (This useful neologism 1s employed by SD. are not yet classified, ten expressed _fin symbols modeled on processes of gestation and pacturtion, The / neophytes are likened to or treated as embryos, newborn. infants, or sucklings by symbolic means which vary from culture to culture. 1 shall return to thi . “The essential feature of these symbolizations is that the neophytes BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD are neither living noz dead from one aspect, and both living and deat from another. Their condition is one of ambiguity and paradox, a confusion ofall the customary categories. Jakob Boelime, the German mystic whose obscure W celebrated dialectical “mad,” liked to say t speculative pl acknowledge his philosophical debt to the teaching, and Orphic initiations of Attica. We have no way of knowing whether primitive s merely conserved lore, Perhaps they also generated new thought and new custom, Dr. Mary Douglas, of University College, Londor advanced (in a magnificent book Purity and Danger dictory (from the perspective of social definition) tends to be regarded ) unclean. The unclear is the unclean: eg, she examines 1g nor another; or hhere nor there: or may even be nowhere Gin terms of any recognized cultural topography), and are at the very least “betwixt and between” all the recognized fixed points in space- lassification. In fact, in confirmation of Dr. Doug- rsonae nearly always and everywhere are 3 we may perhaps useful here between es and dynamics of pollution other words, we may have to distinguish between po which concem states that have been ambiguously or contradictory defined, and those which derive from ritualized transitions between what has been defectively Yt what cannot be defined in / states. In the fist case, we are dealing defined or ordered, in the second wi SSE EEE EE EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EE EEE EE eee BEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EERE EE EEE EEE EEE EE EEE EEE EE EEE EEE EEE EES* hunk, 98 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS static terms. We are not dealing with structural contr wwe discuss liminality, but with the essentially unstructured Cwhich 1s at once destractured and prestructured) and often the people them- selves see this in terms of bringing neophytes into close connection with deity or with supesbuman power, Wi in fact, often |, the infinite, tions when ly visible) and they are very commonly secluded, partially or com- realm of culturally defined and ordered states and Ndembu, the locate form of a noun meaning “sed mngula). The neophytes are som other place.” They have physical but not have to be hidden, since it is a paradox, a scar ‘see what ought not to be there! Where they are not removed to a sacred place of concealment they are often disguised, in masks or grotesque costumes orstrped with white, xd, or black clay, and the Ike. In societies dominantly structured by kinship institutions. sex dis- tinctions have great structural smportance. Patrilneal and matrilineal moieties and clans, rules of exogamy, and the like, rest and are built up on these distinctions, It is consistent with this to find that mn Jimmal situations (in kinshipdominated societies) neophytes are assigned charac- yeal sex. (Bruno material on this y be regarded as a kind of human prima materia—as undifferentiated raw material. It was perhaps from the rites of the Hellemie mystery religions that Plato denved his notion expressed in his Symposium: that the first humans were androgynes. If the liminal period is seen as an interstructural phase in social dynamics, the ism both of androgyny and sexlessness immediately becomes al terms without the need to import psycho- depth psychological) explanations. Since sex distinctions are important components of structural status, in a struc- tureless reali they do not apply. A further structurally negative characteristic of transitional beings is that ‘They have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing, rank, kinship position, nothing to demazeate them BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD 99 structurally from their fellows. Their condition is indeed the very prototype of sacred poverty. Rights over property, goods, and services, nhere in positions an the politicojural structure. Since they do not ‘occupy such positions, neophytes exercise no such rights. In the words of King Lear they represen Thave no time to analyze other attributes of “structural, now to draw attention to cett aspects. of liminality. Already we have noted hovy eertam liminal processes are regarded a5, analogous to those of gestation, parturition, and suckling. Undoing, n. decompo rmpanied by processes of growth ion of old elements in new teresting to note how, by the principle of the economy (or parsimony) of symbolic reference, logially antithetical processes of death and growth may be represented by the same tokens, for example, by huts and tunnels that are at once tombs and wombs, by Tunar symbolism (for the same moon waxes and wanes), by snake symbolism Cfor the snake appears to die, but only to shed its old skin and appear in a new one), by bear symbolism (For the bear “di autumn and is “reborn” in spring), by nakedness Cwhich is at once the mark of a newboon mfant and a corpse prepared for burial), ond by innumerable other symbolic formations and actions. This comeic / dence of opposite processe: a single representation\ / chara that which is neither | \ ever, between neophytes and theie instructors (ivhere these and in connecting neophytes relations that compose a ‘a structure of @ very simple there 1s often complete authority and complete submission; among neophytes there is often complete equality. Between incumbents of Positions in socular poitco-jural systems there exist intricate and situa” tionally shifting networks of rights and duties proportioned to their rank, status, and corporate affiliation. There are many different kinds many degrees of superordination and subordination, In the liminal period such distinctions and gradations tend to be eliminated. Nevertheless, it must be understood that the00 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS tradition. The authority of the elders is absolute, beeause st represents the absolute, the axiomatic values of society in which are expressed ‘the “common good” and the common interest. The essence of the complete obedience of the neophytes is to submit to the clders but only in so far as they aze in charge, 0 to speck, of the common good ‘That the author- (CHlocart 1952, 160). This solitude 1s limin % manhood. If they dream that they receive a yoman's burdenstrap, they feel compelled to dress and live henceforth in every way 38 women. Such men are known as mixuga. The authonty of such a dream in such a situation 1s absolute. Alice Cummingham Fletcher tells of one Omaha who had been forced m this way to go on the warpath. Here the mixuga was not an invert but a man bound by the authonty of tribal beliefs and val Plains Indians, boys on their lonely Vision Quest inflicted ordeals and themselves that amounted to tortures. These agam were not self-tortures mflicted by a masochistic temperament but due of tradition in the limmal sttuation—a Which there is no room for secular compromise, ion, casuistry, and maneuver m the field of custom, Here again a cultural explanation seems preferable to 2 prychological one. A normal man acts abnormally because he is bedient to tribal tradition, not out of disobedience to it. He does not evade but fulbills his duties asa citizen. If complete obedience characterizes the relationshap of neophyte to elder, complete equality usually characterzes the relationship of neo- phyte to neophyte, where the nites are collective. This comradeship by Jegal sanctions. The liminal group is a community comrades and not @ struct i comradeship transcends and, in some kinds of cultic group, even of sex. Mu recorded by ethnographers 1m seclusion si BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD rer principle: “Each for all, and all for each.” Among the Ndembu of Zembia, for example, all food brought for novices in arcumision seclusion by their mothers is shared out equally among them. No special favors are bestowed on the sons of chiefs ar headmen, Any Food acquired by novices in the bush is taken by the elders and apportioned among the group. Deep friendships between novices are encouraged, and they sleep around lodge fires in clusters of four or ular comrades. However, all are supposed to be linked by which persist efter the rites are over, even into old age. ship, known as wubwambu Crom a term meaning “breast” or wulunda, enables a man to claim privileges of hospitality of a farreaching kind. I have no need here to dwell on ties that are he in close friendship those same ageset in East African NiloHamitic and Bantu societies, into the same fraternity or soronty on an American campus, or into the same classin a Naval or Miltary Academy in Western Europe. ‘This comradeship, with 1s familianty, ease and, I would add, rutual outspokenness, is once more the product of mterstractural liminality, with sts scarcity of jurally sanctioned relationships and its emphasis on axiomatic values expressive of the commen weal. People themselves.” itis frequently said, when 1s bome by the leaving the neophytes free to develop interpersonal relation- ships as they will. They confront one another, as i¢ were, integrally and not in compartmentalized Fashion as actors of roles. ‘The passivity of neophytes to their which is increased by submission to ordeal, their reduction to a form condition, are signs of the process whereby they are ground own to be fashioned anew ond endovred with additional powers to cope with their new station in life, Dr. Richards, im her superb study sty rites, Chisungu, as told us that Bemba speak expresses how many peoples think of transition nites, We are inclined, as sociologists, to seify our abstractions Cit is indeed a device which helps us to understand many kinds of social mn) and to talk about persons through strue- tural positions ina hierarchical frame” and the like. Not so the Bemba and the Shilluk of the Sudan who see the status ot co bodied or incamate, if you like, ix the person. To “grow” a girl into ato2 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS woman is to effect an ontological transformation; it is not merely to convey an unchanging substance from one position to another by a quasi-mechanical force. Howitt saw Kuringals in Australia and I have seen Ndembu in Africa drive away grown-up men before a cixcumei- sion ceremony because they hed not been initiated, Among Ndembu, men were also chased off because they had only been eixcumeised at the Mission Hospital and had not undergon: according to the orthodox Ndembu rite, These biologically mature men had not been “made men” by the proper ritual procedures. It is the mtual and the esoteric teaching which grows gids and makes men. Tes the ntua, oo, which among Shillk makes a prince into aking, not a mere acquisition of s apparent passivity is revealed as an absorption of powers which will become active after his social status has been redefined in Knowledge, but a change in being he aggregation rites. ty of the limmal situation in many initia- Tcan touch on only one raise three problems an 1 sacra has three main components Toe, this threefold classification holds would include evocatory instruments or sacred ar- ticles, such as relics of deities, heroes or ancestors, aboriginal chur- ingas, sacred drums or other musical instruments, the contents of Amerindian medicme bundles, and the fan, cist and tympanum of Greek and Near Eastern mystery cults. In the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries of Athens, sacra consisted of a bone, top, ball, tambourine, apples, mirror, fan, and woolly fleece. Other sacra include masks, the pottery emblems (mbusa) of the Th some kinds of initiation, as for iman-diviner's profession among the by Vernier Elwyn (1955), pictures BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD 103 and icons representing the journeys of the dead or the adventures of supernatural beings may be shown to the initiands. A striking feature of such sacred arncles is often their formal simplicity. It is their interpretation which is complex, not theic outward form. ‘Among the “instructions” received by neophytes may be reckoned such matters as the revelation of the real, but secularly secret, names of the deities or spints believed to preside over the rites—a very frequent proceduze in African cultic or secret associations (Tumer 19628, 36). They are also taught the main outlines of the theo cosmogony, and mythical history of their socienies or cults, with reference to the sacra ex Great smportance is attache keeping secret the nature of the sacra, the formulas chanted and instructions given about them. These constitute the crux of liminality, for while instcuction is also given in ethical and social obligations, n Taw and in kinship rules, and im technology to fit neophytes for the duties of future office, no interdiction is placed on knowledge thus imparted since it tends to be current among uninitiated persons al ‘want to take up three problems in considering the communi of szera. The frst concerns their frequent disproportion, the second their monstrousness, and the thied their mystery. mines the masks. costumes, figurines, and such dis- ‘one is often struck, as I have been when youmeision and funerary rites, by the cultural features are represented 2s Aispropoztionately large or small. A head, nose. or phellus, a hoe, bovr, oor meal mortar are represented as huge or tiny by comparison with other features of their context which retain their normal size. (For a ‘good example of this, see “The Man Without Arms” in Chiswngu ‘figurine of a lazy man with an enormous penis but no arms.) Sometimes things retain their customary shapes but ace portrayed in unusual colors. What is the point of this exagger- ation amounting sometimes 10 caricature? Ik seems to me that to enlarge or diminish or discolor in this way is a primordial mode of abstraction, ‘The outstandingly exaggerated feature is made into an object of reflection. Us is not a univocal symbol that is thus represented but a multivocal one, a semantic molecule with many components. One example is the Bemba pottery emblem Coshi wa ngfoma, “The Nursing Mother,” described by Audrey Richards in Chisungu. This is a clay figurine, nine inches high, of an exaggerat- edly pregnant mother shown carrying four babies at the same time,104 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS ‘one at her breast and three at her back. To this figurine is attached a ridding song: My mother deceived me! Coshi wa mgomal So you have deceived me; have become pregnant again. Bemba women interpreted this to Richards as follows: Coshi wa ngloma was a midwife of legendary fame and is merely addressed in this song. The girl complains because her mother told her to ‘wean her first child too soon so that it died; or alternatively told her that she would take the fst child if her daughter had a second one. But she ‘was tricking her and now the girl has two babie¢ to look after. The moral stressed 1s the duty of refusing intercourse with the husband before the ‘baby 1s weaned, 1.e,, at the second or third year. This is 2 common Bemba practice (1956, 209-210). : In the figurine the exaggerated features are the number of children carried at once by the woman and her enormously distended belly. ‘Coupled with the song, it encourages the novice to ponder upon two relationships vital to her, those with her mother and her husbend. Unless the novice observes the Bemba weaning custom, her mothers desice for grandchildren to increase her m band’s desire for renewed sexual intercourse ally destroy snd not increase her offspeing. Us deeper moral that to abide by tribal custom and not to sin against it either by excess or defect is to live satisfactorily. Even to please those ‘one loves may be to invite calamity, if such compliance defies the immemorial wisdom of the elders embodied in the mbusa. This wis- dom 1s vouched for by the mythical and archetypal midwife Coshi wa Che cxaggeration of single features is not irational but thought- same may also be said about the representation of jer wniters—such as J. A. McCulloch ( Ethies—are inelined to regard ures, such as frequently appear the product of “hallucinations, night-terzors and dreams.” McC goes on to argue that “as man drew litle distinction Cin pri society) between himself and animals, as he thought that trensforma- tion from one to the other was possible, so he easily ran human and BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD 105 animal together. This an part accounts for animal-headed gods or animal-gods with human heads.” My own view is the opposite one: that monsters are manufactured precisely to teach neophytes t tween the different Factors of reality, as 1 is co we. Here, I think, William James's so-called “law of dissociation” may help us to clarify the problem of monsters. It may be stated as follows: when @ and b occurred together as parts of the same total object, without being discriminated, the occurrence of one of ated from either, and to grow by the mind. One might cal concomitants” (1918, 506). From this standpoint, much ofthe grotesqueness and monstrosity of « limunal sacra may be seen to be atmed not so much at terorzing er \/ bemusing neophytes into submission or out of their wits as at making them vividly end rapidly aware of what may be ealled the “factors” of / \ their culture. I have myself seen Ndembu and Lavale masks that combine features of both sexes, have both animal and human attri- butes, and umite in a single representation human characteristics with ‘of the natural landscape. One ikishi mask 1s partly human and sents 2 grassy plam. Elements are withdrawn from their and combined with one another in a totally unique the monster or dragon, Monsters startle neophytes thinking about objects, persons. relationships, and features of environment they have hitherto taken for granted, In discussing the structural aspect of limunalty, I mentioned ho neophytes are withdrawn from their structural positions and conse- quently from the values, norms, sentiments, and technaques associ vwith these positions. They are also divested of their previous habit thought, feeling, and action. Duzing the lirainal period, neophytes are alternate is the Jaw of dissocration by varying ie them. Lumunality In it those ideas, sentiments, and facts that had been hitherto for the neophytes bound ‘up in configurations and accepted unthin| \eir constituents. These cons ts of reflection for the neophytes by such processes 2s componental exaggeration and dissociation by varying concomitant. \106 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS [The communication of saera and other forms of esoteric instruction really anvolves three processes, though these should not be regarded as in senes but as in parallel. The first is the reduction of culture into recognized components ot factors the second is their recombination in fantastic or monstrous patterns and shapes; and the third ss their recombination in ways that make sense with regard to the new state | and status that the neophytes will enter. “The second process, monster- or fantasy-making, focuses attention “om the components of the masks and effigies, which are so radically ill: ascorted that they stand out and can be thought about. The mon- strosity of the configuration throws its elements into relief. Put a ‘man’s head on a lion’s body and you think about the humen head in the abstract. Perhaps it becomes for you, as a member of @ given culture and with the appropriate guidance, an emblem of chieftain- ship; or it may be explained as sepresenting the soul as against the lect as contrasted wath brute force, or innumerable other “There could be less encouragement to reflect on heads and ip i iced on sts familia, its monster also encourages about lions, their habits. qualities, metaphorical ‘properties, rligious significance, and so on. More important than these, the relation between man and lion, empincal and metaphorical, ray be speculated upon, and new ideas developed on this topic. cake of custom and enfran- peculation, That is why I fessed debt to the Greek mystenes. Limmnality is the realm of primi- tive hypothesis, where there is a certain freedom to juggle with the factors of existence. As in the works of Rabelais, there is @ promis- uous intermingling and juxtaposing of the categones of event, ex- perience, and knowledge, with a pedagogic intention. But this liberty has faurly narzow limits. The neophytes retum to secular society with more ale: faculties perhaps and enhanced knowl. ‘edge of how things work, but they have subject to custom and law. Like the Bemba g: they are shown that ways of acting and thinking alternative to these laid down by the deities or ancestors are ultimately unworkable and ion, there are usually held to be certain axio- matic principles of construction, and certain basic building blocks that ake up the cosmos and into whose nature no neophyte may inquire. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD re? tin sacra, usually exhibited in the most arcane episodes of the Jimmal period, represent or may be mterpreted in terms of these these sacerrima, “most sacred things.” Sometimes they are interpreted by a myth about the world-making activities of supernatural beings is may be completely absent, how- ore 3s m the case of the Ndembu “mystery of the three nvers” High God. The instructors riddling songs and partly in direct terms, 2 fan of referents cal processes and phenomena. They seem to be regarded es a which, in varying combination, underlie or even constitute what Ndembu conceive to be reality. In no other tion of whiteness, redness, and blackness so f analogy drawn, even identity made, between these rivers and bodily fluids and emissions: whiteness = semen, milk: redness = menstrual blood, the blood of birth, blood shed by 2 weapon, etc. blackness = feces, certain products of bodily decay, ete. This spect of human physiology as a model for social, cosm: developmental stages, mature adult, and elder. On the other hand, as in the Ndembu case, certain of its properties may be abstracted. Whatever the mode of represent the body is regarded as a sort of symbolic template for the communi: cation of gnasts, mystical knowledge about the nature of things and hhow they came to be what they are. The cosmos may in some cases be regarded as a vast human body; in other belie systems, visible parts of the body may be taken to portray invisible faculties such as reason, passion, wisdom and so on: in others again, the different parts of the social order are arrayed in terms of a human anatomical paradigm: Whatever the precise mode of explaining reality by the bodys ibutes, sacra which illustrates this are always regarded as abso- ly sacrosanct, as ultimate mysteries. We are here in the reali of x108 ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS what Warner (1959, 3-4) would call “nonrational or nonlogical symbols” which anse out of the basic individuel and cultural assumptions, more often unconscious than not, from which most soctal action springs. They supply the solid core of me ‘Thie does not met cannot often not have theit mnal processes. When they come into play, “such factors as data. evidence, proof, and the facts and procedures of rational thought in action are apt t0 be secondary or unimpo ‘The central cluster of monlogical sacra is then the symbolic tem- beliefs and valugs m a given are often told that they are in the presence of forms established from the beginning of things. (See Cicero's comment [De Leg. Il. 14] on rings} because we have thus learned the first principles of life.”) I have used the metaphor of a seal or stamp in connection with the ontological character ascribed in many mitiations to arcane knowl- into the neophytes the basic assumptions of phytes are told also chat they are being filled the communication of sacra both teaches the neophytes how ith some degree of abstraction about their cultural miliew and gives them ultimate standerds of reference. At the same te. believed to change their nature, transform them from one’ kind of human being into another. It intimately unites man and office. But for 1 variable while, there was an uncommitted man, an individusl rather than a social pe a sacred community of individuals pperiad of initiations that the nakedness quote from Hilda Kuper’s description of the seclusion of the Swazi chief during the great Incwala ceremony (1961, 197-225). ‘The Tnowala is a national Fist-Fruits ritual, performed in the height of summer when the early crops ripen. The regiments of the Swazi BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: LIMINAL PERIOD. 309 nation assemble at the capital to celebrate ats nites, “whereby the nation receives strength for the new year.” The Incwala is at the same nme “a play of kingship.” The king’s well-being 1s identified with that of the nation. Both require periodic ritual strengthening. Lunar sym- bolism is prominent in the rites, as we shall see, and the king, personifying the nation, during his seclusion represents the moon an transition between phases, neither waning nor waxing. Dr. Kuper, Professor Gluckman (1954), and Professor Wilson (1961) have dis- cussed the structural aspects of the Inewala which are clearly present an ts rites of sep tion. What we are about to remains, says Dr. Kuper, “painted in bl is unepprozchable, dangerous to himself and others. that night with his fist ritual wife Cin a kind of “mm this ritual wife 1s, as it were, consecrated for sucl morning, and when they get up they are not allowed to touch each other, to wash the body, to sit on ‘mats, to poke anything into the ground, or even to scratch their haut. The childcen are scolded if they play and make mezry. The sound of songs that has strred the capital for nea >pacisa (cause to hide). The king remains sechuded: ial ut of the harem or in the sacred Men of his mer circle see that he breaks none of the taboos F the people with the king is very marked. The spies Cwho see to it that the people taboos) do not say, "You are sleeping late” or “You are but “You cause the king to sleep,” “You seratch hhim (the ete, (Ruper 1947, 219-220). x symbolic acts are performed which exemplify the “darkness” Or and “waxing and waning moon” themes, for example, the slaughter: ang of a black ox, the pamting of the queen mother with a black mixture—she is compared again to a half-moon, while the king is a fall moon, and both ace in eclipse until the paint is washed off finally d the nitual subject “comes once again into ightness and normal Tn this shi ige we have an embarrassment of sym! I will mention only a few themes that bear on the argumto ‘THE FOREST OF SYMBOLS paper. Let us look at the king's position frst. He is symbolically invisible, “black,” a moon between phases. Hie is also under obedience to traditional rules, and “men of his mner circle” see that he keeps them. He is also “naked,” divested of the trappings of his office. He fitcal action in a sanctuary or ified with the earth which kingship and is reduced from which the normal be regenerated “in light 1m this fruitful darkness, king and people are closely identifi fe 3 a mystical solidarity be- tween them, which contrasts sharply with the hierarchical rank-dom- nated structure of ordinary Swazi fie, It is only un darkness, silence, celibacy, in the absence of merriment and movement that the king and people can thus be one. For every normal action 1s involved rights and obligations of a structure that defines status and establishes social distance smen, Only in their Trappist sabbath of transi tion may the Swazi regenerate the social tssues torn by conflicts ions of status and discrepant structural norms. ‘attention on the phenomena and processes of mi Thold, that paradoxically expose the basic building blocks of just when we pass out of and before we reenter the structural n sacerrima and their interpretations we have categories of t may usefully be handled by the new sophisticated tech- iiques of cross-cultural comparison. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bettelheim, B. 1954. Symbolic Wounds, Glencoe: Free Press lus. 1959. De Legibus. Ba. by de Plinval, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Elvan, Vertier. 1955. The Religion of an Indian Tribe, London: Geoffrey ‘Cumberlege. Gennep, A. van. 1960. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 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