4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

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ethology and theater
hide, kill. Rituals are biologically necessary because conspecifics need
to mate, organize in stable social hierarchies, share territory. Interactions
determining how these are to be achieved are likely to cause
trouble. Rituals mediate these difficult interactions by creating a
second reality more compelling than direct action. This second reality
is performance.
These performances are just as aggressive as direct action but less
deadly. Among animals, in fact, two separate kinds of aggression
operate: that directed against prey is unemotional and deadly, while
that directed against conspecifics is emotional but ritualized. Eibl-
Eibesfeldt reports:
An oryz antelope will never use its horns to gore another oryz but
fights according to strictly observed rules. It does, however, stab lions
[with its horns]. A giraffe uses its short horns to fight rivals [other
giraffes], but uses its hoofs in defense against predators. A predator
fights differently with a species member than with a prey and by electrical
brain stimulation it could be shown in cats that these two types
of behavior have different neural substrates in the brain.
(Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1970: 314)
In humans, substitute in-group and out-group for “my species” and
“other species.” Many languages reflect this division by naming
the home culture “human,” relegating all others as non-human
or barbarian.
A stunning example of this is provided by Ruesch and Bateson. Just
before Europeans arrived in numbers in Java a large white monkey was
washed up on the coast. It was taken to the court of the raja whose
experts told him that the monkey was from the court of the god of the
sea who had expelled him in anger by causing a great storm. The raja
ordered that the white monkey be chained to a stone.
Doctor Stutterheim [Dutch government archeologist in Java] told me
that he had seen the stone and that, roughly scratched on it in Latin,
Dutch, and English were the name of a man and a statement of his
shipwreck. Apparently this trilingual sailor never established verbal
communication with his captors. He was surely unaware of the