Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Ritual
Alternative Title: rite
Table of Contents
Introduction
Nature and significance
Functions of ritual
Types of ritual
Conclusion
Ritual, the performance of ceremonial acts prescribed by tradition or by sacerdotal decree. Ritual is a specific, observable mode of behaviour exhibited by all known societies. It is thus possible to view ritual as a way of defining or describing humans. Nature and significance
Human beings are sometimes described or defined as a basically rational, economic, political, or playing species. They may, however, also be viewed as ritual beings who exhibit a striking parallel between their ritual and verbal behaviour. Just as language is a system of symbols that is based upon arbitrary rules, ritual may be viewed as a system of symbolic acts that is based upon arbitrary rules.
The intricate yet complex relation between ritual and language can be seen in the history of various attempts to explain ritual behaviour. In most explanations, language becomes a necessary factor in the theory concerning the nature of ritual, and the specific form of language that is tied to explanations of ritual is the language of myth. Both myth and ritual remain fundamental to any analysis of religions.
Three general approaches to a theory about the nature and origin of ritual prevail. The origin approach
The earliest approach was an attempt to explain ritual, as well as religion, by means of a theory concerned with historical origin. In most cases, this theory also assumed an evolutionary hypothesis that would explain the development of ritual behaviour through history. The basic premise, or law, for this approach is that ontogeny (development of an individual organism) recapitulates phylogeny (evolution of a related group of organisms), just as the human embryo recapitulates the stages of human evolutionary history in the womb—e.g., the gill stage. The solution to explaining the apparently universal scope of ritual depended upon the success in locating the oldest cultures and cults. Scholars believed that if they could discover this origin, they would be able to explain contemporary human rituals.
There are almost as many solutions as authors in this approach. In the search for an origin of ritual, research turned from the well-known literate cultures to those that appeared to be less complex and preliterate. The use of the terms primitive religion and primitive cultures comes from this approach in seeking an answer to the meaning of ritual, myth, and religion. Various cultures and rituals were singled out, sacrifice of either men or animals becoming one of the main topics for speculation, though the exact motivation or cause of sacrificial ritual was disputed among the leading authors of the theory. For W. Robertson Smith, a British biblical scholar who first published his theory in the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1875–89), sacrifice was motivated by the desire for communion between members of a primitive group and their god. The origin of ritual, therefore, was believed to be found in totemic (animal symbolic clan) cults; and totemism, for many authors, was thus believed to be the earliest stage of religion and ritual. The various stages of ritual development and evolution, however, were never agreed upon. Given this origin hypothesis, rituals of purification, gift giving, piacular (expiatory) rites, and worship were viewed as developments, or secondary stages, of the original sacrificial ritual. The Christian Eucharist (Holy Communion), along with contemporary banquets and table etiquette, were explained as late developments or traits that had their origin and meaning in the totemic sacrifice.
The influence of Robertson Smith’s theory on the origin of ritual can be seen in the works of the British anthropologist Sir James Frazer, the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Although they were not in complete agreement with Smith, sacrifice and totemism remained primary concerns in their search for the origin of religion. For Frazer, the search led to magic, a stage preceding religion. Both Smith and Frazer led Durkheim to seek the origin of ritual and religion in totemism as exemplified in Australia. Durkheim believed that in totemism scholars would find the original form of ritual and the division of experience into the sacred and the profane. Ritual behaviour, they held, entails an attitude that is concerned with the sacred; and sacred acts and things, therefore, are nothing more than symbolic representations of society. In his last major work, Moses and Monotheism, Freud also remained convinced that the origin of religion and ritual is to be found in sacrifice.
Freud, SigmundSigmund Freud, 1921.Mary Evans/Sigmund Freud Copyrights (courtesy of W.E. Freud)
The functional approach
The second approach to explaining ritual behaviour is certainly indebted to the work of such men as Smith, Freud, and Durkheim. Yet very few, if any, of the leading contemporary scholars working on the problems of religion, ritual, and myth begin with a quest for origins. The origin-evolutionary hypothesis of ritual behaviour has been rejected as quite inadequate for explaining human behaviour because no one can verify any of these bold ideas; they remain creative speculations that cannot be confirmed or denied.
Turning from origin hypotheses, scholars next emphasized empirical data gathered by actual observation. Contemporary academic literature is rich in descriptions of rituals observed throughout the world. If the term origin can be used as central to the first approach, the term function can be used as indicative of the primary focus of the second approach. The nature of ritual, in other words, is to be defined in terms of its function in a society.
The aim of functionalism is to explain ritual behaviour in terms of individual needs and social equilibrium. Ritual is thus viewed as an adaptive and adjustive response to the social and physical environment. Many leading authorities on religion and ritual have taken this approach as the most adequate way to explain rituals. Bronisław Malinowski, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Clyde Kluckhohn, Talcott Parsons, and Edmund Leach, all English or American anthropologists, adopted a functional approach to explain ritual, religion, and myth.
The seder, a ritual meal served on Passover, reinforces Jewish cultural cohesion by commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, an event that occurred in the 13th century bce.age fotostock/SuperStock
Most functional explanations of ritual attempt to explain this behaviour in relation to the needs and maintenance of a society. The strengths of this approach are dependent upon a claim that it is both logical and empirical. It is a claim, however, that is open to serious criticism. If the aim of functionalism is to explain why rituals are present in a society, it will be necessary to clarify such terms as need, maintenance, and a society functioning adequately, and this becomes crucial if they are to be taken as empirical terms. From a logical point of view, functionalism remains a heuristic device, or indicator, for describing the role of ritual in society. If it is asserted that a society functions adequately only if necessary needs are satisfied, and if it is further asserted that ritual does satisfy that need, then scholars cannot conclude that, therefore, ritual is present in that society without committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. To assert that the need is satisfied “if and only if” ritual is present is a tautology and a reversal of the claim to be empirical. The history of religions approach
A third approach to the study of ritual is centred on the studies of historians of religion. The distinction between this approach and the first two is that though many historians of religions agree with functionalists that the origin-evolutionary theories are useless as hypotheses, they also reject functionalism as an adequate explanation of ritual. Most historians of religions, such as Gerardus van der Leeuw in the Netherlands, Rudolf Otto in Germany, Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade in the United States, and E.O. James in England, have held the view that ritual behaviour signifies or expresses the sacred (the realm of transcendent or ultimate reality). This approach, however, has never been represented as an explanation of ritual. The basic problem with it remains that it cannot be confirmed unless scholars agree beforehand that such a transcendent reality exists (see also religion, study of: History and phenomenology of religion).