Ritual Revolt The Gods Must Be Crazy.

He argues that rituals are not merely meaningful to the poorly educated,
elites use rituals to support the existing order and revolutionaries use them to replace it.
Steiniche on Kertzers Ritual, Politics, and Power

"Ritual may be vital to reaction, but it is also the lifeblood of revolution"
(Kertzer 1988:2).

the gods must be crazy
ritual revolt
for black africa
the case for the return to
ritual and tradional nationalism:
on the "struggle for possession of the sign"
rituals of resistance and rituals of rebellion.
on traditional nationalism and towards Kertzers
Ritual, Politics, and Power.

curated by amma birago
for nanny of the maroons, 1686 - 1733

New situations demand new magic. . . .
- E. Evans Pritchard
Human beliefs, like all other natural growths,
elude the barrier of system.
- George Eliot

Rituals of resistance are not conceived of as ritual responses to
a more fundamental material incursion (as "cults" were), nor as "rituals of rebellion"
whose primary function was to reproduce an indigenous political system.
Instead they are now constructed as moments of ongoing historical practice.

(Kertzer 1988:2).
Life itself means to separate and to reunite,
to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn.
van Gennep
'Tu es un excrement, Tu es un tas d'ordures,
Tu viens pour nous tuer, Tu viens pour nous sauver ... '.
Song with which the tribesmen of
Ouagadougou greet their king

Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa
Terence O. Ranger
In this concrete situation of contemporary Africa we are asking what the possibilities are for the powerless and
impoverished masses to participate in the kind of [liberation] theology we described... People at the grassroots react
in face of a growing sense of powerlessness and exploitation. The preponderant reaction is that of people
everywhere who... become convinced that indeed they are... powerless, ignorant, or out of touch with the
mainstream of history. They develop reflexes of inferiority... They try to insulate themselves in a little world of their
own.... [They] are likely to develop strategies of survival that in the long run prove self-defeating. Sometimes they
take refuge in... some type of religious cults, or other distracting hobbies.... People get used to living in a dream
world. It becomes difficult for them to analyse events and realities soberly.... And yet it is the people at the
grassroots that have the potential for meaningful change. Kalilombe remarks that "history has demonstrated time and
again that peasants' potential for bringing about meaningful and lasting change is rarely activated from within
themselves alone.... As a rule the decisive factor comes from outside." But from whom?

"Based on wide reading in anthropology, political science, and, sometimes, history, David I. Kertzer's study suggests
how ritual is employed, deliberately or unconsciously, to affirm or reinforce power, legitimacy, group solidarity or
national cohesion, in societies at all times, all over the world. . . .."
- Eugen Weber, American Historical Review

"Ritual, Politics, and Power is a significant contribution to our understanding the power rituals play in politics,
religion, and social like and culture of society in general, both past and present. . . . We need more studies of this
nature. . . the irrational and mythological in social and political life in general."
- George A. Kourvetaris, Journal of Political and Military Sociology

Instead it should be studied as 'intentional communication' or 'signify-ing practice.'
This may mean stretching this term very far -nearly everything can be brought under this heading -
but it does make 'ritual,' in this sense, highly relevant to understand
Africans' struggles with modernity.

From that perspective it may well be that nowhere is there more talk about change than in Africa. Yet, within Africa,
few can really trigger change. Herein lies the great agony of Africa's popular sentiments.... To describe people's
movements in Africa it is necessary to recognise their under-lying attitude, which is one of active waiting and active
hope.... To outlive the repression, in its various forms, is to gain victory.

"That imperialism which today is fighting against a true liberation of mankind leaves in its wake here and there
tinctures of decay which we must search out and mercilessly expel from our land and our spirits. . . . The defensive

(Kertzer 1988:2).
attitudes created by this violent bringing together of the colonized man and the colonial system form themselves into
a structure which then reveals the colonized personality" (pp. 249, 250).
Psychoanalysis and Colonialism Redux:
Why Mannoni's "Prospero Complex" Still Haunts Us Christopher Lane

Looking at Latin America, Frank and his contemporaries (such as Dos Santos 1973) argued that while it may have
been undeveloped before Western penetration, it only became underdeveloped after incorporation into the
international capitalist system. Development and underdevelopment were seen as linked in a causal relationship in
which the advanced industrial West was able to develop only because it was underdeveloping the Third World. The
basic point about the type of dependence outlined by such theorists is that it is dependent development or
underdevelopment, not interdependent development that they see.
Lenin saw colonies as a place to invest capital, Luxemburg, on the other hand, saw them as market outlets for
manufactured goods from the mother country.5 Luxemburg felt that such an effort to establish commodity markets
in the colonies would lead to industrialisation and capitalist development, albeit immature and unbalanced, in these
areas (Luxemburg 1951:419). Such a view cannot, of course, be an intellectual underpinning for a Frankian
"development of underdevelopment" theory which perceives colonial penetration as having a predominantly
underdeveloping tendency. "The country that is more developed only shows to the less developed the image of its
own future".
Pre-colonial units were not always destroyed by capitalist penetration and indeed in some areas colonial policy
effectively capitalized on pre-capitalist structures (see Ehrensaft 1971)
Some peripheral states have quite clearly demonstrated a capacity for some sustained growth and a consequent
improvement in their structural position in the international economy, no matter how slight (Warren 1973:20).
That Third World industrialisation was largely isolated to urban areas, lopsided and extremely uneven in
respect to who were its beneficiaries, is all accepted.

Chabal and Deloz identify the ways in which chaos, disorder, and the collapse of all things 'official' work to
reproduce forms of authority. Corruption, civil war, and so on are actually signs of a functioning African polity, not
a collapsing one. It follows that struggles for peace, democracy, social progress, are actually dysfunctional - almost
retrograde. So much for political struggle: victim of our neoliberal historical conjuncture and a profusion of
epistemologies which write struggle out of the picture.
It is most doubtful, as we shall presently demonstrate, that "tribalism" or the use of cultural symbolism or key
cultural features to symbolize structural unity by members of the tribe, within the "modern" nations of Africa, is the
powerful evil it is purported to be. In the first place, the nationality group or the traditional nation, not the tribe, is
the problem; how to integrate the various powerful nationality groups into a truly modern nation of either Nigeria,
Ghana, or the Congo, without destroying their cultural roots and identity, is the problem, and not the less onerous
task of unifying the small, disparate and generally weak "tribes" or clans.
Tribalism is therefore a misnomer for a process better described as traditional nationalism, by which we mean the
brand of nationalism which is animated by the values and normative principles of a traditional society.
Traditional nationalism is therefore nationalism governed by the ties, the value system, the obligations and
loyalties aris.'ng from one's membership in a traditional society. It is the logical response of people whose society is
largely traditional, to the rapidly changing world around them; an effort at adjustment to new conditions as the old
social institutions - the village, clan or even tribe are increasingly subordinated to the " modern " society. The latter
differs from the traditional society in its characteristic scientific technology, its extensive social interdependence, its
greater social, personal and psychic mobility, large-scale literacy, urbanism and secu^rism (16). To term the
response of a traditional society tribalism is to mystify the African adjustment to the modern world; it is, as
one observer has remarked, to draw an invidious and highly suspect distinction between Africans and other
peoples of the world in a manner likely to discourage rather than promote better understanding among all
peoples.

(Kertzer 1988:2).

Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences
The effects of western civilisation and culture on Africa, Dare Arowolo
The central argument of this paper stems from the submission that colonialism, slave trade and missionary are the
platform upon which Western civilisation and culture thrive and are sustained. While insisting that Western
civilisation and culture has precariously contaminated the traditional values of Africa, the paper contends that Africa
had established, well before the advent of colonialism, a pattern of home-grown political systems, governance
process and generally acceptable institutional rule-making arrangement, such that there was progression in the pace
of civilisation of Africa and self-styled tempo of technological development. The paper further submits that the
dynamism and significance of Africa on the global continuum tends to support the argument that Africa would have
evolved and sustained level of development and civilisation without the retrogressive contact with imperial forces.

2. Economic Effect
A major effect of European colonialism was the progressive integration of Africa into the world capitalist system,
within which Africa functioned primarily as a source of raw materials for Western industrial production.
There was imposition of taxation, which forced Africans into wage labour
Colonial economy also caused agriculture to be diverted toward the production of primary products and cash
crops: cocoa, groundnut, palm oil, sisal, and so on.
There was sudden shift in production mode from production of food crops to cash crops, a situation that caused
hunger and starvation in Africa. Africa began to produce more of what she needs less and produce less of what she
needs most.
Africa was perpetually turned to producer of primary raw materials, a situation that caused unequal exchange
The plunderage method and systematically kleptocratic enterprises established in the colonies to expropriate
natural resources of Africa to Europe has, in the perspective of Rodney, facilitated underdevelopment of Africa
while engendered the development of Europe
This required a total reorganization of African economic life, beginning with the introduction of the cash crop and
inexorable alteration of economic pattern. In the settler coloniesnotably in Kenya and Rhodesiathe alienation of
native land complicated the economic situation of the indigenous populations (Alkali, 2003).
Economic Plan: it also altered the way we produce, create and recreate as well as what we consume.
The infrastructure undertaken by the colonial administrations was minimal, developed strictly as a function of the
requirements of the new economy, which saw the rise of the colonial cities such as Dakar, Lagos, Nairobi, and
Luanda.
Neoliberalism: It is an economic process that distrusts the state as a factor in development; it is a nineteenth
century philosophy that has continued to be repackaged, its latest form is monetarism. It believes that market
mechanism is the most efficient allocator of productive resources and, therefore, to have an efficient and effective
economy, forces of demand and supply must be allowed to play a leading role. This changed economy of Africa
from communalism to capitalism and, lately, neoliberalism.

3. Social Effect
Family/Social Relations: Extended family giving way to nuclear family. Traditional African family values
breaking down very rapidly.

The trend of cultural westernisation of Africa has become very pervasive and prevalent, such that Western
civilisation has taken precedence over African values and culture and the latter is regarded as inferior to the former.
As with other societies and cultures in the so-called Third World, the impact of Western civilization on Africa has
occasioned a discontinuity in forms of life throughout the continent.
This has led to a cultural dualism that often presents itself as a real dilemma in concrete, real-life situations. In other
words, the African experience of modernity is fraught with tensions at every level of the communal and social
settings. The post independence Africa is confronted with how to have a true identity, a new culture that is African
in nature. It is on this basis that the paper agued that Africa must begin to relate with countries that have de-
westernised and have attained some level of appreciable economic development. The focus is to evolve viable
options for truly African culture.


(Kertzer 1988:2).
Journal of the association for the study of
ethnicityand nationalism,-nations and nationalism
The golden jubilee, commemorating the birth of the new nation-state fifty years ago, carried a particularly strong
power. Even in countries where governments were reluctant to engage in large-scale celebrations or the
general public voiced concerns that there was actually nothing to celebrate, . Similarly, even citizens who
strongly criticized their governments for spending far too much on the festivities instead of providing basic public
services would not have suggested ignoring the symbolic date altogether.2 The celebrations presented stark proof of
the continued importance of the nation in Africa.
In any case, the Independence Day celebrations definitely had the potential to instil a sense of community and to
become celebrations of the nation as a whole, not just of the incumbent governments.

What does independence actually mean? are we really independent?
If neo-colonialism had really been overcome. But there were also many commentaries that Africans have to stop
blaming their former colonial rulers for everything that has gone and still goes wrong in their countries.
Furthermore, the notion of independence was often broadened, becoming a short-hand for politico-territorial
sovereignty and economic and political achievements more generally, and critics asked whether a country without a
well-functioning infrastructure, basic services and good governance could really be regarded as independent. The
very concept of independence thus attracted a host of interpretations and became, in a way, a site of debate that
hosted a maximum of meanings in a minimum of signs (Rigney 2005: 18).

The 2010 independence jubilees:
the politics and aesthetics of national commemoration in Africa
CAROLA LENTZ1
In 2010, as many as seventeen African states celebrated their independence jubilees. The debates surrounding the
organisation of these celebrations, and the imagery and performances they employed, reflect the fault lines with
which African nation-building has to contend, such as competing political orientations as well as religious, regional
and ethnic diversity. The celebrations represented constitutive and cathartic moments of nation-building, aiming to
enhance citizens emotional attachments to the country and inviting to remember, re-enact and re-redefine national
history. They became a forum of debate about what should constitute the norms and values that make-up national
identity and, in the interstices of official ceremonies, provided space for the articulation of new demands for public
recognition. A study of the independence celebrations thus allows us to explore contested processes of nation-
building and images of nationhood and to study the role of ritual and performance in the (re)production of nations.
Most of them did so with much pomp and pageantry but also amidst critical reflections of disappointed hopes and
future challenges.

to think critically about dominant representations of the sub-continent in the West, and to understand different,
often conflicting accounts of postcolonial continuities and transformations. Topics include debates over some of the
following: the character of the postcolonial state and governance, nationalism and ethnicity; borders; the politics of
land and natural resources; processes of urbanization; mobility and new forms of transnational connection between
Africa, Europe and China.
An understanding of key processes of political, economic and social change in in post-colonial Africa, and
divergent explanations derived from contrasting theoretical approaches
An ability to think critically about, and challenge dominant representations of the sub-continent
Knowledge of the power relations that shape processes and representations of change

2. The Postcolonial State
This session considers debates over the character of the postcolonial state in Africa. Why are African states so often
cast as failures, as weak or marred by corruption? We discuss various explanations for trajectories of governance
in Africa, examining legacies of colonialism, post independence transformations and continuities and the strategies

(Kertzer 1988:2).
of African elites? We also discuss debates over the local state and consider the continued importance of chiefs in
Africa. Theories are balanced by discussion of the particular case of Mozambique.
3. Nationalism in Africa
The session examines debates over nationalism in Africa, particularly the idea that nationalism has been a weak
force in African contexts. It explores representations of national identity through recent state celebrations of 50 years
of independence, in selected African countries. The second part of the session considers nationalism in countries
founded in liberation struggles and guerrilla warfare, using the case of Zimbabwe.

Key questions:
How strong a force is nationalism in different African countries?
What can we learn about nationalism today from the recent celebrations of 50 years independence in various
African countries?

Terence O. Ranger
John Waliggo, African ideology... passive resistance, frequently lacked aggressive power.
At present, Africa is home to a great many people's movements. Very many Africans want change: change in
culturally oppressive systems, change in economically unjust situtations, and change in politically divisive
structures. From that perspective it may well be that nowhere is there more talk about change than in Africa. Yet,
within Africa, few can really trigger change. Herein lies the great agony of Africa's popular sentiments.... To
describe people's movements in Africa it is necessary to recognise their under-lying attitude, which is one of active
waiting and active hope.... To outlive the repression, in its various forms, is to gain victory.

Chabal and Deloz's Africa Works (1999) takes disorder as its starting point, portraying African politics in essentially
the same vein as Kaplan but without the journalistic salacity. Chabal and Deloz identify the ways in which chaos,
disorder, and the collapse of all things 'official' work to reproduce forms of authority. Corruption, civil war, and so
on are actually signs of a functioning African polity, not a collapsing one. It follows that struggles for peace,
democracy, social progress, are actually dysfunctional - almost retrograde. So much for political struggle: victim of
our neoliberal historical conjuncture and a profusion of epistemologies which write struggle out of the picture.
Furthermore, the undeniably upsetting and extremely costly emergence of conflict and economic collapse in much
(but not all) of Africa give even those who have a normative sympathy with the notion of struggle little more than a
kind of 'hope against hope' approach to struggle: a reference to struggle as an act of faith, a coda of a luta continla at
the end of otherwise dour narratives.

In this continent, the impact of precolonial institutions was enhanced by the weakness of the colonial and
postcolonial national state, which found it hard to broadcast its power into rural areas. For example, Herbst (2000,
p.175) notices how African states came to independence with almost no local structures besides those that were
intertwined with traditional authorities.

In this context, Mamdani (1996) holds that the centralization of precolonial institutions shaped modernization
efforts in Africa by increasing the accountability of local administrators in peripheral areas. He argues that in
politically fragmented ethnic groups, local chiefs often a colonial creation were not restrained by a traditional
system of checks and balances. As a result, these chiefs usurped the functions of the modern state for personal gain,
leading to decentralized tyranny. Mamdani argues that this problem was mitigated in centralized groups, where
the existence of precolonial chiefly hierarchy made local chiefs accountable to higher-level traditional authority.
Greater accountability of local chiefs in centralized groups could then be used by the colonial and postcolonial
national state to foster policy coordination and implementation, thereby leading to faster adoption of European
policies and technologies (e.g. Schapera 1970, Burke 1964).


(Kertzer 1988:2).
The king's many bodies: The expression of dissent. Why kingship is not killed:
Why there is ample evidence of assasinations and rebellions, but few revolutions.
In the process of trying to grasp the connections between ritual, office, and common welfare, scholars have returned
to the analysis of indigenous concepts of power and prosperity. The other answer to the question of why people
should create the means of their own oppression in the form of divine kings is that they do not. But the views of the
indigenous on this issue are less well known. Hocart (75, p. 299) ends by explaining oppression as the
inadvertant con-sequence of purposive action: people intend to create life not despotism. Yet kings are killed as
often as they are elevated to power. What scholars have found difficult to explain in the African context is why
kingship is not killed: why there is ample evidence of assasinations and rebellions, but few revolutions.

Herbst calls upon the international community and African leadership to consider
alternatives to sovereign states. Moreover, it is obvious that the ideologization of ethnoregionalism
and religion are much more pressing problems for the leaders of African states, not to mention such
issues as poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, and various forms of insecurity.

Life itself means to separate and to reunite,
van Gennep

Most African states today, according to Herbst, are states only because the international community has deemed
them so. Crawford Young has convincingly shown that state sovereignty for former European colonies in Africa was
an afterthought. Rather than accept this conventional wisdom, Herbst calls for a revolutionary reassessment of the
concept of the "sovereign state" in Africa today. He boldly challenges the international community to engage in new
think-ing on this matter and to support African intellectuals and political leaders who are willing to design
alternatives to sovereign states. If this reassessment were to take place and alternatives chosen, Herbst contends that
there would then be congruence between how power is actually exercised by states in Africa and the design of the
governmental units adopted. To achieve this outcome, Herbst calls for-with the help of the international community
- opening up intellectual space in Africa, so that Africans themselves can come up with replacements for failed
states. Apart from his argument, Herbst sets out in States and Power in Africa to chart new territory in the
scholarly discourse on African politics. Taking a structuralist approach, said to be most informed by the work of
Charles Tilly, Herbst employs a combination of historical sociology and political geography in crafting what he
suggests is a new paradigm for African politics. He debunks the lack of grand theory in the study of Africa,
particularly relating to state building.
Yet in different epochs there are different oppor-tunities. For instance, it could be and has been argued that African
leaders accepted their colonial boundaries as the basis for creating new states because this was the quickest and most
peaceful way to end colonialism. Moreover, by the time independence came, the world was being organized into
sovereign states, and to have a voice in this process, Africans had to accept and become conversant with rules that
they obtained at the time. Total "delinking" was not a viable option then, nor is it a viable option today. It would
make most African states more vulnerable than they are now. Rather than calling for the possibility of radically
redrawing the map of Africa and rejecting the concept of the sovereign state as the only way that large numbers of
people can organize themselves, it seems reasonable to suggest that it behooves African states to find ways of
preparing themselves to compete in the global arena and to have a voice in developing the contours of the
relationships that emerge. Herbst calls upon the international community and African leadership to consider
alternatives to sovereign states. Yet neither of these communities seems to think that this is the most pressing
problem facing Africa today. An over-arching problem is the low levels of state capacity and good governance on
the continent. Moreover, it is obvious that the ideologization of ethnoregionalism and religion are much more
pressing problems for the leaders of African states, not to mention such issues as poverty, inequality, environmental
degradation, and various forms of insecurity.


(Kertzer 1988:2).

epistemologies which write struggle out of the picture.

Terence O. Ranger

John Waliggo, writing specifically on Africa, asserts that (1984: 32-33). People's movements in Africa have always
lacked their own, i.e. African ideology...[and they] have generally taken the form of passive resistance, frequently
lacked aggressive power. At present, Africa is home to a great many people's movements. Very many Africans want
change: change in culturally oppressive systems, change in economically unjust situtations, and change in politically
divisive structures. From that perspective it may well be that nowhere is there more talk about change than in Africa.
Yet, within Africa, few can really trigger change. Herein lies the great agony of Africa's popular sentiments.... To
describe people's movements in Africa it is necessary to recognise their under-lying attitude, which is one of active
waiting and active hope.... To outlive the repression, in its various forms, is to gain victory. Again, last year Bishop
Patrick Kalilombe addressed the second general assembly of the Ecumenical Association of African Theologians
(Kalilombe, 1984). From his perspective, nothing of what I have been discussing--rural religious movements,
popular Christianity, nationalism, liberation movements--seemed to have helped to bring about rural emancipation
(Kalilombe, 1984): In this concrete situationo f contemporary Africa we are asking what the possibilitiesa re for the
powerlessa nd impoverishedm asses to participatein the kind of [liberation] theology we described... People at the
grassroots react in face of a growing sense of powerlessness and exploitation. The preponderantre actioni s that of
people everywherew ho...becomec onvinced that indeed they are...powerless, ignorant, or out of touch with the
mainstreamo f history. They develop reflexes of inferiority.... They try to insulate themselves in a little world of
their own.... [They] are likely to develop strategies of survival that in the long run prove self-defeating. Sometimes
they take refuge in...some type of religious cults, or other distracting hobbies.... People get used to living in a dream
grassroots that have the potential for meaningful change. Kalilombe remarkst hat "history has demonstratedt ime and
themselves alone.... As a rule the decisive factor comes from outside." But from whom? Not from local African
prophets, living in their dream world; not from leaders of mass nationalism, "who themselves belong to the powerful
classes" and who now oppress the people in their turn; not even from leaders of armed revolution who have all too
often used "the masses to further their own selfish aims [which] has led the people to become suspicious of any
revolutionary firebrands claiming to join with them for liberation." What is needed is true religious liberation
(Kalilombe, 1984): Grassroots theologising is a project of empowerment...potentially arevolutionary and explosive
enterprise, capable of unleashing a power among those who have hitherto been powerless.... People begin to think
for themselves in a critical way....

How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory
Timothy Earle
A number of studies have affirmed the resiliency, legitimacy and relevance of African traditional institutions in the
socio-cultural, economic and political lives of Africans, particularly in the rural areas. Juxtaposed with this is the
sometimes parallel "modern State", vested with enormous authority in rule making, application, adjudication and
enforcement. As Africa seeks to build and strengthen capable States, there is the need to recognize and address this
"duality" fully. This is principally borne out by a growing recognition that capable democratic States must be
grounded on indigenous social values and contexts, while adapting to changing realities. This will require among
other actions, aligning and harmonizing traditional governance institutions with the modern State.

(Kertzer 1988:2).
African countries are characterized by fragmentation of various aspects of their political economy, including their
institutions of governance. Large segments of the rural populations, the overwhelming majority in most African
countries, continue to adhere principally to traditional institutions. The post-colonial State, on the other hand,
essentially emulates western institutions of governance, which are often at odds with traditional African cultural
values and the regions contemporary socio-economic realities. Fragmentation of the institutions of governance,
along with economic and social fragmentation, has contributed to Africas crisis of state-building, governance, and
economic development.
Despite modest progress in some countries, the post-colonial State has been unable to establish rights-based political
and economic systems of governance that would facilitate consolidation of state-building and promote economic
development. To a large extent, this has been due to its detachment from the institutional and cultural values of its
constituency. The prevailing state of poverty on the continent, the persistence of widespread ethnic and civil
conflicts, and frequent electoral and post-electoral strife are some manifestations of the failure of the State. The
persistence of traditional institutions as a parallel system of governance, which provides some level of refuge for the
rural population, often alienated by the State, is also another indication of the failure of the post-colonial State.

The struggle for poessessionof the sign.
Kingdoms, nations, and utopias are forms in which some of these communities of struggle are envisioned.
If a system of domination controls the representation of what is possible and what is natural, then a ritual of
resistance breaks the hegemony over the subjective consciousness of the ritual participants. It makes them conscious
of the oppression and allows them to envision new communities and possibilities. Kingdoms, nations, and utopias
are forms in which some of these communities of struggle are envisioned. Studies explicitly exploring Gramscian
"hegemony" theory bring together analyses of counter-colonial discourse and the powerful imagining of truth
through ritual-politics.
Why Mannoni's "Prospero Complex" Still Haunts Us
Christopher Lane

The histories of political struggle in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Burkina reveal that a ruling class or outside forces
provide the main conduits through which political change takes place. At the same time, no power structure can be
entirely removed from struggles from below. Why, then, has the topic of political struggle received so little attention
from scholars? In Harrison's view, African politics is "the victim of [the] neoliberal historical conjuncture and a
profusion of episte-mologies which write struggle out of the picture" (158). Harrison's study is well-researched and
charts a new course for the study of Africa's politics. It covers thoroughly key historical components of Africa's
modern interaction with global capitalism, including colonialism, global economic integration along the lines of the
international division of labor, the rise of superpower rivalry in the Third World, and the unity of economic and
political power. His examination of struggle and resistance is a clear instance of Afro-optimism, refuting the view
that unassailable powers determine future possibilities.

The most popular explanation for the rise of state power was the growth of long-distance trade, the Pirenne thesis of
medieval Africa. Trade encouraged the growth of distributable wealth, of skills, of towns with politics, of
communications (Grey and Birmingham, 1970; Iliffe, 1979: 52f, both skeptical accounts). The point of all these

(Kertzer 1988:2).
hypotheses was that something rather exceptional was needed to explain any concentration of power in a logically
tribal Africa.

In precolonial times, these societies contained large communities comparable to their kind in Europe, in
geographical area and population strength, and recognizable as nations, in the sense of communities with a common
culmre, tradition and history, and in some cases, common political, organizational and administrative structure.
But they differed from most European nations in one major respect : they were nations in traditional societies. Not
all nations or nationality groups in traditional societies were organized as political units subject to a single supreme
central government, although there were a number of such units, especially among the so-called "central- ised"
polities. Strictly speaking, there were no tribes in Africa on the eve of European penetration and eventual
domination of the continent. For even before then, Africa had experienced repeated large-scale movements of people
from one region or area to the other, as the movement of the Christians through North Africa or the Moslems later
across the Sahara to western Sudan. The result was the mixing of people through conquest or marriage and the loss
of that peculiar political and economic autonomy said to dis- tinguish the tribe from other entities. Besides, the
continental nature of Africa inevitably exposed people to relationships with their neighbours in a way that constantly
and over a time, significantly affected both their culture and institutions, thereby corrupting their " tribal purity ".
Thus, even before anthropology began effective study of what it calls the tribal society, the latter was hardly in
existence any longer.
Such was the case when the coloniser realized that the Ibos or the Yorubas or the Fanti, for example, dit not just
comprise of the small group whom they met in their initial contact, but rather of several others who were not readily
accessible because of poor means of transport and communication. Instead of calling these groups nations which
they were, the European persisted in labeling them tribes. The " discovery " of some of these nations awaited the
consolidation and extension of colonialism as it brought closer together related but hitherto isolated sister clans in
the same territory. In so doing, colonialism, awakened the various groups to their common identity by making them
more aware of their common cultural symbols, rituals and language. The new consciousness in time stimulated the
groups to join in a common political rather than ritual action on a far wider scale than was previously possible.
It is most doubtful, as we shall presently demonstrate, that "tribalism" or the use of cultural symbolism or key
cultural features to symbolize structural unity by members of the tribe, within the "modern" nations of Africa, is the
powerful evil it is purported to be. In the first place, the nationality group or the traditional nation, not the tribe, is
the problem; how to integrate the various powerful nationality groups into a truly modern nation of either Nigeria,
Ghana, or the Congo, without destroying their cultural roots and identity, is the problem, and not the less onerous
task of unifying the small, disparate and generally weak "tribes" or clans.
Tribalism is therefore a misnomer for a process better described as traditional nationalism, by which we mean the
brand of nationalism which is animated by the values and normative principles of a traditional society. Nationalism
is used in the present context, in the sense of the activities of any organization or group that explicity asserts the
rights, claims or aspirations of a given African society (from the level of the language-group to that of Pan-Africa)
in opposition to authority, whatever its institutional form and objectives (14). A society is traditional when it is
marked by strong attachments arising from a sense of natural affinity, deriving from one's birth into a given family,
religious community and language group. Relations are functionally diffuse, involve a wide portion of the lives of
the group members, hence the strong sense of group obligation and solidarity (15). Traditional nationalism is
therefore nationalism governed by the ties, the value system, the obligations and loyalties aris.'ng from one's
membership in a traditional society. It is the logical response of people whose society is largely traditional, to the
rapidly changing world around them; an effort at adjustment to new conditions as the old social institutions - the
village, clan or even tribe are increasingly subordinated to the " modern " society. The latter differs from the
traditional society in its characteristic scientific technology, its extensive social interdependence, its greater social,
personal and psychic mobility, large-scale literacy, urbanism and secu^rism (16). To term the response of a
traditional society tribalism is to mystify the African adjustment to the modern world; it is, as one observer
has remarked, to draw an invidious and highly suspect distinction between Africans and other peoples of the
world in a manner likely to discourage rather than promote better understanding among all peoples


(Kertzer 1988:2).

"An important and compelling book, one that illuminates the role
of ritual in human life, as well as the nature of politics.
- Charles E. Silberman, A Certain People and Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice

"Kertzer offers a cogent account of the influence of ritual in politics and impressive range of examples."
- Murray Edelman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Ritual moves and shakes public life as varied, shrewd, ubiquitous, indispensable today as ever in the tragedy of
man. Apparently, it is too obvious to be seen--until a piercing eye and a robust global experience gather to us a
theme."
- Earl W. Count, Key Reporter

The Dynamics of Struggle and Resistance by Graham Harrison
Africa's Struggle for Development, Issues in the Contemporary Politics of Sub-Saharan Africa
A review by
"a different 'angle' on the political analysis of a continent that is principally
represented as a place of repression, authoritarianism and generalized decline"
Several decades after independence, much of Africa remains wracked with famine, malnutrition, high infant
mortality, disease, mismanagement, corruption, civil war, refugees, lack of leadership, declining economic growth,
widespread crime and unemployment, and continuing kleptocracy. For most Africans, independence has meant more
a desperate struggle for survival than an exhilarating path to development. Although a few nations have managed to
make modest gains, the overwhelming majority of African countries are plagued with stagnating economies, low per
capita income, and political instability. An ever-expanding body of literature has explored Africa's elusive quest for
economic development, suggesting remedies of all kinds. Schol-ars and analysts have examined Africa's travails
through different concep-tual prisms, which have yielded an assortment of prescriptions for policy and strategy.
Unfortunately, these theories have not changed the fate of the continent. Rather, there seem to be periods of
cumulative crises that some attribute to a failure of the development models and ideologies underlying countries'
policies and structures. Every analysis of Africa's stalled development seems to be carried out within the bankruptcy
paradigm, with a focus on the blind alleys of "development." While some believe that the continent is becoming "a
depository for the ills of humanity" (Le Monde, Feb. 28, 1990), others conjure up apocalyptic images of "an
impoverished Africa in a spiral of conflict" (Leymairie 1995).
(1). Without deny-ing the dire situation depicted by existing work on African politics, Harri-son maintains that the
current literature does a disservice to Africa by pro-ducing images of passivity, helplessness, incompetence, innate
violence, and malice. These misleading images ignore the capacity of African soci-eties and social groups to
innovate, resist, challenge, and elaborate new ideals of liberation. In contrast, Harrison proposes a "genuinely
measured analysis of African politics [that takes] adequate conceptual account of the diversity of African agencies
(collective and individual) based in dynamics of resistance"
(2). His first task is to find an appropriate way to conceptualize political struggle in Africa. He rejects the
"dependency theory" according to which "African states have been integrated into global economic structures in
ways that impoverish them." According to this paradigm, "class structures militate against democracy [and] ...
necessarily exploit the peasant major-ity, and ruling classes are structurally located to serve the needs of foreign
capital". He reminds the reader that while powerful forces have made Africa's political history one of oppression,
marginality, and poverty, "all processes of domination contain within them, and provoke, acts of resis-tance, even if
these acts do not necessarily directly challenge an oppressor". After insisting that no analysis of African politics can
preclude the pos-sibility of resistance, Harrison's second chapter exposes the tensions and contradictions of peasant
politics in Africa.

(Kertzer 1988:2).

A Strategic Vision for Africa is an important work that testifies to what could be done, were African leaders
serious, to give Africa a chance to develop. Unfortunately, in a striking parallel to the fate of the Lagos Plan of
Action, the vision once again disappeared, exposing Africa to ongoing challenges. Despite high hopes in the early
1990s about the prospects of democracy and development in Africa, the reading of the balance-sheet a decade later
remains depressing. Once again African leaders have displayed their inability to grasp opportunities, leaving the
impression that somehow Africa is politically immature and permanently backward. Overall, the three books under
review demonstrate that putting an end to Africa's nightmare requires a new paradigm, one that focuses on excellent
governance with responsibility, accountability, active participation by the citizens, trans-parency, and creative
vision, which only honest, passionate, inspired, and enlightened leaders can provide.

Graham Harrison The Death of Political Struggle
Bringing Political Struggle Back in: African Politics, Power & Resistance
Political struggle is used in this article as a theoretical term; it is not supposed to allude to a specific institutional
form or a certain political agenda. Struggle is a process, a result of mobilisation provoked by some form of
resistance. Nevertheless, using terms such as resistance and struggle clearly requires some normative judgement. In
this article, the notion of struggle is based in a sympathy for mass politics rather than elite politics, widening
political participation, and the promotion of socio-economic equality. Consequently, struggle alludes to political
mobilisation and organisation to express and promote demands which are in keeping with these sympathies.
Struggle is not used to refer to processes associated with the struggle for spoils (Szeftel, 1983; 2000), or the violence
and struggle associated with complex emergencies (Duffield, 1993; Keen, 1994). Struggle also involves a particular
understanding of political economy more broadly, based in a critique of capitalism. This draws our attention to the
relationship between structure and struggle, but at this point it is important just to note that struggle relates to social
tensions and contradictions which go beyond the liberal-pluralist framework of 'checks and balances', multi-party
contest, and a basically positive sum approach to socio-political intercourse in which - under certain conditions -
dialogue and negotiation will produce marginal benefits for all involved.
The Death of Political Struggle
It is easy to understand how and why political struggle has not enjoyed great prominence recently. The end of the
Cold War (or at least the way the 'victory' of the West has been represented) and the neo-liberal 'revolution'
entrenched in many societies in the 1980s has yielded (and been promoted by) an intellectual climate which is
increasingly hostile to the idea - and certainly the ideal - of political struggle. The key features of this intellectual
climate are the more nihilistic strains of post-structuralism, the triumphalism of a schematic liberalism (articulated
with increasing power as the World Bank consolidates a greater intellectual presence), a tendency towards
eschatology (with telling cross-overs into the media and the intelligentsia), and a revived interest in the
epistemology of cultural relativism. Each of these approaches has written into it a hostility towards a serious
consideration of the role of political struggle in African political economy as outlined above.
epistemologies which write struggle out of the picture. Furthermore, the undeniably upsetting and extremely costly
emergence of conflict and economic collapse in much (but not all) of Africa give even those who have a normative
sympathy with the notion of struggle little more than a kind of 'hope against hope' approach to struggle: a reference
to struggle as an act of faith, a coda of a luta continla at the end of otherwise dour narratives. The next section
outlines a conceptual schema through which to integrate political struggle as a central part of contemporary African
politics, based in a critical awareness of the importance of class relations and the contradictions of African states'
experiences with capitalism.
If we understand class struggle in a way that does not reduce political action to the directly prescribed effect of some
assumption of 'capital logic', we do not need to abandon the fact that class provides a uniquely valuable compass
with which to evaluate struggle and its impact. But of course, political struggle will in turn modify the social
relations of a society.

(Kertzer 1988:2).

Life itself, wrote van Gennep, means to separate and to reunite,

Rituals are the means for changing and reconstituting groups in an orderly and sanctioned manner that maintains the
integrity of the system. These groups include religious associations, totem clans, phratries (exogamous kinship
groups), castes, professional classes, age groups, families, the political and territorial community, the world of the
living, the world before it, and the world of the dead after it. Life itself, wrote van Gennep, means to separate and
to reunite, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn. These changes can occur smoothly and
meaningfully as part of a larger, embracing, and reassuring pattern only by means of their orchestration as rites of
passage. Ritual Economy and Rural Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics
Mayfair Mei-hui Yang

Andrew Apter, In dispraise of the king
Rituals 'against' rebellion in South-East Africa
Later, in a reply to Monica Wilson, Gluckman (I963: 26) widens the concept of rebellion 'to refer to the whole
relation between ritual and the structure of the political system'. But here Gluckman is talking about the political
ritual of rebellion, not the political act. The rebellion performed in sacred ritual, however, is not identical with
secular political rebellion-the king remains king in the former but not in the latter. It is essential that this distinction
between ritual rebellion and actual rebellion be clarified, for it is their relationship that Gluckman's theory addresses.
First, 'rebellions represent the values of kingship and restore its power' (Gluckman 1956: 45); that is, they are led by
rivals with legitimatec laims to high office who aspire to conform to its publicly maintained rights and duties.
Second, 'the rebellion is in fact waged to protect the kingship from the king' (Gluckman I963: 129); that is,
rebellions are publicly supported just in case the ruling incumbent fails to rule well, according to the duties of his
office.

The rebellion performed in sacred ritual, however, is not identical with secular political rebellion-the king remains
king in the former but not in the latter. It is essential that this distinction between ritual rebellion and actual rebellion
be clarified, for it is their relationship that Gluckman's theory addresses.
office. And third, rebellions prevent fission of the kingdom: 'All sections struggle for the kingship, and this unifies
them. They seek to place their own prince on the throne; they do not try to become independent of the kingship'
(Gluckman 1956: 45). The Swazi Ncwala, according to Gluckman (I963: I I9), is a national ritual 'in which the
theme of rebellion is made manifest'. This theme is expressed through the sacred simemo songs performed by
various categories of actors to criticise, revile and 'reject' the king, but at the same time strengthen the Swazi state:
This ceremony is not a simple mass assertion of unity, but a stressing of conflict, a statement of rebellion and rivalry
against the king, with periodic affirmation of unity with the king . . . the dramatic, symbolic acting of social relations
in their ambivalence is believed to achieve unity and prosperity (Gluckman I963: 125). Gluckman's theory tries to
explain how this dramatic and symbolic acting of rebellion achieves unity and prosperity in terms that are 'first'
comprehensible to the Swazi, and 'second' comprehensible to the social anthropologist. From the Swazi point of
view, the performance of the Ncwala purifies the king and his nation, bringing strength, fertility and prosperity to
the people and land. For the social anthropologist (that is, Gluckman) the content of these beliefs is not too
important. More important is that the Swazi have some set of beliefs which imputes a causal or instrumental.

(Kertzer 1988:2).

Andalusian Carnival after Franco
David D. Gilmore, The democratization of Ritual
Kertzer on the multivalence of popular rites
"Ritual may be vital to reaction, but it is also
the lifeblood of revolution" (Kertzer 1988:2).

Originating in the 1840s through the efforts of elite residents of Rio, only the rich were originally allowed to parade
in carnaval, making the people spectators. This annual ceremony gradually became more open in the 1880s
carnival in a town in southern Spain in 1973 under the Franco dicta-torship with carnival in 1991, fifteen years
after the advent of democracy. It asks the following questions: how has democracy affected this ritual of rebellion,
which was historically used by the oppressed elements to ventilate their hidden political agenda? Has the focus
shifted from political protest? If so, to what? Has the aggressive, punitive tone of the festival moderated? What new
trends have developed?
First, carnival was the only time of the year when the disgruntled workers came together from their dis-persed
barrios. Paradoxically, they "united to fight." Carnival increased working-class "spirit" (ambiente) and
combativeness by demonstrating the poor's power to drive out the elite and to im-pose their own norms upon the
pueblo. (The la-tifundists actually cleared out during the celebration.) Carnival also reversed the community's power
relationships as the multitudes took over the town's center - the part of the pueblo symbolically identified with
wealth, power, and status.
Anthropologists like Kertzer (1988) argue that popular rites are multivalent: they can both strengthen and
undermine the structural status quo. "Ritual may be vital to reaction, but it is also the lifeblood of
revolution" (Kertzer 1988:2). I agree. This understandingof the bivalent potential of ritual informs most
interpretations of rituals of inversion (Bercq 1976; Babcock 1978; Isbell 1985; Rebel 1989). Under the dictatorship
Andalusian carnival highlighted this ambivalent effect. What happens, then, when the poor suddenly gain power?

Sherriff begins by tracing the history of the carnaval, demonstrating how this collective symbol of surpassing racial
and class boundaries is in fact the product of racialized struggles for public space. Originating in the 1840s through
the efforts of elite residents of Rio, only the rich were originally allowed to parade in carnaval, making the people
spectators. This annual ceremony gradually became more open in the 1880s, despite legal persecution of samba
musicians; eventually, by the 1930s, the municipal government began subsidizing the participation of escolasde
samba (samba schools), composed largely of the poor and people of color from the hillsides. Such subsidies came,
of course, on the condition that participation be harnessed to the service of representing mainstream national ideals
of democracia racial.
Yet the ideal of carnaval as an open and inclusive ritual of nation-wide celebration has since faded away.

What role do rituals play in discipline and the maintenance of social order?
What are the ties between ritual symbols in various realms of social experience, from religion to politics,
family, and labor? the often unrecognized relationship between ritual symbolism
and social discipline.
Kevin Carrico: What has inspired your work in the field of ritual, and in what ways does your work contribute to the
study of these issues?

Barry Lyons: The central theoretical issue in my research has been the workings of hegemony and counter-
hegemony. Taking up these insights, I have tried to show that ritual violence can be simultaneously symbolic and
instrumental, persuasive and coercive, legitimate and contested, and that even the distinction between the ritual and

(Kertzer 1988:2).
the everyday, in this case ritual discipline and arbitrary violence, can be the object of strategic manipulation and
contestation.

Kevin Carrico: How do you see the topic of ritual to be relevant at this moment in time?

Barry Lyons: The question brings to mind the classic idea that modernity, with its attendant rationalization and
secularization, would lead to the disappearance or irrelevance of ritual, at least religious ritual. disappeared
under the impact of various modernizing projects. Others, however, have persisted, some of them refashioned or
imbued with new meanings in response to new circumstances. The same modernizing projects that have
undermined some rituals have also generated new ones. Anthropologists contemporary recognition of the
contingent, contested nature of rituals makes them all the more interesting, not only as a window into cultural
meanings and social structure, but also as an arena in which diversely positioned actors advance and respond to one
anothers projects and understandings.

Rituals of resistance are not conceived of as ritual responses to
a more fundamental material incursion (as "cults" were), nor as "rituals of rebellion"
whose primary function was to reproduce an indigenous political system.
Instead they are now constructed as moments of ongoing historical practice.
are forms in which some of these communities of struggle are envisioned.
The rituals of resistance
they move people from one definition of authority and power to another,
where they find and exploit contradictions in colonial hegemony by re-encoding hegemonic culture
into some other structure.
Do rituals of resistance create a historical consciousness needed to make history? Marx was disappointed, but aware,
that revolutionaries "anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle
cries and costumes in order to present the new scene in world history" (186:15). It seems likely to us that rituals of
resistance do not raise consciousness in some universalistic sense, revealing a true world-historical situation, but
instead have been effective where they move people from one definition of authority and power to another, where
they find and exploit contradictions in colonial hegemony by re-encoding hegemonic culture into some other
structure.

the "struggle for possession of the sign"
The making of history by the colonized is also studied, reframed as resistance to power and dominance, in forms
from Scott's "everyday resis-tance", to rituals. Rituals of resistance are not conceived of as ritual responses to a more
fundamental material incursion (as "cults" were), nor as "rituals of rebellion" whose primary function was to
reproduce an indigenous political system. Instead they are now constructed as moments of ongoing historical
practice.
All studies of rituals of resistance depict what some call the "struggle for possession of the sign" following. But it is
particularly clear what a ritual of resistance accomplishes when rule is analytically conceived of as a cultural
hegemony. If a system of domination controls the representation of what is possible and what is natural, then a ritual
of resistance breaks the hegemony over the subjective consciousness of the ritual participants. It makes them
conscious of the oppression and allows them to envision new communities and possibilities. Kingdoms, nations, and
utopias are forms in which some of these communities of struggle are envisioned. Studies explicitly exploring
Gramscian "hegemony" theory bring together analyses of counter-colonial discourse and the powerful imagining of
truth through ritual-politics. In her study of the Tshidi Kingdom of Zion movement in South Africa, Comaroff finds
ritual to be "a form of historical practice" that is particularly important under oppressive conditions, conditions in
which "'expressions of dissent are prevented from attaining the level of open discourse." The rituals she studies are
both rooted and transformative-rooted in a local symbolic system and a particular encounter with colonialism,

(Kertzer 1988:2).
capitalism and Christianity; and transformative of consciousness, using "the polyva-lent metaphor of healing" to
"alter the state of bodies physical and social" (56:196-98; see also 59). Because these rituals do not directly change
the "structural predicamento f black South Africans", Comaroff's study leaves open questions about what kinds of
changes rituals of resistance can make.
All rituals, it seems, are in Turner's perspective religious; they all "celebrate or commemorate transcendent powers"
(V. Turner and E. Turner 1982:201). Still, Turner did view rituals in modern industrial society as having some
characteristics different from the tribal rituals he studied in Ndembu society. In tribal societies "all life is pervaded
by invisible influences" (Turner 1976a:507). In this way, tribal societies are wholly religious, and ritual actions
surrounding their religions are "nationwide"; they are oriented towards "all members of the widest effective
community" (Turner 1977b:45). In modern societies, on the other hand, religion is "regarded as something
apart from our economic, political, domestic and recreational life.

Andean Rituals of Revolt: The Chayanta Rebellion of 1927
Erick D. Langer, Carnegie M ellonUniversity.
Through the analysis of two rituals that occurred during the 1927 Indian rebellion in southern Bolivia, it is possible
to discern the motivations and world-views of the Andean peasantry. One ritual, in which the rebels imitated a trial
to legitimate their takeover of a number of estates, shows how they were linked to other Indian allies; it also
illustrates their efforts to maintain ties with the national government. The second ritual, an act of cannibalism
performed on a landowner and the sacrifice of his bones to a mountain god, exhibits a combination of goals,
including the assertion of ethnic identity and land rights. The rituals expose the contradictory motives behind the
rebellion and show the Indians' conceptions of the larger polity, which, though based on certain political and social
realities, made government repression inevitable. It is inherently difficult to uncover the motivations of peasants in
revolt.
While all these sources are to a certain extent helpful, they reveal only small fragments of the motivations and
consciousness of the peasants when used in conventional ways. The inherent difficulties of revealing the mental
constructs and assumptions of an overwhelmingly nonliterate people can in part be over-come by analyzing the
rituals that were an integral part of the revolts. For rituals, as actions endowed with special symbolic meaning,
organizer perceived reality in certain ways. These often repetitive actions express ideal social and political
arrangements as well as relationships with the supernatural. As David Kertzer suggests, "Ritual helps give meaning
to our world in part by linking the past to the present and the present to the future." Thus, not only the motivations of
revolt but also the kind of world the peasants see around them and the world they want to construct can be revealed
through the rituals in which the rebels try to deal with and make sense of this time of momentous stress in their
society. In this article, two rituals from the 1927 Indian rebellion in southern Bolivia are compared and contrasted to
arrive at a more profound understanding of how the peasants perceived their world and how they thought it should
be changed.

A comparison between these two rituals can help us understand the moti-vations of the Indian rebels and how they
conceived of the world around them. In a sense, rituals describe how participants perceive the world or how they
would like the world to be. Each ritual also creates a rich sym-bolic language that speaks not only to participants but
to observers and outsiders alike. Certainly, it is likely that to each group these rituals mean different things, but they
are nevertheless important for understanding the discourse between groups within a society. The revolutionary
politics of peasants, especially that of a nonliterate population that does not even communicate in the language in
which records are kept, is difficult to disentangle without recourse to extralingual behavior. A look at rituals and
how certain forms were utilized to make radical demands can help overcome this problem. The rituals examined
above, especially when taken as different ex-pressions of the same political program, reveal many aspects of the
rebels' goals shorn of the interpretations which outsiders attempted to impose on them during and after the uprising.
The judicial ritual, with its almost slavish imitation of legal forms, showed that the peasants were concerned about
the legitimacy of their actions and attempted to enlist the national government on their side or at least to co-opt it
into not repressing the movement.

(Kertzer 1988:2).

kingship is not killed: why there is ample evidence of assasinations and rebellions, but few revolu-tions.


"Kertzer writes entertainingly on political rites widely separated by space and time. . . . He is mainly interested in
how our own rites and symbols, which seem so natural and inevitable as to hide their symbolic nature, hold us in
thrall. He shows how ritual is used to fire or suppress political conflict, build political movements, establish political
legitimacy, and obscure the absence of political consensus."
- John Gabree, New York Newsday

"Kertzer's book on the relationships among ritual, politics and power could not have come at a better time to enliven
social-scientific debate on the fascinating theme of legitimacy. . . . Kertzer argues convincingly that the political
action and power of all societies are enveloped in ritual, and he maintains that it would be difficult to imagine any
society functioning otherwise. Using various examples selected from different parts of the world or points in history,
he shows how political systems have employed and continued to employ ritual to create or reinforce their
symbolically constructed versions of reality. . .
- Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Political Psychology

" universal themes in political ritual. . . . It will be useful for professionals, students, and educated laymen."
- Wilfred J. Bisson, History: Reviews of New Books

Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction:
Notes from the South African Postcolony,
Jean Comaroff; John L. Comaroff

Although they have no tongues, zombies speak of a particular time and place. The end of apartheid was partly the
product of a global moment, one in which the machinations of multinational capital and the fall of the Soviet Union
had drastically restructured older polarities. When black South Africans at last threw off their colonial constraints,
much of the rest of the continent had learned the harsh truth about the postcolonial predicament, having experienced
unprecedented marginalization and economic hardship or, at the very least, striking new distinctions of wealth and
privation. Such conditions disrupt grand narratives of progress and development (Roitman n.d.:20; cf. Comaroff
1994). But they do not necessarily dispel their animating desires; to the contrary, they may feed them. Hence the

(Kertzer 1988:2).
situation that Roitman (n.d.:20), writing of the Cameroon, describes as "negotiat[ing] modernity in a time of
austerity."

In these circumstances, there tends to be an expansion both in techniques of producing value and in the meaning of
wealth itself. It is an expansion that often breaks the conventional bounds of legality, making crime, as well as
magic, a mode of production open to those who lack other resources. This is why violence, as an instrument of
income redistribution, is such a ubiquitous feature of postcolonial economies, in Africa and beyond.
The zombie is the nightmare citizen of this parallel, refracted modernity. Reduced from humanity to raw labor
power, he is the creature of his maker, stored up in petrol drums or sheds like tools. His absent presence suggests a
link to otherwise inexplicable accumulation. Being solely for the benefit of its owner, the toil of the living dead is
pure surplus value (Marx 1976:325): it has "all the charms of something created out of nothing."

Zombie production is thus an apt image of the inflating occult economies of postcolonial Africa, of their ever more
brutal forms of extraction. As spectral capital, it will be evident why these forms of extraction are typically
associated, as is witchcraft in general, with older people of apparent affluence - and why zombies are thought to
have multiplied as wage work has become scarce among the young and unskilled. Not only does the rise of a
phantom proletariat consume the life force of others, it also destroys the labor market, conventional patterns of
social reproduction, and the legitimate prospects of "the community" at large. This, in essence, was the point made
by striking workers on an Eastern Transvaal coffee plantation in 1995: they demanded the dismissal of three
supervisors accused of killing employees to gain control of their jobs and, even worse, of keeping zombies for their
private enrichment.

But zombie production i s merely one means among several. Recall that there has also been an increase in the
incidence of so-called "ritual murder," of killing forthe purposeof harvesting body parts-hence our opening fragment
about eyes for sale in a Johannesburg shopping mall.
As Ralushai et al. explain: These body parts are used for the preparation of magic potions. Parts of the body may be
used to secure certain advantages from the ancestors. A skull may, for instance, be built into the foundation of a new
building to ensure a good business, or a brew containing human parts may be buried where it will ensure a good
harvest. [ I996:255]

A victim's hands are "symbols of possession." Eyes imply vision, genitals imply fertility. As we know from
elsewhere in South Africa, avaricious people are thought to enhance their own vigor by draining the vitality diffused
in the organs of others, preferably cut out while the body i s still warm (Ralushai et al. 1996:271 )49-and, best of all,
if taken from children under 12.

Perhaps the overriding irony of the contemporary age-the Age of Futilitarianism, we called it, in which the rampant
promises of late capitalism run up against a thoroughly postmodern pessimism-is how unanticipated it was. None of
the grand narratives of the orthodox social sciences came anywhere near predicting the sudden transformation of the
20th-century international order, the fall of the Soviet Union, the crisis of the nation-state, the deterritorialization
of culture and society, the ascendance of an unevenly regulated global economy. The surprising recent past of South
Africa i s one instance of this irony, one refraction of this world-historical process. Here too, notwithstanding an
intense struggle, the end came unexpectedly.

The specter of mystical violence run wild i s a caricature of postapartheid "liberty": the liberty to transgress and
consume in an unfettered world of desire, cut loose from former political, spatial, moral, sexual, and material
constraints. Socialist imaginings, like all utopian ideas for a new society, falter. In their place reigns the rhetoric of
the market, of freedom as the right to exercise choice through spending or voting or whatever, of personhood as
constructed largely through consumption. a pent up lust for the things that apartheid denied, from iconic objects
(notably, the BMW) and an omnivorous sexuality unbound by Calvinist stricture, to extravagant self-fashionings
and the flamboyant sense of independence communicated by the cell phone. But it also evokes a world in which
ends far outstrip means, in which the will to consume is not matched by the opportunity to earn, in which there is a
high velocity of exchange and a relatively low volume of production. And yet, we repeat, it is a world in which the
possibility of rapid enrichment, of amassing a fortune by largely invisible methods, is always palpably present.


(Kertzer 1988:2).
The preoccupation with the occult i s closely connected to all this. At one level, it i s about the desire to plumb the
secret of those invisible means; at another, it i s concerned to stem the spread of a macabre, visceral economy
founded on the violence of extraction and abstraction
(1) in which the majority are kept poor by the mystical machinations of the few;
(2) in which employment has dwindled because of the creation of a virtual labor force from the living dead;
(3) in which profit depends on compressing space and time, on cannibalizing bodies, and on making production into
the spectral province of people of the night;
(4) in which the old are accused of aborting the natural process of social reproduction by preventing the next
generation from securing the bases of its material and social existence-and youth, reciprocally, are demonized.
The fact that none of this is truly new makes it no less significant to those for whom it has become an existential
reality.

For one thing, these tend to be societies in which an optimistic faith in free enterprise encounters, for the first time,
the realities of neoliberal economics: of unpredictable shifts in sites of production and the demand for labor; of the
acute difficulties inherent in exercising stable control over space, time, or the flow of money; of an equivocal role
for the state; of an end to old political alignments, without any clear lines, beyond pure interest, along which new
ones take shape; of uncertainty surrounding the proper nature of civil society and the (post?)modern subject. Such
are the corollaries ofthe riseof millennia1 capitalism as they are felt in much ofthecontemporary world (Comaroff
1996). Perhaps they will turn out to be entirely transitory, a mere passing moment, in the long run. But this makes
them no less momentous.

Development or underdevelopment are two perspectives on the process of Africa's incorporation into some variously
defined global society, but there was no one such process and therefore no one necessary outcome. I can conclude
by suggesting three sources of difference in Africa's contemporary experience. There are many more. The internal
dynamics of incorporation varied from colony to colony, and often within any one colony, according to the vigor
with which the regime was pressed to assist capitalists; according to the timing of the major expansions of
commodity production; and according to the degree to which very different precapitalist relations of production
became embedded within the administrative apparatus of the state. On such divergencies depend the productive
potential of nationalism's own revolutions in government.
In Africa, as elsewhere, they have entailed a contradictory increase in the power to oppress and the restraint of
power. They have not ended the struggles of the oppressed, but they have changed their arenas. They have also
failed to change a great deal. Africa's modes of production have not been so transformed by incorporation into
global capitalism that all its people have been captured. There is still a great deal that states simply cannot control;
they have proved, throughout history, to be very imperfect relations of production. Africa's major product must be
the staples with which to feed its populations and, as Ranger (1976: 26) has rightly said, "no one knows how to grow
large quantities of food in tropical soils without ecological damage."
Instead it should be studied as 'intentional communication' or 'signify-ing practice.' This may mean stretching this
term very far-nearly everything can be brought under this heading-but it does make 'rit-ual,' in this sense, highly
relevant to understand Africans' struggles with modernity.

inadvertant consequence of purposive action: people intend to create life not despotism. Yet kings are killed as often

(Kertzer 1988:2).
as they are elevated to power. What scholars have found difficult to explain in the African context is why kingship is
not killed: why there is ample evidence of assasinations and rebellions, but few revolutions.

them so. Crawford Young has convincingly shown that state sovereignty for former European colonies in Africa was
an afterthought. Rather than accept this conventional wisdom, Herbst calls for a revolutionary reassessment of the
concept of the "sovereign state" in Africa today. He boldly challenges the international communityt o engage in new
think-ing on this matter and to support African intellectuals and political leaders who are willing to design
governmental units adopted. To achieve this outcome, Herbst calls for - with the help of the international community
- opening up intellectual space in Africa, so that Africans themselves can come up with replacements for failed
states. Apart from his argument, Herbst sets out in States and Power in Africa to chart new territory in the
Yet in different epochs there are different opportunities. For instance, it could be and has been argued that African

The Modern Impact of Precolonial Centralization in Africa
Nicola Gennaioli and Ilia Rainer
July 2006

The role of precolonial centralization in Africa. Using anthropological data on precolonial institutions and data on
public goods across African countries for the 1960-2000 period, we find a strong and positive association between
the share of a countrys population belonging to ethnic groups with centralized (rather than fragmented) precolonial
institutions and its provision of public goods such as health, education and infrastructure.


(Kertzer 1988:2).

public goods and local accountability:
the impact of precolonial centralization on public goods in Africa.

the impact of local accountability on public goods provision
and test it against alternative hypotheses. Our results confirm the importance of
the local accountability view for fully explaining the impact of
precolonial centralization on public goods in Africa.

In this continent, the impact of precolonial institutions was enhanced by the weakness of the colonial and
postcolonial national state, which found it hard to broadcast its power into rural areas. For example, Herbst (2000,
p.175) notices how African states came to independence with almost no local structures besides those that were
intertwined with traditional authorities.


This paper assesses, theoretically and empirically, the role of precolonial centralization in Africa. Using
anthropological data on precolonial institutions and data on public goods across African countries for the 1960-2000
period, we find a strong and positive association between the share of a countrys population belonging to ethnic
groups with centralized (rather than fragmented) precolonial institutions and its provision of public goods such as
health, education and infrastructure.

"Ritual helps give meaning to our world in part
by linking the past to the present and the present to the future."
analyzing the rituals that were an integral part of the revolts. For rituals, as actions endowed with special
symbolic meaning, organizer perceived reality in certain ways. These often repetitive actions express ideal
social and political arrangements as well as relationships with the supernatural. As David Kertzer suggests,
"Ritual helps give meaning to our world in part by linking the past to the present and the present to the
future." Thus, not only the motivations of revolt but also the kind of world the peasants see around them and the
world they want to construct can be revealed through the rituals in which the rebels try to deal with and make sense
of this time of momentous stress in their society.

Do rituals of resistance create a historical consciousness needed to make history?
Marx was disappointed, but aware, that revolutionaries "anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to
their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present
the new scene in world history" (186:15).


(Kertzer 1988:2).
are forms in which some of these communities of struggle are envisioned. Studies explicitly exploring Gramscian
"hegemony" theory bring together analyses of counter-colonial discourse and the powerful imagining of truth
through ritual-politics. In her study of the Tshidi Kingdom of Zion movement in South Africa, Comaroff finds ritual
to be "a form of historical practice" that is particularly important under oppressive conditions, conditions in which
"'expressions of dissent are prevented from attaining the level of open dis-course." The rituals she studies are both
rooted and transformative-rooted in a local symbolic system and a particular encounter with colonialism, capital-ism
and Christianity;a nd transformativeo f consciousness, using "the polyva-lent metaphor of healing" to "alter the state
of bodies physical and social" (56:196-98; see also 59). Because these rituals do not directly change the "structural
predicamento f black South Africans" (56:199), Comaroff's study leaves open questions about what kinds of changes
rituals of resistance can make.

Do rituals of resistance create a historical consciousness needed to make history? Marx was disappointed, but aware,
that revolutionaries "anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle
cries and costumes in order to present the new scene in world history" (186:15). It seems likely to us that rituals of
resistance do not raise consciousness in some universalistic sense, revealing a true world-historical situation, but
instead have been effective where they move people from one definition of authority and power to another, where
they find and exploit contradictions in colonial hegemony by re-encoding hegemonic culture into some other
structure.

Regicide and Revolution
Paradoxically, regicide regenerates the world
The core of Frazer's concept of divine kingship is the connection between the body of the king and the course of
time. Paradoxically, regicide regenerates the world. Subsequent arguments about divine kingship, whatever else they
may be, are inevitably arguments about the nature and course of human history. They are dominated by a
surprisingly progressivist strain in which, as Frazer himself saw it, the transition from monarchy to popular
sovereignty is insepar-ably associated with the transition from superstition to rational thought (e.g. 55, pp. 16-22; 63,
pp. 129, 135-36; 74, p. 119; 164, preface). Yet even Walzer (158), who is most explicit on this point, expresses
doubts about the consequences of killing kingship very like Frazer's doubts about the primeval rock lodged in the
lawn. It took centuries for Europeans to revolt against kingship. Finally their revolt had to be "elevated" to the plane
of ritual to have any chance of success, and even so, it was not clearly successful.

There are few studies of contemporary kingship or of the governments that succeeded monarchies in Africa and
elsewhere that examine the consequences of these connec-tions. The problem that Richards noted after revisiting the
Bemba in 1957 remains: If "all rulers without standing armies or other institutionalizedm eans of control have to
balance on the knife edge of their people's belief' (if, she might have added, we killed kingship in Africa), then "the
persistence of the whole ideology of divine kingship after some sixty years of colonial rule and strong mission
influence itself requires some explanation" (134, p. 24). If one were to apply the kind of regional analysis that
Horton (76) pioneered in his study of state and stateless societies in precolonial West Africa, then one would analyze
these apparentlyd isparatep olitical forms-relict kingdoms and Western style states-in precisely the same terms as the
products of common historical forces rather than separately and sequentially. But this is not happen-ing widely. In
contrast to studies of African monarchy during the precolonial period, studies of kingship (and states) in
contemporary circumstances have tended to perpetuate the old divide between ritual and politics.

Yet even Walzer (158), who is most explicit on this point,
expresses doubts about the consequences of killing kingship very like Frazer's doubts about the primeval rock
lodged in the lawn. It took centuries for Europeans to revolt against kingship. Finally their revolt had to be
"elevated" to the plane of ritual to have any chance of success, and even so, it was not clearly successful.


(Kertzer 1988:2).
Where do rituals fit into all this? Mathieu Deflem, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life (Turner 1957a).
This work was first and foremost a study of the mechanisms of resolving social conflicts in Ndembu society.
Where do rituals fit into all this? In Schism and Continuity Turner devoted only one of twelve chapters to the study
of ritual, and it is indicatively entitled "The Politically Integrative Function of Ritual" (288-317). Ritual has a
function to fulfill: "The ritual system compensates to some extent for the limited range of effective political control
and for the instability of kinship and affinal ties to which political value is attached" (291).

In Gluckman's functionalist approach, the role of rituals is to sustain a society's equilibrium and secure solidarity
among its members. Rituals are looked upon as mechanisms to ensure societal unity, although according to
Gluckman (and in this he diverges from the classical functionalist view), this unity may be achieved in spite of
social conflicts and competing social norms and values. What many rituals (of rebellion) often do is precisely to
enact social conflicts.

In 1955 Turner had already suggested that the temporal structure
of rituals of rebellion, as described by Gluckman (1954), might shed light on
the capacity of rituals to transfer a rebellious affect to the official social order.

Ritual, Rebellion, Resistance: Once More the Swazi Ncwala, Bruce Lincoln
This article reconsiders the Ncwala ritual, an annual revitalisation of Swazi society, polity, and natural environment,
as reported by Hilda Kuper based on fieldwork of 1934-1936. Central to the argument is the insistence that ritual be
considered within its proper historical context: here, the situation of colonialism. When this is done, the limitations
of previous studies, particularly Gluckman's 'rituals of rebellion' theory, become apparent and a clearer picture
emerges of how the Ncwala served as an instrument of resistance to British domination, through which Swazi
solidarity was effectively mobilised and maintained. Broader discussions are devoted to i) the ritual construction,
deconstruction and reconstruction of society via the evocation of sentiments reified as social borders, and 2) the
nature of domination and resistance as specialised cases (respectively) of fusionary and fissionary processes.
the sociopolitical and the sentimental dimensions of ritual.
powerful instrument with which actors construct, deconstruct and reconstruct society itself.
a spectacular celebration that unfolds over several weeks and involves scores of ritual sequences, which
cumulatively are expected to renew the powers of the Swazi king, kingship, nation and land. One must also note
that the month in which the ritual begins is called 'To swallow the pickings of the teeth,' food being scarcest and
labour most demanding just before the harvest. In contrast, the month in which the Ncwala ends is the time of First
Fruits and bears the name 'Everyone is satisfied' (Smith I982: I2I). These contrasts, marked in lunar, calendric,
agricultural and other codes, are thematically central to the Ncwala: contrasts between darkness and light,
exhaustion and energy, dearth and abundance, impotence and power. Thus, songs are sung, the lyrics of which
voice hatred of the king, but these give way to songs of triumph and praise as the warriors shift to their full moon
formation.
Domination, resistance and segmentary societies:
the Ncwala as a 'ritual of rebellion'. the politics of the colonial Ncwala
In the precolonial period, of course, this was the only relevant context, but with the establishment of colonial rule
and the encapsulation of the Swazi Nation within the Swaziland Protectorate, another broader sociopolitical context
was added and the Ncwala assumed an additional significance, becoming also (and much more importantly) a
'ritual of resistance' against British domination. In order to appreciate Gluckman's contribution and to place it in
proper perspective, it is important to recognise that he, together with Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, was at the
forefront of anthropological research during that period when the analysis of social segmentation and the correlated
fission-fusion model of social integration was a central issue (Gluckman 1940; I956 [esp. pp. 1-26]; I963 [esp. pp.
vii-x, I-I09]). Gluckman's greatest single contribution was that made in his Frazer Lecture on 'Rituals of

(Kertzer 1988:2).
rebellion', a piece which fully merits its place as a classic of social and political anthropology and which has
enduring value, its flaws and limitations notwithstanding.
In all sub-Saharan Africa, Swaziland is one of the very few nations in which traditional kingship survived
colonialism and emerged as the central political institution of the post-colonial era. Although hardly the full
explanation for such a state of affairs, the ability of King Sobhuza II to use the Ncwala as an effective instrument for
resisting the British and for solidifying his paramount position within the Swazi Nation, contributed in no small
measure (as has been recognised by Kuper I972; I973a; I976; and Potholm I977). Consideration of Swazi kingship
and the Ncwala in the post-colonial period falls outside the scope of this study.

From that perspective it may well be that nowhere is there more talk
about change than in Africa. Yet, within Africa, few can really trigger change.
Herein lies the great agony of Africa's popular sentiments.... To describe people's movements
in Africa it is necessary to recognise their under-lying attitude, which is one of active waiting
and active hope .... To outlive the repression, in its various forms, is to gain victory.

Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies
Elizabeth DeMarrais, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle
Ideology, as part of culture, is an integral component of human interactions and the power strategies that configure
sociopolitical systems. We argue that ideology is materialized, or given concrete form, in order to be a part of the
human culture that is broadly shared by members of a society. This process of materialization makes it possible to
control, manipulate, and extend ideology beyond the local group. Ideology becomes an important source of social
power when it can be given material form and controlled by a dominant group.
We approach ideology differently, recognizing it as a central element of a cultural system. The direction we pursue
here is to understand ideology as a source of social power. Social power is the capacity to control and manage the
labor and activities of a group to gain access to the benefits of social action. Mann (1986) has identified four
sources of power: economic, political, military, and ideological. Throughout history, rulers and chiefs have
combined these sources of power in distinct ways to achieve specific goals. The choice of one strategy over another
has profound implications for social evolution (Earle I987, n.d.; Johnson and Earle I987). Such choices reflect the
historical circumstances and the objectives of groups (Brumfiel 1992) and differ markedly in cost, effectiveness, and
sustainability. In some instances, power depends heavily on coercion; Carneiro (I967, 1981) and Webster (i985)
have identified circumstances under which military might is an immediate means to extend political dominance. Ef-
fective in the short run, especially where control over the means of destruction is possible (Goody I971), warfare is
nevertheless a costly and unstable way of organiz- ing power relationships. Others (Brumfiel and Earle I987, Earle I
99 I a, Gilman I 981) have argued for the ultimate precedence of economic control, where land tenure systems and
property rights permit direct control over production and exchange. However, economic control is problematic
except in such circumstances as the development of irrigation systems, within which an agrarian population can be
"caged" (Mann 1986), or in an insular setting in which control of the seaways provides similar opportunities for
elites to limit access to goods and resources. In still other cases, the strategic control of ideology contributes to the
centralization and consolidation of political power.
What gives primacy to one ideology over another? How can an ideology supporting domination be sustained in the
presence of an ideology of resistance? The answer, we argue, is grounded in the process by which these ideologies
are given concrete, physical form. This process is the materialization of ideology. We argue that ideology is
materialized in the form of ceremonies, symbolic objects, monuments, and writing systems to become an effective
source of power. Materialized ideology can achieve the status of shared values and beliefs. Materialization makes it
possible to extend an ideology beyond the local group and to communicate the power of a central authority to a
broader population. We examine this process and, in three case studies, consider its effects on political power and
institutions, the political economy, and the dynamics of organizational change. Given the scope of our discussion

(Kertzer 1988:2).
here, we will not address the ways in which our ideas apply to the study of less complex societies. In addition,
although we are omitting a lengthy consideration of the relationships between ideologies of domination and
resistance (Miller, Rowlands, and Tilley I989; McGuire 1992), we view the process of materialization as an ongoing
arena for competition, control of meaning, and the negotiation of power relationships.
The Evolution of Chiefdoms: Thy From the Early Neolithic into the Bronze Age,
the prehistory of northern and western Europe witnessed cycles of chiefdom evolution and decline. Despite
evident attempts to centralize and institutionalize power, emergent chiefdoms remained limited in scope and
stability. Distinguished chiefs would emerge briefly in some regions only to lose power and be eclipsed by other
regional developments (Bradley I984, Kristiansen 1982). The Thy Archaeological Project (Bech I993) seeks to
understand the power strategies of these chiefs. In Thy, ownership of productive resources was limited as a source of
power because the chiefdom's extensive agricultural lands had no developed facilities, such as irrigation systems or
drainage projects, that could be controlled. Warfare also proved to be an unreliable source of power, because
control over the technology of warfare was difficult to maintain. Ideology, considered here, was problematic until its
materialization helped institutionalize a ranked system of warrior chiefs. Several different means of materialization
were used, but control over the production of public symbols was ultimately the critical factor in the region's chiefly
power strategies.
The Inka empire incurred huge costs to sponsor ritual feasts to legitimate demands for subjects' labor service. More-
over, ongoing Inka efforts to centralize and intensify craft production and to control external exchange rela-
tionships suggest that the institutions of Inka ideology, while central to administration of the vast empire, entailed
continuing maintenance expenditures. Because multiple ideas and beliefs exist in a given society, a ruling segment
must control the ideology- shared ideas, beliefs, and their representations-that legitimates its position and authority.
Giving an ideology concrete, physical form in events, symbolic objects, monuments, and writing systems is
instrumental to its institutionalization and extension. The costs of materializing ideology restrict access to this
source of power, with the result that through control of key resources a ruling segment may be able to restrict the
contexts of use and the transmission of ideas and symbols. The specific means and forms of materialization chosen
by elites depend upon their goals and resources. These choices in turn affect the success of the ideology in achieving
integration, overcoming opposition, or consol- idating political power. Materialization is a means through which
symbols, their meanings, and beliefs can be manipulated to become an important source of social power.

'Tu es un excrement, Tu es un tas d'ordures,
Tu viens pour nous tuer, Tu viens pour nous sauver ... '.
Song with which the tribesmen of
Ouagadougou greet their king

Andrew Apter, In dispraise of the king
Rituals 'against' rebellion in South-East Africa
The value of Radcliffe-Brown's original theory of 'permitted disrespect' lies in its specification of paired concepts-
familiarity and avoidance, disjunction and conjunction, alliance and contract-which bring the politics and symbolism
of the Swazi Ncwala into closer correspondence.
Just what rituals of rebellion are has given rise to confused debate, attributable, in part, to Gluckman's inconsistent
use of the term 'rebellion'. His initial definition comes from Aristotle (Gluckman 1956: 46): 'rebellions attack the
personnel of office and not the offices themselves'. That is, they attack, and if successful remove, individuals within
the political system but leave the system intact. Later, in a reply to Monica Wilson, Gluckman (I963: 26) widens the
concept of rebellion 'to refer to the whole relation between ritual and the structure of the political system'. But here
Gluckman is talking about the political ritual of rebellion, not the political act. The rebellion performed in sacred
ritual, however, is not identical with secular political rebellion-the king remains king in the former but not in the
latter. It is essential that this distinction between ritual rebellion and actual rebellion be clarified, for it is their
relationship that Gluckman's theory addresses.

(Kertzer 1988:2).
office. And third, rebellions prevent fission of the kingdom: 'All sections struggle for the kingship, and this unifies
them. They seek to place their own prince on the throne; they do not try to become independent of the kingship'
(Gluckman 1956: 45). The Swazi Ncwala, according to Gluckman (I963: I I9), is a national ritual 'in which the
theme of rebellion is made manifest'. This theme is expressed through the sacred simemo songs performed by
various categories of actors to criticise, revile and 'reject' the king, but at the same time strengthen the Swazi state:
This ceremony is not a simple mass assertion of unity, but a stressing of conflict, a statement of rebellion and rivalry
against the king, with periodic affirmation of unity with the king . . . the dramatic, symbolic acting of social relations
in their ambivalence is believed to achieve unity and prosperity (Gluckman I963: 125). Gluckman's theory tries to
explain how this dramatic and symbolic acting of rebellion achieves unity and prosperity in terms that are 'first'
comprehensible to the Swazi, and 'second' comprehensible to the social anthropologist. From the Swazi point of
view, the performance of the Ncwala purifies the king and his nation, bringing strength, fertility and prosperity to
the people and land. For the social anthropologist (that is, Gluckman) the content of these beliefs is not too
important. More important is that the Swazi have some set of beliefs which imputes a causal or instrumental
relationship between the performance of the rebellious ritual and an improved state of affairs. The anthropologist
accounts for these beliefs about the ritual, whatever they may be, in terms of the social value of its performance.
Here lies the crux of Gluckman's argument, which can be summarised in syllogistic form. Rebellions in south-east
Bantu societies have a political function-they uphold the office of kingship in perpetuity and unify the kingdom.
Rituals of rebellion are (somehow) related to actual rebellions; hence their political function is (somehow) related to
the political function of real rebellions. The grey area in this formulation is explaining just how rituals of rebellion
are related to actual rebellions, and how their respective functions are linked. Rituals of rebellion are, for Gluckman,
an 'acting of conflict' in a sacred context which allows 'unbridled excess'. In these ritual acts, the implicit tensions
surrounding the kingship-the threat of rival heirs or a disaffected public-are made explicit.
To a certain extent this public expression and acknowledgement of conflict surrounding the king serves as a
collective psycho-logical release, what Van den Berghe (I963: 414) glosses as the 'blowing-off-steam' hypothesis,
and what Gluckman (I963: 126) himself recognises as 'the general problem of catharsis . . . the purging of emotion
through "pity, fear and inspiration". Gluckman, however, is not interested in psychological explanation, but analyses
'the sociological setting of the process' (I963: 126). This sociological setting is none other than the rival claims of
princes, bolstered by sectional bases of public support, to achieve the kingship for themselves: The ceremony states
that in virtue of their social position princes and people hate the king ... The critically important point is that even if
Swazi princes do not actually hate the king, their social position may rally malcontents to them. Indeed, in a
comparatively small-scale society princes by their very existence have power which threatens the king. Hence in
their prescribed, compelled, ritual behaviour they exhibit opposition as well as support for the king, but mainly
support for the kingship. This is the social setting for rituals of rebellion (I963: 128). In other words, rituals of
rebellion emphasise 'potential rebellion' which, like active rebellion, strengthens the values of kingship and the unity
of the kingdom. They exhibit 'mainly support for the kingship' by consecrating the perpetual office of authority over
and above the holder: 'it is the kingship and not the king who is divine' (I963: 129). The king himself is frail: 'His
personal inadequacy and his liability to desecrate the values of kingship are exhibited in the insults he suffers' (I963:
135). Beidelman (I966) offers an alternative analysis.
In Gluckman's approach, the content of Swazi beliefs about the ritual is not too important, as long as there is some
set of beliefs which motivates and rationalises its performance. Gluckman is interested in the function, or social
value, of the ritual, rather than its meaning for the Swazi. This neglect of belief and symbolism has, according to
Beidelman (I966: 375), flawed Gluckman's interpretation, 'in that he has sometimes found conflict, aggression and
rebellion as dominant themes where this does not seem to be so'. Where Gluckman assumes rebellion from the
beginning, and perceives it where it may not actually be, Beidelman begins by considering ritual symbolism, which
derives from cosmology:

Apter on Beidelman's interpretation of the Ncwala.
Cosmology is a system of categories, and ritual involves manipulation of symbolic objects from these various

(Kertzer 1988:2).
categories. Symbolic mixing of categories creates a 'potent and dangerous' condition, a releasing of mystical
power (such as lightening, trembling, uncontrolled dancing, posses-sion) believed to be violent and polluting.
Symbolic separation of categories is associated with controlled ordering, avoidance and respect, purgation and
purification. The first half of the ritual 'gradually increases all the powerful supernatural attributes of the king'
and reaches its climax in the appearance of Silo, the king as 'a monster, cut off from men and society owing to the
very strength and disorder of varied opposing attributes condensed within him' (I966: 377). The second half of the
Ncwala represents a defusing and purging of this dangerous admixture of attributes, so that 'basic categories are
again clearly defined and may then be readily separated into those aspects to be retained and those whose
embodying objects are burned' (I966: 378).
The ox itself is anomalous: black, it possesses the heavy, 'dark' potency of the male beast, but, castrated, its
distinctive sexual attribute is removed. By nightfall, when the king is highly doctored, the surrounding regiments
sing simemo songs and then wash in the river. The 'songs of hate' are repeated at dawn, when the king emerges
naked from his sacred enclosure, indicating, according to Beidel-man (I966: 397), 'a unique, lonely, denuded status
outside any single social category', the consequence of his 'terrible asocial powers'. These songs do not 'reject' the
king, but express the 'burden' of his power, the isolation of a superhuman from humans.
To heighten the king's ritual potency in the first half of the Ncwala, a large black ox is pummelled nearly to death by
undressed warriors and then slain by rain priests in the king's sacred enclosure. Beidelman explains that the
pummell-ing is supposed to loosen the beast's potent attributes, and that certain of its organs-especially its lower lip
and gall bladder-give power to the king. The ox itself is anomalous: black, it possesses the heavy, 'dark' potency of
the male beast, but, castrated, its distinctive sexual attribute is removed. By nightfall, when the king is highly
doctored, the surrounding regiments sing simemo songs and then wash in the river. The 'songs of hate' are repeated
at dawn, when the king emerges naked from his sacred enclosure, indicating, according to Beidel-man (I966: 397),
'a unique, lonely, denuded status outside any single social category', the consequence of his 'terrible asocial powers'.
These songs do not 'reject' the king, but express the 'burden' of his power, the isolation of a superhuman from
humans. In this potent state, as the simemo songs are sung, the king 'bites' medicines to separate the new year from
the old. After further doctoring within his sacred enclosure, the king emerges and is surrounded by his royal
kinsmen 'who sing songs about forsaking the nation and taking off with him' (I966: 398), but then force him back
inside his enclosure. He re-emerges, this time as Silo, a monstrous figure wearing animal fat from the royal herd
(thought to produce madness in others), potent medi-cines, a fat-smeared shield in his left hand, the hand of disorder
and pollution, and nothing in his right, the hand of order. Reluctant to join his people, the monstrous king again
retreats, royal kin and foreigners are sent away, and only then he re-emerges to join his people by throwing a green
calabash to his warriors. The Ncwala has now reached its turning point. The second half of the ritual purges
dangerous medicines and cleanses the nation. The king's mon-strous costume, the remains of the sacrificial ox-bull,
worn-out utensils and garments of the king, are all burned on a pyre, turned to ash, and washed away by rains,
separating the impure from the pure. Only after all such objects of power and pollution are destroyed can order again
prevail in the capital (I966: 400).
Far from being periods when the king is symbolically weak, they mark his assumption of great power. If there is
an aspect of strain, it involves the 'heaviness' and isolation of the king's task (I966: 401)0. Beidelman does not deny
that the main Ncwala theme has political as well as symbolic significance, for the separation of the king from
various groups within his nation is a unifying political act: 'the king must transcend loyalties towards any particular
groups if he is to unify all his people' (I966: 394).3 But he neglects to analyse fully these political principles of
faction and unity, addressing native conceptions of power and purity on their own terms instead. The king is
separated from (and reunited with) his nation to assume the supernatural powers of his position because it 'makes
sense' to the Swazi.
Beidelman follows this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion-a plea for a greater psychological understanding of
ritual action and the efficacy of its symbols (I966: 401-4). To compare Gluckman's and Beidelman's interpretations
of the Ncwala is thus to compare two types of theory; one sociological, the other psychological, one concerned with
(latent) function, the other with (implicit) meaning. Both interpretations, however, are flawed. Gluckman's
'rebellious ritual' inter-pretation is based on an assumed, but by no means demonstrated, correspon-dence between
actual rebellions and their political function, on the one hand, and ritual 'rebellions' and their political function on the
other.

(Kertzer 1988:2).
The functional explanation suggested by the joking relationship is simpler and more direct:
the sacred dispraises of the Ncwala prevent rebellion by strengthening the loyalties between
a king and his public where they are most likely to break down. This focus on the king, rather than
his office per se,also informs the symbolism of the Ncwala as a ritual of purification.

The primary function of the Ncwala is not to protect the kingship, but to strengthen the alliance between the king
and his public; that is, to protect the king himself. Because such protection is not positively enforced by law, it is
ritually main-tained by the religious obligation to perform the Ncwala for the benefit of the nation as a whole. The
Ncwala is in this manifold sense a ritual against rebellion, and this explains why non-participation, from the Swazi
point of view, is regarded as an act of rebellion. The strength of this interpretation is that it builds on Gluckman's
insights but avoids his major mistake. The functional explanation suggested by the joking relationship is simpler
and more direct: the sacred dispraises of the Ncwala prevent rebellion by strengthening the loyalties between a king
and his public where they are most likely to break down. This focus on the king, rather than his office per se, also
informs the symbolism of the Ncwala as a ritual of purification. In fact, most of the symbolism revolves around the
king's body, when it is naked, exposed, secluded or smeared with medicines, and not the office of kingship, which
remains pure. The king's body is even extended to his tinsila, ritual blood-brothers who sicken for the king by
absorbing his dirt. Hence the second meaning of the term insila is glossed by Marwick (1940: appendix II) as 'dirt'.

The value of analysing the Swazi Ncwala as a species of joking relationship is ethnographic and theoretical. The
importance of the king's person, brought out by the joking relationship, corresponds with the identification of the
king's body with the land in what has also been called a First Fruits ceremony. This association between the king's
body and the ritual explains why the Ncwala was not performed during an interregnum, nor when the king was very
young, but rather grew in potency as he achieved physical and social maturity (Kuper I947: 22I). The political
function of the Ncwala as a joking relationship-the mobil-isation of loyalties to the king where structurally they are
most vulnerable-also explains why the ritual was performed before waging battle (I947: 225), for at that strategic
moment the withdrawal of the king's armed support could ruin him and clear the way for his rivals. There remains a
problem of classification. In Radcliffe-Brown's original theory the joking relationship is sanctioned at all times. The
Swazi Ncwala occurs at wide intervals and is prohibited at all other times. It isjust this difference between joking
relationships and what Van den Berghe (I963: 4I3-I4) calls institutionalised licence that prevents him from
considering them both as a common type of social behaviour. But there is nothing a priori in Radcliffe- Brown's
theory that says a joking relationship must operate at all times. Just as some joking relationships are symmetrical and
others asymmetrical, some are between close kin or affines and others between distant clans, we can argue a space
forjoking relationships that operate during specific times only, such as the Ncwala and perhaps many other rituals of
'rebellion' (Gluckman I954; I956; I 963), of 'conflict' (Norbeck I963), and of 'institutionalized licence' (Van den
Berghe I963). At the height of the Ncwala, however, the king is dispraised in exceedingly familiar terms. Praise
and dispraise thus correspond consistently with avoidance and familiarity, and contrast the authority of the king's
office with the power of his person. The Swazi king requires both forms of address from his public: praise to
validate the authority of his office, dispraise to purify his person and revitalise his power.

Robert Dirks Illinois State University
Annual Rituals of Conflict Great rituals of conflict-annual celebrations containing episodes of threat, insult, or
contention - are widely, though sporadically, distributedw orldwide. To accountf or their incidence,p roposi-tions
derivedfr om Gluckman's analysis of Southeast African rituals of rebellion are tested cross-culturally. Results
indicate annual rituals of conflict occur disproportionatelya mong societies situated in environments prone to
seasonal hungera nd possessingp olitical systems strongly in-clined to favor communal over individual decision
making. Analysis suggests that such rites orig-inate in a spontaneous reaction to sudden, drastic uptakes offood
energy.
The cornerstone of Gluckman's thinking was his structural-functional insight: the kingship rites of Southeast Africa
represent rebellion because rebellion is structured into the political systems embracing them. And yet these
ceremonies do more than simply reenact the divisive side of politics. The rituals also serve to reassert fundamental

(Kertzer 1988:2).
unity. This they accomplish by gathering about the throne rivals and potential rebels. Princes and subjects may
oppose their king, but nothing passes either in ritual or in daily life to suggest opposition to monarchy. The
participants themselves see the rites as purifying their king. This, however, was secondary in Gluckman's
view. More important was im-plicit meaning, or function.

Ritual, Politics, and Power. David I. Kertzer
David Kertzer, an anthropologist, has moved outside the fieldwork confines of his discipline to produce a wide-
ranging introductory analysis of political rituals. In successive chapters, Kertzer draws on examples from all over
the world to present the case for studying political rituals and to explore their most important characteristics.
All societies, including our own, conduct politics through ritual manipulation of symbols. Rituals, defined as
"symbolic behavior that issocially standardized and repetitive," (p. 9) include secular as well as religious action;
political rituals are an important means ofproviding large-scale nation-states and other social groups with a clear
symbolic identity.

Rituals have been used by all governments to reinforce their legitimacy.
Important transitions in powerfrom investiture in office to the deaths ofrulers are marked by rituals. The ambiguity
and multifaceted nature of rituals pennit groups with widely divergent beliefs to act together; solidarity without
consensus is the happy product of the American faith in the American Constitution, which Kertzer calls the
"American totem." Rituals are capable of simultaneously expressing contradictory ideas: rituals in socialist
countries, for example, can reveal a well-defined status hierarchy while explicitly glorifying egalitarian ideals.
Although Kertzer's models are drawn largely from anthropology Emile Durkheim is oft-quoted - the author also
taps insights from other disciplines.

While it is refreshing to consider tribal societies alongside bureaucratic nation-states,
one wonders if the differences (reflected in political ritual) between these widely different types of
societies might not be as important as the commonalities.

How are political rituals created, and how do they change? Kertzer vigorously refutes
the notion that the public are passive recipients of rituals created by an elite. He argues that even
the ritual-makers are themselves imprisoned in a cultural nexus that sets constraints
on their range of choice.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Le Carnaval de Romans:
De la Chandeleur au mercredi des Cendres, 1579- 1580.
the carnival of Romans was an urban insurrection encased within a larger peasant war.2 The peasant movement,
which is expertly situated in the longer history of jacqueries, was significantly original in its creative response to
circumstances, its absence of religious motiva-tion, and its "political" critique of the system of privilege.
The new book is less personal, reconstructing the context of a popular rebellion on the basis of a wide variety of
sources, most of them external to the participants. It concerns the "carnival" (Mardi-Gras/Lenten festivities) of 1580
in Romans, a small city in Dauphine: a "renaissance pageant" in which social conflict was danced in festive
masquerades until the notables ended the revels with a real massacre of their plebeian rivals.
The elements of the case-study are splendid. A scourge of military campaigns and taxes brought forth organized
legal appeals and peasant resistance leagues. Conflict was built on culture: belief in provincial "liberties" legitimized
protest; the local diversity of tax assessment sys-tems stimulated thinking about the nature of privilege and opened
the way for a class alliance of bourgeois and peasants against nobles and clergy which prefigured 1789; and an
arsenal of festivals and symbols provided the artisans and peasants with the resources to radicalize the rebellion
beyond the point staked out by educated townsmen. Thus, the carnival of Romans was an urban insurrection encased
within a larger peasant war.2 The peasant movement, which is expertly situated in the longer history of jacqueries,

(Kertzer 1988:2).
was significantly original in its creative response to circumstances, its absence of religious motiva-tion, and its
"political" critique of the system of privilege. Its originality belies Berce's typology of peasant wars as backward
looking and cul-turally monotone. In analyzing the urban revolt, Le Roy Ladurie stresses the element of conflict
even in carnival revelry, which Berce saw as a manifestation of communal unity: "it inevitably implies social
conflicts" (346). He manages to pin down the social identity of the two competing factions by combining a status
hierarchy based on four "estates" with a wealth hierarchy, both derived from tax rolls. On the one hand, the
influence of Thompson and Agulhon is evident in the pursuit of the political uses to which festivals, rites, banquets,
and associations can be put-their active manipulation by the participants-stressing class differences in choice of
symbols, forms, and purposes. On the other, he draws on the work of van Gennep, Turner, Leach, and other
anthropologists to interpret the many levels of symbolic meanings in the Romans activities as part of a broader
tradition of "winter festival" common to Mediter-ranean Europe. There are interesting suggestions, such as that most
strictly carnivalesque activities emanated from dominant elitist associa-tions, especially the practice of social
inversion, and that, on the con-trary, it was the tradition of competitive games of the artisanal coop-erative
associations which made challenges to authority potentially possible.

Carnival and Dialogue in Bakhtin's Poetics of Folklore
Shanti Elliot

The ideals that correspond to folk grotesque images of feasting, violence, and "the material lower bodily stratum"
cannot be understood through the limited scope of convention. The grotesque expresses a pointed reversal of moral
and logical expectations. Carnival reversal implies a change from principles of stability and closure to constant
possibility. Bakhtin notes that folktales usually end not with death-the order that life imposes-but with a banquet, for
"the end must contain the potentialities of the new beginning, just as death leads to a new birth" (1968:283). The
banquet features the collective carnival body, constituted entirely of openings. This openness corresponds to a
cosmic openness: nothing is fixed in Bakhtin's carnival world, and everything is in a state of becoming.

The Philosophy of Carnival
Bakhtin's writing reflects the spirit of carnival: it defies systematic explanation. He imbues his key terms with
unexpected and even shifting, intertwining meanings. In this section, I will fix these mobile terms enough
to indicate the main elements of carnival and their relationship to discourse. By grounding his philosophical
explorations in subversion, laughter, ambivalence, and becoming, Bakhtin emphasizes the dynamic movement
underlying "unofficial" language.
The fullest exploration of carnival in Bakhtin's work is Rabelais and His World (1968).

In this book, Bakhtin argues that Rabelais' 16th-century novel Gargantua and Pantagruel is based on, and can only
be understood through, late medieval-early Renaissance "popular-festive forms. Bakhtin insists that readers can
apprehend the true philosophical importance of Rabelais' book only by listening with the ears of the 16th century,
which were finely tuned to the aesthetics of the grotesque. The ideals that correspond to folk grotesque images of
feasting, violence, and "the material lower bodily stratum" cannot be understood through the limited scope of
convention.

The grotesque expresses a pointed reversal of moral and logical expectations.
Carnival reversal implies a change from principles of stability and closure to constant possibility. Bakhtin notes that
folktales usually end not with death-the order that life imposes-but with a banquet, for "the end must contain the
potentialities of the new beginning, just as death leads to a new birth" (1968:283). The banquet features the
collective carnival body, constituted entirely of openings. The carnival emphasis on orifices, both physical and
conceptual, emphasizes the absence of individual boundaries in the medieval imagination. Mouths, for instance, are
always open, eating and drinking, laughing, shouting: they take in and commune with the outer world and never shut
it out. This openness corresponds to a cosmic openness: nothing is fixed in Bakhtin's carnival world, and everything
is in a state of becoming.

"Official" authority is subverted most of all by laughter, a current of slippery ambivalence. Through laughter, "the
world is seen anew, no less (and perhaps more) profoundly than when seen from the serious standpoint. .. "The

(Kertzer 1988:2).
serious aspects of class culture are official and authoritarian; they are combined with violence, prohibitions,
limitations, and always contain an element of fear and of intimidation.. . Laughter, on the other hand, overcomes
fear, for it knows no inhibitions, no limitations" (90). The peasants' world is a "second world," resistant to the
official world and aware of the power of ambivalence, the simultaneous (and contradictory) value of high and low,
death and life, rich and poor. To emphasize the creative power of carnival imagery, Bakhtin imbues ambivalence
with physical force: carnival abuses, for instance, "while humiliating and mortifying [. . .] at the same time revived
and renewed" (16).

Bakhtin indicates that carnival images of ambivalence were strong enough and cunning enough to hold off, if not the
fearsome official powers themselves, at least the internalization of those powers.
Bakhtin takes the idea of carnival from its agricultural and Christian origins as a promise of new growth, and
expands it to represent "a feast for all the world," "a feast of becoming, change and renewal" (1968: 10). This
universalized image of carnival allows him to develop the concept of the "carnival spirit," which enters modern
culture through the genre of the novel and especially through the work of certain novelists like Dostoevsky and
Rabelais. Thus Bakhtin borrows the flexibility of the value of "becoming" for his own theories: by revealing the
"deep philosophical meaning" of obscene or grotesque carnival images, he traces "carnivalization" through
an enormous variety of genres, specific works, and historical times.

Yet a strict structure always dominates this creativity, which, Lindahl adds, was just as true of the Renaissance
France from which Cajun Mardi Gras evolved. He articulates a common criticism of the ritual reversal celebrated
by Bakhtin: "on the darker side, the lower classes- in duplicating the power structure of their leaders-simply
reaffirmed their submission to the social order" (Lindahl1996:65). Lindahl's study of the "self-imposed rules" of
carnival seeks to fill in the gap of "disorder," created by Bakhtin's image of anarchic "folk humor," with a socially
and historically concrete image of carnival "order."

This new ritual paradigm has more subtle ramifications as well. Traditionally, for example, the legitimate authority
and efficacy of ritual were closely intertwined. For invented rites, which are not deeply rooted in a any shared sense
of tradition, however, legitimacy and authority tend to be construed more lightly and on quite different grounds. For
that reason, perhaps, much greater weight appears to fall on the dimension of efficacy. There is increased pressure
for the invented rite to show that it works; this is what legitimates the rite since there is no tradition to do this.
Of course, the expectations of what it means to work are also not the same as for traditional rituals, for which no one
asked whether the rite worked, just whether it was done correctly. In some societies and cosmologies, correct
performance of a ritual made it effective whether you wanted it to be or not.

The British anthropologist Max Gluckman (19111975) brought two major insights to bear on the study of ritual;
the first modified Durkheimian theory, while the second modified van Genneps approach. Gluckman argued that
Durkheims model of ritual as the projected expression of social cohesion and the unity of the group does not do
justice to the presence, degree, and role of conflict that is always built into any society. Every social system, he
wrote, is a field of tension, full of ambivalence, of co-operation and contrasting struggle. Stressing the difficulty of
actually achieving social unity, Gluckman suggested that rituals are really the expression of complex social tensions
rather than the affirmation of social unity; they exaggerate very real conflicts that exist in the organization of social
relations and then affirm unity despite these structural conflicts. In particular, he pointed to what he called rituals of
rebellion, rites in which the normal rules of authority are temporarily overturned. .

Gluckman suggested that such ceremonies are ritualized rebellions that channel the structural conflict caused by
mens social subordination of women. As such, they have the cathartic effect of releasing social tensions, thereby
limiting discontent and diffusing the real threat contained in such discontent. At the same time, these rites also
function to reinforce the social status quo, since temporary inversions or suspensions of the usual order of social
relations dramatically acknowledge that order as normative. Hence, for Gluckman, instead of the simple expression
of social cohesion suggested by Durkheim and Radcliffe-Brown, ritual is the occasion to exaggerate the tensions that
exist in the society in order to provide a social catharsis that can simultaneously affirm unity and effect some

(Kertzer 1988:2).
semblance of it. The goal of ritual as such is to channel the expression of conflict in therapeutic ways so as to restore
a functioning social equilibrium.

In his study of political rituals, David Kertzer concludes that rites create political reality.
It is by participating in rituals that people identify with larger political forces that can only be seen in
symbolic form. And through political ritual, we are given a way to understand what is going on in the world,
for we live in a world that must be drastically simplified if it is to be understood at all.

Political rituals display symbols and organize symbolic action in ways that attempt to demonstrate that the values
and forms of social organization to which the ritual testifies are neither arbitrary nor temporary but follow naturally
from the way the world is organized. For this reason, ritual has long been considered more effective than coercive
force in securing peoples assent to a particular order.

Whether the social order is overturned andinverted or paraded in strict visual ranks, such symbolic embodiments of
the community suggest its powerful ability to reshape itself.

It appears that ritual is used in those situations in which certain values and ideas are more powerfully binding on
people if they are deemed to derive from sources of power outside the immediate community.

". He addresses important issues concerning how ritual works in building organization, in creating political
legitimacy and solidarity, in understanding the political universe. Also covered is the central role of ritual in political
conflict, and ways in which ritual is central in movements for change."
- Marc Howard Ross, Journal of Politics

"This is a useful book. . . . Part of the usefulness of Kertzer's book is in telling us in numerous ways that ritual is
virtually ignored in the study of modern states and their political processes, especially in the works of political
scientists and sociologists. . . . Kertzer's scope is comparative, using numerous apt illustrations from nonstate and
state societies to explicate his points."
- Don Handelman, American Ethnologist

"In a comprehensive study of political ritual, the author argues that it has always been and will continue to be an
essential part of political life, used to symbolize, simplify, and enhance political messages. Weaving together
examples from around the world and throughout history, the author shows the many ways in which ritual is
employed in politics."
- Presidential Studies Quarterly

Carnival as permanent revolution, and culture as a battleground
where marginal figures endlessly undermine all centers.

Since Bakhtin's death in 1975, his image has shifted from academic philosopher to cult figure. But the Russian cult
is not ours. The aspects of Bakhtin's legacy still most popular among us-the novel as subversive genre, carnival as
permanent revolution, and culture as a battleground where marginal figures endlessly undermine all centers - are
somewhat in eclipse on Bakhtin's home ground. And no wonder, for subversion, revolution, and the myth of a
collective "body of the people" that never hurts or dies no matter how much you torment it, understandably arouse
less rapture in the ex-Soviet Union than in the West. In the growing number of colloquia, lecture series, and
anthologies dedicated to Bakhtin in Russia, attention has been drained away from the heroic maximalism that
characterizes Bakhtin's writings of the 1930s and 40s and is increasingly concentrated on Bakhtin's early and

(Kertzer 1988:2).
unfinished essays from the 1920s, deeply spiritual meditations on the ethics of individuation and personality.
Ryklin's work on Bakhtin contributes to a somewhat different but equally vigorous line of inquiry, one that uses
Bakhtin not so much to recuperate humanism as to explain the appeal, success, and perversions of Marxism-
Leninism. To accomplish that task, two paradigm shifts had to be enacted within the received field of Bakhtin's
thought, both East and West. First, the mystique of carnival had to be rethought and, as it were, demystified.
Collective identity emerges through the gaze and in plastic form it slithers away into representation. ... The tendency
towards collective identity transforms the representation into simulacra: these ecstatic formations do not correspond
to anything; they know nothing external to themselves. Thus, on the pictures and in all the iconography of the Great
Terror, we find not normal visual images but zombies, accumulating death in themselves and, for that reason, hyper-
vital. In contrast to classical images, ever subordinate to the primacy of the prototype event, zombie-images destroy
the very possibility of the prototypical.

African Rituals of Conflict.
Edward Norbeck
This paper presents a description of rites expressing social conflict among various African societies and offers
suggestions concerning their functional significance. In doing so, it examines critically hypotheses and supporting
data presented by Max Gluckman (1954b; 1959), who has provided the only substantial published writings on this
subject. Gluckman discusses rites involving rebellion against authority among societies of southeastern Africa. The
following discussion broadens the geographic area to Subsaharan Africa and enlarges the subject to include many
ritual events not considered by Gluckman. Some of the rites to be discussed lack the element of conflict but are
relevant in other respects. The idea that social conflict may serve important functions in supporting and maintaining
society is fairly old in sociology (e.g., Simmel 1908). The out-standing contemporary work on this subject from
sociology (Coser 1956) mentions anthropological writings only peripherally, drawing from them chiefly examples
of institutionalized expressions of conflict. Anthropologists have not failed to note social conflicts, but they have
generally regarded the conflicts as socially disruptive and have directed their attention chiefly to attempts to
understand causes and modes of resolution. Only in recent years has anthropological thought turned to serious
consideration of the idea that conflict may have positive as well as negative functional aspects. Gluckman's writings
on customs of African peoples are among the earliest anthropological works that present hypotheses concerning
socially integrative effects of expressions of conflict. Gluckman's criticism (1949a: 10) of Malinowski for his
"refusal to see conflict as a mode of integrating groups and to recog-nize that hostility between groups is a form of
social balance" is perhaps the first explicit expression of this point of view by an anthroplogist. Gluckman's
interpretations are unusual in another respect. They are the first writings in the social sciences to set up as a
distinctive class of events rituals that express conflict.
Gluckman has called these customs "rituals of rebellion." He refers to rituals in which rules concerning behavior
toward authority are seemingly abrogated temporarily. These are rites in which rulers and chiefs are reviled,
criticized, and threatened by those subject to their authority, and men are similarly subjected to various ritual
expressions of putative hostility enacted by women, who are their inferiors in authority. Gluckman sees the ritual
enactment of conflicts of interest as a form of catharsis that banishes the threat to disunity imposed by the conflicts.
This is a familiar line of reasoning in sociological writings on the role of conflict. Gluckman, however, goes further.
He holds that institutionalized rites of rebellion may exist only in societies in which the social order is established
and unchallenged. Gluckman states (1954b:21): "The acceptance of the estab-lished order as right and good, and
even sacred, seems to allow unbridled excess, very rituals of rebellion, for the order itself keeps this rebellion within
bounds." In these societies, fundamental conflicts are said to exist despite social stability. The interests of the ruled
do not coincide with those of the total society as personified by the ruler, but the needs of the individual cannot be
met unless he follows the legal and moral mandates of his society to insure peace and order. When kings are ritually
reviled and threatened, the aim is never to subvert the institution of kingship; only the individual ruler is the target of
hate. When women ritually abandon their normal feminine roles to express rebellion against males, their intent is not

(Kertzer 1988:2).
to reject the social order and their position in it, for they are said to make no organized protest except through these
conventionalized rituals.
In the rituals which Gluckman describes and interprets, conflicts are symbolically enacted. The rites are essentially
dramas of conflict, conducted in a presumably religious atmosphere. Gluckman (1959:119) distinguishes between
ritual and ceremonial on the following basis: "These rituals contain the belief that if people perform certain actions
they will influence the course of events so that their group be made richer, more prosperous, more successful, and so
forth. Some of us therefore call these actions 'ritual', and say that they contain 'mystical notions'-notions that their
performance will in some mysterious way affect the course of events.
'Ritual' in this definition is contrasted with 'ceremonial' which consists of similar actions but has no such mystical
notions associated with it." Gluckman's distinction seems useful, but it must often be made intuitively when dealing
with specific examples because ethno-logical accounts give no information on native attitudes toward these rites.
Since information to settle this question is not available, and since it appears useful to consider conflict in a wider
context that embraces certain events lack-ing a religious aura, this unresolvable issue will be set aside. The
discussion that follows concerns principally "rituals" expressing con-flict. It also considers certain institutionalized
acts lacking any apparent evi-dence of conflict but otherwise resembling Gluckman's rituals of rebellion in varying
degree. All of the customs to be discussed may be described as institu-tionalized departures from everyday practice,
norms for special occasions that oppose year-round norms. Most of the practices may be interpreted as direct or
indirect expressions of hostility toward individuals or social groups. Others are not easily seen as expressions of
interpersonal or intergroup conflict. These are customs that allow or require certain individuals, social groups, or the
whole society to violate sexual norms and other important rules of behavior applying at all other times. These
customs have moral significance for the people of the societies in which they obtain. Other institutionalized
deviations from cus-tomary practice included in this discussion have no such evident meaning. They are acts that
constitute sharp departures from everyday norms but do not in any readily perceivable way "violate" rules of
everyday behavior in a moral sense.

For convenience in description and discussion,
the rites may be divided arbitrarily into two major groups, with a variety of sub-types
1. Ritual
Expressions of Apparent Social Conflict a. Between the sexes b. Between superiors and inferiors c. Between kin
groups of bride and groom d. Between formally defined social and political groups e. General, between any persons
holding grievances 2.
Other Institutionalized Departures from Everyday Norms a. With apparent moral significance b. Without apparent
moral significance As may be inferred from examination of their titles, the sub-classes listed above are not wholly
exclusive. Each of the categories will be discussed sepa-rately.
institutionalized African practices, in rit-ual context, that appear to express intergroup and interpersonal conflict.
The scope of investigation was then extended to cover other institutionalized prac-tices on the same or similar
occasions that likewise constitute departures from everyday behavior or ideals. Some of the practices have apparent
moral im-port, and scholars in the social sciences have commonly labeled them "violations" of customs or "license."
Other prescriptions and proscriptions have no readily apparent moral connotations and have not been described by
these terms. All of these events share a common characteristic. All are sharp devia-tions from everyday practice.
Following van Gennep, I suggest that all serve a common function of making memorable and enhancing the
importance of the social occasions upon which they are observed. Beyond this, their functional significance is
doubtless various. Special attention has been given to certain rites appearing to express con-flict which Gluckman
has interpreted as rituals of rebellion. The term "rebel-lion" conventionally means opposition to authority or to
control, and for this reason it seems inappropriate for the rites Gluckman describes.
Although Gluckman (1935:264, 266-67) seems well aware of the importance of these data, his interpretation of
rituals of rebellion proceeds without regard to native attitudes toward the ceremonies. Monica Wilson calls attention
to the impor-tance of having knowledge of the symbolism involved in a Nyakyusa rite of "cleansing the country"

(Kertzer 1988:2).
wherein there is a sham fight. She states (1959:13), "Only if the symbolism of the rituals of kinship is ignored could
this be inter-preted as an expression of rebellion rather than a confession .... " It seems probable, as Durkheim states
(1915:381), that some acts of ritual lack sym-bolic meaning and merely fill the need for action. It is likely, too, that
the sym-bolism of many ritual acts has become lost although the acts themselves are perpetuated and regarded as
necessary. Knowledge of the meaning that sym-bolism conveys to the actors seems nevertheless vital to functional
interpreta-tion. Boulding's view (1962:5) that awareness of conflict is an essential element in its definition seems
appropriate. Nadel (1954:108) states similarly: "In my view uncomprehended 'symbols' have no part in social
enquiry; their social effectiveness lies in their capacity to indicate, and if they indicate nothing to the actors, they
are, from our point of view, irrelevant and indeed no longer symbols (whatever their significance for the
psychologist or psycho-analyst). But let us note that certain modes of acting may be significant for the actors
without constituting symbols, merely because they represent a rule, a formalism of acting, that is, a ritual, and not
accidental or random behaviour." Referring to the Zulu, Loudon states (1959:352) " . .. it is not clear from
Gluckman's account whether or not there is any evidence to show that either the men or the women were conscious
of the symbolism involved in the ritual, insofar as it may be a catharsis." The original accounts also fail to settle this
question. When the participants are aware of conflict-between the sexes, between ruler and ruled, and so on-and we
are apprised of thzis awareness, it seems in order to assign to the ritual the function of expressing and relieving, if
not re-solving, conflict. In some of the cases cited here, the ethnographers have clearly indicated that the rites
convey this meaning to the participants (e.g., see Mid-dleton 1960; Seligman 1932: Evans-Pritchard 1956; Richards
1961 in their dis-cussion under classification e).
Gluckman holds that rites of rebellion may exist only in stable societies wherein the social order is unchallenged and
suggests that political ceremonies of modern England may not take the form of rituals of rebellion because "our
social order itself is questioned" (1954b:30). Various writers (e.g., Richards 1956:117-19; Norbeck 1961:212) have
observed that this interesting idea can-not be verified because we lack objective means of judging whether societies
are stable or unstable. In explaining the near absence of rituals of rebellion among the Lozi, Gluckman (1954b:30)
asserts that their governmental organization provides elaborately for the release of tensions between various
components of the state, whereas that of the southeastern Bantu, the peoples of his principal concern, does not. The
idea that ritual protests are but one of a large variety of safety-valve mechanisms is certainly worth investigating in
connection with Gluckman's hypothesis.
Gluckman asserts that rites of rebellion do not exist within the family and explains their absence in accordance with
his theory concerning the kind of society which can allow these rites (1959:129-30): "The family is not such an
enduring group: it breaks up with the death of the parents and with the mar-riages of the children. It has not the same
sort of cohesion as the other groups. And the basis of my argument is that the licensed ritual of protest and of rebel-
lion is effective so long as there is no querying of the order within which the ritual of protest is set, and the group
itself will endure." This review does not reveal an entire absence of "speaking out" against members of the family.
Wil-son's description (1959:12) of the settling of "family" quarrels in this way refers specifically to mutual
complaints between sisters-in-law and between younger and eldest brother. We have also seen that the BaVenda
man and his mother-in-law may air their grievances against each other.
Discussing Nuer funeral customs, Evans-Pritchard (1956:150) states, " . . . any of the kin of the dead man who bears
a grudge against a relative must now declare it. If he does not do so now, he must for ever keep silence. This is an
occasion for ami-cable settlement of family and kinship quarrels." One of the Azande curing rites requires that
members of the family "hurl the most abusive expressions at the head of the father and mother" (Evans-Pritchard
1958:493). Assuming that customs of mock fighting and mutual derision between men and women represent
generalized protests against the opposite sex rather than hostility between husband and wife, I would amend
Gluckman's statement to say that ritualized expression of hostility between members of conjugal families and other
close relatives is uncommon. I suggest that the explanation of its scarcity in part opposes that put forth by
Gluckman. The economic and emotional interdependence of members of the family, or any other small and closely
knit social group, doubtless serves to inhibit strong intra-group aggression. At the same time, the very intensity of
the bonds of close kinship may allow free-dom rather than repression of the expression of grievances. I have
previously made this suggestion in connection with accusations of witchcraft (1961:195). A similar idea is advanced
by Plotnicov (1962), who holds that the conjugal family, a "fixed-membership group," is an important source of
cultural innova-tions in the new cities of Africa. Because of the strength of the idea that their relationship cannot
easily be ended, members of the conjugal family are said to have considerable freedom of action denied to
participants of "flexible-mem-bership" groups. Rather than attempting to determine whether societies are stable or

(Kertzer 1988:2).
un-stable, it may be more feasible to judge whether they are or are not highly or-ganized socially and politically.
Expressions of hostility in ritual form, firmly regulated, are of course congruous with a social life that is otherwise
highly organized socially and politically. Where other safety valves are inadequate, ritual expressions of hostility
seem most expectable in societies that exercise firm control over the behavior of their members through formal
social units and highly formalized institutions.
Wallace (1959:94) has presented a similar idea in discussing changed psychotherapeutic techniques among Iroquois
Indians: " ... in a highly organized sociocultural system, the psychotherapeu-tic needs of individuals will tend to
center in catharsis (the expression of sup-pressed or repressed wishes in a socially nondisturbing ritual situation);
and . . . in a relatively poorly organized system, the psychotherapeutic needs will tend to center in control (the
development of a coherent image of self-and-world and the repression of incongruent motives and beliefs)." The
relative scarcity of ritual expressions of hostility in societies such as our own appears also to reflect a different view
of the nature of the universe and changed religious conceptions. In culturally simple and scientifically unad-vanced
societies, supernaturalism is put to many uses for which it is unsuited in our society. Diamond (1963:102-03) states:
"Civilization represses hostility... fails to use or structure it, even denies it. . . . Certain ritual dramas [of primitive
peoples] or aspects of them, acknowledge, express, and symbolize the most destructive, ambivalent, and demoniacal
aspects of human nature; in so doing, they are left limited and finite; that is, they become self-limiting. For this, as
yet, we have no civilized parallel, no functional equivalent." Meyer Fortes (1954:90-91) states similarly, " . . . in
primitive societies there are cus-tomary methods of dealing with these common human problems of emotional
adjustment by which they are externalized, publicly accepted, and given treat-ment in terms of ritual beliefs; society
takes over the burden which, with us, falls entirely on the individual. . . . Behavior that would be the maddest of fan-
tasies in the individual, or even the worst of vices, becomes tolerable and sane, in his society, if it is transformed into
custom and woven into the outward and visible fabric of a community's social life. This is easy in primitive societies
where the boundary between the inner world of the self and the outer world of the community marks their line of
fusion rather than of separation." Perhaps there is merit too in the idea that the ritual enactment of conflict lends
color and dramatic interest to the lives of primitive peoples, among which forms of self-expression are limited
(Boulding 1962:306).

If what presently is mistaken for tribalism were understood in its true light as traditional nationalism, a new
awareness could be gained in the effort to build modern and united nation-states in Africa For then the task becomes
one of devising ways and means of positively utilizing the nationalism to build a bridge between the old and the new
and to institutionalize Western values and techniques in Africa without destruction to traditional cultures and
customs. The fact remains that the strength of the transfer of westernism to Africa depends upon how well what is
transferred is anchored on the values and institutions of the African people. As long as tribalism survives as a
concept, it will continue to misrepresent reality before both the person who uses it and the person to whom it is
supposed to refer. As was pointed out earlier, tribe and tribalism were (28) Lloyd, op. cit., p. 302. (29) V. L. Allen, "
The Meaning of the Working Class in Africa ", the creatures of the coloniser ; they did not refer to the reality their
inventor ascribed to ;them, but were used to justify and sustain the ideology and practice of colonialism. Professor
Diamond has correctly observed, " Recourse to the explanatory principle of tribalism is a western reification which
blocks our view of African reality and deflects our attention from our responsibility " (30). True emancipation in
Africa therefore entails not only the effective destruction of colonial domination but the elimination of the concepts
upon which the institution itself rested. Awereness of the fact that Ibo and Yoruba are not just tribes but nations
means too that their members are Ibo and Yoruba nationals respectively, and that the new polity, Nigeria, of which
both nations, along with others, are a part, is not a country in the sense England or France is one, but in the sense
that the United States of America or Switzerland is. Hence the need to see Nigeria's problems in a wider perspective
and to seek their solution in the context of a federation. And finally appreciation of the traditional nationalist
element in Africa challenges any atititude which accepts the boundaries - both geographical, political and economic
created by the coloniser as final. The strength of traditional nationalism may yet alter colonial boundaries, create
new ones as it draws new maps to meet the aspirations and demands of people who find themselves caught up in the
untidy and poorly conceived territories arbitrarily created by the coloniser.


(Kertzer 1988:2).
The history of states in Africa could be said to have been the history of their collusion together the better to capture
the resources of the poor (Wrigley, 1971). It has not been easy. Societal survival has set a double curb on the self-
interested exercise of power. The symmetrical conflicts between those who have sought to profit, no less than the
asymmetrical struggle of those who have resisted, have both helped to shape the cultural codes of a rule of law.
States, it is true, need satisfied ruling classes, as much as dominant classes have needed states. It is arguable that the
need of the common people is as great. States organize the upward flow of resources (MacGaffey, 1970), but that
may be preferable to disorganized flows. Market and community are, simply, different ideologies of social
mobilization. Each is certainly subversive of the other, but only in their dynamics, not because they inhabit
different moral universes. What was the first thing that a Lozi commoner did when civil war disrupted the fabric of
power in 1884? He sold ivory direct to traders, not through his chief; and his chief ruled with a much less certain
hand (Prins, 1980: 134). This brings us back to the relationship between coercion and consent and two final
considerations, one within the class conflict approach to state power, the other within the discourse which contrasts
state and constituent communities, or the state and plural society. If one asks, first, what it is that constitutes the
relative autonomy of the state in capitalist society, then the answer in mature capitalism must stress the compromises
of self-interest imposed upon any one sector of capital by the sheer problem of coalition building within a liberal
framework of representation.
Save for Egypt and Ethiopia, it was argued, Africa was a continent of colonizing societies. Scattered populations
tamed innumerable internal frontiers. Agricultural productivity was low and uncertain. African societies could carry
only lightweight political baggage, the tribal chiefdom. Kinship rather than power mapped out social obligations.
There was insufficient social surplus to support governmental institutions. Law was a matter of mediation rather
than adjudication. If power were exerted beyond mere management, for extraction, it was defeated by secession,
popular protest by political migration. That was the first assumption. Functional social anthropology provided the
second assumption. Social forces tended towards equilibrium. In however simple a society, cross-cutting affiliations
preserved the Peace in the Feud (Gluckman, 1955: ch. 1). A similar opportunity could arise at deposits of scarce but
necessary minerals, salt, say, or iron, as "disorders increased among strangers" who flocked there and mediation
became a resource (Miller, 1976: 272). The most popular explanation for the rise of state power was the growth of
long-distance trade, the Pirenne thesis of medieval Africa. Trade encouraged the growth of distributable wealth, of
skills, of towns with politics, of communications (Grey and Birmingham, 1970; Iliffe, 1979: 52f, both skeptical
accounts). The point of all these hypotheses was that something rather exceptional was needed to explain any
concentration of power in a logically tribal Africa.
The emerging states were held together not by consensus but by coercion. Nor did the Kuba have only one political
theory. They used to argue subversively about their own monarchy (Vansina, 1978: 209). Was it really endowed
with mystic worth? Were kings merely rich enough to have the best charms? Worse still, could they be arch-
sorcerers? Sociological thinking had in any case become more skeptical about the necessary consistency of
ideology. Gellner (1973: ch. 2) even argued that a wholly consistent ideology would make society unworkable. This
symmetrical conflict between dominant elites is perhaps more useful than a model of class domination in explaining
state formation.
From this perspective, dominant strata everywhere in Africa seem to have been very insecure. Not only were they,
as senior members of cultivating or herding communities, subject to the same kind of natural disaster as everybody
else, with a constantly fragile balance between the manpower under their control and the material environment,
holding authority within a dispersed network of legitimacy which was always open to test by the ambitious, but in
West Africa at least there does seem to have been a persistent tension between commerce, and political control
through warfare and tribute. As in our own day, the merchant class was transnational. It did not need states to
supervise business, however much (or little) states may have structured production. It had its own cultural diaspora,
Islam in the interior, secret societies or missionary Christianity along the coast, to create and police a commercial
morality beyond the bounds of kin (Dike, 1956; A. Cohen, 1971; Ajayi, 1965: 51f). The traders of the Niger Delta
were careful to keep political power sufficiently small not to interfere with commercial competition (Dike, 1956;
Jones, 1963; Northrup, 1978). In Senegambia, merchants were quick to withdraw from a polity when a king died; it
was too expensive to get caught up in the politics of succession (Klein, 1968: 19).
No longer so concerned with the idea of the state, historians now seek to explain the rise of particular kingdoms. The
image now is of separate little local international systems, clusters of kingdoms reacting against their neighbors by

(Kertzer 1988:2).
competition in war and trade. If African kingdoms did share a common fund of political ideas, that was because
there is a limited stock of symbols and justifications of human authority anyway.

Library Journal, A Review of Ritual, Politics, and Power
David Steiniche, Missouri
Kertzer credibly argues that political symbols manifested through rites explain much of the political life of modern
nations, contrary to the usual rational, utilitarian, and interest-group explanations. He argues that rituals are not
merely meaningful to the poorly educated, elites use rituals to support the existing order and revolutionaries use
them to replace it. He provides numerous examples from primitive and modern societies (including the United
States).

Choice, A Review of Ritual, Politics, and Power
by T. M. Wilson, United Nations International School
This ambitious analysis of comparative political rituals and myths is both insightful and comprehensive. Kertzer
ably achieves his primary goal of showing the importance of political symbols and rituals for our understanding of
all political systems. An interesting and clear narrative guides readers through the examination of cases from small-
scale nonliterate societies (in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas) to the complex nations (of Europe and North
America). Kertzer uses seemingly disparate examples of symbolic forms and political action - a KKK rally, a
Yanomamo feast, JFKs funeral, and the celebration of the new order in Revolutionary France - to explain the
importance of political ritual for building political organizations, for creating political legitimacy and solidarity, and
for limiting or escalating conflict. His conclusions about the symbolic expressions of power are both persuasive and
stimulating, proving that anthropology has much more than the exotic to offer the other social sciences. Truly a
major work in comparative political culture, this book should be mandatory reading for all undergraduate and
graduate students of politics.

Terence O. Ranger
In this concrete situation of contemporary Africa we are asking what the possibilities are for the powerless and
impoverished masses to participate in the kind of [liberation] theology we described... People at the grassroots react
in face of a growing sense of powerlessness and exploitation. The preponderant reaction is that of people
everywhere who... become convinced that indeed they are... powerless, ignorant, or out of touch with the
mainstream of history. They develop reflexes of inferiority... They try to insulate themselves in a little world of their
own.... [They] are likely to develop strategies of survival that in the long run prove self-defeating. Sometimes they
take refuge in... some type of religious cults, or other distracting hobbies.... People get used to living in a dream
grassroots that have the potential for meaningful change. Kalilombe remarks that "history has demonstrated time and
themselves alone.... As a rule the decisive factor comes from outside." But from whom? Not from local African
prophets, living in their dream world; not from leaders of mass nationalism, "who themselves belong to the powerful
classes" and who now oppress the people in their turn; not even from leaders of armed revolution who have all too
often used "the masses to further their own selfish aims [which] has led the people to become suspicious of any
revolutionary firebrands claiming to join with them for liberation." What is needed is true religious liberation
(Kalilombe, 1984): capable of unleashing a power among those who have hitherto been powerless.... People
begin to think for themselves in a critical way....


(Kertzer 1988:2).
Why Mannoni's "Prospero Complex" Still Haunts Us Christopher Lane

James Heitzman I. Ritual Polity and Economy:
The transactional network of an imperial temple in medieval south india*.
the Ritual Polity The paradigm of the "ritual polity" suggests that cultural meaning may explain the formation of the
early state, the legitimation of its authority, and the spatial configurations of its political units.
Incorporation within large political units involved a gradation from administrative and fiscal control near the center
to an increasingly ritual and theatrical allegiance at the geographic peripheries. This paper builds on the idea of the
ritual polity to show that a pat-tern of ritual integration is a key to empirical study of political and economic
development. The logic of the argument is as follows: Rulers in the ritual polity had to maintain institutions and
participate in events that continually renewed their legitimacy as the upholders of cosmic order. Legitimating
activities could be episodic, such as military campaigns or meetings of the court, but the most important forms of
legitimation were the long-term support of religious institu-tions such as temples or monasteries-concrete
manifestations of the protection of dharma. Let us assume that the organization of ritual integration was rational, that
is, the scale or style of participation of different actors in the system manifested the importance ascribed to
individuals, families or places within the political order. The varying degrees of participation in a ritual state system
could thus indicate variations in the political and economic importance of the par-ticipants. If this assumption is
correct, then we may recreate a picture of political economy by discovering patterns of ritual behavior at the court or
at religious institutions. If the picture that emerges expands our understanding of concrete political or economic
processes, then the ritual polity will prove to be a valuable historical paradigm.
Religious institutions were crucial for linking local systems into larger organizational units; every person or
group who controlled political or economic power joined in patterns of religious patronage. The concept of the ritual
polity thus focuses attention directly on the intermediate and local levels of power, and calls for a clearer
understanding of productive and distributive processes that supported a class society. It puts forward a triangle of
sacred kings, ideological cum religious systems, and localized productive relations as closely allied components in
the growth of early states and economies.

1. Diversity and transformation of African traditional institutions

1.3. Traditional institutions in the post-colonial era

which requires competitive elections as one of its cornerstones (Ntsebeza, 2005).
A popolar view asserts that traditional institutions are indispensable for political transformation in Africa, as they
represent a major part of the continents history, culture, and political and governance systems. This view attributes
the ineffectiveness of the African State in bringing about sustained socio-economic development to its neglect of
traditional institutions and its failure to restore Africas own history (Basil Davidson, 1992). As Dore (n.d.) notes,
when policy neglects history, culture, and social context, huge amounts of effort and resources can be wasted on
poorly conceived initiatives. However, the indigenousness of institutions, by itself, is not a sufficient condition to
enable traditional institutions to facilitate the transformation of social systems. History teaches us that, depending on
their nature, traditional institutions may hinder or facilitate development and democratic transformation and that
these institut ions are not static, as they undergo constant change.
It is likely, however, that political and economic development would be more successful when rooted upon widely
shared institutions and cultural values (Fallers, 1955).


(Kertzer 1988:2).
A third and more balanced view acknowledges the limitations of traditional institutions, that the colonial State
largely transformed chieftaincy into its intermediate administrative institution, and that the post-colonial State often
co-opted chiefs to facilitate the extension of despotic control over its citizens. This view nonetheless recognizes the
fact that traditional institutions constitute crucial resources that have the potential to promote democratic governance
and to facilitate access of rural communities to public services. Among the arguments advanced by this view are
that:
to construct new mixed governance structures since chiefs
serve as custodians of and advocates for the interests of local communities within the broader political structure
(Sklar, 1994; Skalnik, 2004);
e source and raison detre of power is the collective good of all
members of society, provides a strong philosophical basis for establishing accountable governance, (Osaghae,
1987); and
-centralization of power in the hands of predatory States often obfuscates community-based
initiatives and democratic practices at the grassroots, good governance can materialize only through the articulation
of indigenous political values and practices and their harmonization with modern democratic practices (AJID, 1996,
vol. 2, no.1; Ayittey, 1992; Ake, 1987).

Commentary by Cymene Howe
Ritual has an enduring life because it demands a time outside of time, where ones focus, often a collective focus, is
magnified. It is an opportunity to qualify some of the ineffable qualities of human existence in more material,
observable and practicable ways. And in this sense, it is hard to imagine humanity without ritual. In my more recent
research I have been less focused on the canonical forms of ritual and more interested in the ritualized aspects of
political performance and how these may intersect with different forms of spectacle.

Commentary by Barry J. Lyons
The question brings to mind the classic idea that modernity, with its attendant rationalization and secularization,
would lead to the disappearance or irrelevance of ritual, at least religious ritual. Some of the Ecuadorian
disciplinary rituals discussed in my essay have indeed disappeared under the impact of various modernizing
projects. Others, however, have persisted, some of them refashioned or imbued with new meanings in response to
new circumstances. The same modernizing projects that have undermined some rituals have also generated new
ones.

In sum, while there are various ways of acquiring political power, an economic foundation, namely, surplus goods
and labor, is required. Ritual expansion occurs in tandem with political change, both funded by surplus goods and
services. Rituals express and explain the changes that are occurring. Ritual is not a source of political power in the
same manner as the military, the economy, and ideology but rather advances political agendas based on these
intersecting sources of power. It allows ambitious people to modify the worldviews and codes of social behavior that
explain why specific rights and obligations exist (Earle 1997:8, 14358; see Blanton et al. 1996; Wolf 1999:55).3

As actions are reproduced, it is possible for agents to affect change. Traditional rituals are an ideal way for emerging
rulers to insert and justify their own political agendas just because of [their] conservative properties. New political
systems borrow legitimacy from the old by nurturing the old ritual forms, redirected to new purposes (Kertzer
1988:42). Memories associated with . . . earlier ritual experiences color the experience of a new enactment of the
rites. Rites thus have both a conservative bias and innovating potential (p. 12). Thus, such strategic rituals are
successful because they incorporate familiar, traditional beliefs and practices into more elaborate forms that situate
the growing political power of particular interest groups (cf. Bourdieu 1990:10910; Flannery 1972; Weber
1958[1930]:55).
Abrupt or extreme change is much less likely to succeed because new ideas, beliefs, and practices are foreign and
unacceptable. The successful application of acceptable, albeit reinterpreted, family or domestic ritual activities
increases theprestige of sponsors and legitimizes political authority, including rulers control of critical resources
and their ability to acquire surplus from others (Bourdieu 1977: 18384; 1990:10910; Cohen 1974:82; Giddens

(Kertzer 1988:2).
1979: 18895; 1984:25761; see also Webster 1976). Such rituals integrate larger numbers of people than the small-
scale household or community rites from which they derive.

As ancestral cults became linked to networks of exchange, however, tribal leaders did restructure them from
inwardly oriented rituals to events that had bearing on issues of broad regional significance. Sacred rites for an
exclusive circle of men were then reduced in proportion to public celebration, and the interdependence of male and
female principles were more overtly expressed.

Lucero provides a welcome contribution to the issues of ritual and political power. She defines political power as
an ability to exact tribute in the form of surplus goods and labor from subjects. The conclusion that she presents
as a model is plausible, but control of resources and farmers is difficult to demonstrate archaeologically.
What does Lucero mean by control? Does it imply some kind of legal claim or property/usufruct rights? I agree
with her that public rituals played an important role in integrating people politically and in the acquisition and
maintenance of political power.

I congratulate Lucero on this thoughtful exploration of the relationship among resources, people, surplus, and
ritual behavior. In particular, the integrative role of Classic-period Maya ritual is very well illustrated. She shows
that rituals afforded the times and places for rulers to exact labor and surplus production from a dispersed population
with scattered environmental assets. The replication and expansion of traditional ritual provided predictable
opportunities for them to gain political, ideological, and socioeconomic advantage. Ritual fomented the building of
identity, social cohesion, and debt relations, but I question whether it was used to create political integration as
Lucero argues. Her article clearly shows that ritual change occurs in tandem with such integration, but, as much as
one might like to believe that the expansion and replication of traditional ritual profoundly affected the acquisition
of power, the evidence offered seems inconclusive. For this reason, I wonder if early rituals substantially
contributed to the emergent exercise of power or if they were being used as an integrative strategy to enhance
previously existing means of tribute collection.

I agree with this article and Luceros other recent arguments that ritual was a major source of elite power that
gradually developed from household rituals. For decades many Mayanists have been asserting this on the basis of
the clear ideological component in Maya royal power and the replicative structure of Maya society.
The replication of household patterns at elite levels is a standard component of segmentary states and galactic
polities.
This article first reviews these traditional positions, but with more recent references to postmodernist or structural
Marxist theory. the importance of ritual for Maya leaders and the gradual development and increase in scale of
such rituals as Maya centers evolved. The position on ritual power and its origins is sound and widely accepted. The
gradual nature of such developments, however, is contradicted by recent evidence.

Van Gennep (1961 [1959]) and Turner (1969) suggest that the ritual process involves the passage of individuals
from one social state to another in three stages: separation from the group, transition to a new state, and
reincorporation into the group. Rituals commence with relatively private sacramental practices such as offerings
and prayers that establish sacred connections between individuals and ancestors or gods. They end in public festivals
in which ceremonies become stages for materializing social status and promoting community solidarity. In my study
of these dual aspects of Late Classic Maya feasting, I found that the most highly charged political rituals occurred
in restricted civic locations, spatially isolated from communal plazas where the business of state and lineage was
negotiated. Such differentiating practices might help us understand how Maya leaders escalated an ideology that
linked rulers to a sacred supernatural origin. timothy w. pugh

Lucero suggests that rituals serve to integrate people through habitual, ceremonial, and physical manifestations
of a worldview. Many rituals do help to generate solidarity, but they can also entertain, help people to understand
their history and the environment, make biological change appear controlled, help in healing processes, and so on.
Perhaps the most overt characteristic of rituals is their symbolic content, an issue largely overlooked by this paper.
What was the significance of domestic rituals that would have been useful to the creation of larger social
boundaries? Lucero mentions that dedication rites brought ceremonial buildings to life but does not specify what

(Kertzer 1988:2).
was animated. For example, many Maya temple superstructures were dedicated as god houses, a point which raises
several questions. If temples were houses of the gods, is it not reasonable that they would be dedicated as human
houses were without the intervention of aspiring agents? Should not god-house and human-house rituals be
dialectically related? Godhouse consecration involves establishing a link between cosmic planes. Do domestic rites
perform this vital objective?
However, these agents were not investment bankers but shamanic rulers who communicated with supernatural
beings, conducted divination, and chanted religious texts. Shamanism entails not simply another type of ritual
specialist but a different worldview; I doubt that a model derived from industrial capitalism readily explains their
motivations.
This whitewashing of the agent also obscures the fact that ritual knowledge, participation in some events, and
literacy were restricted to certain segments of the population and privileged statuses were generally inherited. Social
stratification certainly puts a damper on ambition. Unfortunately, in archaeology in generalnot just this paper
when one speaks of agents one is usually referring to the ruling class, and therefore I wonder whether the term
really has a positive impact on archaeological theory.

Lucero says in her first paragraph that the acquisition and maintenance of political power come from the
replication and expansion of domestic rituals because rituals draw people together as habitual, ceremonial, and
physical manifestations of a worldview.

Reply lisa j . lucero
Las Cruces, N.M., U.S.A. 7 vi 03
My definition of political power reflects a concern with the specifics of surplus appropriation, and therefore my
perspective is necessarily materialist. Thus, I view resources as preconditions for rather than causes of political
complexity. How surplus is appropriated is, however, another matter in that it has both material and nonmaterial
aspects. This is where ritual comes in. While the role of ritual in politics has long been accepted by many Mayanists
(and other anthropologists), as Demarest states, it has largely been assumed rather than demonstrated. To sponsor
increasingly larger and more public events, one needs wealth. Initially, wealthy individuals pay for them from their
own pockets. Eventually, as they attract clients and create debt relations through gift-giving, feasting, and
ceremonies by providing food in times of need and capital to repair subsistence systems damaged by flooding, and
so on, people come to have few options but to contribute their labor to political leaders.
Material and nonmaterial factors are inextricably and dialectically linked (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1977:18088;
1990:11819). The only way to understand their relationship is by distinguishing them and illuminating them
separately, which makes them appear static rather than dynamic entities. Once we understand the various
factors, the challenge is to discuss them as an integrated, dialectical, and dynamic system. Perhaps I did not meet
this challenge as well as I would have liked (see comments by Rice and Pugh).
Initially, I think, elites use their economic advantage to fund community ceremonies that foster the building of
identity, social cohesion, and debt relations. The critical difference, however, between elites and the earliest rulers
is that there are several elites (wealthy individuals/ families) in any given community but only one ruler. Whereas
elites compensate people for their work, the ruler is able to demand labor without compensation.We can identify the
presence of wealth differences versus a ruler in architecture (e.g., several large houses versus a single palace),
iconography (e.g., depictions of rulers alongside of the gods), writing or recording versus none, evidence of
ceremonies (private royal rites versus traditional rites writ large), and so on. There is evidence, that rituals
existed before elites gained their wealth. If so, then elites expanded traditional domestic and community rituals
initially to promote solidarity and later, under certain circumstances, for political purposes. People not only
participate in creating how traditional rituals are to be writ large but also contribute to their own subordination (e.g.,
Joyce 2000, n.d.; Pauketat 2000). My focus on integration through ritual implies such interaction. Further, tribute
obligations are not the only ones created. With rulership come responsibilities and duties (Scott 1990:104). Rulers
must live up to the idealized presentation of themselves to their subordinates (p. 54), and this may limit or
constrain their power (Inomata).
Pugh also mentions the performance aspects of ritual and their symbolic content and significance. While these topics
are important, my concern is with how rituals bring people together. It is participation in them rather than the beliefs
that revolve around them that promotes solidarity (Kertzer 1988:11, 62). For example, the sociologist Daniel B. Lee,
describing the religious practices of the Weaverland Conference Old World Mennonites of New York and
Pennsylvania, convincingly illustrates that social cohesion does not require the sharing of belief. The symbols and

(Kertzer 1988:2).
rituals of Weaverland Mennonites sustain unity in the group because they completely transcend the individual
beliefs of members (Lee 2000:142).

The important point is to make it look right (p. 5).
Kertzer (1988:67) labels these integrative events solidarity without consensus. In other words, the same ritual
can be explained by different people in different ways. Rituals (and symbols) can and do have multiple meanings
(Cohen 1974:29, 36; Durkheim 1995[1912]:390). While archaeologists cannot elucidate these meanings, we can
reveal the rituals scale and settings. I focused on dedication, termination, and ancestor veneration rites rather than
on community (Inomata), agricultural, water, and other domestic and traditional rituals because they leave clear
evidence in the archaeological record (caches, surface deposits, burials). I am sure that many, if not most, traditional
rites were replicated and expanded to various degrees by elites and later political leadersby the former to allay
conflict and by the latter to promote political agendas. Also, I do not claim that everyone practiced bloodletting
(Aoyama) but only that obsidian items, whatever their function (cutting implements, small versions of eccentrics,
bloodletting knives, etc.) were cached. The point is that people relinquished foreversacrificedvaluable items
acquired through long-distance exchange.

Royal versus traditional rites. I have no doubt that rulers created new rites for their exclusive use; however, I think
that they invented the most exclusive rites after they had achieved power. To acquire power, they used traditional
ones. I agree with LeCount that the two-room structures on temple tops provided rulers the opportunity to perform
secret rituals unseen by the audience below. The audience was quite aware that rulers were conducting rites that
highlighted their special ties to the gods. Afterwards, the king emerged and inaugurated ceremonies and
celebrations. It is important to keep in mind, though, that most of the monumental architecture at major Maya
centers was for public uses and served multiple purposesfestivals, feasts, ceremonies, performances, social
gatherings, alliance building, exchange, ball games, and the reenactment of the Maya origin myth (e.g., Fox 1996). I
am not sure, however, that Maya rulers severed the bonds of kinship . . . and elevated their . . . position to that of
divine lords as LeCount suggests. Royal ancestors were divine, but I do not know about living kingsthough they
undoubtedly had divine qualities (Houston and Stuart 1996).

Completed Project: Economy and Ritual
What is the relation between economy and ritual? Are they separate and opposed parts of life, or are they combined
in shifting ways? We might conceive of a society in which a simple materialist calculus dictates every economic
decision and no resources are allocated to unconnected activities. But no such society exists; as anthropologists have
documented, humans devote time and resources to ritual and other apparently superfluous behaviors. This fact poses
a challenge to standard economics and modernization theories, according to which ritual and other customs impede
efficient action, the expansion of markets, and the exercise of free choice. Our project explores this relationship in
six postsocialist societies by comparing their changing economic forms and rituals in the context of market
expansion.
When new forms of capitalism develop in local communities, do expressive and mutual modes of behavior expand
or decline? When the demands of efficiency increasingly drive material life, do social bonds and ceremonial
moments deteriorate or increase? Modernization theorists would see ritual as an irrationality on the path to a
liberal society; Marxists might see ritual as a mystification supported by the expenditure of a surplus and justified by
an ideology that supports class positions. Neoclassical economists might claim that customs and ceremonies
constitute a negative externality and friction on economic growth.
But it could also be claimed that economic motivations are heightened by the promise of social prestige gained
through expenditures in support of public rituals; a more subtle argument might suggest that ritual has positive
spillovers to economy by the employment it generates and the materials it requires, some of which are destroyed and
must be replenished. Through the social relationships they generate, rituals also can provide a framework of trust
within which self-interested trade and material acquisition may be conducted.

(Kertzer 1988:2).
Other dialectical arguments point to a different connection between communal and acquisitive behavior by
suggesting that ritual may transform market acts to mutuality through converting commodities and services to social
transfers; rituals can bring impersonal wealth to the space of personal interaction. It might even be proposed that
many economic actions are at the same time ritual acts. With this argument, the explanations come full circle:
instrumental acts become expressive behavior. But this conclusion has a dark side, which is Webers vision that
calculative action becomes its own end.

Nevertheless, a cogent argument about the interplay between local conditions and global forces introduces the
notion of multiple modernities. Ritual, on the other hand, is brought to scrutiny, because it is, the Comaroffs suggest
in another wordy exposure of the current vocabulary, a site and a means of 'experimental practice', 'subversive
poetics', 'creative tension' and 'transformative action' (p. xxix). In other words, instead of reducing ritual to a
mechanism of social reproduction and cultural continuity, the contributors seek to analyse ritual as a field where the
forces of modernity are con-tested and transformed by culturally salient practice.

This new ritual paradigm has more subtle ramifications as well. Traditionally, for example, the legitimate authority
and efficacy of ritual were closely intertwined. For invented rites, which are not deeply rooted in a any shared sense
of tradition, however, legitimacy and authority tend to be construed more lightly and on quite different grounds. For
that reason, perhaps, much greater weight appears to fall on the dimension of efficacy. There is increased pressure
for the invented rite to show that it works; this is what legitimates the rite since there is no tradition to do this.
Of course, the expectations of what it means to work are also not the same as for traditional rituals, for which no one
asked whether the rite worked, just whether it was done correctly. In some societies and cosmologies, correct
performance of a ritual made it effective whether you wanted it to be or not.

"Engagingly written . . . this book seeks to correct what the author regards as the widespread tendency among social
theorists to see political institutions as 'simply the outcome of different interest groups competing for material
resources' His discussion of just how ritual can enhance solidarity even without creating shared meanings or
beliefs is an insightful corrective to more conventional interpretive views.
- Robert W. Hefner, American Anthropologist

"Kertzer's discussion of the links between rituals, politics, and power
is challenging, thought provoking, and tightly reasoned."
- Ray C. Rist, Executive Educator

kingship is not killed: why there is ample evidence of assasinations and rebellions, but few revolu-tions.


(Kertzer 1988:2).
them so. Crawford Young has convinc-ingly shown that state sovereignty for former European colonies in Africa
was an afterthought. Rather than accept this conventional wisdom, Herbst calls for a revolutionary reassessment of
the concept of the "sovereign state" in Africa today. He boldly challenges the international communityt o engage in
new think-ing on this matter and to support African intellectuals and political leaders who are willing to design
governmental units adopted. To achieve this outcome, Herbst calls for-with the help of the inter-national
community-opening up intellectual space in Africa, so that Africans themselves can come up with replacements for
failed states. Apart from his argument, Herbst sets out in States and Power in Africa to chart new territory in the
Yet in different epochs there are different oppor-tunities. For instance, it could be and has been argued that African

Terence O. Ranger
Kalilombe remarks that "history has demonstrated time and again that peasants' potential for bringing about
meaningful and lasting change is rarely activated from within themselves alone.... As a rule the decisive factor
comes from outside." But from whom? Not from local African prophets, living in their dream world; not from
leaders of mass nationalism, "who themselves belong to the powerful classes" and who now oppress the people in
their turn; not even from leaders of armed revolution who have all too often used "the masses to further their own
selfish aims [which] has led the people to become suspicious of any revolutionary firebrands claiming to join with
them for liberation."

the gods must be crazy
ritual revolt
for black africa

Ritual Revolt The Gods Must Be Crazy.

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He argues that rituals are not merely meaningful to the poorly educated,

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