University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

A Critical Study Of Murngin Dramatic Ritual Ceremonies And Their Social Function

(USC Thesis Other)

A Critical Study Of Murngin Dramatic Ritual Ceremonies And Their Social Function

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 69-9022 i GOODMAN, Lawrence Peter, 1933- A CRITICAL STUDY OF MURNGIN DRAMATIC ( RITUAL CEREMONIES AND THEIR SOCIAL I FUNCTION. I £ I University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1969 Speech-Theater University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan (C) LAWRENCE PETER GOODMAN 1969 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A CRITICAL STUDY OF MURNGIN DRAMATIC RITUAL CEREMONIES AND THEIR SOCIAL FUNCTION by Lawrence Peter Goodman A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication— Drama) August 1968 UNIVERSITY O F SOU TH ERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by under the direction of hx&.... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R OF P H IL O S O P H Y .■Lawrence. .Peter__G.QQdrnan f'Jn o Dean Date. To my wife, Helene, with love. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 The Problem Statement of the Problem Importance of the Study Limitations of the Study Methodology, Techniques, and Procedures Methodology Techniques Procedures Definitions of Terms Drama and Dramatic Social Structure, Social Organization, Social Function Open-System Theory Criteria Drama Anthropology Review of the Literature Introduction Anthropology— Early Works Drama Murngin Dramatic Ritual Organization of the Remaining Chapters The People The Land Kinship System Marriage Nuclear Family— Daily Activities Organizational Units The Clan The Horde The Moiety The Phratry and the Tribe Economic System Religion II. MURNGIN SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 89 iii Chapter Magic and Sorcery Norms and Values— Social Control Warfare III. MURNGIN MYTHOLOGY Introduction Dj anggawul Laxntjung and Banaitja Wauwalak Sisters Cycle Summary IV. MURNGIN RITUAL CEREMONIES: DRAMATIC ASPECTS Introduction The Ceremonies dua nara jTritja nara djung^awon kunai ngurlmak Dramatic Aspects Aristotelian Elements Plot Character Thought Diction and Melody Spectacle Theatral Area Scenery and Properties Costumes and Makeup Music and Dance Producers, Directors, and Actors Audience V. MURNGIN RITUAL CEREMONIES: SOCIAL FUNCTION Introduction Environmental Setting Religion dua nara and jiritja nara Hjunggawon, kuiiapipi, ngurlmak Age-Grading Kinship Economics Norms and Values— Social Control Ritual Symbols Synthesis Page 117 135 180 Chapter Page VI. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND Summary Conclusions Implications Suggested Further Research Form Function Psychology General SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH 204 BIBLIOGRAPHY 224 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION At the beginning of the nineteenth century man's efforts to unravel the mysteries of his remote past seemed blocked by the lack of usable data and inadequate methodolo gies . The earliest known languages were Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; no records which had been written down earlier than about 600 B.C. could be read or understood. All that was known of the earlier civilizations of the Near East was limited to those parts Of the Old Testament which seemed historical and to the garbled accounts of Greek and Roman writers. The first deciphering of the Rosetta Stone in 1821^ opened a period of approximately eighty years during which time the entire concept of man's early beginnings was radi cally altered by new discoveries or re-discoveries in many ■^Michael Ventris, "Deciphering Europe's Oldest Script," The Treasures of Time, Leo Deuel, ed. (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1961), p. 305. 2 Oscar Ogg, The 26 Letters (New York: The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1948), pp. 43-49. N.B. Dr. Thomas Young made the first progress toward deciphering the Rosetta Stone in 1821 by establishing sound values for six of the hieroglyphs. The bulk of the work was done later by the Frenchman, Jean Francois Cham- pollion, aided by his son. 1 fields. "More early scripts came to be read, and their lan guages understood, Old Persian, Elamite, Assyrian, Sumerian, Mitannian, many of them completely unsuspected by earlier generations of scholars." "In 1856, workmen excavating a quarry came upon some obvious human remains in the Feldhofer cave at Neander thal."^ The discovery of the Neanderthal man established the existance of some type of human on the European conti nent as early as 70,000 to 80,000 B.C.5 That man was very old on the earth and that he was now significantly different from his Neanderthal ancestor posed new questions. One answer to them was proposed almost immediately when, in 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species.6 His theory of evolution, whether supported or violently opposed, remained central to the "origin"7 question throughout the balance of the century. In another field, the romantic archeologist, Hein ^Ventris, loc. cit. ^Ivar Lissner, Man, God, and Magic (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1961), pT 178. 5Ibid. 6Charles R. Darwin, On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of FayorecT Races in the Struggle for Life (London; J. Murray, 1859). 7The concept of "origin" has been completely rejec ted for many years. The term appeared in this study only in |the historical sense as applied to scholars who worked with this concept. rich Schliemann, linked myth to reality and legend to fact, by using Homer's Iliad to help him discover Troy in 1871. The Turkish town of Bournarbashi had been almost universally designated as the site of ancient Troy. However, Schliemann rejected it because it was eight miles from the Hellespont, "whilst all indications of the Iliad seem to prove that the distance between Ilium and the Hellespont was very short."® He also noted that it would have been impossible for Achil les to have pursued Hector around the walls of Troy at that location. The site finally chosen was a hill called Hissar- lik. It was the right distance, only three miles from the Hellespont and perfectly matched in all other respects the g "topographical requirements of the Iliad." Hissarlik proved to be the correct site. Schliemann1s success at Troy was one example of a growing belief that certain myths, legends, and rituals of the past possessed a certain truth or validity. This became one of the main theses of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough.First published in 1890, it grew in size in subse quent editions until it finally reached twelve volumes. In this massive work Frazer collected a large body of classical ®Heinrich Schliemann, Ilios, The City and Country of the Trojans (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881), p. 19 0. ®Ibid., p. 191. ■*-®Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (London: Mac millan and Company, Ltd., 1890). mythology along with as much anthropological data on the myths and rituals of "primitive and savage" peoples as was then available. He arranged this material to try to point out certain recurring patterns and practices that were com mon to all men in all times as well as to try to trace an evolutionary process. Frazer made available a great amount of raw material that was not previously easily accessible. The material and theories influenced a number of scholars in many fields including literature and drama.H The events that have been briefly indicated above: the ability to read texts of pre-Greek civilizations in the Near East, the concept of evolution, especially unilineal cultural evolution, the use of anthropological data of extant primitive societies linked with the notions of common myths and rituals, made it possible for scholars in the field of drama to develop new theories for the "origins" of drama that utilized data and methodologies unknown a century earlier. In the first decades of the twentieth century a num ber of theatre scholars used the then young science of anthropology to explain the "origins" of drama in a new way, as an evolutionary development from primitive myth and ritual. The principal adherents of the ritual theory were the members of what became known as the Cambridge School of ^See Review of the Literature, infra, p. 48. Classical Anthropology.12 Their theory, in brief, was that the form of classical drama evolved from certain primitive rituals surrounding cyclical fertility ceremonies which fre quently took the form of a contest or combat (agon) between the old and the new.12 If their work was imperfect because of inadequate data and methodology, it was still vital, imaginative, and some of it as later research proved was very sound even if the original theories had largely been intuitive. Opponents of the ritual theory launched a scholarly counterattack and the battle was waged quite fiercely for a time. By the late 1920*s interest had waned, perhaps because all that could be done at that time had been done. The "battle" ended inconclusively. The ritual theory had been shown to have certain weaknesses and inaccuracies, but the opposition had been unable to posit any other theory that could gain general acceptance. In recent years ritual and early drama has not been a major research topic in the field. The relatively small amount of work undertaken has not produced much in the way of additional support for older theories nor has it devel oped completely supportable new ones. The entire area of 12The leading members of the Cambridge School of Classical Anthropology were: Jane Harrison, Gilbert Murray, F. M. Cornford, and A. B. Cook. 12For a complete explanation of the ritual theory £ee Review of the Literature, infra, pp. 53-62. early drama and its sources has been quickly dismissed with vague generalities in many current texts, wanly reflecting the scholarly inconclusiveness of the early years of this century. The ritual approach of the classical anthropolo gists has not been in favor. However, with the advances of the last fifty years, the use of social anthropological theory may be the most promising avenue open to the theatre scholar who is interested in a fuller understanding of early drama. The major contributions of theatre scholars who developed the ritual theory over half a century ago provided the foundation for this study. The modern discipline of social anthropology provided theory, methodology, and data necessary to advance their work through modification and re- evaluation. The Problem Statement of the Problem In order to modify and reevaluate the ritual theory of the Cambridge School the following general hypothesis was reached. 1. There are striking similarities of form between primitive ritual ceremonies and the art form called drama (considered to be the work in production). Within a very broad formal definition there are many specific forms of jritual as there are of drama. Whereas the ritual theory 7 focused on two specific forms, one for Greek tragedy and one for Greek comedy, investigation will show that there is a wide variety of ritual forms, many of which could, in a cer tain society, in a certain time and place, provide the source for a particular type of dramatic form. 2. The important concept of social function was not considered by the Cambridge School. The only functional attribute of these rituals, in their eyes, was religious and when this function waned the "empty" form was filled in a new way to become drama. In an unspecialized primitive society ritual ceremonies perform multiple functions. If we consider the emergence of drama as a process then many of these functions would carry over for a time and an under standing of the multiple functions of ritual ceremonies will aid in a similar understanding of early drama. The general hypothesis was too large to be tested within the strictures of a doctoral dissertation. A more specific topic was selected within the framework of the gen eral hypothesis. It was a critical analysis of the dramatic form and social function of the ritual ceremonies of a single primitive society. The society selected for this study was not chosen at random nor was it chosen because its ritual ceremonies were particularly suitable. Some three to four hundred societies were considered when the preliminary research !began. The list was narrowed by applying the following criteria. 1. The society was to be at the most primitive level. This was defined as pre-literate, pre- technological, and having no agriculture or ani mal husbandry. These societies were hunters and gatherers. 2. The society was to be still in existence with a population of some numbers and to have been studied while their indigenous culture was rela tively intact. 3. The society was to have been studied by modern social anthropologists and the bulk of their work was to have been written in English. At this point there were still several societies remaining, any one of which would have served the purposes of this study. The society chosen was the Murngin because of the author's acquaintance with C. M. Bowra's Primitive Song-^ in which several of the Murngin ritual songs were presented in translation. The Murngin were a society of Australian aborigines who lived on a government reserve in the North Territory. Once selected the specific purpose of this study was to identify and describe the ritual cere monies practiced by the Murngin and to critically analyze these ceremonies in terms of their dramatic form and social •^C. M. Bowra, Primitive Song (New York: The New American Library, 1963). function. In order to structure this study the analytic process was broken down into a series of questions to be answered. 1. Who were the Murngin and what was their social organization? 2. What was the Murngin mythology from which mate rial used in the ritual ceremonies was drawn? 3. What were the major Murngin ritual ceremonies? 4. What was the form of these ceremonies in terms of the Aristotelian elements: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle? 5. What was the form of the physical production of these ceremonies: the theatrical area, scenery, properties, costumes, makeup, music, and dance? 6. Who were the participants in these ceremonies, the producers, directors, actors; how were they trained, and in what manner did they carry out their tasks? 7. What were the social functions of these cere monies? Importance of the Study This study was undertaken because it formed a small part of a very large and important problem, that of the emergence of drama as an art form from other ceremonies which were dramatic, but which were not drama. 10 The concept of "origins" has been completely rejected for many years and the modern scholar thinks instead in terms of an ongoing process. It was convenient to hold to the Thespis-creator theory; that on one day in 534 B.C. he became an actor and created drama. Granting the theoretical position of H.D.F. Kitto and Gerald Else that Thespis made a "creative leap"-*-^ and granting that in the Greek society there was a reasonably rapid transition from dramatic ritual to drama at this time, still Thespis' con tributions could have only been one step in what must have been a long process, one which continued on after Thespis' innovations. Because of the great scholarly interest in classic Greek civilization there has been a great deal of research and speculation centering around the emergence of drama. Long years of investigation using principally the historical method have not provided certain answers because of the lack of data, and it seemed that a completely satis factory solution could not be found. As has been pointed out nineteenth century scholar ship in many fields provided new data and new methodologies for theatre scholars interested in this problem. Cultural evolution, myth, ritual, and anthropological data on primi tive ritual ceremonies led to a number of new theories by ^See Review of the Literature, infra, pp. 78-80. 11 Loomis Havemeyer,^ Sir William Ridgeway,^ and the Cam bridge School of Classical Anthropology. Over a half cen tury has passed since then. There has been no major reeval uation of this work. It has been discarded as if it had been totally disproved, which was not the case. Not only has recent scholarship in the field of drama failed to modify these works concerning early drama, but it has not taken into account the recent advances in the field of anthropology which might be of help. Today's anthropologist has a wealth of data that was unknown fifty years ago, and more important, new methods for a more so phisticated interpretation of that data are available. It would seem that a more meaningful theory of the emergence of drama might be supported in light of the current develop ments in this field. In a recent article, H. B. Menagh closed by saying, "that to find the origins of what is now known as theatre in the varieties of what is assumed to be primitive theatre is of questionable validity."-'-® Menagh's conclusion, it seems, was based on the lack of a way to utilize available data and ^Loomis Havemeyer, The Drama of Savage Peoples (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19l0). ■^William Ridgeway, The Origin of Tragedy (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916). 18H. B. Menagh, "The Question of Primitive Origins," Educational Theatre Journal, XV (October, 1963), 240. 12 a reluctance to turn from a reliance on the historical method. The modern social anthropologist looks upon ritual ceremonies not as isolated acts, but places them in the con text of the total society. One of his methods is to study the interaction between the ceremony and the group. What are the functions of a particular ceremony in that group? What is its useful purpose? How are the beliefs and values of the group expressed? This is a meaningful way to under stand the nature of dramatic rituals. Once we have shown the close similarity between dramatic ritual and drama and if we consider that the group or society is also an audi ence, then this method may yield meaningful insights into the nature of drama. An underlying hypothesis of this study was to view drama as a social act and to use the tools of the social anthropologist to help create a bridge between dramatic ritual and drama. This study was undertaken as a pilot project, a first step, and considered only one tribe, the Murngin, to show fully the dramatic nature of their ritual and its social function. It was hoped that the implications of this study would be threefold: (1) That the methodology developed, i.e., social function applied to drama, would be promising enough to warrant additional investigation with other soci eties with the idea of increasing its validity as a critical 13 tool; (2) That once established as a useful critical tool, social function can be used to support a more meaningful theory of the process that led to the emergence of drama; (3) That the analysis of drama in terms of social function will be a meaningful addition to the study of drama of any period. The historical method has not produced a completely supportable theory to account for the emergence of drama, and barring the discovery of some as yet unknown cache of documents, it cannot. However, those points established by the use of this methodology must not be ignored. It was hoped that a critical method could be developed which would on the one hand accommodate the incontestable historical data, and on the other integrate valid data of a different sort, to eventually produce a fuller and more acceptable theory. Limitations of the Study This study was conducted with the inherent limita tions of the critical method in mind. The method tends to be qualitative rather than quantitative; it is always neces sary to compromise between significance and rigor; and finally, the critical judgments are largely subjective. These limitations did not unduly affect this study. The amount of significance sought was small; so the study was conducted with a reasonable amount of rigor, and since there 14 was no attempt at broad significance, the qualitative nature of the methodology was acceptable. Certain limitations of this study have been indi cated in the statement of the problem; a limitation to one society, the Murngin, and a consideration of only two seg ments of a larger question, the dramatic nature of the ritual and its social function. There were a number of related topics that were excluded from this study. (1) The reasons for the "mimetic instinct" or "histrionic impulse" in man were not considered. (2) There was no attempt to link this study to Greek drama. (3) The psychological effect of these ceremonies on the individual was not consid ered. Although this was a valid line of inquiry, it was felt that a sociological analysis was sufficient considering the goals of this study. Consequently, criteria were devel oped, drawing on the works of Victor W. Turner, to provide an analytic system entirely based in sociology. Ely Devons and Max Gluckman supported Turner's formulation. He [Turner] maintains that the sociological relations of ritual symbols form a sufficiently autonomous system to be analyzed independently of the psychological aspects. His essay validates this contention; sociological analy sis of symbols is penetrating on its own.^ Ely Devons and Max Gluckman, "Conclusion," Closed Systems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety in Social Anthropology, Max Gluckman, ed. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964), p. 215. 15 Methodology, Techniques, and Procedures Methodology The critical research method was used in this study because both parts of the problem, the determination of the dramatic nature of the ritual ceremonies and the analysis of them in terms of their social function, called for an evalu ation of the events in relation to criteria or standards of judgment. The method has been defined by Milton Dickens in the following manner. The critical method is a research plan to evaluate con temporary or historical events by applying selected cri teria to the direct or report observations of those events.2^ In order to carry out a study using the critical method the following steps must be taken once the problem has been stated. Design the research by adapting or creating appropriate criteria and by planning how to use them; control the factors involved in assembling and studying the relevant data; evaluate the phenomena by observing them in rela tion to the criteria; and draw conclusions from the data as evaluated. The following techniques and procedures were adopted and followed in this study. 2®Milton Dickens, "Tentative Definitions of Some Common Research Terms," 1964. (Mimeographed.) 21Elton S. Carter and Iline Fife, "The Critical Approach," An Introduction to Graduate Study in Speech and Theatre, Clyde W. Dow, ed. (East Lansing, Mich.; Michigan State University Press, 1961), p. 83. 16 Techniques 1. Surveying significant books and articles in the fields of anthropology and drama dealing with ritual and the development of drama from ritual. 2. Surveying significant books and articles in the field of anthropology dealing with social organiza tion, social structure, and social function. 3. Surveying all books and articles dealing with the Murngin, their social organization and the specific ritual ceremonies to be studied. 4. Corresponding with anthropologists who have done field work with the Murngin to try to obtain nonpub lished data. 5. Viewing all possible iconographic material: film, photographs, drawings, and recordings. Procedures 1. From the material surveyed, anthropological works which greatly influenced dramatic theorists were analyzed. 2. All ritual theories of the "origins" of drama were examined and their strengths and weaknesses anal yzed. 3. Criteria were established to evaluate the dramatic nature and social function of the Murngin ritual ceremonies. 17 4. The Murngin social organization was described to provide a setting for the rituals to be studied. 5. The Murngin mythology was discussed as source mate rial for the ritual ceremonies. 6. The major Murngin ritual ceremonies were evaluated as to their dramatic aspects and their social func tion by the criteria established. In this manner it was hoped to provide a cogent log ically organized plan which would lead from the general problem of the emergence of drama from ritual to a consider ation of a single example utilizing data and methodology not previously brought to bear on this problem. Successful con clusions to support the specific hypothesis put forth might lead to further research in applying this methodology and its implications to the general problem of which this study was only a small part. Definitions of Terms Terms were defined in a purposeful way to make the critical comparison of dramatic ritual and drama most lucid in relation to form and function. Drama and Dramatic.— BOSWELL. 'Then, Sir, what is poetry?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.' Drama shares with poetry the difficulty of defining 18 itself in such a way as to include everything that we know to be drama and to exclude everything else. For the pur poses of this study definitions were needed to distinguish between dramas and ritual ceremonies which were dramatic, but were not dramas. Central to this definition of drama was Aristotle's phrase that drama was "an imitation of an action."22 g. H. Butcher has explicated both terms. Imitation . . . is a creative act. It is the expression of the concrete thing under an image which answers to its true idea. To seize the universal, and to reproduce it in simple and sensuous form is not to reflect a real ity already familiar through sense perceptions; rather it is a rivalry of nature, a completion of her unful filled purposes, a correction of her failures. Action was defined as follows. The action that art seeks to reproduce is mainly an inward process, a psychical energy working outwards; deeds, incidents, events, situations, being included under it so far as these spring from an inward act of will, or elicit some activity of thought or feeling. In addition Aristotle considered that drama must be capable of being performed before an audience and that there must be some sort of emotional involvement by that audience. If we add the six elements of drama found in Chapter VI of The Poetics: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and 22S. H. Butcher, trans. and ed., Aristotle1s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art with a Critical Text and Translation of the Poetics (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951), p7 7 T. 22Ibid., p. 154. 2^Ibid., p. 123. 19 spectacle,2^ we still do not have a complete definition of drama, because we have only considered form. Applying only the above criteria, a ritual ceremony might still qualify as would many television commercials. In order to complete a definition we must consider the function of drama as well. Drama is an art form, and as all arts are, is uniquely separated from other activities which are a part of on-going life. Art is non-useful in the sense that it does not have to be acted upon by the viewer, his immediate response is the end of the process with no requirement to carry it on into his life activity. Jane Harrison, in making the distinction between art and ritual, succinctly states this last element of a com plete definition. The distinction between art and ritual which has long haunted us now comes out quite clearly, and also in part the relation of each to actual life. Ritual, we saw, was a re-presentation or a pre-presentation, a re-doing or a pre-doing, a copy or imitation of life, but— and this is the important point,— always with a practical end. Art is also a representation of life and the emo tions of life, but cut loose from immediate action. Action may be and is often represented, but it is not that it may lead to a practical further end. The end of art is in itself. Its value is not mediate but immediate.® Harrison was referring, of course, to the nature of the aesthetic experience, which is the primary function of 2®Ibid., pp. 23-29. 2®Jane Harrison, Ancient Art and Ritual (London: [Oxford University Press, l9l6) , p. 135^ 20 art. That a work under discussion may have multiple func tions is a problem that is confronted frequently in assess ing such things as patriotic pageants, agit-prop drama, and religious plays. It should be sufficient to say that all other requirements being met, if a work in question is judged to have primarily aesthetic functions then it can be considered to be a drama. The term dramatic has a much wider scope. Noting that people used this expression carelessly George Pierce Baker distinguished drama from dramatic. In popular use this word [dramatic] means material for the drama, or creative of emotional response, or per fectly fitted for production under the conditions of the theatre . . . we shall see that dramatic should stand only for the first two definitions, and that theatric must be used for the third . . .use dramatic only as creative of emotional response and the confusion will disappear.27 Limiting the use of the term dramatic to mean creative of emotional response was very acceptable. To summarize then: for the purposes of this study the following definitions were used. Dramatic was defined as any activity that is capable of creating an emotional response. Drama was defined as a specific form of dramatic activity. It is an imitation of an action, capable of per formance before an audience, that can elicit some sort of emotional response from that audience and whose function is 2^George Pierce Baker, Dramatic Technique (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919) , p. 87. 21 primarily aesthetic. Social Structure, Social Organization/ Social Func tion.— The terms social structure, social organization, and social function are basic to the field of social anthropolo gy. These terms were used for a number of years without specific definitions by many anthropologists and other social scientists. In a work on social structure A. R. Rad- cliffe-Brown traced the early use of these terms. [My] . . . theory can be stated by means of three funda mental and connected concepts of "process", "structure", and 1 1 function.1 1 It is derived from such earlier writers as Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer and Durkheim and thus belongs to a cultural tradition of two hundred years. 8 These concepts are interrelated but they are separable as Raymond Firth illustrated in the following brief definition. In studying a field of social relations, . . . we can distinguish their structure, their function, and their organization. These are separable but related aspects. All are necessary for the full consideration of social process. Briefly, by the structural aspect of social relations we mean the principles on which their forms depend; by the functional aspect we mean the way in which they serve given ends; by the organizational aspect we mean the directional activity which maintains their form and serves their ends.29 When we consider structure as "principles on which forms depend" it is obvious that those elements which make up that which is called structure must be abstract in nature. 28a. r . Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1932), p. 14. ! 2^Raymond Firth, Elements of Social Organization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 28. 22 Radcliffe-Brown first used the concept of social structure in 1914. The following definition comes from one of his last works, an unfinished introduction to social anthropol ogy. Social structure, therefore, is to be defined as the continuing arrangement of persons in relationships defined or controlled by institutions, i.e.. socially established norms or patterns of behaviour.^0 The French anthropologist, Claude LSvi-Strauss, also stressed the abstract nature of structure. "The term social structure has nothing to do with empirical reality but with models which are built up after it."^! An important aspect of social structure is to give continuity to a society. Continuity is expressed in the social structure, the sets of relations which make for firmness of expecta tion, for validation of past experience in terms of similar experience in the future. 2 Social organization is that activity "which main tains forms (structure) and serves ends." If structure is abstract, then organization is concrete. Generally, the idea of organization is that of people getting things done by planned action. Certain resources of the group are expended to reach certain desired ends. This implies choice and decision, certain value judgments must be made. 3^A. Radcliffe-Brown, Method in Social Anthropol- ogy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958) , p. 177. ^Claude L§vi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1963), p. 279. 32Pirth, op. cit., p. 40. 23 In the aspect of organization is to be found the varia tion or change principle— by allowing individual evalua tions of situations and the entry of individual choice.33 Social function is the way in which social activi ties "serve given ends." The functionalist approach to society while not ignoring structure and organization gave primary emphasis to the means-ends relationship, the satis fying of needs in the organized group situation. Bronislaw Malinowski saw society as a "system of objects, activities, and attitudes in which every part exists as a means to an end."34 These ends were the satisfaction of human desires which included more than mere biological needs. Function was defined to encompass a wide range of human activity. Function means, therefore, always the satisfaction of a need, from the simplest act of eating to the sacramental performance in which the taking of the communion is related to a whole system of beliefs determined by a cultural necessity to be at one with the living God. Malinowski considered that there was a direct rela tionship between form and function. "It is impossible to isolate the material aspect of social behaviour, or to develop a social analysis completely detached from symbolic aspects."36 This was the most important precept of func tionalist theory; that no social action or trait can be 33ibid., p. 40. 34Bron^s^aw Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Cul ture (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 150. 35Ibid., p. 159. 36jkid., p. 152. 24 studied in isolation. It only derived its meaning from its function, "the part it plays in an interacting system. We have thus established that the totality of a cultural process . . . artifacts; human social ties . . . and symbolic acts . . . is a totality which we cannot cut up by isolating objects of a material culture, pure sociol ogy, or language as a self contained system.^8 For the purposes of this study the following defini tions were used. Social structure was defined as those con tinuing forms or relationships in a given society which serve as norms or expected patterns of behaviour. Social organization was defined as those group activities, which through choice and decision, expend resources to lead to certain desired ends. Social function was defined as the relation between any social action and the entire system of which that action is a part. - f Open-System Theory.— Malinowski's concept of func tionalism could be completely operative only if we consid ered a society or social structure as a closed system. That is, to think of it as a model constructed according to the laws of Newtonian physics; conservation of energy, action- reaction, etc. In such a system every social action must cause a readjustment of the totality and the interrelation of an action to the whole is obvious. However, for many reasons, social structures are not 37pirth, op. cit., p. 33. ^Malinowski, op. cit., p. 154. 25 closed systems and any closed-system theory suffers from a basic weakness; the map does not accurately describe the territory. This is true of functionalism, behaviourism, and the Gestalt-based field theory.^9 In recent years, in order to deal principally with structural change and with people in a system as a group (as opposed to the psychological ori entation of the individual to the system), a number of sociological theorists having been moving toward what Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn call open-system theory.^® The open system is an energetic system, one that maintains itself through constant commerce with its environ ment, i.e., a continuous inflow and outflow of energy through permeable boundaries. This is a familiar concept to biological theorists and is easily applied to any living organism. J. G. Miller^ and other general systems theorists have used the input, through-put, output concept to study social organizations. With an acceptance of the open-system approach boundaries (structure) need to be defined in a 39 It was not intended to dismiss social function as an important analytic concept, but to point out that in ap plication it was not rigidly mechanistic and much more com plex than envisioned by Malinowski. ^Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psy- chology of Orgahizations (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 19^6)T---------- ^J. G. Miller, "Toward a General Theory for the pehavioral Sciences," American Psychologist, X (1955), 513- 531. 26 different way. F. H. Allport considered structure as a cycle of events which return in a circular manner to rein state the cycle.^ A social organization would be made up of many such cycles interrelated in a complex fashion. The most elaborate and completely developed open system is that of Talcott Parsons.Although he called his approach "structural-functional" he was concerned with what he called the "action level," man or men moving through the system. He has delineated many, many subsystems only hinted at by Allport, and provided a conceptual apparatus extensive enough to use in the analysis of complex social organiza tions . An open system may be defined by listing some of its characteristics. There is the input, transformation, and output of energy. The systems or structures are cycles of events. There is a storing of energy at times to prevent the system from running down (negative entropy). The system is not at equilibrium, but rather achieves a steady state from a reasonable balance between import and export of energy, and because of this from time one to time two it is not the identical system, but only a highly similar one. ^2F. H. Allport, "A Structuronomic Conception of Behavior: Individual and Collective. I. Structural Theory and the Master Problem of Social Psychology," Journal of Ab normal and Social Psychology, LXIV (1962), 3-30. ^Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1951). Open systems move toward differentiation and elaboration, and finally, there is the concept of equifinality;^ a sys tem can reach the same final state from different initial conditions and by a variety of paths.^ The open system approach was valuable because the systems studied were directly related to their environment, their sources of energy. In social systems most of the inputs were people and things and the structures were made up of events all of which were tangible and capable of s tudy. It was hoped that the use of the open system theory would avoid a rigidly mechanistic view of the Murngin soci ety and its dramatic rituals and allow for the variety and change which obviously existed. Criteria Drama The following criteria were established to evaluate the dramatic nature of the Murngin ritual ceremonies. Some of these criteria have been discussed at length in the definition of terms. It was not difficult to show that Murngin ritual ceremonies were dramatic as the term was ^This principle was derived from biological theory. Vide L. von Bertalanffy, "The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology," Science, CXI (1950), 23-28. ^The description of open system theory was drawn from Katz and Kahn, op. cit., pp. 19-29, who acknowledged their debt to Talcott Parsons for many of the concepts. 28 defined, capable of creating an emotional response. There were innumerable reported observations of emotional involve ment by the "audience" during the performance of these cere monies, but the intent of this study was not to show that the Murngin ritual ceremonies were dramatic, but to show how closely they resembled drama. In order to do this the ritual ceremonies were evaluated by those criteria necessary to establish them as dramas. Was there an imitation of an action? This criterion was expanded to include Aristotle's six elements of drama; plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. Were the ceremonies capable of performance before an audience? Within this criterion the mechanics of production were analyzed; the theatral area, music and dance, kinds of scenery, properties, costumes and makeup, and the roles and skills of the participants, producers, directors, and actors. Was there an emotional response from the audience? This was evaluated from two points of view, that of the audience and that of outside observers at the ceremonies. Were the functions of the ceremonies primarily aes thetic? This was a consideration of the second part of this study, social function. Aesthetic functions along with all others were discussed in Chapter V. 29 Anthropology The social function of the Murngin ritual ceremonies was evaluated generally by the use of open system theory. Since criteria were chosen to directly compare the form of dramatic ritual and drama, it was decided to develop special criteria to directly compare the social function of dramatic ritual and drama. Aristotle has indicated the dual nature of drama. There was an intellectual component (thought) and an emo tional one. He defined thought to be "where something is proved to be or not to be or a general maxim is enunci ated."^ There was also the familiar "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. Emile Durkheim showed how this same duality existed in the ritual ceremony that contained "a system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves the soci ety of which they are members."^® The use of totems as ritual symbols aroused emotions transferred from abstract entities. . . . we are unable to consider an abstract entity . . . [as] the source of the strong sentiments we feel. We can not explain them to ourselves except by connecting them to some concrete object of whose reality we are vividly aware . . . it is to this (the symbol) that we connect the emotions that are excited. It is this which is loved, feared, respected . . . The soldier who dies ^Butcher, bp. cit., p. 29. ^ Ibid. , p. 23. A O Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: Collier Books, 1961), p. 257. 30 for his flag, dies for his country . . ,49 Intellectual elements and emotional elements coex isted in both dramatic ritual and drama. Criteria were selected to point up the dual nature of the Murngin ritual ceremonies so that a direct comparison might be made in terms of function. These criteria were taken from three articles by Victor W. Turner dealing with ritual symbolism among the Ndembu, a tribe of Northern Rhodesia. Turner dealt with ritual symbols that played an important part in Ndembu ceremonies. The meanings of these symbols were arrived at in three ways. The structure and properties of ritual symbols may be inferred from three classes of data. (a) External form and observable characteristics (b) Interpretations offered (1) by laymen (2) by specialists (c) Significant contexts largely worked out by the anthropologist.5 In the three articles Turner provided an analysis of the duality of ritual symbol and ceremony. In any society there were certain symbols that by their use in many differ ent ceremonies acquired a prominent meaning in the society as a whole. Turner called them dominant ritual symbols and they possessed many meanings. 49Ibid., p. 251. ^Victor Turner, "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual," Closed Systems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety in Social Anthropology, Max Gluckman, ed. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964), p. 21. 31 This brings me to another important property of many ritual symbols, their polysemy or multivocality. By these rather grandiose terms I mean that a single symbol may stand for many things. This property of individual symbols is true of ritual as a whole. For a few symbols have to represent a whole culture and its material envi ronment. Certain dominant or focal symbols conspicu ously possess this property of multivocality which allows for the economic representation of key aspects of culture and belief. In Turner's analysis a symbol had three properties. "The simplest is that of condensation. Many things and actions, etc., are represented in a single formation."32 This was the polysemous property of the ritual symbol. Secondly, a dominant symbol is a unification of dispa rate significata. The disparate significata are inter connected by virtue of their common possession of ana logous qualities or by association in fact or thought. 3 Turner demonstrated how the associational link func tioned. He used the example of white clay which was a domi nant ritual symbol of the Ndembu. The concept of whiteness was the associational link that allowed the symbol to stand for such disparate things as semen, innocence, ritual purity, etc. The third important property of dominant ritual symbols is polarization of meaning. At one pole is found a cluster of siyiificata which refer to components of the moral and social orders . . . to the principles of social organization . . . and to the norms and values inherent in structural relationships. At the other ^Victor W. Turner, "Ritual Symbolism, Morality and Social Structure among the Ndembu," The Rhodes-Livingston Journal, XXX (1961), 3. 32Turner, "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual," pp. 29-30. 33Ibid., p. 30. 32 pole, the significata are usually natural and physiolog ical processes. Let us call the first of these the "ideological pole", and the second the "sensory" pole. Through polarization of meaning the dual nature of the ritual symbol and ceremony was described. Turner's ideological-sensory division was equated with the intellec tual-emotional one used earlier in this study. Turner considered in detail the kinds of significata that were to be found at each pole. At the ideological pole one finds an arrangement of norms and values which guide and control persons as mem bers of social groups . . . symbols, at the ideological pole of meaning, represent the unity and continuity of social groups, primary and associational, domestic and political.55 He then turned to the other pole. At the sensory pole, the meaning content is closely related to the outward form of the symbol [Italics mine]. At the sensory pole are concentrated those sig nif icata that may be expected to arouse desires and feelings . . . symbols, at the sensory pole of meaning, represent such themes as blood, male and female geni talia, semen, urine and f a e c e s . 56 Turner concluded that one of the social functions of ritual symbols and ceremonies was to bring together the two main opposing elements, the ideological and the sensory in such a way that each strengthened and affirmed the other. The basic unit of ritual, the dominant symbol, encapsu lates the major properties of the total ritual process which brings about this transmutation. Within its framework of meanings, the dominant symbol brings the ethical and jural norms of society in close contact with strong emotional stimuli. In the action situation of ritual, with its social excitement and directly physio 54Ibid. 55Ibid., pp. 30-31. 56Ibid. 33 logical stimuli, such as music, dancing, singing, alco hol, incense, and bizarre modes of dress, the ritual symbol we may perhaps say, effects an interchange of qualities between its poles of meaning. Norms and values on the one hand, become saturated with emotion, while the gross and basic emotions become enobled through contact with social values.57 The ideological-sensory dichotomy was representative of the two opposing forces which are basic to any society, those which tend to control the society and those which are in conflict with the elements of control. These two ele ments were present in the dominant ritual symbol. After all, the ritual symbol has, in common with the dream symbol, the characteristic, discovered by Freud, of being a compromise formation between two main oppos ing tendencies. It is a compromise between the need for social control, and certain innate and universal human drives whose complete gratification would result in a breakdown of that control.58 To summarize then, the general technique used in this study was to analyze the Murngin ritual ceremonies and their social function through the use of open system theory. In order to provide for a more direct comparison of the social function of dramatic ritual and drama specific tech niques were taken from the works of Victor W. Turner. His concept stressed the duality of ritual ceremonies. He con sidered that ritual symbols were basically bi-polar with a cluster of ideological significata and a cluster of sensory significata which represented the basic opposing tendencies in society. By the use of these techniques, not only was ^Ibid., p. 32. 58ibid., p. 40. 34 the desired comparison effectively made, but this concept showed how a dramatic ritual ceremony affirmed the norms and goals of the society adding to its cohesion while at the same time because of its dual nature was able to embrace its conflicts. Review of the Literature Introduction The review of the literature was divided into three sections. The first section contained a number of early works, ca. 1865-1915, in the field of anthropology. These works were selected for inclusion because the data and the ories presented had a profound influence on theatre scholars who used this material to develop new theories of the "ori gins" of drama. The second section considered a large num ber of works in the field of drama whose subject was the "origins" of drama in ritual. Included in this group, because this was an overriding interest, were works dealing with the "origins" of Greek drama. The third section dealt with those works that described and interpreted the Murngin ritual ceremonies that were studied. Anthropology— Early Works The review of these anthropological works stressed the material, ideas, and theories that theatre scholars drew from in order to support new theories of the "origins" of drama. ) 35 Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was one of the founders of the field of anthropology. In his major work, Primitive Culture, he formulated one of the first definitions of cul ture . Culture or Civilization . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, cus tom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. . . . its various grades may be regarded as stages of development or evolution, each the outcome of previous history, and about to do its proper part in the shaping of the history of the future.59 Tylor took the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Spencer and applied them to civilization or culture rather than to individual man. A trip to Mexico, while recovering from tuberculo sis, with antiquarian Henry Christy, marked the beginning of Tylor's interest in anthropology. He published a book on these travels, Anahuac,^0 which contained information on the Aztec and Toltec civilizations. An important point devel oped by Tylor in this book was to compare certain native practices with those carried on in Europe. The Mexican Indians burned an effigy of Judas during a fiesta. Tylor saw the resemblance between this and an English custom. "We had unexpectedly come upon an old custom of which our ^Edward b. Tylor, Primitive Culture (2 vols.; New York: Brentano's, 1924), p~ TI 60Edward B. Tylor, Anahuac: or Mexico & the Mexi cans , Ancient and Modern (London: Longman^ Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861). 36 processions and burning of Guy Fawkes in England are merely an adaptation."61 Votive offerings of hair, teeth, rags and ribbons hung in a tree reminded Tylor of a similar custom in Brit tany, where locks of hair were hung up in chapels to charm away disease. Here again was an odd similarity. Brittany peasants and Mexican Indians were using parts of the body as a charm to ward off disease . . .62 This was the beginning of Tylor's methodology; the use of comparative data from different societies which were then fitted into an evolutionary scheme. A section of Tylor's next work, Researches into the Early History of Mankind,63 contained a discussion of com parative mythology. Tylor attempted to show a geographical distribution of common myths and once again used this evi dence to support an evolutionary pattern. Mythology led Tylor to religion and this was the principle subject of Primitive Culture. The greatest part of Volume II was spent describing animism, which he thought was the most primitive form of religion. Animism divides into two great dogmas, forming parts of one consistent doctrine; first, concerning souls of in dividual creatures, capable of continued existence after the death or destruction of the body; second, concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful dieties. Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man's life here and 61Ibid., p. 50. ®2H. R. Hays, From Ape to Angel (New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), p. 61. 62Edward B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History 1 of Mankind (3rd ed. rev.; London; John Murray, 1878). r 37 hereafter; and it being considered that they hold inter course with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, and it might almost be said inevitably, sooner or later, to active reverence and propitiation.®^ Using this theory Tylor went on to examine a whole range of primitive activities such as, souls, evil spirits, sacrifices, tree-worship, and a large range of rites and ceremonies. Tylor1s contributions to the field of anthropology were very significant. His work in systematically comparing cultural elements was very sound in one respect, but faulty in another. His belief in unilineal cultural evolution allowed him to use material from one culture to fill in gaps in another. For example, he would use Egyptian ritual to explain a development in Greek culture where the appropriate Greek ritual was missing. This kind of reasoning led many theatre scholars astray. 3 The single most important publication of this period was The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer. It first appeared in 1890 and was expanded in subsequent editions until it reached twelve volumes. This encyclopedic work has become "an almost inexhaustible source book for the central myth and symbols of a twentieth century literature."®® It was 6^Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 426-427. ®50ne example of this was Loomis Havemeyer, loc. cit 6®Jerome H. Buckley, The Victorian Temper (Cam bridge: Harvard University Press, 1£51), p. 245. divided into three parts: magic and the sacred kingship, the principles of taboo, and the myth and ritual of the Dying God. This last section had the greatest influence on theatre scholars, both in theory and content. It dealt with the concept of the year cycle, death and resurrection, and the contest or agon between the old and the new. On one level the nature of all these activities both mythological and observed primitive rites was dramatic. On another level the material selected, especially Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Demeter, and Dionysus, was particularly relevant, or so it seemed, to an understanding of Greek tragedy. As Malinowski pointed out: Frazer is the representative of an epoch in anthropology which ends with his death. In all his directly theoret ical contributions he is an evolutionist . . . he works by the comparative method . . . Frazer never became aware of the social factor in folklore and mythology. ^ In addition to the bias of an evolutionist, Frazer did not consider that the material he dealt with had meaning because of its place in a collective group. Taken out of their social context many of the things Frazer described take on other meanings, meanings which a modern anthropolo gist. would reject. A final and important reason for the influence of The Golden Bough was its style. It was a literary work of considerable merit and this quality made it more accessible ^Malinowski, op. cit. , p. 24. 39 to a wide audience. The opening lines were frequently quoted. Who does not know Turner's picture of the Golden Bough? The scene, suffused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine mind of Turner steeped and transfig ured even the fairest natural landscape, is a dreamlike vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi— "Diana's Mirror," as it was called by the ancients. No one who has seen that calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban hills can ever forget it.68 Frazer's search to uncover the meaning of the ritual of the priest of Diana, the King of the Wood, took the form of a medieval romance, of an epic of search. In a long article analyzing the literary impact of The Golden Bough, John B. Vickery showed how as literature the work prefigured such authors as Eliot, Joyce, Lawrence, Edith Sitwell, and others. In effect, then, The Golden Bough became central to twentieth century literature because it was grounded in the essential realism of anthropological research, in formed with the romance quest of an ideal, and con trolled by the irony in divine myth and human custom. Together these made it the discursive archetype and hence matrix of that literature.69 Another major figure of this period, the French anthropologist, Emile Durkheim, provided additional material for theatre scholars. His method was to interpret events within the context of the total society. This gestalt approach led him to reject Tylor's theory of animism, for f t 8 ° Frazer, op. cit., p. 1. ft Q UJJohn B. Vickery, "The Golden Bough: Impact and Archetype," Myth and Symbol, Bernice Slote, ed. (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), p. 196. 40 one which he called totemism. The totemic emblem was a religious symbol that stood for the group itself. In sim plest terms, religion was a social activity; religion was an unique expression of society. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life/ Durkheim made two points that were of particular importance to theatre scholars. While describing certain ritual ceremon ies, mostly Australian, Durkheim called them dramas. Not only were they dramas, but in his theoretical construct they had to be dramas. He made the following statement about some Arunta rituals he had described. The preceding examples are sufficient to show the char acter of these ceremonies: they are dramas, but of a particular variety; they act, or at least they are believed to act, upon the course of nature.70 Using the definitions of this study, these types of ceremonies would be classified as dramatic, but not as dramas. However there was another type of ceremony which was even closer to the boundary, as Durkheim pointed out. In those of which we have been speaking, the dramatic representation did not exist for itself; it was only a means having a very material end in view . . . But there are others which do not differ materially from the pre ceding ones, but from which, nevertheless, all preoccu pations of this sort are absent. The past is here represented for the mere sake of representing it and fixing it more firmly in the mind, while no determined action over nature is expected of the rite.71 These types of rituals were called commemorative and 7^Durkheim, op. cit., pp. 417-418. 71Ibid., p. 420. 41 were very nearly dramas. Durkheim understood the great sim ilarities, but at the same time he made a very careful dis tinction between them. We have already had occasion to show that they are closely akin to dramatic representations. Not only do they employ the same processes as the real drama, but they also pursue an end of the same sort: being foreign to all utilitarian ends, they make men forget the real world and transport them to another where their imagina tion is more at ease; they distract. Representative rites [commemorative] and collective recreations [dramas] are even so close to one another that men pass from one sort to the other without any break of continuity.7 2 Then Durkheim made a crucial observation. "Perhaps some of these representations, whose sole character now is to distract, are ancient rites, whose character has been changed."73 one of his reasons for this statement was that the distinction between these two sorts of ceremonies was so variable that it was impossible to state with precision to which of the two kinds they belonged.7^ This type of cere mony arose because of the nature of religion itself. It is a well-known fact that games and the principal forms of art seem to have been born of religion and that for a long time they retained a religious character. We see now what the reasons for this are: it is because the cult, though aimed primarily at other ends, has also been a sort of recreation for men. Religion has not played this role by hazard or owing to a happy chance, but through a necessity of its nature.73 This necessity was the only way in which abstract qualities could be represented, through dramatic activities. 72Ibid., pp. 424-425. 73Ibid., p. 425. 74Ibid. 75Ibid., pp. 425-426. Italics mine. 42 A theatre scholar could draw the following conclusions from this material. Drama evolved from ritual. There were exam ples in surviving primitive activities where the transition from representative rite to collective recreation (drama) could be observed.^6 Even if you were not a strict evolu tionist Durkheim's theory was constructed to apply to all primitive religion and therefore it could be used to support a theory in the most important area, the "origins” of Greek drama. A second idea which supported certain theories about the Dionysian origins of drama was the justification of the extreme emotional involvement that accompanied the perform ance of these rites. It is certainly true that religious life can not attain a certain degree of intensity without implying a psychi cal exaltation not far removed from delirium . . . Of course it is only natural that the moral forces they express should be unable to affect the human mind power fully without pulling it outside itself and without plunging into a state that may be called ecstatic.77 Durkheim's arguments were clear and lucid, his con clusions compelling. It was not hard to understand why his anthropological contributions were so eagerly drawn on by theatre scholars. Unfortunately, in the early years, they were often applied out of context to support "origins" ^Durkheim's conclusion was based on very early field work in Australia. To the best of my knowledge no transition from ritual to drama has ever been observed and recorded. ^Durkheim, pp. cit., pp. 259-299. 43 theories developed without reference to social organization. Arnold Van Gennep studied rituals that occurred mainly at life crises: birth, initiation, marriage, and death. In his book, The Rites of Passage, these rituals and others were described as a change from one state to another. This passage or transition between states took place in three major phases, rites of separation from the old state, transitional rites, and rites of incorporation into the new state. Van Gennep did more than to just discover a conveni ent tri-partite form into which rites could be fit as Gluck- man pointed out. I thus see rites de passage as a special development of how custom and ceremonial segregate the roles of people living in small groups of tribal society, and indeed demarcate the special purposes to which land, or huts, or stock, or material objects, are put to at any one moment.7° Van Gennep's work had particular importance to thea tre scholars because so many of the rites of passage took the form of death and rebirth, or death and resurrection. He described the Eleusinian mysteries considered to be an important "origin" of Greek tragedy in this way. The main outline of the rites of initiation to the mys teries of Eleusis corresponds to that of ceremonies in the same category that have already been examined. The same order, including a dramatization of the novice's death and rebirth, also recurs in the initiation into Orphism and the religious associations of Thrace, as 78Max Gluckman, "Les Rites de Passage," Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations (Manchester, England: Uni versity of Manchester Press, T962), p. 30. 44 79 well as in the cult of Dionysus . . . He also saw seasonal rites as rites of passage and linked them with life crises rites. One of the most striking elements in seasonal ceremonies is the dramatic representation of the death and rebirth of the moon, the season, the year, vegetation, and the deities that preside over and regulate vegetation. But this same element is to be found in many ceremonial cycles . . . rites of pregnancy and delivery, rites at birth . . . rites of adoption, puberty, initiation, mar riage, enthronement, ordination, sacrifice, and funeral rites . . .80 Van Gennep's work supported the "Dying God" ritual as set out in Frazer. It also showed that those particular ceremonies from which drama "sprang" were similar to a whole range of life crises ceremonies. In effect, Van Gennep placed dramatic activities in the crucial position of being a major instrument of social organization. Drama The first known theory of the "origins" of drama appeared in Aristotle's Poetics. This work was the corner stone of dramatic theory, but it was very sketchy in provid ing origins for the drama. In Chapter III of the Poetics Aristotle stated "the Dorians claim the invention of both Tragedy and Comedy. . . . the claim to Comedy is put forward by the Megarians . . . of Sicily, for the poet Epicharmus ^Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, I960), p. 5TI 80Ibid., pp. 182-183. 45 . . . belonged to that country."8^- Both of these claims were supported by philological evidence. The Greek words for drama and comedy were derived from Dorian words. In Chapter IV, after saying that imitation was instinctive in man, Aristotle gave the following origins for Comedy and Tragedy. Tragedy— as also Comedy— was at first mere improvisa tion. The one originated with the authors of the Dithy ramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; it was not until late that the short plot was discarded for one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the earlier satyric form for the stately manner of Tragedy.82 Accepting Aristotle at face value led to the theo ries that tragedy came from the dithyramb, which in turn had evolved from satyr-dance performances. This neatly fit with the worship of the God Dionysus, in whose honor the dramatic festivals were held. How reliable was Aristotle as a his torian and what information was available to him? Gerald Else considered this point. Whatever the bearing of Aristotle's testimony, there is something more to be added concerning its value. I associate myself with those who refuse to accept his remarks as based on documentary evidence for the period before the beginning of the records of the dramatic festivals in Athens, probably 502/1 B.C. We know of no such evidence and find it hard to imagine what it could have been.83 83-Butcher, op. cit., p. 13. 8^Ibid., p. 19. 83Gerald F. Else, The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy (Martin Classical Lectures, Vol. XX; Cambridge, [Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 14. 46 Else has shown that Aristotle had little more in the way of historical fact or record than do modern scholars. His theory was based on logic and/or tradition, but not on historical data. What confronts us in the Poetics is simply another the ory of the origin of tragedy; to be sure, the oldest one we know of. So far as it can be grasped and understood, it deserves our respectful attention— on condition that we cease to claim it as a report of facts.84 Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music supported Aristotle's theory of the origin of tragedy, i.e., its development from the satyr-dances and the dithyramb. However, his famous Apollonian-Dionysian division provided support for another group of theories. As he described the Dionysian rites, the partici pants' involvement was intensely emotional to the point of ecstasy. Man now expresses himself through song and dance as the member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk, how to speak, and is on the brink of taking wing as he dances. Each of his gestures betokens enchant ment; through him sounds a supernatural power, the same power which makes the animals speak and the earth render up milk and honey. He feels himself to be godlike and strides with the same elation and ecstasy as the gods he has seen in his dreams. No longer the artist, he has himself become a work of art: the productive power of the whole universe is now manifest in his transport, to the glorious satisfaction of the primordial one.85 Nietzsche emphasized the ritual aspect of the Diony 84Ibid. 85Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Francis Golffing (New York; Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1965), pp. 23-24. 47 sian celebrations and how the ritual forms made the extreme emotional involvement possible. The central thesis of The Birth of Tragedy anticipates, by sheer intuition, it would seem, what Frazer, Gilbert Murray and Jane Harrison were later to establish quite irrefragably: the ritual origin of Greek tragedy, as well as the interdependence of myth and ritual in all primitive cultures.®® How irrefragable? This point has been under con stant scholarly debate since the ritual theory was first put forth. At least the fact that Nietzsche provided ammunition for the ritual scholars was irrefragable. At the time of its publication in 1871 Nietzsche's work did not lead to a new theory of the "origin" of tragedy, but in the early years of the twentieth century, aided by a great deal of anthropological fact and theory, several new theories were developed. Gerald Else has classified all of the theories into three main groups. Tragedy, then, has been derived from three chief kinds of source: (1) The dithyramb: that is the cult of Dionysus. With this is usually, though not always asso ciated the idea of a satyrikon, a performance by goat like satyrs (tragoidia = tragon oide, "song of goats"). (2) Other orgiastic or mystery rituals more or less identifiable with or comparable to the Dionysiac: for example the Eleusinian mysteries . . . (3) The cult of the dead; or, to give it its specifically Greek title, hero-cult. Connected with this is an emphasis on the scenes of lamentation and the like (threnoi, kommoi) in our extant tragedies.87 The first group was called the traditional theories; ^Francis Golffing, in Nietzsche, op. cit., p. ix. B^Else, op. cit., p. 12. 48 the second, the ritual theories; and the third, the hero- cult theories. All of them have been expounded with many variations and combinations, but these were the major group ings. The traditional theory which was derived from Aris totle maintained continued support in the twentieth century, however, this basic theory was severely challenged by schol ars who, with the support of anthropological evidence, developed the theories that fell in groups two and three. The second decade of the twentieth century saw the greatest activity in the "origins" area. The Drama of Savage Peoples was an attempt by anthropologist Loomis Havemeyer to explain the traditional theory of the "origins” of drama in terms of evolution. Under the influence of the study of evolution, espe cially social evolution, . . . it has become a practice to investigate the simpler stages of social institutions in order to be resolved as to their essential nature . . . What can we find out about the nature of drama by studying its earlier stages?88 Havemeyer went about this task by assembling a num ber, of ceremonies, rituals, and rites from a variety of sources and arranging them in what he felt was a series of ascending complexity. This "series" led eventually to Greek drama. Chapter IV was titled "Points of Comparison Between the Savage Drama and That of the Greeks and Japanese." Here he showed what he considered to be proof of his evolutionary theory. ®®Havemeyer, op. cit., p. vii. 49 In summarizing the relationship which exists between the drama of the Greeks and that of the savages, we see that the basis for comparison is a twofold one: the myth and the dance. In the myth we find the context; in the dance the action which binds the two stages together. That both forms used mythical subject matter and dancing was proof enough for Havemeyer who found the same relationship between savage dramas and Japanese Noh plays. This led to his final conclusion. There is one conclusion that stands out above all others, and that is that the dramas of the Greeks and the Japanese . . . must have resembled in their earlier stages the dramatic rites and ceremonies of those savage peoples with whom this book, as a study of earlier stages of social evolution, is dealing. It is true that there must have been many intermediate steps, of which we have no record . . . But despite this absence of a full series of transitional forms, but little doubt should remain that there obtains, in the growth of the drama, the same development of form out of form in a connected series, which characterizes the process of evolution elsewhere in nature and in society.9° Since the theory of unilineal social evolution has been discarded, there is no foundation for Havemeyer's con clusions. What remains was the reportage of many ceremonies taken out of context and arranged by outward form to show some pattern of development. Even though Havemeyer acknowl edged Frazer and Jane Harrison he was too strict an evolu tionist to utilize the ritual approach in a meaningful manner. The foremost proponent of the hero-cult theory (group three) was Sir William Ridgeway, whose first work on ®9Ibid., p. 113. 9®Ibid., pp. 121-122. this subject, The Origin of Tragedy, was published in 1910. In the preface Ridgeway acknowledged his debt to anthropol ogy. As I had long been dissatisfied with the theory of the Origin of Tragedy universally accepted, I have tried to obtain the true solution of the problem by approaching it from the anthropological viewpoint.91 Ridgeway showed, in a very convincing manner, that the philological evidence in Aristotle was incorrect and that tragedy could be separated from the worship of the god Dionysus, and from satyrs and satyr-plays. He was on very sound ground in disassociating the origin of the word tra gedy (tragoidia) from goat song. Having swept away the traditional theory Ridgeway then proceeded to construct a new one based on the worship of the dead or the hero-cult. There were numerous examples of the performances of dithyrambic choruses and other rituals at the tombs of various heroes. It remained for Ridgeway to link these per formances with the "origin" of tragedy. The link he chose was Thespis. No one has denied that Thespis was a major figure at the time Greek tragedy was emerging from ritual, but there is great disagreement as to what he actually did. To support his theory Ridgeway accepted as fact the follow ing quote from Horace. Thespis is said to have invented a new kind of tragedy, and to have carried his pieces about in carts, which [certain strollers] who had their faces besmeared with 9^Ridgeway, op. cit. , p. vii. 51 lees of wine, sang and acted.92 He coupled this quotation with one from Plutarch which reported that Solon was very angry when he first saw Thespis act. Ridgeway concluded that Thespis had taken his chorus and dithyramb from some particular shrine where it was a religious ritual in honor of the hero buried there, put it on a wagon, and had given performances wherever he could gather an audience. Thus not merely by defining more accurately the role of the actor but also by lifting Tragedy from being a mere piece of religious ritual tied to a particular spot into a great form of literature, he was the true founder of the Tragic art.93 Solon's anger, according to Ridgeway, was caused by seeing a religious ritual secularized and performed in a secular setting. Ridgeway then compared this development to the "origin" of medieval miracle and mystery plays which, in his mind, began as religious ritual, and then, performed by groups of strolling players had been transformed into genu ine dramatic literature.94 Nor is it only in these respects that the mediaeval Christian drama may be compared with that of early 92Horace, "The Art of Poetry," Literary Criticism; Pluto to Dryden, Allan H. Gilbert, ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962), p. 136. 93Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 61. 9^This idea was convincingly disproved in Benjamin Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961). 52 Greece. Not only was the process of development simi lar, . . . but each sprang from the same deep rooted principle— the honoring and propitiation of the sacred dead, the hero and the saint and as a corollary even of the gods themselves.^5 The emphasis on "deep rooted principle" of the hero- cult placed Ridgeway in the camp of the social evolutionist. He went on to examine primitive "dramas" among Asiatic peo ples to see if they sprang from the same principle. Ridge way explained that if this were so then it would corroborate his argument that "Greek Tragedy did not arise merely in the cult of a particular deity, but rather from beliefs respect- Q £ ing the dead as wide spread as the human race itself."^0 He then described a half-dozen or so "dramas," among them were the Ramayana, Tibetan mystery plays, and ceremonies of the Veddas of Ceylon. These examples supported his hypothesis and led him to conclude that "it would appear that the prin ciple from which Tragedy sprang was not confined to Greece or to Mediterranean lands, but is world wide and one of the q 7 many touches that make the whole world kin." ' Obvious weaknesses in Ridgeway's theory were the reliance on the evidence of Homer and Plutarch which could not be accepted as fact and his misunderstanding of the nature of medieval religious drama. In this first work he used little anthropological evidence to support his theory. 9^Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 62. ^Ibid. , p. 94. ^Ibid. , p. 108. 53 However, he elaborated upon and vigorously defended his the ory in a second work, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non- European Races.Before considering it, it would be well to consider those works that caused the spirit defense. Ridgeway's main "competitors" were the members of the Cambridge School of Classical Anthropology, who were neither all from Cambridge, nor were they classical anthro pologists. Some were Oxonians and they were all classical scholars who used anthropological theories, especially those of Frazer, Durkheim, and Van Gennep to support new theories about various elements of Greek society. This school devel oped and supported the ritual theory of the "origins" of drama. The first important work of this school was Themis by Jane Harrison. Its subject was the development of Greek religion from its primitive beginnings. Included were two contributions by other members of the school, a chapter by F. M. Cornford on "The Origin of the Olympic Games," and appended to the chapter, "Daimon and Hero," an extremely significant piece by Gilbert Murray "Excursus on the Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek Tragedy." The subtitle of Themis, "A Study of the Social Ori gins of Greek Religion," clearly showed one major influence, that of Emile Durkheim. In her introduction Miss Harrison Q O William Ridgeway, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915). 54 acknowledged her debt to Durkheim for the concept of collec tive conscience and to Henri Bergson for the concept of dur£e, that life which is one, indivisible, and yet cease lessly changing. These two ideas, (1) that the mystery-god and the Olym pian express respectively, the one durje, life, and the other the action of conscious intelligence which reflects on and analyses life, and (2) that, among prim itive peoples religion reflects collective feeling and collective thinking, underlie my whole argument and were indeed the cause and impulse of my book.99 Harrison's idea was that since Dionysus was the only Greek god who was constantly attended by a thiasos, a chorus of participants, he represented the primitive collective phase of Greek religion. Dionysus, himself, was a god "re born" and ceremonies surrounding him represented the conti nuity of life of the collective group. Harrison noted that the dromenon (the thing done) was a rite which whether it was commemorative or anticipatory was performed to induce new birth. The Dithyramb, from which drama arose, was also a drome non of New Birth. In the drama we may expect to find survivals of a ritual akin to that of the Kouretes [an earlier religious rite]. Further the dromenon is a thing, which like the drama is collectively per formed. 100 That Miss Harrison was in error in ascribing the "origin" of drama to the dithyramb was only of minor conse- ®^Jane Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, il962) , p. 543. ^°®Ibid., p. 545. 55 quence compared to her work in organizing the mass of Greek mythology and religious practices into a cohesive form based on Durkheim's principles. Her linking of the dromenon and the drama was very sound and was explicated in this work by Gilbert Murray. In Chapter VIII, "Daimon and Hero," Harrison pursued the idea of the development of the fertility-spirit or daimon as an extension of the Tree-Spirit, Corn Spirit, and Vegetation-Spirit found in The Golden Bough. Following Frazer, Harrison observed that the fertility-spirit was finally personalized as a hero, king, or god, and the con tinued fertility or the life of the group was symbolized in the death and resurrection of the fertility-spirit. She coined the term Eniautos-Daimon to apply to this type of religious figure. The term Eniautos was not to mean a fixed period of time such as a year, but rather to be more encom passing and stand for any cyclical period of waxing and waning. Daimon meant that spirit which stood for the per manent life of the group. In analyzing various Eniautos myths Harrison extracted their typical form, whose main characteristic was its inevitable, periodic, monotony. The principle parts of an Eniautos myth were, (a) a contest (agon), (b) a defeat or death (pathos) which was usually announced by a messenger and was followed by lamentation (threnos), and (c) a trium phant Epiphany, the crowning of the victor or new king with 56 an abrupt change (peripetia) from lamentation to rejoic ing.101 Harrison expanded on the idea of the monotony of these rites. What was wanted was material cast in a less rigid mold, plots that have cut themselves loose from rites.102 Then she made her most important insight into the nature of Greek drama. The forms of Attic drama are the forms of the life- history of an Eniautos-Daimon; the content is the infi nite variety of free and individualized heroic saga— in the largest sense of the word "Horner."10- ^ Harrison was primarily interested in religion and so she passed on from this point to other things, but in an appen dix to this chapter Gilbert Murray continued the development of the ritual theory of the "origins" of Greek drama. Murray began by making certain assumptions about the "origins" and essential nature of Greek tragedy. (1) ". . . that Tragedy is in origin a Ritual Dance, a Sacer Ludus (2) . . . that the dance in question is originally or cen trally that of Dionysus (3) . . . it regards Dionysus in this connection as an Eniautos-Daimon . . ."104 Murray also concluded that Tragedy and Comedy represent different stages in the life of the Year-Spirit; Comedy, his marriage feast and Tragedy, his death and resurrection. Along with Harri 101Ibid., pp. 331-332. 102Ibid., p. 334. 103Ibid. 10^Gilbert Murray, "Excursus on the Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek Tragedy," in Harrison, op. cit., p. 341. 57 son, he disagreed with Ridgeway's "tomb theory."105 Murray now considered the form of the Eniautos myths, which has been quoted here in full because it has come to represent the standard expression of the ritual theory. If we examine the kind of myth which seems to underlie the various "Eniautos" celebrations we shall find: 1. An Agon or contest, the Year against its enemy, Light agaxnst Darkness, Summer against Winter. 2. A Pathos of the Year-Daimon, generally a ritual or sacrificial death, in which Adonis or Attis is slain by the tabu animal, the Pharmakos stoned, Osiris, Dionysus, Penteus, Orpheus, Hippolytus, torn to pieces. 3. A Messenger. For the Pathos seems seldom or never to be; performed under the eyes of the audience. (The reason of this is not hard to suggest, and it was actually necessary in the time when there was only one actor.) It is announced by a messenger. "The news comes" that Pan the Great, Thammuz, Adonis, Osiris is dead, and the dead body is often brought in on a bier. This leads to 4. A Threnos or Lamentation. Specially characteristic, however^ is a clash of contrary emotions, the death of the old being also the triumph of the new: see pp. 318f., on Plutarch's account of the O s c h o p h o r i a .1^6 5 and 6. An Anagnorisis— discovery or recognition— of the slain and mutilated Daimon, followed by his Resur rection or Apotheosis or, in some sense, his Epiphany in glory. This I shall call by the general name Theophany. It naturally goes with a Peripeteia or extreme change of feeling from grief to joy. Observe the sequence in which these should normally occur: Agon, Pathos, Messenger, Threnos. Theophany, or we might say, Anagnorisis and Theophany. Murray admitted that Greek tragedy was influenced by • L0^Ibid. -^^Harrison, Themis, pp. 318f. l^Murray, "Excursus," pp. 343-344. 58 other non-Dionysiac elements, but he traced the Eniautos form in whole or in parts as it existed in Greek tragedy. Euripides' Bacchae provided the most complete example of the form. The daimon is fought against, torn to pieces, announced as dead, wept for, collected and recognized, and revealed in his new divine life. The Bacchae is a most instructive instance of the formation of drama out of ritual. It shows how slight a step was necessary for Thespis or another to turn the Year-Ritual into real drama.108 It should be noted that neither Harrison or Murray claimed that an Eniautos ritual was the source of Greek drama, only that it was the source of the form. The drama itself was like pouring new wine into old bottles. They were both in error in attributing the "origin" of drama to a Dionysiac dithyramb as later scholars have pointed out. In 1913, Murray published Euripides and His Age in which the ritual theory was elaborated and used in an analy sis of the plays.The following year, Murray delivered as the Annual Shakespeare Lecture, a fascinating address entitled, "Hamlet and Orestes." In this lecture Murray showed the extreme similarity between the Hamlet-saga, the Amlethus story as told by the Scandinavian Saxo Grammaticus in Historia Danica, and the Orestes-saga. After establish ing this point, he showed that the Orestes story was not 108Ibid., p. 346. lO^Gilbert Murray, Euripides and His Age, intro, by H. D. F. Kitto (London: Oxford University Press, 1965) . 59 historically passed on to the Scandinavians or to Shakes peare. What then was his explanation? There is clearly a common element in all these stories, and the reader will doubtless have recognized it. It is the world-wide ritual story of what we may call the Golden Bough Kings. The ritual story is . . . the fundamental conception that forms the basis for Greek tragedy, and not only Greek tragedy. It forms the basis of the traditional Mummers' Play . . Hamlet, then, in Murray's view was another retelling of the Eniautos myth, "which particularly stirred the inter est of primitive men [and which] should still have an appeal to certain very deep-rooted human instincts. " m • F. M. Cornford had traced the beginnings of the Olympic Games to an early Year-Ritual in a chapter in Themis. In his later book, From Religion to Philosophy, he acknowledged his anthropological sources. "To Professor Emile Durkheim and his colleagues of the Annge Sociologique I owe the solution offered of this fundamental problem of Olympian religion. soiution was the familiar one ^ Gilbert Murray, "Hamlet and Orestes," The Criti cal Performance, Stanley Hyman, ed. (New York: vintage Books, 1956), p. 36. ^■'■Ibid., p. 44. ■^2Murray held to the year-Daimon theory throughout his long career, although in a less strict manner in later years. Cf. Gilbert Murray, The Classical Tradition in Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927); idem, Aeschylus, The Creator of Tragedy (Oxford: The Clar endon Press, 1940) . 113f. m . Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1^12), p. x. 60 "that the key to religious representation lies in the social structure of the community which elaborates it."H4 Cornford now turned to the "origins" of Greek comedy. His work, The Origin of Attic Comedy, was an extension of Murray's theory into this field and followed a similar hypothesis. This canonical plot-formula preserves the stereotyped action of a ritual or folk drama, older than literary Comedy, and of a pattern well known to us from other sources. The pattern which Cornford saw was, "Agon, Sacri fice, Feast, Marriage, Komos. jje showed that this pattern was followed in eleven plays of Aristophanes, although sometimes the traces were very faint. This pattern was taken from earlier dramatic fertility rituals and Corn ford also pointed out some modern survivals, the English Mummers' Play and the Morris Dance. Aside from forcing some of the plays of Aristophanes into his pattern, Cornford was unable to present much evidence of the earlier existence of this ritual pattern. Later scholarship has uncovered more evidence in this area, at least in Near East Cultures.H7 114Ibid., 115F. . Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, ed. with foreword and additional notes by T. HT Gaster (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961), p. 5. 116Ibid. H 7 Cf. T. H. Gaster, Thespis, Ritual Myth and Drama | in the Ancient Near East (New York: Schuman, 1950). 61 The work of the Cambridge School regarding drama was neatly tied up by Jane Harrison in her next work, Ancient Art and Ritual. She traced the development of drama from ritual, ritual that had also developed into religion. "It is at the outset one and the same impulse that sends a man to church and to the theater. 8 Harrison outlined the evolution of the Eniautos ritual, the dromenon, until it became drama. What was added in the book since Themis was the concept of the role of the audience. The spectators are a new and different element, the dance is not only danced, but it is watched from a dis tance, it is a spectacle; whereas in old days all or nearly all were worshippers acting, now many, indeed most, are spectators, watching, feeling, thinking, not doing. It is in this new attitude of the spectator that we touch on the difference betweeen ritual and art; the dromenon, the thing actually done by yourself has become a drama, a thing also done, but abstracted from your doing. Harrison considered the nature of audience psychol ogy, quoting at length from "Psychical Distance" by Edward Bullough, and the aesthetic theories of Leo Tolstoi and Henri Bergson, to show how the audience member has come out of the action. The shift from real life to art was accom plished through ritual. Thus ritual makes, as it were, a bridge between real life and art, a bridge over which in primitive times it would seem man must pass. In his actual life he hunts and fishes, and ploughs and sows, being utterly intent on the practical end of gaining his food; in the 118Harrison, Ancient Art, pp. 9-10. ^ 8Ibid., p. 127. 62 dromenon of the Spring Festival, though his acts are unpractical, being mere singing and dancing and mimicry, his intent is practical, to induce the return of his food supply. In the drama the representation may remain for a time the same, but the intent is altered: man has come out from action, he is separate from the dancers, and has become a spectator. The drama is an end in it self. 120 To Harrison, the "origin" of Greek drama was the ritual Dithyramb to which had been added the content of the Homeric saga, mainly under the aegis of the tyrant Peisis- tratos, but now with the addition of the aesthetic viewpoint she was able to strengthen her theory. "The Homeric saga had for an Athenian poet just that remoteness from immediate action which, as we have seen, is the essence of art as con trasted with r i t u a l . "121 The total output of the Cambridge School had com pletely overwhelmed Ridgeway's tomb theory (hero-cult), but in his second book he marshalled new evidence to discredit the ritual theory and strengthen his own point of view. In order to refute Gilbert Murray, Ridgeway rejected Durkheim's theory of the collective conscience as the basis for the earliest religion. He held that the Sacer Ludus at Eleusis was late and not primitive, and finally that the Dithyramb was not peculiar to Dionysus and that even Aristotle did not connect the Dithyramb with the "origin" of tragedy. After all this "there thus remains nothing of all Professor ^^Ibid. , pp. 135-136. ^•^Ibid. , pp. 164-165. 63 Murray's postulates but Professor Ridgeway's Tomb-The- ory."122 Ridgeway then presented over 300 pages of anthropo logical evidence to support his theory of the drama coming from the worship of the dead. He spent a good deal of time detailing the Persian Passion Plays,I23 ending rather trium phantly with, "Hussein is no Vegetation spirit or Daimon of the year, but a mortal man who lived, suffered, and died in A.D. 680."124 Ridgeway's single-minded focus on funerary rites led him to ignore all other life-crises ceremonies as having any bearing on his problem. In the end the ritual theory received much more sup port than the tomb theory. It was partially the case of nothing standing in the way of an idea whose time had arrived. The enormous influence of The Golden Bough aided the prodigious output of the Cambridge School. In certain respects both theories can be reconciled somewhat. The ritualists never denied that there were not other influ ences, including those from the hero-cults. Ridgeway, on the other hand, would not grant primitive man the power of abstraction, hero-worship was always the worship of a par- 12 ^Ridgeway, The Drama and Dramatic Dances, p. 59. 123For a complete treatment of this topic vide Jlal Asgar "A Historical Study of the Origins of the Persian Passion Plays" (unpublished Doctoral dissertation, The Uni versity of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1963). 124Ri(jgewayt The Dramas and Dramatic Dances, p. 86. ; “.......... 64 ticular real hero and could never be abstracted to the point where the hero functioned as an Eniautos-Daimon, if he had, the two theories would have tended to become one. The American classics scholar, Roy C. Flickinger, supported the traditional theory in his book, The Greek The ater and Its Drama. He strongly condemned the approach through anthropology and psychology. Whatever may be said for these avenues of approach . . . those who employ them have shown more eagerness to assemble data which might be considered confirmation of their theories than to reach an unprejudiced interpreta tion of the whole body of ancient e v i d e n c e . 125 Flickinger was fond of saying that Aristotle was no "simpleton" and that we must accept his statement that the dithyramb was the "origin" of tragedy. "But to ignore this statement of Aristotle's . . to trace tragedy back to dromena [ritual acts] of various kinds . . . transgresses good philological practice."1^6 Then in one sweeping paragraph Flickinger disposed of all other theories and theorists. Since tragedy embraced many elements in its formation "whatever one sets out to find, he can almost be certain of discovering there . . . Ridgeway . . . Miss Harrison . . . and Murray . . . all find confirmation for their views in the same body of dramatic literature."127 incidentally, so did Flickinger. ^2^Roy C. Flickinger, The Greek Theater and Its Drama (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, T5T5T, p^ 37 126Ibid., p. 6. 127Ibid. My own view is that tragedy and satyric drama are inde pendent offshoots of the same literary type, the Pelo ponnesian dithyramb. The former came to Athens from Co rinth and Sicyon by way of Icaria. Somewhat later, the latter was introduced directly from Philius by Pratinas, a native of that p l a c e .128 Flickinger supported this argument with various Greek and Latin references, many of which were then and are still in dispute as to their exact meaning.-^9 Later schol arship has seriously weakened Flickinger's evidence. Per haps the most important observation that Flickinger made was that "after a^l that Thespis did for it tragedy must have still been a crude, coarse, semi-literary affair."130 it was Flickinger's idea that this was a way of supporting the i , development of tragedy as indicated in the Poetics, but later scholars have followed this line to support the devel opment of tragedy from Thespis to Aeschylus without a strict reliance on Aristotle. Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge did what Flickinger had set out to do, to reach an unprejudiced interpretation of the whole body of ancient evidence. To this day, Pickard- Cambridge 's work, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, stands as the most complete, thorough, and reasonable interpretation • * ~ 2**Ibid., pp. 3-4. l2^E.g., Flickinger accepted a passage from a medi eval commentary on Hermogenes, ''The first drama of tragedy was introduced by Arion." Else showed why this passage was Iworthless. Cf. Else, op. cit., p. 17. l^Flickinger, pp. cit. , p. 21. 66 of all the many scraps of ancient evidence that bear on this problem. ^1 First, Pickard-Cambridge considered the history of the dithyramb itself and came to the following conclusions. 1. We have practically no evidence of the spirit in which the dithyramb, as a form of religious celebration, was regarded during the classical period. 2. There is not any ground . . . for connecting dithy ramb in Greece with any chthonic ritual, Dionysiac or other . . . 3. So far as we can see the religious significance rather rapidly went out of the dithyramb . . . In the latest stages of its history it seems to be quite secu larized. 132 If this were accepted and the documentation was strong enough that it must be, then the Nietzschian idea of Tragedy growing out of ecstatic dance, which was also a part \ of the ritual theory had to be discarded or modified. This formulation also made it impossible to hold to a traditional theory based on a literal interpretation of Aristotle. Pickard-Cambridge suggested that Aristotle was the orizing. In his time, 384-322 B.C., there existed tragedy, satyric drama, and a semi-dramatic or mimetic dithyramb. Pickard-Cambridge states that Aristotle was aware of the 131 "This is the classic treatment of the subject not only in English but in any language, in the sense of a truly critical review of the evidence and the judgment of what it is worth and what it indicates." Else, op. cit., p. 108. 1 *30 - LJ A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd ed. rev. by T. B. L. Webster (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 58-59. 67 very early dithyramb of Archilochus, with its exarchon. What could be more natural than to suppose that tragedy developed out of the dithyramb by the transformation of an exarchon or soloist into a full fledged actor? And since the more crude and primitive may naturally be sup posed to precede the more artistic, satyric drama might be regarded as an early stage of tragedy which had suc ceeded in surviving even after tragedy had been devel oped. If so, the plots of early tragedy must have been short, like those of satyric drama, and the language grotesque.I33 Pickard-Cambridge had effectively made Aristotle a theorist like all of the scholars who followed. What then of Pickard-Cambridge's theory? His evi dence placed the worship of Dionysus with ecstatic dances in Mycenean and Minoan times. The mythology of the Resistance story (his term for the Year-Daimon or the death and resur rection myth) was before the time of Homer. The Dionysian cults of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. were revivals, and the dithyrambic performances much less ecstatic. Pick ard-Cambridge, admitting his evidence was slight, traced the following development. 1. Archilochus' dithyramb in the mid-seventh century may have been connected with . . . Dionysus . . . may have been danced by satyrs or fat men and certainly had an exarchon. 2. Arion's dithyramb in the late seventh century increased the range of subject-matter and developed the part of the chorus as distinct from the exarchon. It was probably sung by fat men and hairy satyrs, and their likenesses to goats gave it the name tragic . . . 3. In the early sixth century Cleisthenes of Sicyon took the "tragic choruses" which sang in honor of 133Ibid., p. 94. 68 Adrastus and transferred them to Dionysus . . . The per formers were probably fat men and satyrs . . . The importance of laments in Attic tragedy may owe something to this early costumed Sicyonian choral performance. 4. The traditions that Thespis introduced Dionysus with a chorus of fat men or satyrs and wrote a Pentheus are entirely credible. The importance of the Pentheus story (and other versions of the Resistance story) as setting the rhythm for tragic stories was probably very great. 5. The revolutionary step which Thespis took and which is credited to him alone was the introduction of a spoken prologue before the first chorus and speeches between the choruses; in this lay the germ of the whole subsequent development of the actors p a r t . 134 Pickard-Cambridge also agreed with Flickinger that the satyr-play was an independent development which could be attributed to Pratinas, and was not introduced until some time after Thespis' innovations. Turning to the "origins" of comedy, Pickard-Cam bridge traced its development from the komos, through phallic songs and Dorian influences to the literary comedy * of the fifth century. He rejected Cornford's ritual theory as stated, but found some support that a myth such as the Return of Hephaistos which in earlier times was "a ritual to release the winterbound earth goddess with its essential sequence of battle, intrigue, and marriage had a potent influence on the shape of comedy."!33 Pickard-Cambridge's work did not deny ritual ori gins, but merely placed them farther back in time as under lying patterns of the literary forms. His demonstration 134Ibid., pp. 129-130. 135Ibid., p. 194. 69 that Aristotle was not historically accurate allowed for a more logical interpretation of the scanty historical evi dence. Unfortunately, Pickard-Cambridge's work (1928) marked the end of the period of intense scholarly interest in the "origins" problem just at the time when additional work could have been so valuable. The last forty years have seen the publication of a number of works of some impor tance, but none of them had been successful in bringing the "origins" problem to the forefront once again. Without the interest of a large body of theatre scholars, there has been little real progress in this area. In The Hero, Lord Raglan studied the heroes and religious figures of various cultures and using a checklist of twenty-two points they emerged as one archetypal hero, never historical, but always derived through a myth from a ritual drama. Stanley Hyman made a penetrating assessment of this work. It is a cheeky, snobbish, and frequently irritating book, but its general contentions are so sound, so un questionable, and so revolutionary that, more widely read, it could single handedly end a good deal of the nonsense that currently passes for folk-criticism.136 Lord Raglan's general contentions were that many traditions, tales, sagas, which purported to represent his torical fact were indeed myths. A myth, as he pointed out, 136g-tanley Hyman, The Armed Vision (New York: Vin tage Books, 1955), p. 125. 70 was originally tied to a ritual, in fact, the myth was a unifying factor in the enactment of the ritual. This unification is induced by the myth, which not merely links the ritual of the present with the ritual of the past, but actually identifies the present, in its ritual aspect, with a past conceived solely in terms of ritual— a past, that is to say, in which the superhuman figures devote themselves to the performance of acts which are prototypes of the r i t u a l . 137 If the myth was originally the spoken part of ritual, then the myth-hero was ultimately a god figure of some sort. In establishing the twenty-two points against which such heroes as Oedipus, Zeus, Theseus, Romulus, Moses, Dionysus, were rated an interesting pattern emerged. The incidents fall definitely into three groups— those connected with the heros birth, those connected with his accession to the throne, and those connected with his death. They thus correspond to the three principal rites de passage, that is to say, the rites at birth, at initiation, and at death.138 Raglan refuted Ridgeway's tomb theory since the heroes worshipped were not real heroes, but myth heroes. As to the "origins" of drama he approached it backwards when he said, "the traditional narrative . . . [was based] . . . upon dramatic ritual or ritual d r a m a . " 1 3 9 i n other words, the existence of the narrative myth substantiated the exis tence of dramatic ritual. Raglan strongly supported the Harrison-Murray ritual theory. In one of his more rash 137Lord Fitz Roy R. S. Raglan, The Hero (London: Watts and Co., 1949), p. 131. 138Ibid., p. 190. i39Ibid., p. 280. 71 statements he debunked the traditional theory stating that those things which were attributed to Thespis were no more historical fact than the deeds attributed to any myth-hero. Every feature of the Attic drama, both tragedy and comedy, as we meet it in the fifth century B.C., points to a long period of evolution. If we were told that the first beginning of Greek statuary was in 535 B.C., when a rustic came into Athens carrying a crudely carved wooden image, we should, of course, reject the idea with scorn, but it is in no way more absurd that [sic] the story of Thespis.140 Although the preceding must be taken with a grain of salt, Raglan's real point was that since the form we know as Greek tragedy was so complex it must have taken a long time to first develop as ritual and then to be transformed into drama. It was unfortunate that Lord Raglan's eccentric individuality kept him out of the mainstream of literary criticism. George Thomson was a Marxist critic and applied his unique philosophical viewpoint to a study of the "origins" of Greek tragedy. He was also aware of anthropological theory, principally Malinowski's functionalism. Greek tragedy was one of the distinctive functions of Athenian demoncracy. In its form and content, in its growth and decay, it was conditioned by the evolution of the social organism to which it belonged.141 Thomson saw this development in the shift from the primitive tribal state to a democracy, and the decay of 14QIbid., p. 283. ^4^George Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1941) , p. T~. 72 tragedy when democracy was replaced with tyranny. Thomson saw the Greek concept of moira, which originally meant land sharing as a symbol of primitive communism. Thomson supported the ritual theory and at the same time upheld Aristotle by claiming that the dithyramb and tragedy had the same source, the Dionysiac thiasos which "was a secret magical society which preserved in modified form the structure and functions of the totemic clan."^42 This thiasos was an initiation rite and had three principal elements. 1. An orgiastic exodus into the open country (pompe; parados) 2. A sacrament in which a victim was torn to pieces and eaten raw (agon, sparagmos, peripetia, kommos) 3. A triumphant return (komos; exodus)143 This entire ritual was the myth of Dionysus, a fer tility ceremony. Then, due to various social pressures mainly the popular movement against the nobility, the orgi astic exodus became first a hymn and then in the Pelopon- nese, a dithyramb, while in Attica the sacrament became first a "passion play" and then a tragedy. "The art of tragedy was descended, remotely but directly, and with each stage in its evolution conditioned by the evolution of the society itself, from the mimetic rite of the primitive totemic clan."^44 Thomson's Marxist position may have led to a pecu- 142Ibid., p. 195. 143Ibid. 144Ibid., pp. 195-196. liar interpretation of the data, but at least his work was an attempt to place the "origins" of drama within the con text of social function and social change. Gerald Else has called Francis Fergusson's The Idea of a Theatre, "one of the most penetrating and influential books written on drama in our time."-^^ Fergusson was a ritual and myth critic who drew certain methods from the "new" critics and leaned heavily on the Cambridge School. Although he appeared to accept Murray's Eniautos-Daimon theory as fact he dealt with tragic ritual in a more general way, adopting Kenneth Burke's terminology of "the tragic rhythm." This movement or tragic rhythm of action, constitutes the shape of the play as a whole . I . Mr. Kenneth Burke . . . gives the three movements traditional desig nations which are very suggestive: Poiema, Pathema, Mathema. They may also be called for convenience, Pur pose, Passion (or Suffering) and Perception. It is this tragic rhythm of action which is the substance or spiritual content of the play, and the clue to its form.146 Fergusson studied ten plays in this work, the most important for the purposes of this study was Hamlet. Here he extended the ritual concept to include all rituals as indicative of the social organization. While the underlying pattern of prologue, agon, peripeteia, anagnorisis, pathos, and epiphany was to be found in Hamlet, Fergusson studied 14J>Else, pp. cit., p. 3. 146Francis Fergusson, The Idea of a Theater (Prince ton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1$49) , p. 18. 74 the following rituals that occurred in the play: the chang ing of the guard, Claudius' first court, the play within the play, Ophelia's madness as mock ritual, Ophelia's funeral, and the final duel between Hamlet and Laertes. If one thinks over the ritual scenes as they appear in the play, it is clear that they serve to focus attention on the Danish body politic and its hidden malady: they are ceremonious invocations of the well-being of soci ety, and secular or religious devices for securing it. As the play progresses, the rituals change in character, from the dim but honest changing of the guard, through Ophelia's mock rites, to the black mass of Claudius' last court.147 Fergusson pursued these rituals at great length to provide a new and very acceptable reading of the play. This type of criticism was based on the anthropological concepts of the social function of ritual acts and their effect on social organization. T. H. Gaster has provided in Thespis material that the Cambridge School lacked, evidence of the pattern of seasonal ceremonies in pre-Greek civilizations in the Near East. The ceremonies studied were from extant Canaaite, Hittite, Egyptian, and Hebrew literature. It was Gaster's belief that the primary function of seasonal ceremonies was for "Society to renew its vitality and thus insure its con tinuance."14® These ceremonies were the nucleus of drama with the ritual providing the form and the myth the content. Perhaps Gaster's greatest contribution was to substantiate ^-^Ibid., p. 114. 14®Gaster, op. cit., p. 3. 75 certain points that the Cambridge School could only support through intuition and faith. Benjamin Hunningher's purpose in writing The Origin of the T h e a t e r ^ 9 was to prove that the "re-birth" of drama in the Middle Ages did not spring from the Church, but rather that a secular drama was always in existence and that it was the church that borrowed from an already existing drama to serve its own purposes. This point he proved con clusively. One of his arguments was that the ritual of the Catholic Church differed in kind from that kind of ritual necessary to produce drama, the kind that produced drama originally. Hunningher followed the Harrison-Murray pattern of the "origin" of drama from primitive ritual to reach the following conclusion. For primitive and ancient religions and the theater that arose from them, in the beginning was the deed, and the deed was with man, and the deed was man. Christianity replaced this with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The fun damental opposition of these two concepts leads us to believe that it is impossible for the Christian Church in any century or period to have created drama in a way analogous to primitive and ancient rites.150 The ritual of the Catholic Church was commemorative rather than an active one which assumed the power to do (i.e., dromenon). The Church borrowed from a drama that l^^Benjamin Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961) . ^•AQlbid., pp. 60-61. 76 developed from pagan ritual in order to be able to compete against it. In The Spirit of Tragedyf 151 Herbert Muller also followed the Harrison-Murray pattern, but in a modified form. There is still considerable question whether this ancient ritual pattern was actually the source of tragedy . . . nevertheless . . . there remain broad sim- . ilarities between Greek drama and the ritual dramas, similarities that look like actual historical connec tions the more we learn about the religion of the Near East, Minoan Crete, and pre-historic Greece.152 Muller also acknowledged the psychological school. "The theories of Jung and Freud help to explain why we respond so deeply to dramas that offhand seem foreign to our own experience."153 Muller went on to say that a basic ritual pattern existed all over the Mediterranean, but only the Greeks developed tragedy. His answer for this was an old one. On the face of it, the clue to its distinctive essence is not in its ancient form but in its unique content, its new spirit. And this clue leads straight to Homer . . . In effect, he wrote a declaration of spiritual independence that enabled the Greeks to develop tragedy.154 Nor did Muller ignore the point of view of the modern social an thropologis t. So strikingly unique a creation as Greek tragedy calls for some effort at explanation. It was pre-eminently a 151nerbert Muller, The Spirit of Tragedy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956). l^Ibid. , p. 31. 153ibjd. l^^Ibid. , pp. 37-38. 77 communal affair, once more, not a literary pastime for an elite. We can not understand it rightly or fully unless we see it in relation to Greek culture as a whole, the social conditions it reflected and the social purposes it served.155 In Muller's construct then, ritual ceremonies were the source for the form of tragedy; Homeric epics became its content, and it was brought to life by Greek society of the fifth century. G. M. Kirkwood in A Study of Sophoclean Drama admitted a ritual origin on one hand. "In the case of Greek tragedy, the ritual origin and the nature of performances . . . are not open to doubt."^® On the other hand, he refuted the validity of the Harrison-Murray theory because of lack of evidence. "This kind of ritual influence we must discard as critically unusable. No doubt it is valuable to have a background of knowledge about the origin— the possi ble origin— of Greek tragedy, but that is all."157 while rejecting the use of ritual and myth (and also psychology) Kirkwood offered no other "origin" theory. His analysis of the Sophoclean plays placed him generally with the tradi tionalists . The noted Greek scholar, H. D. F. Kitto, in "Greek ^•^^Ibid., p. 53. # Kirkwood, A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. XXXI; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), p. 14. ■^7Ibid. 78 Tragedy and Dionysus," began by casting doubts on the entire anthropological school as well as certain aspects of the traditional theory. His rejection followed a familiar pat tern based mainly on the work of Pickard-Cambridge. Kitto also argued that the plays themselves are neither ritualis tic or Dionysiac in nature. Suppose we had preserved to us, from Greek antiquity, nothing but the existing manuscripts of the tragic plays together with the existing fragments and recorded titles of plays now lost: would anyone ever have deduced from these, or even suspected, that tragedy had any connec tion with Dionysus? I think the only possible answer is "No.1,158 Kitto also restated the idea that Peisistratus established the City Dionysia as a political move because the god was widely worshipped in the Aegean area, and that tragedy came to be performed there because the work of Thespis was "something new, something that was exciting and seemed full of promise.1,158 Unfortunately Professor Kitto was mainly interested in showing that "the influence of Dionysiac forms on the origin of tragedy may have been none at all, . . . any influence of Dionysiac ideas appears to be much less likely,"188 and did not spend too much time in trying to support an "origin" theory to replace those he had dis proved. His tentative suggestion was that Thespis was a 158H. D. F. Kitto, "Greek Tragedy and Dionysus," Theatre Survey, I (1960), 4. 159Ibid., p. 11. 160Ibid., p. 17. 79 unique creative artist who happened to combine certain ele ments to make tragedy. It was not a case of evolutionary development that culminated in tragedy, but rather it was a creative leap. This idea of Kitto's was presented as a very modest speculation, and had appeared earlier in the work of Flickinger. It remained for Gerald Else in The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy to flesh out the "Thespis-creator" theory. He marshalled all of the evidence to discount all three of the prevailing theories: the traditional, the ritual, and the tomb theory. He then extended Kitto's idea in the following manner. The origin of tragedy was not so much a gradual "or ganic" development as a sequence of two creative leaps, by Thespis and Aeschylus, with certain conditioning factors precedent to each.161 It was Thespis who began the personation of a hero or as Else called it the "self-presentation," to form the tragoidia. He speculated that a Thespian tragedy had the following form. We can be sure that the performance normally began with a prologue,- and that its central feature was the self- presentation of an epic hero. There may have been several short scenes or "episodes," each followed by a song of the chorus. The burden of the whole was a pathos, the death or suffering of a hero. The chorus entered with a hymn to Zeus and/or other god; later, normally at the end, it sang a threnos or formal lamen tation over the hero. Such, in barest outline, was the ^^^Else, op. cit., p. 7. 80 earliest form of tragedy. Aeschylus, then turned the tragoidia into tragic drama by adding plot incidents before and after the pathos thus presenting an action for the first time. "This identi fication of "drama" with action, something happening, is our heritage from Aristotle, and I have no quarrel with it."I®2 We have the plays of Aeschylus and Else was on reasonably sound ground in his analysis of them, but his theory as regards Thespis1 contributions was necessarily more speculative, especially since he and Kitto both tended to disregard almost completely the influence of any sort of choral performance. Although Else dismissed the work of the Cambridge School, he used social anthropological theory to develop his Thespis concept. If tragedy is the unique child of sixth-century Athens, it ought to be possible to gain some clues to its origin by surveying her literary, intellectual, and religious life during that period, to see what it was about Athens that might have suggested or fostered the new creation . . . We are on the watch for events, situations, insti tutions, ideas, which might have induced or encouraged the invention of a peculiar new literary g e n r e . 164 Else found his clues to support the Thespis-creator theory in the actions of Solon and Peisistratus. That his final results were not entirely satisfactory does not negate the approach. A brief summary of this literature led to the fol- 162Ibid., p. 76. 163Ibid., P« 5. 164Ibid., p. 32. 81 lowing conclusions about the current state of the "origins" problem. The ritual theory of Harrison and Murray has not been disproved. It has been strengthened by the work of Gaster. Pickard-Cambridge in cutting Aristotle loose from history did not weaken it and general research into earlier civilizations has only placed it farther back into time than the Cambridge School had originally envisioned. A number of modern scholars, among them Thomson, Muller, Kitto, and Else, have used social anthropological theory to support their viewpoints, but only tangentially. The "Thespis- creator" theory of Kitto and Else, even if sound, would only be toward the very end of a long process and does not deny original ritual roots. No modern theatre scholar has attempted to use modern social anthropological theory and data as fully as the Cambridge School used the anthropologi cal theory and data that was available to them. As Beresford Menagh has come to know, In order to distinguish between a rite and a drama in primitive culture, it is necessary to subject a given phenomena to a thoroughgoing analysis . . . an examina tion which can not be conducted in a cursory way but i analysis of the cultural Murngin Dramatic Ritual The Murngin appeared in a number of early general Beresford Menagh, "A Way of Separating Theatre from Rite," Educational Theatre Journal, XIX (May, 1967), 123. 82 works, but this section considered those works that served as major sources for this study. The first, and to this date, only book devoted entirely to the Murngin society as a whole was A Black Civilization by W. Lloyd Warner.This book.was the result of field work carried out during 1926- 29. It was a very complete study and contained reason ably detailed descriptions of the dramatic rituals, along with some native interpretations of their "meanings"^7 Warner made his own sociological analysis of the ritual ceremonies, but this was in terms of his belief that "the kinship system was the fundamental form into which the rest of the social organization has been integrated."-*-^® Proceeding from this point the importance of the rituals was the establishment and maintenance of the clan through clan totems, clan totemic wells, and clan terri tories. The clans were considered to be extensions of the kinship system and therefore the ritual ceremonies' primary scJcial function was to support and maintain kinship. Reli gion as expressed in the rituals was used to "regulate, organize, and integrate social behaviour [and to] relate each of the separate parts of the society and of nature into 166w. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (rev. ed.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1558). IG^Warner ma<je some errors, principally in equating ithe Wauwalak with the Djanggawul, cf. Berndt, infra. p. 85. -*-®8Warner, op. cit., p. 7. 83 a larger and general unity."109 Warner credited Ogden and Richards-^0 with providing him with a method to analyze ritual logics. Unfortunately, as used by Warner, there were a number of pseudo-algebraic expressions and complex charts that were nearly incompre hensible. Warner's general conclusion was that the perfor mance of the ceremonies "forced nature to act properly"171 and made the seasonal cycle continue. This was on the real level and there was no mention of the ideal existence of the 1 10 society. '^ Ronald and Catherine Berndt have published the most material on the Murngin, three books and a score of arti cles . All of this work was twenty to twenty-five years later than Warner's and certainly had the advantage of in tervening advances in the field, both in theory and practice. Arnhem Land: Its History and Its People^ 3 was an historical study from Flinders first contact with the IQ^Ibid., p. io. 170c. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (Harcourt Brace and Company, 1927). !71warner, op. cit., p. 411. 172For a discussion of the two-fold character of a society, the ideal and the real, cf. infra. pp. 183-184. 173RQnald Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, Arnhem Land: Its History and Its People (Melbourne: F. W . Cheshire Pty. Ltd., 1954). 84 Murngin in 1803. The chief value of this work was to assess the effects of alien contact upon the Murngin. This contact included, Malay traders, Japanese fishermen, and finally Australian missionaries, ranchers, and soldiers. In Kunapipi, Ronald Berndt made an extensive study of this ceremony which was one of three based on the Wau- walak Sisters Cycle.Berndt described the performance of the ceremony briefly and detailed the Wauwalak myth much more fully than Warner. The bulk of the book was devoted to «n exhaustive translation and explication of the nearly 200 songs that were sung during the ceremony. The purpose of this work was to interpret the primary theme of the kuna- The major theme in all Kunapipi ritual is the natural cycle of reproduction and fertility. Fertility, as expressed in reproduction, seasonal fluctuation, periods of plenty and scarcity, is symbolized in the ceremonies associated with animals, birds and plants, their mating, copulating, and bearing offspring in their proper seasons. The essential factor of mating and copulating, as a step towards reproduction, is crystallized in cere monial copulation on the sacred ground.175 Berndt's final consideration was how the ceremony and the entire Murngin society had been adversely affected by the Australian missionaries and military. In areas of greatest contact the indigenous society has collapsed with a 174The other two ceremonies were the ngurlmak and the djunggawon. 1 7c Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (New York: Interna tional Universities Press, 1951) , p. 17. 85 loss of faith in its religious doctrines. Only in the out lying areas did the aboriginal life proceed comparatively undisturbed and the performances of the kunapipi take place as usual. Djanggawul was structured much the same way as Kuna pipi with the bulk of the work being the translation and explication of the song cycle. Djanggawul was the primary creation myth and its ceremony, the dua nara, the most important in Murngin society. The Djanggawul were the only true creators and were ranked above the Wauwalak Sisters. The essential distinction between the two is the fact that the Djanggawul are concerned with procreation, while the Wauwalak are, so to speak, interested in main taining the status quo. The Wauwalak are not assumed to have "brought into being" all life, as are the Djangga wul; they symbolically re-enact the situation, but are not the creators of it.176 Berndt continued to show that the Djanggawul myth and the dua nara were more concerned with the ideal and durative character of the society to link it with its ideal abstract eternal existence while the Wauwalak myth and its ceremonies, ngurlmak, kunapipi, and djunggawon were more concerned with the real and punctual character of the society, the fulfillment of immediate needs. In each of these works Berndt was basically inter ested in the primary function of the ceremonies— procrea tion, fertility, and continuity and did not consider any ■^^Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul (New York: Philo sophical Library, 1953), p. 12. 86 other social functions to any great extent. The important economic function of the ritual cere monies was studied by Donald Thomson. His book, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land covered the entire economic system of the Murngin and there were many references to the particular economic function of the ceremonies. With each successive stage of initiation it is obliga tory for him to make gifts to the old men of the clan group into which he is being initiated. This may become very irksome and may even reach a stage when no matter how hard he works he is unable completely to discharge all his obligations, so laying himself open to the fear of reprisals, such as visitation by kalka (sorcerers) or by other agencies.177 It was Thomson's conclusion that various social obligations were the reason for the production of goods in the Murngin society over and above those needed for subsis tence. Ritual ceremonies placed heavy economic demands on the men, demands which they must meet or lose face and finally suffer religious sanctions. Yulengor was an account by missionary Wilbur S. Chaseling who spent a number of years at the mission at Yirrkala. Chaseling was not an anthropologist, but he was wise enough to try "to preserve native culture, to encourage the revival of old ceremonies, and to preserve in the natives an appreciation of their own social organiza- l^Donald F. Thomson, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land (Melbourne: Mac- millan and Co. Ltd., 1949), p. 36. 87 tion."179 He was also there to present the Christian faith which must have had some effect on the natives. This book was useful chiefly for some additional information on the performance of the ritual ceremonies. Finally the greatest amount of iconographic material was found in two works, Records of the 'American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land^-^ and Art in Arnhem 180 Land. Each of these works contained photographs and drawings of large numbers of ranggas, totemic emblems, musi cal instruments, and bark paintings. In none of the works reviewed was there a complete analysis of the social function of the ritual ceremonies. Warner was chiefly concerned with kinship and then religion, the Berndts with procreation and fertility, and Thomson, of course, only with economics. It was one of the purposes of this study to make at least a basic analysis of all the social functions of these ritual ceremonies to show their complexity and how they were interrelated. A fuller under standing of the social functions of ritual ceremonies may 17®Wilbur S. Chaseling, Yulengor (London: The Ep- worth Press, 1957), p. xvi. l79Charles P. Mountford, Records of the American- Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1: Art, Myth and Symbolism (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, mar.— --------------- ^■"a . P. Elkin and Catherine and Ronald Berndt, Art in Arnhem Land (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950) . 88 lead to new ways of approaching the transition from ritual to drama. Organization of the Remaining Chapters The remaining chapters in this study were organized in the following manner. In Chapter II the Murngin social organization was discussed as a base for the study. Murngin mythology from which the ritual ceremonies drew their con tent was the subject of Chapter III. In Chapter IV the dramatic aspects of the ritual ceremonies were discussed. The social functions of these ceremonies were analyzed in Chapter V. The last chapter, VI, contained the summary, conclusions, implications, and suggestions for further research. CHAPTER II MURNGIN SOCIAL ORGANIZATION The People In his book, A Black Civilization,- ^ W. Lloyd Warner chose the name "Murngin" to refer to a group of eight tribes2 which have "the same kinship system, the same form of local organization, largely the same myths and ceremo nies, and, in general, the same culture, with only those Q minor variations found in any homogeneous civilization."- 3 These eight groups were Barlamomo, Burera, Dai, Djinba, Murngin, Ritarngo, Yaernungo, and Yanjinung. Warner made this choice because the Murngin were the most numerous and they occupied the central part of the territory studied. Only Ronald Berndt objected to this usage. I have preferred the term used by the people themselves: they are the Wulamba, which refers collectively to all their clans; that is, they may be said to be the Wulamba bloc. Warner (1937) erroneously used the term "Murngin" which is the name of only one clan and should not be ■^W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (rev. ed.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958). 2The term "tribe" was used very loosely. Cf. infra, pp. 106-107. ^Warner, op. cit., p. 15. 89 90 4 used m this sense. Although Berndt had good reason for his objection, time has made "Murngin” the accepted generic designation for these clans and the term has been used in Warner's context throughout this study. C The fifteen hundred to two thousand Murngin who lived in Northeast Arnhem Land were the descendants of the original Aborigines who emigrated to Australia from some part of Southeast Asia. This emigration must have taken place by sea since the land bridge from Asia to Australia had "disappeared before it could be used by placental Asian animals,and this predated the appearance of man. Hart and Pilling utilized the absence of the bow and arrow in Australia as one way to date this emigration. ' By 15,000 B. C. the bow and arrow was present in North east Asia . . . and was probably known in Southeast Asia. We may hazard the conclusion, therefore, that the ancestors of the Australians must have already left the vicinity of the Asiatic mainland by that date. This leads to the inference that when discovered by Captain Cook in 1770, the Australians had been in Australia for something like 17,000 years, having drifted down from ^Ronald M. Berndt, "Murngin (Wulamba) Social Organi zation," American Anthropologist, LVII (1955), 104. ^Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul (New York: Philosoph ical Library, 1953) , p. xvin. C . F. D. McCarthy, Australia's Aborigines, Their Life and Culture (Melbourne: Colorgravure Publications, 1$57), p. 9 . 7C. W. M. Hart and Arnold R. Pilling, The Tiwi of North Australia (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1961), p. 3. 91 the mainland of Asia possessing only the primitive tech nological equipment that the rest of the world had evolved at that t i m e . 8 When Captain Cook arrived, he found that the Aborig ines used very frail canoes. They consisted of a single sheet of bark that was bent into a boat shape with the ends laced together. From the state of the Aborigines' canoe- making art, it has been inferred that their emigration had not been purposeful. [It] . . . must have been accidental and involuntary, by being blown or carried on, whether they liked it or not. In short they reached the Australian coastline as casta ways drifting in from the islands to the northwest or north.9 Where the Aborigines landed was not certain. "How ever, early migratory evidence seems to point conclusively to the Arnhem Land area and to Cape York."^® Additional support was gained from the fact that "in the past and in the present day, canoes and small boats from nearby Indo nesian islands and southern New Guinea have been washed ashore on the Arnhem Land coast. Why were there not later settlers from among the Melanesians, Polynesians, and Micronesians? These people ®Ibid., p. 4. 9Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 3^ ^®Ibid., p. 4. ^Hart and Pilling, op. cit., pp. 4-5. 92 all sailed better canoes and could go where they liked. However, the bulk of them traveled "around the northern side of New Guinea and therefore never approached the north coasts of Australia.1,12 If any of these later peoples did land they did not stay. The northern coast was particularly uninviting and having the capability they must have pushed on. The Aborigines, with their unseaworthy canoes, had no choice but to stay. "Thus, the early Australians were left in isolated possession of an empty continent during the fif teen thousand or more years following their arrival."^3 - The Land The Murngin lived in the northeast portion of Arnhem Land. This 31,200 square mile Aboriginal Reserve was estab lished in 1 9 3 1 . It occupied the northernmost part of Aus tralia's North Territory. The Reserve was bounded on the north by the Sea of Arafura, which separated it from Indo nesia and New Guinea, on the east by the Gulf of Carpen taria, on the south by the Roper River, and finally on the west by a natural boundary of sandstone mountains and deep gorges. Located ten to fifteen degrees south of the equator, the climate was tropical, with seasonal cycles of dry and - * - 2Ibid. , p. 5. ^ Ibid. 14Wilbur S. Chaseling, Yulengor (London: The Ep- worth Press, 1957), p. ix. 93 rainy periods. The mangrove-lined coastlines had a savanna type of vegetation. Several rivers emptied into the sea and there were numerous salt water creeks among the mangroves. The interior had alkaline plains, swamps, and marshy lakes (depending on the season) giving way to a more barren moun tainous terrain toward the southern and western boundaries. There was a wide variety of foodstuff; animals, fish, and reptiles as well as fruits, berries, nuts, and other edible vegetables. The Murngin were hunters and gatherers and their behavior was drastically affected by the seasonal changes. Food was abundant during the dry season and relatively scarce during the rainy season. "The tech nology can be described briefly as the adaptive mechanisms of the general society to these to parts of the cycle of nature.”15 16 Kinship System Warner placed prime importance on the kinship sys tem. The whole of the social organization is built on the pattern of kinship. The kinship system is the fundamen tal form into which the rest of the social organization has been integrated. The greater part of the behavior of the Murngin can be understood only in terms of his 15Warner, op. cit., p. 4. l^The Murngin type of kinship has been the subject of great scholarly controversy for the past thirty years. For a partial bibliography vide Warner, op. cit., pp. xv- xvi. 94 behavior as a kinsman.^ The Murngin kinship system was very complex and 18 19 highly sophisticated. It was patrilineal, exogamic, and the preferred form of marriage was between asymmetric cross- o n cousins. The Murngin traced seven lines of descent through five generations with different terminology for male and female relatives. This produced seventy kinship terms and the distinction between older and younger brothers brought the final total to seventy-one. This was a classi- ficatory system2- * - in which kinship was eventually extended to everyone in the society, and it defined a man's behavior to these people, according to the terms he applied to them, 17 Warner, op. cit., p. 7. 1 8 xoPatrilineal— Descent was reckoned through the male line, fathers, sons, etc. 1 Q Exogamic— Marriage outside the group. In Murngin society the marriage partner must come from the other moi ety. 20 . Asymmetric cross-cousin marriage— Cross-cousin marriage was the marriage of children of unlike siblings. That is, a male could marry his mother's brother's daughter or his father's sister's daughter. If the male could marry either cousin, the system was called symmetric; if he could only marry one or the other, the system was called asymmet ric. In Murngin society the male could only marry his mother's brother's daughter. 2-*-Classificatory system— A system of classifying certain collateral kin with lineal kin and of placing people who are of no blood relationship in the categories of other kin who are. For example, a man's father's brothers (un cles) were all called father or his maternal grandmother's sisters were all called maternal grandmother. When, as in the Murngin society, the father's kin and the mother's kin were separated, this was known as the Dakota System. 95 and in turn fixed their behavior and obligations to him.22 That was not to say that a Murngin man didn't make a dis tinction between a lineal relative and a collateral one who were called by the same name, e.g., father, brother, etc. He did and he knew the varying obligations and responsibili ties he had to each one. In order to simplify the kinship structure, and lineal and collateral kin were arranged into eight groupings of lineage and descent called sub-sections.2^ The sub section had several functions. There was considerable opin ion that its main function was to determine a proper mar?- riage partner, but Warner argued that he had disproved this idea. The sub-section and section system does not regulate marriage, but serves rather as an extension of the kin ship system. . . . the relationship of a man and a woman finally determines what persons they marry. In Murngin ego always marries his mother's brother's daughter, and it is of no concern which sub-section she is in . . . It is her kinship relation to him that really counts; fur ther, in the group (sub-section) from which he takes his wife there are several women that he cannot marry— for example, father's mother.24 It was common to call someone by his sub-section title and in very large gatherings where the correct kinship Donald F. Thomson, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land (Melbourne: Mac millan and Co. Ltd., 1949) , p. T~. 2^Sub-sections— A reclassification of the entire kinship system into eight groups. 24 Warner, op. cit., pp. 122-123. 96 term linking strangers or distant relatives would be diffi cult to ascertain, the sub-section term was used to estab lish the required relationship. Within the kinship system there were certain special relationships, such as father-son or son-mother's brother, that had special significance in a particular sphere of social activity, marriage, religion, or economics. They were known as "face to face" relationships. This term indi cated that there was some additional social obligation between the two over and above what might have been expected. Marriage The polygynous Murngin marriage system in addition 2 c to asymmetric cross-cousin marriage, included the sororate^'3 2 6 and the junior levirate. For the purposes of economic advantage and social prestige, the Murngin male tried to ac quire as many wives as he could get and hold. The average middle-aged Murngin had approximately three and a half wives. There was a recorded case of one native who had seventeen wives.Generally, if a man had an unusually 2^Sororate— The right of the husband of a woman to the remainder of her sisters, as wives, after he has married the first of these female siblings. ^®Junior Levirate— The levirate was the inheritance of a dead man's wives by his brothers, in the junior levi rate by his younger brothers. ^Warner, op. cit., p. 77. 97 large number of wives they had been obtained "illegally" either by theft or through capture during war. A man always tried to obtain his actual mother's brother's daughter; if he could not get her, he tried to marry someone as near to her in consanguinity as possible.28 The marriage guest created a special relationship between a young man and his maternal uncle, who was his potential father-in-law. The young man continually gave gifts to his maternal uncle who would eventually reciprocate by giving the young man his daughter in marriage. As a way to improve his chances of success, the young man gave additional gifts to the one man who could exert the most influence upon his maternal uncle. That man was his maternal uncle's maternal uncle.This reciprocal gift giving, moved across lines of descent, in both ascending and descending generations, and greatly strengthened these lateral relationships. It was not unusual for a boy and a girl in the proper relationship to have been betrothed before they were born. They were made aware of their state while still quite young, and their behavior toward one another while growing up was that of fiances. When they had both passed through physiological puberty, they began to live together in their 28Ibid., p. 25. 2^While this relationship was awkwardly described in our kin terms it was very simple in Murngin terminology. Ego called this relative, mari. 98 own camp and were then recognized as husband and wife. A new family had been created. There were many occasions when everything did not proceed this smoothly. There might be rival claimants for the same girl, and sometimes the girl's father had accepted gifts from more than one prospective son-in-law. There were also times when a couple would elope for love and create a "wrong" marriage. These cases were usually settled by long discussions between the parties involved, the elders, not the couple who had eloped. Occasionally arguments over "wrong" marriages led to bloodshed and warfare. In all cases an attempt was made to make the proper match within the framework of the kinship system. When a "wrong" mar riage was allowed to stand kinship terms were altered so that the offspring were integrated into the normal line of descent. In Murngin society the junior levirate even func tioned before the death of the older b r o t h e r .^ j f the older brother had already received two sisters as wives, the third was given, with his permission, to his younger broth er. There were three reasons for this. The father-in-law would now have two sons-in-law giving him gifts. The wives would eventually belong to the younger brother. It reduced the chance of the younger brother committing adultery with 3 0 Warner, op. cit., pp. 60-61. his older brother's wives. There were about as many men as women among the Murngin, but the women were married at an early age, 11 or 12, while the men usually married at a later age, 20 to 25. Blood feuds and warfare further reduced the number of mar riageable men. These two factors tended to stabilize the polygynous system at the three and a half to one ratio. Nuclear Family— Daily Activities The nuclear family consisted of a man, his wife or wives, and their children. The daughters lived with the family until they were married, but the sons, at age six to eight, after they were circumcised, went to live in a boys' or young men's camp. They stayed there until they married and started a family of their own. This separation was a part of the incest taboo which in Murngin society took the extreme form of brother-sister avoidance. Brother and sister did not sleep in the same house, nor did they talk to one another. A brother spoke in a low voice in his sister's presence and she pretended not to hear him. In the extreme when a sister was insulted by someone, her brother often attacked her. This showed his revulsion; that he was not thinking of her sexually.^ However, the kinship system created a strong bond ^11. r . Hiatt, "Incest in Arnhem Land," Oceania, XXXV (Dec., 1964), 126. !"' 100 between brother and sister because the brother's daughter and the sister's son would be marriage partners. A sister always sided with her brother during a group argument. A brother would act as a second father toward his sisters. He protected them when necessary and punished them for miscon duct. The nuclear family was an independent self-contained unit within a general camp. Each family had its own fire around which they built a windbreak, shelter, or hut, depending on the season. They hunted for, gathered, and prepared their own food, which was not so abundant in any one area that it could support a large population. The Murngin were spread rather thinly over the land and were continually moving through their territory in search of new food sources. An exception to this routine was the communal hunt ing and fishing drives. In the dry season a hunting drive was carried out by controlled burning of the high grass. The animals were flushed out and then killed. During a fishing drive large nets were used to force the fish into a shallow cove, poison was added to the water, and the stupe fied fish were then collected. In both of these drives the food obtained was divided equally among the participants. Each family made their own implements, utensils, and ceremonial items. Thomson commented on their expertise. The people have a simple but specialised material cul- i" ' '." '.......... ” 101 ture, and show much skill in technology . . . They possess no looms but are expert in weaving and spinning by hand, and employ a simple spindle for the manufactur ing of string from opossum fur and human hair. They are skilled as wood carvers and make elaborately barbed spear heads of wood, carved sacred totemic objects, grave posts, as well as wooden dugout canoes.32 In more recent times metal, obtained from traders or missionaries, has been made into knives and spearheads. There was a definite division of labor between men and women. The women collected all of the vegetable food, shellfish, honey, and small game. The men fished and hunted for the larger animals. In their daily routine the Murngin ate all of the food they collected in any one day. No food was preserved or stored for future use. When a ceremony was held hundreds of people had to be fed for weeks or even months. For this occasion the women collected the fruit of the Cycad palm which was ground and baked into a coarse, heavy, unleavened bread called ngatu. The Cycad fruit was very abundant at the time the ceremonies were held and ngatu would keep for several weeks. In this way a large popula tion could be supported at one location. Ngatu was the principal ritual food eaten in Arnhem Land on ceremonial occasions.when the proper invocations were spoken, ngatu became a sacramental food. Along with the food quest, both men and women gathered raw materials, certain woods, fibers, resins, etc., ■ *2Thomson, op. cit., pp. 8-9. ^2Ibid., p. 23. 102 that were needed to make their material items. Here, the division of labor was continued. The women made their dig ging sticks, small mesh baskets, and nets of string. Men made larger baskets, heavy rope, fish nets and traps, canoes, spears and spears throwers, and all of the necessary ceremonial items. The Murngin were a very industrious people. Neither men nor women were idle for long, and even in camp as they sat around their fires they were seen to pick up a basket, a fish net, a spear, or other weapon and work at this as they talked. Their daily activities were methodical, sys tematic, and orderly. What were the drives, the incentives, which lay behind all this organisation? Why does it move so smoothly, and what induces these people to work so hard, so will ingly, without any apparent direction, control, or authority?^ The answers were to be found in certain functions of the kinship system and the ritual ceremonies. In each social obligations were incurred which had to be discharged by ceremonial gifts of food and material items. Organizational Units The Clan O f . Warner has identified over forty Murngin clans. ° They were the most important social units in Arnhem Land. A 3^Ibid. , p. 34. 33Ibid. 36Warner, op. cit., pp. 39-51. 103 clan was an "exogamic, patrilineal group averaging about forty or fifty individuals who possess a common territory which averages 360 square miles."3^ The land belonged to the clan by virtue of religious tradition and no land could be taken by an act of war. If a clan died out its territory was not reassigned until the memory of that clan was gone and the myths had been unconsciously changed to give reli gious charter to the clan now occupying the territory. Within each clan's boundaries were one or more sacred totemic water holes which were the unifying factor and spiritual focus of the clan's religious life.33 These specific totems were one of the ways in which the clans were distinguished from one another. Another way was dialect, all the clans considered themselves to be linguistically distinct,3® and although there was noticeable variation in speech, there was enough uniformity for all of the people to understand each other. Membership in a clan was by birth, which made the clan a permanent and stable organizational unit. Since residence was patrilocal all of the members of the clan did not live together. The female members of a clan, who had to marry into other clans, lived with their husband's group. 3^ibid., p. 16. 33Vide Religion, infra, pp. 110-112. 3®Warner, op. cit., p. 40. The Horde Whereas the clan was an hereditary land-holding group, the horde was a land-occupying group. A horde might be made up of all the male members of a clan, their wives (who remained members of other clans), and their children.^® The horde was the main hunting, food-collecting, and war- making unit. In contrast to the clan, the horde was an unstable group whose membership could be changed by marriage and adoption, and whose size varied with the seasonal activ ities. At one extreme, during the rainy season, a horde could consist of two or three families foraging together. At the other extreme, during the dry season when the large drives took place, and food was in great abundance, a horde might consist of all the male members of several friendly clans who shared joint territorial hunting rights, with their wives and children. The ultimate size of a horde was determined by dialect since the boundaries of each linguis tic group territory were fairly clearly defined and were never questioned. The Moiety In Murngin society everything was divided into two distinct divisions or moieties. Warner explained the full ^Thomson, op. cit., pp. 11-13. 41L. R. Hiatt, "Local Organization among the Austra lian Aboriginies," Oceania, XXXII (June, 1962), 313. 105 extent of this division. There is nothing in the whole universe— plant, animal, mineral, star, man, or culture— that has not a place in one of the two categories. The allocation is made by an association that sometimes seems irrational to a Euro pean, but is perfectly reasonable to the native mind.42 The Murngin moieties were called dua and jiritja. Moieties were by definition exogamic. Clan members all belonged to one moiety, but a family unit or horde had mem bers belonging to both moieties. The dual division struc tured daily activities to a certain degree, but the sharpest separation by moiety was found during religious ceremonies. Each moiety had its own mythology, in part. (There were some common myths.) Each moiety had its own major ceremony, dua nara and jiritja nara and during the other ceremonies each moiety was responsible for specific sections and tasks. "Another interesting aspect of these moieties was that the dua seemed to be associated with indigenous belief, ritual and ceremony of the people, while the jiritja were more concerned with introduced or external themes."43 The dua moiety was conservative. The jiritja moiety was more liberal and had incorporated new religious material during the years of alien contact and all "the later innovations of the Asiatic trepangers and the white man— for example 43Warner, pp. cit., p. 30. 43Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (New York: Interna tional Universities Press, 1551) , pp. 3-4. 106 tobacco, wooden canoes, the Malay smoking pipe and so on."^ The Phratry and the Tribe The phratry was an attempt by the Murngin to form groups of clans within a moiety. The groupings were based upon language similarities and/or common totems. The idea was to create solidarity in a group that was larger than a clan and thereby decrease intra-moiety hostilities. Howev er, this grouping on a phratry basis, was by no means gene ral, was very weak, and of no great i m p o r t a n c e . 4 ^ The "tribes" among the Murngin were even weaker. Most of the people never referred to themselves by a tribal name, although they sometimes referred to others in this way. Some clans were not sure to which tribe they belonged and some claimed membership in two tribes. There was no tribal organization, no leadership, and no tribal solidar ity. Some of the fiercest fights took place between clans of the same tribe. At best, a Murngin tribe was a group of clans of both moieties that were geographically contiguous, who habitually intermarried, and sometimes vaguely thought of themselves or were thought of as a group apart from the rest. Murngin organizational strength was in the clan and 44Charles P. Mountford, Records of the American- Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1; Art, Myth and Symbolism (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1948), p. 409. 4^Warner, op. cit., p. 34. ......... 107 the moiety. Membership in them was by birth and they were supported by the kinship system. The phratry and the tribe which were not extensions of the kinship system were corre spondingly weak and had little effect on the social process. Economic System The monograph, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land/ by Donald F. Thomson/ pro vided the most detailed account of the Murngin economic sys tem. There was no particular craft specialization among the Murngin. Each family unit could and did make all of the material items used in the culture.Therefore, the exchange of items of value, known as gerri, was not a barter system to enable a family to obtain certain items that they could not produce themselves. Rather, the reciprocal exchange system of food and material items was a function of the kinship system and religion. Each man had certain social obligations to give to and receive from others who stood in a special "face-to-face" relationship with him. The promptness with which these obligations were met was a sign of status within the group. The fact that these obli gations were heavy was the reason why the Murngin were such industrious workers. A man's social obligation must be dis charged to avoid loss of face and religious sanctions. Through the mechanism of this ceremonial exchange ^Thomson, op. cit., pp. 56f. 108 cycle goods were exchanged and re-exchanged throughout the entire area. Emphasis was not on the intrinsic value of an item only, but also on the giving of it. However, in addi tion to the social nature of this cycle, there was a mean ingful economic level. In order to fully understand the economic aspects it was necessary to discuss the impact on Murngin society of the Malay and Macassan traders. The Indonesian contact began in the early part of the 16th century judging from archeological remains. In 1803, Captain Matthew Flinders^ met with a large group of Malay traders off the Arnhem Land coast. From them he learned that they had been coming to Arnhem Land for about twenty years at that time, which would place the first con tact at about 1780. This trading lasted until 1907 when it was halted by the Australian government because of continued bloodshed and violence.^® The Malay traders came in search of trepang (beche de mer), tortoise shell, pearl shell, sandalwood, and timber. They employed the Murngin to help them gather and process these items. In return for their services the Murngin received "knives, iron axes, nails, fish hooks and ^Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis (London: Nicol, 1814), II, 228-233. 48 Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, Arnhem Land Its History and Its People (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire iPty. Ltd., 1^54) , p . 17. 109 lines, tobacco, pipes and dugout canoes. This development made new types of gerri available to the coastal Murngin. It was Thomson's contention that this Malay gerri, available only on the coast, gave new impetus to the ceremonial exchange cycle. Goods were still exchanged, but now always in a conscious compass direction so that they would be diffused throughout the territory. Fo'r example, the Malay trade goods were exchanged with people living inland. Their "direction" was always south and west and they were never exchanged in such a way as to return to the coastal area. In the same way, the best spearheads, which came from one quarry, were made available to everyone by directional exchange. With the exception of the Malay gerri, all items were made in all areas, but those of the highest quality were distributed throughout the country and not restricted to a single locale. The original impetus to distribute Malay trade goods has added an econom ic component to what had previously been a purely social system. Thomson considered this to be a unique system. Here then, is the nucleus of a great system of exchange which, though it differs in many respects from our own established ideas of trade or barter, supplies an incen tive, and above all a social and ceremonial background to the aborigine, far more important than the mere mate rial gain of gerri. It furnishes him also with an incentive to work and to lavish special skill on the making of objects of material culture, in order to dis charge his obligations within the scope of the system. ^ T h o m s o n , o p . cit., p . 86. 5®Ibid., p p . 80-81. 110 Religion Religion served many functions in Murngin society, some of which would be called secular in a modern civiliza tion. Religion was a dominant quality in Murngin life, and was reflected in all their institutions and conventional forms of behavior. Central to this study were the most important reli gious aspects of Murngin religion, the creation myths and the dramatic ritual ceremonies associated with them.^ In the beginning, a time that the Murngin referred to as the Eternal Dreaming Period, god-like, superhuman ancestors, known collectively as wongar, landed in Arnhem Land coming from some unknown island to the East. These totemic ances tors traveled through the country giving birth to the first Murngins. When they had established the Murngin clans, the wongar then gave them their totems, sacred water holes, ritual ceremonies, and entire social order. The dramatic rituals recreated the journeys and the deeds of the wongar, but they were more than commemorative ceremonies; they were inextricably linked to the life cycle and the natural seasonal cycle. Performance of these ceremonies insured the continued abundance of food and most important, the continu ation of the human race. 51 Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., p. 6. 52 Vide Creation Myths, Chapter III, and Dramatic Ritual Ceremonies, Chapter IV. i ........ -.‘ ' ' III Life, to the Murngin, was cyclic. It was centered upon a sacred totemic water hole, formed by a wongar, a creator totem, and given to a particular clan. "All members of the clan are born from this water hole, and all go back to it at death; in it the totem's spirits live with the mythological ancestor, the souls of the dead and the unborn children.”5^ The spirit of an unborn child was thought to be a small fish swimming in the totemic well. This spirit came to the father in a mystical dream, asked to be shown its mother, and implanted itself in her womb. This was the spiritual explanation of conception^ and was the first step of the life cycle. When the father announced his wife's pregnancy, this was a rite of a passage, a change of state from an amorphous spirit to an unborn child. All rites of passage, birth, circumcision, initiation, and death, were marked by appropriate ceremonies. In addition to the rites of passage, the Murngin also practiced age-grading.^ Man's passage through life ^Warner, op. cit., p. 241. ■^The Murngin were aware of physical conception, but it was of no great importance to them. Cf. Warner, op. cit. pp. 21-24. ^Age-grade— A social division based primarily on sex and the position of the male in the family and ritual structures. The male's advancement from one grade to the next was generally marked by some type of ceremony. 112 was a continual movement from a profane to a sacred state. After the initiation ceremonies there were a series of age- grading ceremonies during which more and more religious knowledge was revealed to the participants and they moved closer and closer to their spiritual totems. The old men, in any clan, possessed the most religious knowledge which gave them great prestige and status. By virtue of being in close touch with the totems they were in a position to effectively control the clan's on-going activities. Finally, at death, elaborate mortuary rites were performed "to remove the profane part of the human being who has died, and to spiritualize his soul and make it like his totem. The spiritual part of the deceased returned to the totemic well and the cycle was complete. Some of the rites of passage and all of the age- grading were integrated into the dramatic ritual ceremonies which celebrated the creation myths, so that in addition to insuring the continuity of the group many specific personal goals were achieved during the performance of these ceremonies. Magic and Sorcery The Murngin believed in magic, both black and white. Regardless of what we "know" to be true this belief shaped their social activity. Curiously, the northern clans had no ^Warner, op. cit. , p. 414. 113 magicians, but they were numerous among the rest of the Murngin. A black magician had the power to inflict injury, illness, and ultimately, by the stealing of a man's soul, death. A white magician, on the other hand, was able to identify the particular black magician who had bewitched someone, but it was rare when he could counteract the black magic.^ Death in any but the very young or old was attrib uted to evil magic and the first consideration was to fix the blame, for someone had to die for it.^® Black magic, or at least the belief in black magic, was responsible for a certain amount of feuding and warfare. In this respect it tended to destroy social order. In another respect black magic actually reenforced the social order. It provided an acceptable pattern for death. When a man was presumed to be dying because of magic the group ceased their normal relations with him. He was isolated and placed in a new state, more sacred than pro fane, which the Murngin called "half-dead." The group ini tiated mourning rites to return his soul to the sacred totemic well and to insure that no additional evil would accrue to the group. The victim accepted his status. He would dance his totemic dance and make the signs of his 57T. Theodor Webb, "The Making of a Marrngit," Oceania, VI (March, 1936), pp. 175-178. 58 Chaseling, op. cit., p. 116. 114 59 totem. His effort was not to live but to die. In this way the final rite of passage was clearly marked. The vic tim passed from one state to another, and the group solidar ity was preserved and renewed after the loss of one of their members. Norms and Values— Social Control There were two points to be considered when examin ing norms and values. What was their source and how were they enforced? In the Murngin society there was no such thing as a separate legal system. Order and discipline were laid down by tradition. It was defined in the mythology and in the sagas of the culture heroes.^® That which we would consider a legal system was an intrinsic function of the religious system. Without a separate legal system there were no law officers or judges and in the Murngin society there were no kings, chiefs, or high priests. When an accepted norm was broken there was always a question; would the authority of the enforcers be accepted by all parties? In practice the norms were administered by the old men of the tribe. This gerontocracy functioned because of the age-grade system. By threatening to withhold initiation into the higher grades 59 Warner, op. cit., p. 241. f l Thomson, op. cit., p. 11. 115 the old men could effectively control the action of the younger men. The old men, being in closer touch with the totems and clan ancestors could also promise religious pun ishment. "Dire things will happen to men who commit acts the old men frown on, and which offend the totemic spirits and ancient a n c e s t o r s . " ^ 1 The authority of the old men was backed, in turn by the wongar, the totemic ancestors them selves, whose edicts were enforced by the threat of superna tural sanctions.62 Warfare Warfare was the most extreme method of social con trol. It occurred only when religious sanctions were not strong enough to maintain order. Murngin warfare was almost always caused by the need for blood revenge. The original killings which provoked this revenge could be of several types. They could be the result of adultery and wife-theft or if someone viewed a sacred totem improperly, he was killed. Those men who were known to be "black" magicians were sometimes murdered. Even an accidental killing called for revenge. The revenge could be on a one-for-one basis, but frequently it was not. Over the years feuds have been built up between clans and many times an initial killing was an ^Warner, op. cit., p. 131. ®2Thomson, op. cit., p. 11. 116 excuse for large-scale reprisals. Most of these fights were intra-moiety because these clans competed for the same women, i.e., women belonging to clans of the opposite moi ety. The largest fights, known as gaingar, were pitched battles fought between groups of clans. The reason for a gaingar, given by Warner, was a familiar one. It is a spear fight to end spear fights, so that from that time on there will be peace for all the clans and tribes. It is sincerely believed at the time that this is an effort to stop clan feuds.63 There was a peace-making ceremony, the makarata, that could end feuding. It took the form of a mock battle with spears being thrown at the offending parties. Finally, there was a ceremonial wounding and this blood satisfied the avengers, ending the feud. In practice, the quality of the wound determined if the feud was really over. Many times actual fighting broke out during the ceremony and the feud was continued anew. By diminishing the male population, warfare affected the social structure. Polygyny, and its attendant marriage customs which tended to stabilize lateral relationships, would not be possible without the imbalance between men and women. Finally, it acted as the ultimate police power in the functioning of Murngin society. It was the threat of force which ultimately prevented the flagrant breaking of tribal taboos.^ ^Warner, op. cit., p. 173. ^ Ibid., p. 159. CHAPTER III MURNGIN MYTHOLOGY Introduction Djanggawul, Laintjung and Banaitja, and the Wauwalak Sisters Cycle were the three major myths which formed the basis for all of the Murngin dramatic ritual ceremonies. These myths had the usual variations found in any material that was transmitted orally, but there was one other factor that increased regional variation. Each myth concerned the travels of superhuman ancestors through Arnhem Land and each clan tended to elaborate the portion of the journey that took place in their territory and to emphasize the incidents that occurred at their totemic well. This practice led to considerable variation in a myth that had been recorded in several locations, although the general outline remained the same. These variations in the myths were reflected in simi lar variations in the ritual ceremonies depending on the location of a particular performance. Djanggawul The Dj anggawul was the most important myth and the 117 118 ceremony based upon it, the dua nara^ was the highest and most sacred dramatic ritual. Djanggawul was the collective name given to a brother and two sisters. The brother was also called Djanggawul; the elder sister was named Bildji- wuraroiju, and the younger, Miralaidj. The Djanggawul looked like human beings except that the brother had an elongated penis and each sister had a long clitoris. These were long enough to drag upon the ground as they walked. In the myth the Djanggawul had come from a big cere mony far to the east and landed on the island of Bralgu. This was a mythical island somewhere east of Arnhem Land which was the home of the dua moiety dead. The Djanggawul stayed on Bralgu for some time. They put people there, left sacred totems, emblems, and body paintings, and instituted rituals and ceremonies. Finally, they put their totems and drawings in a bark canoe and accompanied by another man, Bralbral, paddled for days and days, eventually reaching the Arnhem Land coast near the mouth of the Rose River. They did not stay long, but traveled north and made their first important landing at Jelangbara, near Port Darwin. The Djanggawul brought to Arnhem Land a number of sacred emblems. "First and foremost was the ngainmara mat. . . . The mat, conically'shaped, and plaited from split and ~ * ~ Nara— the term refers to the totemic well or to the ceremonies associated with the totemic emblems (rangga). 119 dried pandanus fibre."2 This mat was a symbolic uterus of either sister and was usually made with a fringe which represented pubic hair. The ngainmara was in everyday use, women and children frequently slept under it; during the ritual ceremonies, however, it became a sacred object. A second object was a dilly bag. It was "woven from pandanus fibre interlaced with the red breast-feathers of O the parakeet, with feathered pendants attached."-1 The dilly bag was also a uterus symbol. It was used during the dua nara, but like the ngainmara, it was not secret and was normally worn by the men around the camp. The third group of objects were carved and decorated sacred poles, known as rangga, of which there were several types: the djuda or tree rangga, the mauwulan or brother's walking stick, the ganinjari— yam or sister's walking stick, and the dj anda or the tail of the goanna. When the tree rangga was plunged into the ground, trees grew in that spot. When the mauwulan, ganinjari, or djanda were plunged into the ground, water gushed forth. This was how the sacred totemic water holes came into being. In addition there were a large number of minor rangga♦ Collectively they were all penis symbols and the ones made today "are very sacred; they are used only on the ritual ground, and are seen only by 2Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul (New York: Philoso phical Library, 1953), pp. 3-1. 2Ibid. 120 fully initiated men or neophytes. These material objects, the rangga, dilly bag, and ngainmara were the dominant ritual symbols of the Murngin society. Through them the abstract norms and values of the social organization were given concrete expression during the dua nara ceremony. As the Djanggawul traveled across Arnhem Land the brother by use of the mauwulan rangga made each clan's sacred totemic well. The clan's totems were established and the appropriate rangga were deposited in the well. The Djanggawul brother copulated with both his sisters. This was not considered incestuous behavior because there were no rules established at that time, and although the Djanggawul established laws for the Murngin they themselves never were bound by them. In one version of the myth the Djanggawul brother reached into the sisters' vaginas with his hand to draw forth the people. In another version, there was no Djanggawul brother. In order to conceive, the sisters took "a small piece of wood and hit themselves on each buttock, so they could make plenty of people and their vaginas would grow l a r g e r . As children emerged from the sisters' vaginas, the boys were placed in the grass so they would grow up with whiskers while the girls were placed under a ^Ibid. ^W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (rev. ed.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956), p. 337. 121 ngainmara mat so they would be soft and smooth. Being under a ngainmara mat also emphasized the essential sacredness of women. These events were repeated with minor variations, throughout the Djanggawul's journey through Arnhem Land. In this way all of the clans were established and given their own totemic wells, ranggas, and dialect or linguistic dis tinction. The laws, rituals, and ceremonies were estab lished for all. In addition, there were several episodes not connected with individual clan establishment which had great significance in the context of the total myth. The first of these was the rape and murder of the younger sister, Miralaidj. Once again, there were variant versions of this episode. In one, a wongar,^ evil magician, rendered Miralaidj unconscious through magic, copulated with her, and then killed her in accord with the present standard belief of the Murngin.^ In another, he began to copulate with her while she was still asleep. She awakened, broke contact, and ran to the beach in order to wash off his Wongar— any of the superhuman beings who lived in the Eternal Dream Time are called wongar. Sometimes the period itself is called wongar times. n Briefly, a magician kills his victim by placing him in a dead faint. He makes an incision in the chest cavity and reaches inside to puncture the heart and drains its blood. This removes the soul. Then the magician removes all traces of the "operation." The victim awakens, sus pects nothing, but in a predetermined number of days he dies. Vide Warner, op. cit., pp. 194ff. 122 semen. Then, ceremoniously cleansed, she turned to stone. In both versions Miralaidj reappears later in the story. This reappearance was used to point up the superhuman quali ties of the Djanggawul. The first version also reenforced the belief in magic by acknowledging its existence in the Eternal Dream Time. The Djanggawul brother instituted circumcision rites. He did it so that young men's penes would not grow long like his. This prevented men from becoming gods. Alternately, he did it as punishment when he discovered brothers sleeping with sisters. Circumcision, in this con text, was a physical symbol of the incest taboo. The single most important episode of the Djanggawul myth was the theft of the dilly bags containing the sacred totemic emblems. Up to this point in the story the two sis ters had been in charge of all sacred emblems and ritual. One day, while the sisters were away from camp, Djanggawul brother and some other men stole the dilly bags. With all of the necessary objects and information in their posses sion, they began to perform a dua nara ceremony. The two sisters returned, discovered the theft, and when they saw the men in performance, decided to let them keep the emblems and perform the ceremonies from that time on. The older sister said, "Men can do it now. . . . We know everything. We have really lost nothing, for we remember it all, and we can let them have that small part. For aren't we still .............. '' 123: sacred, even if we have lost the bags? Haven't we still our uteri?”8 The significance of the episode will be discussed more fully in Chapter V, but briefly, this event served to give each sex a place in the sacred world. The women were sacred because they bore new life as did the Djanggawul sis ters; the men were sacred because they were the custodians of the sacred totemic emblems and performed the dramatic ritual ceremonies. In a final episode, the Djanggawul brother short ened the clitorises of the two sisters, first to thigh length and then to normal length. Just as they were leaving Murngin territory he shortened his penis to normal length. The cut-off sections became additional rangga. Coming at the end of the myth, these acts symbolized the completion of the creator function for the Djanggawul. As far as the Murngin were concerned when the Djanggawul left Northeast Arnhem Land their procreative powers were the same as normal human beings. The complete myth had a wealth of detail9 concerning particular clans, totemic wells, and clan totems, both ani mal and vegetable. All of these many items along with the more universal aspects of the system were dramatized in the dua nara ceremony. 8Berndt, op. cit., pp. 40-41. 9Ibid., Chapter II. 124 Laint^^gandBanait^a Laintjung and Banaitja was the most important myth of the jiritja moiety. The ceremony based upon it, the jiritja nara, was this moiety's equivalent of the dua nara. The people of the jiritja moiety acknowledged the primacy of the Djanggawul as the greatest of the Ancestral Beings. Laintjung and Banaitja, though great and highly sacred, were clearly of the second rank. Because of this their mythology was not so detailed nor were their ceremonies as important. Since the religious thought of the jiritja moiety was less conservative than that of the dua moiety,^"® it more readily absorbed alien material. It was not surprising to find that the general form of the Laintjung and Banaitja myth followed a familiar pattern. This myth was told in two basic versions. The first has been recorded by the Berndts. ^ Laintjung came out of the sea near Blue Mud Bay. "His body bore variegated water marks that formed pat- 1 o terns." These patterns were to become totemic designs for jiritja clans. He was first seen on the beach by Barama, a ^Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (New York: Interna tional Universities Press, 1951), p. 9. ■^Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, "Sacred Figures of Ancestral Beings of Arnhem Land," Oceania, XVIII (June, 1948), 309-326; and Berndt, Kunapipi, pp. 8-9. 12 Berndt and Berndt, "Sacred Figures," p. 313. 125 jiritja man. Laintjung spoke to Barama. "I am Laintjung. I bring all the jiritja dreaming and painting: these will belong to you people, no matter what language and what tribe.Laintjung then gave Barama all of the sacred paintings, rangga, and totemic designs that were to be dis tributed to all of the jiritja clans. The two of them called a meeting and gathered all of the jiritja people together. When everyone had arrived, sacred dancing took place and the meanings of the rangga and totemic emblems were explained. In this way Laintjung established law and order among the jiritja clans. Eventually, Laintjung turned himself into a paper bark tree,-^ and his son Banaitja took his place. Banaitja functioned as a religious teacher and continued to expound and explain the doctrines established by his father. After a time his disciples began to distrust him, to doubt that he was the son of Laintjung, and so they set an ambush and killed him with their spears. Immediately after Banaitja's death the murderers realized that they had made a mistake and repented their deed. They made a "likeness of Banaitja in paper bark bound on a framework of cane."-^ They also made a paper bark roll ^ Ibid. , p. 314. ■^The paper bark tree is the white-bark eucalyptus. 15 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 9. 12 6 known as a "banaitja pad." When this pad was thumped on the ground during religious ceremonies the sound was "Banaitja1s voice. Charles P. Mountford, who led a very extensive expe dition into Arnhem Land in 1948, recorded another version of this myth which he titled, "Banaitja and his Son, or Coun terpart, Laintjung, at Blue Mud Bay."^ In this version, Banaitja came overland from the southwest to the area near Blue Mud Bay. He was a giant man with a voice so loud that the aborigines ran and hid when they heard him approach. Deciding to kill him, the aborig ines waited until he was asleep near the edge of a swamp, crept up and threw many spears into his body. "Roaring with pain Banaitja jumped into the swamp, calling out as he sank beneath the water: 'You'll never kill me properly. I'll 18 come again before long.'" Banaitja remained at the bottom of the swamp until his wounds healed. He painted his body with a number of totemic designs and then he emerged from the swamp bearing in one hand a banaitja which he thumped on the ground to call all of the adult males together. ^^Berndt and Berndt, "Sacred Figures," p. 314. 1 7 Charles P. Mountford, Records of the Amencan- Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land I: Art, Myth and Symbolism (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1948), pp. 279-281. 1 8 Mountford, op. cit., p. 281. 127 When he had gathered all of the j iritja males around him he announced that he had changed his name to Laintjung. Each clan was shown its totemic designs and given its sacred objects and rangga for use in their ceremonies. The designs, of course, were the ones painted on Laintjung's body. As soon as all of the clans had made copies of their designs Laintjung transformed himself into a giant paper bark tree. This tree can still be seen "on the shores of the Duluru-waltjalapa swamp of Blue Mud Bay." In this version the jiritja people made banaitjas in memory of Banaitja and his gift to them. Mountford, howev er, disputed the existence of any likeness on bark bound on a framework of cane. Referring directly to the Berndts he said, "It would seem likely that the authors [Berndts], hav ing heard of the bark bundle, banaitja, gained a wrong impression of its appearance, and described it without hav ing seen a speciman."29 This was only a minor point and the variations in the two versions were not very large. It was interesting to observe, however, a certain amount of confu sion between God, the Father and God, the Son. It was reasonable to assume that this myth had been altered over the years as a result of alien contact, which need not have been Christian. In both versions of this myth there were already 19Ibid. 20Ibid. ; 128; people in Arnhem Land when Laintjung and/or Banaitja arrived. This would support the claim that the Djanggawul were the creators of all the people, dua and jiritja alike. The reason the natives give for the fact that this jiritja mythology was not as widespread nor as detailed as that of the Djanggawul was that Banaitja "was killed at an early age, before he had the opportunity of travelling widely throughout this region."2^ - Wauwalak Sisters Cycle The Wauwalak Sisters Cycle provided the mythological basis for three ceremonies: the djunggawon, the kunapipi, and the ngurlmak.22 Each of these ceremonies stressed a different portion of the myth. The Wauwalak Sisters were 2*3 daughters of the Djanggawul and also lived in the Eternal Dream Time. Their myth was secondary to that of the Djang gawul and the three ceremonies were not considered as impor tant or as sacred as either the dua nara or the jiritja nara. The Wauwalak Myth seemed to be the most consistent of the three studied, but there still were significant vari ations. The myth was transmitted in the form of hundreds of 21 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 9. 22 A fourth ceremony, the marndiella, also came from the Wauwalak myth, but it is not as sacred as the others and was not considered in this study. 23 Berndt, Djanggawul, p. 11. 129 songs and was rarely told as a prose narrative.^ The fol- 25 lowing version was recorded by Warner. The two Wauwalak Sisters left their home territory, the land of the dua Wauwalak people, which was presumably in the interior far south of the Roper River to travel to the sacred water hole, Mirrirmina, in northcentral Arnhem Land near the Arafura Sea. Before leaving the Sisters had had incestuous rela tions with their own clansmen. The elder sister had given birth to a male child and the younger sister was still preg nant as they set out on their journey. As the sisters traveled they gathered plants and animals, giving them their names in the same manner as the Djanggawul. After a time the younger sister gave birth to a male child. When she could travel the sisters completed their journey, naming all the plants and animals found in the Murngin country, and giving names to all of the clan territories and locales. When the sisters reached the Mirrarmina waterhole, the elder sister made a fire and began to cook the food they had gathered on their trip. This food consisted of one of each of the animals and plant totems. As each plant or animal was placed on the fire it got up, ran to the totemic well, dived in, and disappeared from sight. Since this is 24 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 11. O C Warner, op. cit., pp. 250-259. 130 the most sacred well of all, the disappearance of all the totemic plants and animals into it, symbolized their sacred nature. The animals knew that the women had violated reli gious law. "By leaving in this way, they tried to indicate that the well was tabu, and that it was against the reli- 2 6 gious code to cook or sit near it." ° In the water hole at Mirrirmina lived Julunggul, a great rock python, in Murngin thought he was the headman of all the animals, birds, and vegetables. This was the Rain bow Snake common to the greater part of Aboriginal Austra l i a . ^ the older sister was gathering bark to make a bed some of her menstrual blood fell into the totem well. This profanement of the totem well angered Julunggul. He came up out of the well spitting water into the sky, and it began to rain. The two sisters, not knowing that they had angered Julunggul, hurriedly built a shelter for protection and went to sleep. When the sisters awoke it was raining harder and they knew that something was wrong. They sang ritual songs to try to protect themselves. The older sister sang, "Julunggul, don't you come out and swallow us. We are good and we are c l e a n ."28 They sang the songs of all the ritual ceremonies, the djunggawon, the kunapipi, and the ngurlmak, 2 6 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 21. ^Warner, op. cit. , p. 253. 27Ibid. ~ 131 but to no avail. The sisters and their two children finally fell into a deep sleep caused by the magic of Julunggul. During the night Julunggul came out of the well and crawled into the hut. He licked the women and children, covering them with saliva, bit them so that blood fJLowed, and then swallowed them. As the dawn came he stood straight up with his head in the clouds, as he did this flood waters came up from the well and covered the entire earth. Now the Julunggul sang all of the ritual songs. At this time all of the other dua clan totem snakes stood up, too. They discussed their different languages and recited lists of their various totems. Julunggul, who was acknowledged as the leader, finally said, "I see we all talk different languages. It would be better if we talked the same tongue. We can't help this now. It is better then that we all have our ceremonies together for we own the same maraiin [totemic emblems]."2® In this way the same ceremo nies were established for all the Murngin clans. Then the pythons discussed what they had just eaten. All of the others had eaten various totemic animals. Julunggul spoke last and after some prodding admitted that he had eaten the two sisters and their children. With this the south-east monsoon started blowing and Julunggul fell heavily to the ground. Falling, he split the ground open 2®Ibid., p. 255. ............ 132: and made the place where the djunggawon ceremony is per formed . Julunggul regurgitated the two sisters and the chil dren and then the Julunggul trumpet came out of the water hole by itself and played its song and the women and the children came back to life. This trumpet is now used in the djunggawon ceremony. However, once the women and children had come back to life Julunggul reswallowed them, stood up, and fell again, this time making the kunapipi and ngurlmak dancing places. This time Julunggul swam underground to Wauwalak country and spat out the women who turned to stone, but "he kept the boys inside him, for they were Jiritja and he was Dua."30 The final section of the myth dealt with how the rituals were transmitted to man. Two Wauwalak wongar men had heard the thunder and seen the lightning, knowing some thing was wrong, they followed the two sisters' tracks until they reached the Mirrirmina water hole. Here they found blood from the heads of the sisters and the two boys. This they put in two baskets, made other ritual objects which they placed in a hut, and then went to sleep. While the two men slept the two Wauwalak sisters appeared to them in a dream. In the dream the two women taught the men all of the songs and dances of the various ceremonies. The sisters 3Qlbid., p. 258. 133 said to the men, This is all now. We are giving you this dream so you can remember these important things. You must never forget these things we have taught you tonight. You must remember every time each year these songs and dances. . . . You must dance all the things we saw and named on our journey, and which ran away into the well.31 The men awoke and performed all the ceremonies for the first time, and then they returned to Wauwalak country. The Murngin say, "We dance these things now, because our Wongar ancestors learned them from the two Wauwalak women."32 There were certain variants to this myth which were significant. Warner considered Julunggul to be a male snake referring to it as bapa jindi, which means Big Father. Berndt has recorded the name as jindi bapi, which means just big snake. Berndt considered that the snake was big because it was pregnant and thus can be considered a fertility sym bol. However, he reported a version in which there were two snakes, one male and one female. Nonetheless, Berndt con sidered that the female snake could still be a penis symbol. The whole process of swallowing was interpreted by the 33 natives as an act of coitus. At the same time the snake functioned as a fertility symbol since it was coitus which caused female fecundity. One other point was that in the 31Ibid., p. 259. 32Ibid. 33 34 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 25. Xbxd. version recorded by Berndt the totem well was profaned by afterbirth blood rather than menstrual blood. In either case there was some contradiction since both types of blood were "usually described as mareiin, or sacred, and so could not "pollute" the well. There was the suggestion that the snake found the blood attractive."-*5 Summary These myths were dramatized in the ritual ceremo nies. They were concrete expressions of religious dogma, but more than that they tended to preserve social cohesion. Not only was religion transmitted through these myths, but an entire way of life was sanctioned through faith in the rightness of social behavior and institutions. 35Ibid., p. 22. CHAPTER IV MURNGIN RITUAL CEREMONIES: DRAMATIC ASPECTS Introduction Five major dramatic ritual ceremonies were consid ered in this chapter. The first and most important was the dua nara which was based largely on the Djanggawul Myth. The second was the complimentary ceremony of the other moi ety, the jiritja nara, which drew its content from the Laintjung and Banaitja Myth. The myth of the Wauwalak Sis ters provided material for the last three ceremonies, the djunggawon, the kunapipi, and the ngurlmak. The Ceremonies dua nara An entire dua nara took many weeks to complete and entailed considerable preliminary preparation.1 The cere mony usually took place late in the dry season. The high grass would have been burned making it possible for the many 1Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul (New York: Philoso phical Library, 1953), p. 19. 135 ......... 136 clans to travel to the ceremonial ground. By this time there also would have been enough cycad palm nuts harvested to make a sufficient supply of bread, ngatu, to feed all of the participants for several months. The dua nara was divided into two parts. The first or preliminary part was called the duni, the second was looked upon as the real ceremony and was far more important than the duni.2 A dua nara was usually initiated by a younger brother of the clan leader. He would go into the jungle and cut down a suitable tree in order to make a rangga. Then upon his urging and if the time was right, the clan leader would go into the jungle, inspect the tree, and decide what particular rangga should be made from it. This was the signal that the duni was to begin. The ceremonial dance ground was prepared. It was roughly rectangular and at one end a hut or shade of branches was erected. This hut symbolized the "ngainmara or the uterus of either Djanggawul Sister."^ The ceremonial leader and the initiated men went to the ceremonial ground and there performed the first dances. The subject matter of these dances was the surf and the sea, the flood and rain water, all symbolic of the natural seasonal cycle. By the time these dances were completed people began arriving from 2W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (rev. ed.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958) , p. 340. ^Berndt, op. cit., p. 16. S ..~ ~ 137 the other clan territories bringing with them their own rangga and totemic emblems. Additional time was always allotted to put the finishing touches on all the ceremonial objects that were to be used in the nara. In preparation for the next series of dances on the ceremonial ground the men painted themselves and shaved their beards, leaving only a short tuft that symbolically represented "the fringe of the ngainmara mat (=pubic hair of the sisters)."^ The totemic emblems were displayed and danced with but at this time the rangga were not used. The third section which completed the duni took place in the main camp. In a clearing the women and the uninitiated youths hid under ngainmara mats. This repre sented "the unborn children of the Djanggawul Sisters lying in the uteri."^ The men danced in from the ceremonial ground, and as they did, they poked the mats with their spears. The chants accompanying the dancing were concerned with sexual intercourse, childbirth, and using "inside"*’ names they referred to the places where the Djanggawul Sis ters had given birth. Eventually the women and children emerged from under the mats. They had just been "born" in the same way as their original ancestors. The final act ^Ibid., p. 18. ^Ibid. 6"Inside" names were special sacred names for ob jects which were only used by fully initiated men and gen erally only on sacred ground. Warner called them "power" names. 138 which concluded the duni was the calling of bugali. These were sacred invocations which in this case invoked the presence of the Djanggawul. This part of the ceremony took from one to three months, since the dances on the ceremonial ground were repeated over and over before the final rite in the general camp.^ Usually the second part of the ceremony did not fol low immediately after the duni. The rangga and totemic emblems were stored in the mud of the totemic wells. The clans dispersed with the knowledge that the ceremony would continue after the rainy season in the next dry period. Preparations for the resumption of the dua nara were similar to those that preceded the duni except that the rangga and totemic emblems were removed from the mud of the totemic wells and refurbished rather than being made anew. Frequently additional new ranggas were also made. The main section of the dua nara now took place. Over a period of many weeks totemic dances were performed that reenacted various sections of the Djanggawul myth. "Outstanding dances were those of the dj anda goanna . . . the lindaridj parakeet, and spring water."8 Spring water represented the Djanggawul plunging their ranggas into the ground to make the totemic wells.9 These dances were very ^Warner, op. cit., p. 345. 8Berndt, op. cit., p. 19. 9Supra, pp. 119-120. r " 139 important because they concerned "high" rangga, rangga that had originally been used by the Djanggawul themselves. When the entire myth had been reenacted it was fol lowed by another ceremony in the general camp which took place around a tree or a forked stick, either of these could represent the djuda or tree rangga. When the Djanggawul plunged the djuda into the ground it caused trees to grow; therefore, the djuda had life-giving properties. The women danced around the tree or forked stick and as they danced, they inserved ganinjari rangga, yam sticks, into the ground as the Djanggawul Sisters had done. This was followed imme diately by a pair of male dancers who danced the totem of a particular well. The ceremony represented the time when the Djanggawul Sisters possessed all the ritual knowledge and performed the ceremonies themselves. It continued in this pattern for several weeks until all of the totems were danced. The finale took place at night. The men came into the general camp at night bearing flaming torches. "The fire symbolized that which the Sisters thought had destroyed their sacred bags containing the rangga, only to find later that they had been stolen by the men."'*'0 The flame was an equivalent symbol to the red lindaridj parakeet feathers. Both represented the warmth of the sun and its life-giving properties. Though not strongly stated, there were some -^Berndt, op. cit., p. 19. 140 references to the concept that the Djanggawul Sisters were the daughters of the Sun, and that the Sun was the source of all life. At this point there was a repetition of the ngain mara mat ceremony which had taken place earlier during the duni. A new set of totemic dances were then performed on the ceremonial ground. Their purpose was to show the sacred rangga to the participants. However, the young neophytes were shown only the secondary rangga and totemic dances fol lowing which they were excluded from the ceremonial ground and only the fully initiated men remained. Now the "high" rangga (djuda, djanda, ganinjari, and mauwulan) were brought out from the hut and "lovingly handled, caressed, and sung over by the ceremonial leaders."^ This was followed by a ritual of ceremonial bathing in which everyone, men, women, and children participated. Each person washed themselves as they chanted certain invo cations. When they all had emerged from the water the men danced various totemic fish. One more set of totemic dances and display of ranggas, age-graded as before, were given, but this time there was more emphasis on meditation and theological dis cussion. The final act featured the eating of the sacred palm nut bread, ngatu. Although this bread was in everyday use and completely secular, it was made sacred for this •^Ibid. , p. 20. 141 ceremony by having certain bugali called over it. At the same time as the bread was being eaten there was a final painting of the initiates' bodies and the ceremony was con cluded. ^irit^^nara The natives made a clear distinction between the dua nara and the jiritja nara, but basically in form and struc ture they were exactly the same.^ The Djanggawul, who were the only creator wongar were dua. The myth reenacted during the jiritja nara, Laintjung and Banaitja, concerned wongar who were only responsible for giving the jiritja their reli gion and social organization. Therefore, the emphasis of the jiritja nara was on the increase of natural species and not on procreation. Laintjung had come from the sea and the jiritja nara was associated most strongly with sea water, fresh water floods, streams and totemic wells, all repre senting the natural seasonal cycle. In keeping with the emphasis on water a large number of important jiritja totems were fish or aquatic mammals, barramundi and garrawark (creator fish), whale and dugong. The djunggawon was one of three ceremonies studied that was based on a section of myth of the Wauwalak Sisters. ^Warner, op. cit., p. 358. :....." 142 It was "a re-enactment of the swallowing of the Two Sisters by Julunggul and the performance of totemic ceremonies rele vant to the animals caught by the women for food."13 The djunggawon was the primary interclan circumcision ceremony and was also a rite de passage for older boys. Each of the three ceremonies made use of a particu lar musical instrument to represent the voice of Julunggul, the great python snake of the Wauwalak myth. For the djung gawon the instrument was a large, long trumpet made from a hollow log. Later in the ceremony the trumpet was painted and then it was the totemic emblem, julunggul. When the julunggul was made it was sounded to test its tone quality. The first sounding was the signal that the djunggawon had begun. As in all the ceremonies there was a preliminary phase. After the julunggul had been sounded, the youngsters, aged six to eight, who were to be circumcised, were told by their fathers and other old men that "The Gjreat Father snake smells your foreskin. He is calling for it."-*-^ The young boys took this literally, became very frightened, and took refuge with their mothers in the women's camp. At the proper time the men came to take the boys from their mothers. The mothers and other female relatives ■^Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (New York: Interna tional Universities Press, 1951), p. 37. •^Warner, op. cit., p. 261. r 143 pretended to fight the men with spears to prevent the boys from being taken. While this was happening the women talked about how powerful the boys were, the number of animals they had killed, the places they had visited, and the many pres ents they had received. This was intended to have a magical effect; that all of these things would come true during the boys' lives. When the boys were finally taken from the women they were sent on a journey that lasted one to two months. Accompanied by an older male relative, each one visited a number of clans to invite them to the ceremony proper. Everyone who was invited gave presents to the boy, though many of them were later passed on to his father and older brothers. When the boy returned from his journey the gene ral camp had been prepared for the beginning of the main part of the ceremony. The preparation consisted of erecting the warngait- ja. This was made by cutting a pole approximately six feet long for each boy who was to be circumcised. Leaves were tied to the top of each pole and then all of them were bound together. The warngaitja was erected in the center of the dance ground in the general camp. At the same time a spe cial dance ground was being prepared in the ceremonial area. It was in the shape of a long isosceles triangle with a hut or shade at the apex opposite the base.^~* The dance ground 15Infra, pp. was a symbol of the great python snake. The first section of the main ceremony consisted of females dancing around the warngaitja. As they danced they lamented the "loss" of the boys who had now passed from the general camp into the men's camp. In the men's camp the boys were placed within a circle of men who were sitting around a fire. A cycle of totemic songs was sung which marked the beginning of the initiates' religious instruc tion . The julunggul was sounded and brought into the men's camp while the older boys (those who were moving up in the age-grading sequence) and the initiates had their heads cov ered with ngainmara mats. When the trumpet was blown over them all, it was returned to the hut on the ceremonial dance ground and the older boys and the initiates were uncovered. The next section of the ceremony consisted of a series of totemic animal dances given on the ceremonial dance ground. All of the men participated in these except the initiates who watched while the meanings of the dances were explained to them by one or two older men. While this was going on, the julunggul was sounded in the brush, but not seen. There was a final sequence of dances before the actual circumcisions. To prepare for them there was a cere monial blood-letting. The younger men participated in this as another step in the age-grading process. The blood was used to paint designs on the dancers and also as an adhesive ? ' ‘ ..... 143 agent to stick cotton and down to the dancers1 bodies to complete the decorations. More totemic dances were per formed before the boys who were to be circumcised were removed from the ceremonial ground. Now the julunggul was brought out and the older boys were allowed to see it and blow it for the first time. This ended the ceremony on the dance ground. The actual circumcision was done in the general camp at the warngaitja. As the men brought the boys in from the men's camp, there was a short period of excitement and gene ral confusion. The men gathered in a tight group around the warngaitja so that the women could not see the actual cut ting. Two men lay on their backs and the boys were placed on top of them. They were held firmly in place by others and circumcised simultaneously. Shortly afterwards they were taken to where a special fire was burning. The boys squatted over it as dampened lily leaves were added to quench the flames. This produced a heavy steam which pre sumably permeated and cleansed their entire bodies. While this was happening they received a number of admonitions from the clan elders. You must not use obscene language. You must never tell a lie. You must not commit adultery, nor go after women who do not belong to you. You must always obey your father and respect your elders. You must never betray the secrets that you have learned from us to the women or the boys who have not been c i r c u m c i s e d .16 ^Warner, op. cit., p. 288. 146 The very last event was the eating of sacramental food by the initiates. They were given small amounts of each kind of food commonly eaten by the Murngin. As each kind of food was given, the initiates were told the totemic or "inside" name, which they called out as they swallowed it. There were further admonitions against revealing any of the men's secrets. The julunggul was buried in the mud of a totemic well and the djunggawon was concluded. kunapipi The kunapipi was the second ceremony drawn from the Wauwalak myth. It concerned "the swallowing of the young men (children of the Wauwalak), the presence of Julunggul after the swallowing of the Wauwalak, and a number of dances relating to copulation and procreation, stressing the theme of fertility. The particular musical instrument used in this ceremony was a bull roarer called mandelprindi. When whirled about the roaring sound represented the voice of Julunggul. The initiates at this ceremony were those young men who had completed the age-grading sequence of the djung gawon . When the initiates were chosen, the mandelprindi made, the dance ground prepared, invitations were sent to the various clans announcing the beginning of the ceremony. After a sufficient number of people had arrived, the l^Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., p. 37. 147 preliminaries began. They were extended long enough to allow everyone who was expected to arrive. The preliminary sequence consisted of ordinary secu lar dances in the general camp. During these dances, the mandelprindi was sounded in the bush and some of the initi ates were led away by two jiritja men, representing jiritja water snakes, and taken to the ceremonial dance ground. The initiates were considered to have been swallowed by Julung gul. This sequence was repeated night after night until all of the initiates were removed from the main camp. They were "not supposed to return to the society of women until they were re-born at the end of the kunapipi."^ The second phase of the preliminary sequence took place on the ceremonial dance ground. The dance ground for the kunapipi was the same shape as that used for the djung- gawon, only the hut at the apex was eliminated; instead a pit was dug at this point which represented the totemic well of Julunggul. In the morning the men danced the totemic dances of one or two of the animals collected during the journey of the Wauwalak Sisters. In each of these dances the male of the species was danced first, then the female. If the creature was egg-laying, the eggs were danced at the end of the dance. In this way the theme of fertility was stressed. l^Ibid., p. 41. 148 In the evening the men returned to the dance ground where they first sang a cycle of songs around a fire. This was followed by a male and female opossum dance. During this dance the men who represented male opossums wore large bark penes sticking erect from their belts. Sometimes dur ing this dance they would simulate copulation.The morn ing and evening sessions were continued until all of the totemic animals had been danced. This was arranged to coin cide with the appearance of the new moon which marked the end of this phase of the ceremony. The concluding part of the preliminary sequence took place in the main camp at night. The men, bearing torches, danced in from the ceremonial ground. The women and the uninitiated youths were hidden under ngainmara mats. Two old women remained outside, representing the Wauwalak Sis ters, and called out food taboos. The line of dancing men represented Julunggul who had come to "swallow" all the women. At a point in the dance the women gave the men presents of food, but this was not the reason why they were not "swallowed." It was because there was no odor of men strual blood.^ (Menstrual blood profaning the totemic well was given as the reason why Julunggul swallowed the Wauwalak Sisters.) This concluded the preliminary phase of the ■^Warner, op. cit., p. 296. 20Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., p. 42. 149 kunapipi for by this time all of the clans had arrived and the most significant part of the ceremony took place. The totemic animal dances were repeated, but for the first time the totemic well was used. All of the animals danced into it thus portraying their flight from the Wauwa lak Sisters, who were also played by actors during this section. Many of the pairs of animals simulated copulation. The initiates observed these activities while the meanings were explained to them by several of the older men. The dance, in the main camp, which concluded the preliminaries, was now repeated. Now the totemic well was abandoned and a crescent shaped trench called the kartdjur was dug. It was four to five feet deep, about ten feet long, and wide enough for two men to pass each other in it. Another cycle of animal dances was performed around the kartdjur followed by a mating dance between a man and a "woman." They met at the mouth of the kartdjur and simulated sexual intercourse. The last dance of this series was that of the blue-tongued lizard who actually went inside the kartdjur. The next phase of the kunapipi was the actual initi ation of the neophytes. The ceremonial ground was altered by the addition of a shallow trench, fifty feet long, which extended from one end of the kartdjur. Men of the jiritja moiety constructed two yermerlindi emblems. They were approximately fifteen feet high and two and a half feet wide r...... 150 and were built up from a center pole with grass padding and a paper bark outer cover. Decorated with blood and cotton, one represented Julunggul, the other a cabbage palm.23- (The cabbage palm was thought to embody the spirit of a snake, so in one context both emblems were pythons.). The initiation took place at night. The neophytes were made to lie on the ground alongside the kartdjur. Men performing the opossum dance moved down the shallow trench toward them. As the dance continued the boys were moved, first into the shallow trench and then into the kartdjur where they were covered over with bark. This was "the core 2 2 of their kunapipi experience." They were now asleep in their hut as the Wauwalak Sisters had been. Suddenly the bark was removed, the boys "awoke" and saw the yermerlindi, which had been brought from the bush, hovering over them. The men did a series of totemic animal dances in the presence of the yermerlindi. The meanings were explained to the boys who were warned not to reveal any of the secrets they had been given. Two men now danced the pokiti headdress dance. The headdress was tall and conical in shape.23 The men repre sented the pandanus or screw palm that grew near the totemic 23Warner, op. cit., pp. 302-303. Vide photo, Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., Plate VIII, opp. p. 80. ^Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., p. 45. 23Ibid., Plate XV, opp. p. 161. : ......... ' ' " '' " ' ' i5i well of Julunggul. Their movements indicated the rain that Julunggul caused to fall. During the dance they rubbed their headdresses on the bodies of the neophytes to transfer the "power" or essence to them. The next event was ritual fire throwing. Firebrands were thrown across the kartdjur to represent the lightning that Julunggul called forth. The two actors danced forward representing the Wauwalak Sisters. One of them carried a paper bark pad under his arm which was the "child." They were met by another actor dancing Julunggul. The Sisters were ashamed in the presence of Julunggul because they "had the child and their menstrual blood was running.(The child had been born as the result of an incestuous liaison.) When this dance was over two men held a long pole horizontally about waist high along one side of the kart- djur. The yermerlindi held upright on the other side were allowed to fall over the kartdjur, which still held the neo phytes, to hit the horizontal pole. This was done a number of times until the feathered ornaments at the top of the yermerlindi fell off. Julunggul was falling over after hav ing swallowed the Wauwalak Sisters. The young boys were now removed from the kartdjur and lay down beside it. The yermerlindi was placed inside and set afire to burn the grass and paper bark coverings. ^Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 47. 152 During this time the men cut their arms and sprinkled blood on each other and into the trench. "This was the blood of 2 5 the Wauwalak and the blood itself symbolized life." There was a final dance in which the men pushed the dirt with their feet until the trench and the kartdjur were completely filled in and all traces of their existence obliterated. This concluded the main section of the kunapipi. There were now two concluding activities: the cere monial exchange of wives, and the return of the young boys to secular camp life in their new status. The ceremonial exchange of wives was the culmination of the entire kunapipi ceremony. Wives were exchanged between distant classifica- tory brothers. These relationships had been carefully worked out in the preceding weeks. At one time ceremonial copulation took place between tabooed cousins who were in the same moiety. This more closely paralleled the actions of the Wauwalak Sisters, but it was no longer common. There were two or three nights of ceremonial dancing before intercourse took place. While the men sang, the women danced. These dances contained many erotic elements and sexual allusions and obscenities were exchanged between the men and the women. On the final night, at the conclu sion of the dancing, the prearranged partners went off into the bush where the intercourse took place. There were 25Ibid. several variations in the manner of carrying out the cere monial copulation. In one locale intercourse took place in several huts or windbreaks which had been built around the dance ground and in another, all of the women lay down in two rows on the dance ground proper and intercourse was per formed as one general ceremony. The following morning the initiates were reinte grated into the general camp. At the boundary between the ceremonial area and the camp a djepalmandji was built. Two forked posts were placed in the ground about six feet apart and a ridgepole was placed between them heavily draped with leaves and branches until all of the open space beneath was covered. Two jiritja men, children of the Wauwalak, sat in the crotches of the forked posts. Accompanied by singing and dancing men, the initiates were brought from the cere monial ground and placed inside the djepalmandji, which sym bolized not only the hut of the Wauwalak, but also their uteri. The jiritja men called out the cries of a child being born. This was one of the most important points in this terminating series of rituals; for here symbolically expressed, was the enactment of child birth, a crystal lization of Kunapipi intent. . . . the young initiates . . . lay passive in the uterus (or uteri) of the Wauwa lak. Soon they would come out, and would be spiritually reborn (that is, "their spirit comes out new"), just as the Wauwalak child was born.26 26Ibid., p. 54. There was more dancing, the initiates emerged, and the djepalmandji was knocked down. There was a ceremonial purification for all and the kunapipi was over®- ngurlmak The ngurlmak was the third ceremony drawn from the Wauwalak Sisters myth. It was the highest age-grading cere mony and because of that, the most sacred of the three. Its content concerned the food animals running away from the Wauwalak and the subsequent swallowing of them and the Sis ters by Julunggul and the other snakes. The particular musical instrument used to sound the voice of Julunggul in the ngurlmak was the uvar, a ceremo nial drum made from a four or five foot section of a hollow log painted with snakes and other totemic designs. The preliminary phase of the ngurlmak consisted of the making of the uvar, the sending of messengers to invite other clans, and the preparation of the ceremonial dance ground. The familiar triangular-shaped dance ground was used with significant alterations. First it was excavated to shoulder depth, because of this all dancing here was con sidered to take place inside Julunggul or one of the other snakes. A bark hut, that of the Wauwalak sisters, was con structed within the ceremonial ground and finally a winding trail was cleared surrounding the entire ceremonial area. This path was supposed "to be the path of Muit [Julunggul] 155 when he was surrounding the two women."2^ During the preliminary phase the men performed a kangaroo dance. As the members of the other clans arrived, the fully initiated men would join the ongoing dancing. This dance was performed as a group dance with frequent solo passages. The step used was virtually identical to the "buck and wing" step.2® A distinctive feature of the ngurlmak was a ceremo nial device to settle old feuds. This was the time, as the clans gathered, when the renewal of feuds was expected. When an argument did break out, one man, noted for his abil ity as a clown, would step in and stop it. He did this by acting in a foolish manner and speaking in the kidjin lan guage. This language was a native pidgin with words taken from many dialects. It had ceremonial importance because it was presumed to be the language spoken by the Wauwalak Sis ters. "It was clear that this clowning was a method of pre venting feuds from breaking out during the ceremony."29 When the main ceremony began, the initiates were removed to the ceremonial ground where they remained until it was over. The pattern of the main ceremony consisted of an alternation of dances between the ceremonial ground and the general camp. Although many totemic species were danced, the basic meanings of each dance remained the same. ^Warner, op. cit. , p. 319. 28Ibid., p. 313. 29Ibid., p. 322. 156 Dances in the excavated ceremonial ground represented the animals being swallowed by Julunggul and the other snakes. In the general camp a forked post was erected. Animal dances in which the dancers climbed the post represented the animals running away from the Wauwalak Sisters. The third type of dance took place around the post and this repre sented the Wauwalak Sisters fighting the snakes. Shortly before the end of the main ceremony the women set fire to the brush along the cleared winding trail. While the fire was burning the women returned to camp, cleaned themselves, and put on new clothes, the men did the same thing on the ceremonial ground. This was "to make them all the same as new people and clean people."^ & few more sequences of totems were danced and the main ceremony was concluded. The final acts were to reintegrate the young men into the general camp in their new state. Sacred palm nut bread, ngatu, was eaten and the neophytes were steamed as in the djunggawon. These ceremonies removed the last of the food taboos from the young men. They had now passed into the adult male age-grade. Dramatic Aspects An analysis of the five ceremonies just discussed revealed them to be quite different from any dramas in the ^Ibid., p. 326. 157 Western tradition.^ Yet a close examination showed that there were many similarities to Western drama and that the differences where they existed, were mainly in degree and not in kind. Warner's comparison made an apt introduction. A fundamental conceptual scheme runs through all the ceremonies; the various dramatic sections portray the myth by dance and song. For the Western European, this whole totemic ceremonial behavior might be compared to a Wagnerian opera, with the myth as libretto; the motifs, like that of the snake swallowing the woman, first expressed in a phrase or two, are later elaborated; and certain motifs, highly elaborate in some of the ceremo nies, are only hinted at in others. For the reason that here we have ceremonies treated separately by the na tives which they yet realize fit into a larger whole, the totality may, without too much stretching, be com pared to the Nibelungen R i n g . 32 Aristotelian Elements The evidence presented in this chapter clearly indi cated that in the ceremonies described there was an imita tion of an action. There were many examples of mimetic activity, both human and animal. Sections of the myths were presented via the medium of action. For example, the Djang- gawul plunging their rangga into the ground to make totemic wells was a reenactment of a part of a myth, as was the meeting of the Wauwalak Sisters and Julunggul. However, many parts of the myths were simply narrated. "The cycle 3-^it was part of the design of this study to compare these ceremonies to dramas, to evaluate them in the same way, with the same criteria, as would be used to evaluate dramas. In this way it was hoped that the most meaningful comparison could be made. o 2 Warner, op. cit., p. 260. i ‘" ' 158 was not independent narrative, nor was it drama, since it described as many scenes as it enacted."^ The ceremonies were a mixed form; part of them were presented in the form of drama, part in the form of the narrative epic. There were also songs and dances which did not further the telling of the myth, but served other functions. This type of interlude has been a familiar part of drama from the Greeks to the present time. Plot.— The ceremonies lasted several months and many times there was a long intermission for the rainy season. Obviously Aristotle's stricture about the plot being short enough to be encompassed in a single sitting was not fol lowed. All of the myths were quite long and contained many incidents. Otherwise, in Aristotelian terms, the plots could be considered to be single and simple. There were no sub-plots of any sort, nor was there anything that could be considered a substantial reversal or recognition. The Wau walak myth contained more exciting material and generated a good deal of suspense during its enactment. Character.— These myths belonged to the wongar peri od, a time when the Murngin were first created. The Djang- gawul and the Wauwalak were certainly god-like or at least more than human. They were not dieties, but they were ^Ibid., p. 297. 159 personifications of creation and fertility. The Ancestral Beings' character did not conform to Murngin norms and val ues, but this was excused because of their function of creating and maintaining man. Totemic animals were treated like stock characters with certain human traits assigned to them. For example, the opossum mating dance in the kunapipi was particularly erotic. "Opossum was looked upon by the Murngin as a libid inous fellow.1,34 The flying fox was considered to be a mokoi or trickster spirit, having similar qualities as a human soul that had not gone back to the totemic well. Thought.— This element will be discussed more fully in Chapter V. However, there were two main streams of thought. One dealt with procreation and fertility. It was a restatement of how man and the natural world had come about and an affirmation that in doing the ceremonies, re telling the myths, the power of the original creators would assure continued procreation and fertility. The other stressed the norms and values of the Murngin society. This was directed especially at the initiates. Not only were they instructed in religious matters, but also in matters of everyday behavior. For example, during the djunggawon the initiates were told, You must not commit adultery, nor go after women who do not belong to you. You must always obey 34Ibid. 160 your fathers and respect your elders. Etc. These admoni tions gained strength by being part of a sacred ceremony as opposed to ordinary secular instruction. Diction and Melody.— There was very little spoken dialogue, almost everything was sung or at least chanted. Scholars who were familiar with the language praised the quality of the poetry and the music. C. M. Bowra said, "the Australians of Arnhem Land had . . . [an] elaborate and ele gant oral literature.1 1 35 This was echoed by Ronald Berndt, "The songs of the dua nara included some of the most beauti- 3 6 ful literary efforts of Aboriginal Australia." Those songs translated into English by Berndt which have admit tedly suffered in the process still retained a good deal of complexity and sophistication. Spectacle.— Aristotle ranked spectacle last, but there was no doubt that it was a major part of the Murngin ritual ceremonies. There were extensive processions during the ceremonies. Elaborate costumes and makeups, some of which completely altered the familiar shape of the human body, were used. Many parts of the ceremonies were held at night, illuminated by torches and bonfires. There was ritual fire throwing in the kunapipi. Instances occurred 35c. M. Bowra, Primitive Song (New York: The New American Library, 1963) , p. 72. 36Berndt, Djanggawul, p. 60. i '... .... ....' ' ' ' .............. 161 where an actor would suddenly appear from out of the bush in such a way that the neophytes were terrorized. In the djunggawon, the following sequence took place. Two men run in with their spears fixed to their spear throwers and point them straight at the boys as if they were going to throw them . . . They are supposed to be fighting men and catfish. . . . Several old men stand beside the boys to instruct them and to prevent their running away.37 The extensive use of the element of spectacle undoubtedly added to the emotional involvement of the participants and spectators. Theatral Area There were two kinds of primary theatral areas used in the ceremonies. In recent years two ceremonial grounds which were located near mission stations at Yirkalla and Milingimbi have been used almost exclusively and are refur bished for a ceremony rather than being created anew. For the dua nara or jiritja nara a quadrangular space was cleared within the ceremonial ground. This space was approximately thirty by forty f e e t . ^8 Its boundaries were marked by a small mound of earth about ten inches high which had been heaped up when the ground was cleared. The mound was covered with green leaves taken from any tree, and 37 Warner, op. cit., p. 288. 3 8 Warner stated that this dance ground was smaller than the triangular one, but the photos in Berndt, Djangga- wul, showed it to be at least thirty to forty feet. : " ' ' ' 162: the bush extended up to the edges of the cleared area. A hut or shade which was identical to a rainy season shelter was erected at the middle of one of the short sides. During the parts of the nara in which the neophytes only watched, they were seated on the other short side, opposite the hut. For the dj unggawon, the kunapipi, and the ngurlmak ceremonies a space was cleared in the shape of an isosceles triangle and marked with a leaf-covered mound of earth. The base of the triangle was approximately twenty to twenty-five feet and the altitude was approximately forty to fifty feet.39 At the apex opposite the base a hut or shade was erected for the djunggawon and the ngurlmak; for the kuna pipi a totemic well was dug at this point. During the kuna pipi , the kartdjur, a crescent-shaped trench, was dug in the dance ground after the totemic well had been abandoned. The kartdjur was "four or five feet deep, the earth was piled up along its concave side. It was about ten feet long, and the width sufficient for two men to pass each other.Fi nally, during the last phases of the ngurlmak, the entire theatral area was excavated until it was shoulder deep. Sitting along the base, as the neophytes did, and looking toward the apex, the side to the left was jiritja and the side to the right was dua. There was also a secondary theatral area which was a ^^warner, op. cit., p. 265. ^ Ibid., pp. 301-302. r ' ‘ 163 large cleared space located in the general camp. It was larger than the areas on the ceremonial grounds because the parts of the ceremonies performed on it involved more peo ple. By preference it should have been located at the cen ter of the camp, but the terrain of a particular camp site determined its position. Sections of all five ceremonies were performed in the general camp. The warngaitja was placed in the center of this area in the dj unggawon, as was the forked pole in the ngurlmak. The ngainmara mat dances of the dua nara, jiritja nara and the kunapipi also took place here. Scenery and Properties There was no scenery as such used in any of the ceremonies with the exception of the hut or shade which was built in the same manner as ordinary Murngin shelters. A simple shade was constructed of boughs placed over a wooden frame. A more elaborate hut, either circular or rectangu lar, was covered with a thatched roof of tea-tree bark and the sides were made of sheets of stringy-bark (eucalyp tus).^-*- The inside of the hut was decorated with paintings or designs that depicted sections of the myth upon which the ceremony was based. In the nara ceremonies the hut served as a reposi- ^^Donald F. Thomson, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land (Melbourne: Mac millan and Company, Ltd., 1949), p. 17. n ” ~ ............... 164 tory for the rangga and other totemic emblems. It served this function in other ceremonies, too, and also represented the actual hut that the Wauwalak Sisters built near the totemic well of Julunggul. Rangga and totemic emblems made up the bulk of the properties used in the ceremonies. Rangqas were basically cylindrical in shape and were made in two ways. They were carved from a suitable log or they were made from paperbark rolled into a cylinder and wrapped with fiber string to hold them together. Warner described ten different types of cylindrical rangga.^ The ranqgas ranged in size from one to five feet in length, and two to five inches in diameter. Variations took the form of tapered and blunt ends and stylized beaks and tails if the piece were a bird or a fish. There was no attempt to depart from the basic cylindrical shape to carve a representational figure. The most devia tion was found when a rangga was made to represent a woman. . . . two wooden knobs were carved about eight inches from the top to represent the woman's breasts; at a dis tance of a foot from the bottom a one and a half inch hole was incised and lined with human hair and an inner layer of parrot feathers to represent the pubic hair and vagina; and a fringe of human hair was placed on top of the pole.43 This rangga was easily identified even though the cylindri cal shape was maintained, i.e., there were no arms and legs or even a head represented. Most of the rangga could only ^Warner, op. cit., pp. 498-501. ^ Ibid., p. 501. be identified by their painted decoration. The Murngin*s palette was limited to four colors: red, white, yellow, and black. The first two belonged to the dua moiety and the latter two to the jiritja.^ Each moiety had the sole right to collect two of the colors, but they traded with each other so that the work of both moi eties was done in all four colors. In addition to the wrappings of fiber twine other strings were used for deco ration. The dua moiety used a red-feathered string made from the feathers of the lindaridj parakeet; the jiritja, a string made from opossum fur. A typical rangga had two or three bands of painted decoration. They were highly conventionalized and took the form of all-over patterns such as vari-colored diamonds or square grids with alternating boxes filled with diagonal lines. Certain of these designs represented the totem it self, i.e., the bird, the fish, or the animal. Other de signs identified the clan and linguistic group to which the rangga belonged.^ For the most part they were all varied geometric designs rendered in combinations of the four available colors. Being so highly conventionalized there was no way to understand any of the decorations without ^Charles P. Mountford, Records of the American- Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1: Art, Myth, and Symbolism (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, I M S ) -,'"p. io:- - - - - ^Ibid., p. 408. "166 being told the meanings of the patterns by a native. There were some totemic emblems that were carved in a representational manner, such as a lizard, turtle, shark, or bird.Although these emblems had recognizable shapes they were also painted with conventionalized designs like the rangga. A few emblems were painted on stone. The stone was not worked, rather a smooth stone of the right shape was found and the design painted on it. In some areas of Arnhem Land bark paintings were used in the ceremonies which depicted portions of the totem ic myths and were shown to the neophytes during the ceremo nies. Sheets of stringy bark were flattened and the rough outer layer was removed to make the painting surface. The paintings were executed in a primitive two-dimensional fashion, but none of them was entirely pictorial, for they combined recognizable forms and conventionalized design pat terns . Like the rangga the bark paintings could not be com pletely understood without access to the meanings of the conventionalized patterns.47 There were two large items which could have been considered set props; the warngaitja used in the dj unggawon and the yermerlindi used in the kunapipi. The warngaitj a 46Ibid., pp. 428, et passim. 47ihere were many examples of these presented by the Berndts, Mountford, and others. The author viewed a collec tion of these bark paintings in May 1967. ;.. 167: was made by cutting one pole about six feet long for each boy who was to be circumcised. The poles came from any variety of tree growing on the ceremonial ground. The poles, two or three usually, were tied together with fiber string. At the top of each pole a bunch of leaves was affixed. The warngaitja represented the boys who were to be circumcised; the leaves represented their h a i r . ^ 8 Two yermerlindi were used in the kunapipi. Each one was made from two saplings tied together. This core was padded with grass and then covered with paper bark which in turn was wrapped with thick fiber string. The outer surface was coated with human blood and white birds' down stuck to it. A red snake was painted with human blood from the bot tom to the top of the emblem, and a headdress of feathers symbolizing the snake's head was placed at the top. The average yermerlindi was sixteen feet tall and one and a half feet wide.^ Costumes and Makeup There was little worn in the way of clothing during the ceremonies with the exception of headdresses and belts. The majority of the costuming consisted of body painting executed in several styles. Facial painting or makeup was 4 f t °Warner, op. cit., p. 266. 49 Vide, ibid., pp. 502-503 and Berndt, Kunapipi, op. cit., Plate VIII, opp. p. 80. 168: used mainly as an extension of a total design and not to produce a specific effect as is more common in Western theatrical tradition. Neophytes in all the ceremonies were painted with the clan and linguistic designs. These were conventional ized patterns covering the entire chest and extending down the legs to mid-thigh.^® Sometimes "shoulder straps" would be painted on giving the neophyte the appearance of wearing Bermuda length bib overalls. The great majority of the dancers and actors in the ceremonies also used conventional designs to identify their characters, but there were some exceptions. The iguana dancers in the djunggawon had a representational drawing of an iguana on their chests. It was painted head down with the tail running over the left shoulder.5^ The crocodile dancer had a series of rings painted around his legs, arms, and torso.53 This could have been some attempt at an all- over representational design. Although the opossum dancers were conventionally decorated, the male opossums carried a six- to eight-foot long bark penis as a costume accessory.53 ^Ronald m . Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 304 and Mountford, op. cit., p. 403. ^Warner, op. cit., Plate Vb, opp. p. 558. 52Ibid. ^Berndt, Kunapipi, Plate VI, opp. p. 64. I-'--"" “.................. ' . 169 Judging from a large number of photographs, there were a significant number of participants in all of the ceremonies who were not decorated. They seemed mainly to be clan elders who were directing the ceremonies without being actively involved in them and neophytes who were only painted intermittently. Two types of headdresses were worn in the ceremo nies; the poJciti used only in the kunapipi and the kurt kurt type used in all the ceremonies. The pokiti was made from grass or bark pads placed on top of the head and bound with human hair to give it its conical shape resembling a dunce cap. It was "decorated with arm blood upon which down had been stuck to form the Snake design, and cockatoo or native companion feathers were attached to the apex."^ The kurt kurt was a fan-shaped feathered headdress made from either cockatoo or emu feathers with the feathers affixed to a comblike device, in this case a sting ray prong used to fasten it to the hair. The kurt kurt was worn in such a manner that the fanlike feathers formed a brim resembling that of a modern cap or e y e s h a d e ."^5 Music and Dancing There were two musical instruments used throughout the ceremonies to accompany the singing and dancing. These were clap sticks or song-sticks and drone pipes called 54Ibid., p. 48. 55Warner, op. cit., p. 498. r ~~ "... ..' ...... "" 170 didjeridu. The clap sticks were made of short lengths of hard wood and when beaten together made "a noise something like the rat-a-tat of a kettle drum."^® The drone pipes were made from hollow limbs about four feet long and three inches in diameter which had been eaten out by white ants. When blown the drone pipes made a low drumming sound that alternated between two notes. If you repeat the native term, didjeridu "several times in a low monotone you will produce a fairly good imitation of the celebrated drone pipe. In addition to the drone pipes and the clap sticks there were three musical instruments used in the ceremonies of the Wauwalak Sisters Cycle, the julunggul, the mandel- prindi or bull-roarer, and the uvar. Each of these was used to represent the voice of Julunggul. The julunggul trumpet employed in the djunqqawon was made from a hollow log six to eight feet in length and about six inches in diameter. Beeswax partially closed one end to form a mouthpiece. During the ceremony the trumpet was decorated and also used as a snake totem. The original mandelprindi, bullroarer, was made from the wood of a tree split by lightning sent by Julunggul. It was made to reproduce his voice during the kunapipi portion 56Wilbur S. Chaseling, Yulengor (London: The Ep- worth Press, 1957), p. 97. S^Ibid., p. 98. 171 of the Wauwalak Myth. The mandeipr indi was a leaf-shaped flat piece of wood slightly convex on both sides. It was about three feet long and from one to three inches wide. The blade was covered with blood or red ochre with down stuck on it to form the conventionalized pattern of a snake. At the narrow end the blade was fastened to an eight- to ten-foot length of human hair twine which in turn was fastened to a two foot h a n d l e .^8 When whirled rapidly around and around the roaring sound was the voice of Julung gul. The uvar drum was simply made from a hollow log four to six feet long and about eight inches in diameter. It too was decorated with special patterns.The uvar was beaten with a stick made from tightly wrapped pandanus leaves. During the ngurlmak ceremony the uvar was played on the ground and it was also carried under the arm of a dancer and beaten. There were two main types of songs used in the ceremonies. The first, which was the predominant song-type of the dua nara and the jiritja nara, was the narrative song. These songs had "a unique place in Aboriginal Austra lia, for they were longer and expressive of greater detail 58 Warner, op. cit., p. 502. ^9Colin Simpson, Adam in Ochre (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1956), photo opp. p. 126. ........ 172 than those found in other areas."*’0 Within the narrative structure there was the use of invocations, and "inside" and "singing" words. A "singing" word was a word used in a song as an alternative to one in everyday use. These words were not exact synonyms for each connoted some slight variation in meaning. Nevertheless, the narrative frame made these songs readily understandable to all the Murngin. The invo cations, "inside" and "singing" words added symbolic allu sions which were most completely understood by the fully initiated men. Berndt has translated the Djanggawul Epic as told at Yirkalla. It consisted of 188 songs. The following was a section from one of them. We reach the shore! We leap from the canoe, oh waridj*^ Miralaidj. Shall we put the mauwulan rangga here, waridj? Not yet! That (string) must first be attached. I myself (says Miralaidj) put feathered pendants from my arm bands on the mauwulan emblem. Myself, waridj, I put them Trying plunging the point of the rangga into the ground, making a well. Put the mauwulan in for us, waridj (say the Djanggawul Brother and Brabal) . . . Yes, all right, waridj (says Brabal). You do it for us. I am doing it for us (says the Djanggawul Brother); for us, Bildjiwuraroiju, I put the rangga point into the ground. It's all right. Water, fresh water, is surging up for us! ^°Berndt, Djanggawul, p. 60. 6^ - Waridj was a kinship term indicating the relation ship between Brabal and the Djanggawul Brother and Sisters. 173 For us, water surges up in the well, from our mauwulan point.62 The narrative was very clear. The Djanggawul landed and with the mauwulan rangga made the first totemic well. Symbolically, the Djanggawul Brother was asking the Sisters' permission to have intercourse with them. The rangga inserted into the ground to make a well was symbolic coitus. The fresh water surging up indicated penis removal with seminal and vaginal flow after coitus. This was not an out side interpretation of unconscious symbolism. The Murngin knew this meaning. "The word used for well was milngu which also means semen." This song was a good example of how it took dramatic action by actors to make the meaning intelligible. There were four actors f three of them speaking singly. Without the stage directions supplied by Berndt in the five paren thetical inserts, the meaning of the song was confused. This material made it clear as to what the actors were doing while the song was being sung. The second type of song was the "key word" song which was used extensively in the kunapipi. These songs were short and each word conjured up a series of images in the mind of the listener. The words were very dense with many meanings applied to each word. Without knowing the 62Berndt, Djanggawul, p. 93. 63Ibid., p. 110. 174! context of the song, even the natives could not correctly interpret all of the meanings. The following song, of only thirteen words, was an excellent example of a "key word" song. I. mumuna 2. maralpindi 3. pundjarlari 4. kindij ari 5. djurbudjurburanggul 6. windigu 7. djalalara 8. juruwar 9. linbana 10. mikaraijaru 11. gulnggarumuruma 12. gulnggul1mandangimandangi 13. djumarliri Some of the meanings were: 1. bullroarer, alternate name for Julunggul 2. bullroarer, its flat surface, the Snake's belly 3. bullroarer, the whole bullroarer 4. "inside" name of bullroarer 5. "singing" name of bullroarer, mound of earth beside kartdjur 6. "singing' name of bullroarer, mound of earth beside kartdjur 7. whirling sound of bullroarer 8. swinging its cord 9. swinging cord 10. "inside" name for cord II. smearing with blood, smearing an actor with blood before the feather down was applied 12. blood flowing from arm vein, blood spurting from arm into a receptacle, like Wauwalak blood 13. stick on the end of the cord by which the bullroarer is swung64 This song had no real narrative structure, but from the numerous images a general translation was obtained. This is the Snake, the bullroarer of the Snake. Here the sound from its swinging, while the neophytes bodies are being smeared with blood for their decora tion . . .65 6^Berndt, Kunapipi, pp. 87-88. ^Ibid. , p. 88. [ "......... 175 Almost all of the movement in the ceremonies was done with some consideration of rhythm and tempo and might be considered dancing of a sort. There were many formalized dances in the ceremonies which were of three main types: the realistic animal dances, the stylized animal and totem dances, and the extremely stylized posturing that took place when ranggas and totemic emblems were being handled. The largest percentage of the dances were group efforts, but there was some solo work. The wallaby dance which was performed as part of the djunggawon was an example of a realistic animal dance. It was performed by a small group of men. The men held their hands in front of their chests with the fingers pointed downward to imitate the posture of the front legs and paws of the wallaby. They danced jximping sideways as one often sees the wallaby move when frightened.66 A more stylized treatment was given to the dance of the flood tide in the dua and jiritja nara which might have been expected. The dancers were painted with designs to represent sea water and their actions consisted of moving back and forth across the dance ground at different tempos as the tide rolled in and out. Some of the animal dances were stylized to a certain degree, for example, the kangaroo dance of the ngurlmak. This dance was performed with many solos. One man danced and when he was finished tapped ^Warner, pp. cit., p. 269. : ........" " " " 176 another on the shoulder who took up the dancing. The dancing continuing until everyone had soloed once and some times longer. In contrast to the wallaby dance, there was no effort to accurately depict a kangaroo. The dance step was "almost a complete re-production of a modern 'buck and wing1 jig step."^7 The third type of dance movement was the stylized postures that attended the display apd handling of the ranggas and totemic emblems. As far as could be determined these postures had no specific meanings, nor did they repre sent any action taken from the myths. It was presumed that these attitudes represented proper behavior in the presence of sacred objects.88 Producers, Directors, and Actors Production and direction was in the hands of the clan elders. Because of the age-grading process only the elders possessed the religious insight and technical expe rience to assure the correct performance of a ceremony. There were no rehearsals. "There was no organized training involved here; dance steps and movements, songs and organi zation of acts and so on were learned through observation 6^Ibid., p. 313. 68Berndt, Dj anggawul, Plate 1, opp. p. 16, Plate 20, opp. p. 160, Plate 25, opp. p. 209. 177 and practice during the ceremonies themselves."^ Generally, the most complex activities were carried out by middle-aged men, men who had participated in a cere mony many times. Sometimes younger men who had displayed a particular aptitude in singing and dancing were allowed to take a larger role than their age would warrant. "There was 70 always a need for energetic young dancers and actors." Still, the older men remained in complete charge. "When actors were not carrying out the traditional actions with sufficient skill, they often took over themselves to demon- 71 strate just how it should have been done." The acting styles were varied. Actors representing animals and other totems tended to perform in a stylized and conventionalized manner as has been noted in the section on dancing. However, since the Djanggawul and the Wauwalak were human beings, or at least had human form, their enact ment tended to be more representational, more realistic. The actions of the Djanggawul during the song quoted earlier 7 2 were carried out in a realistic manner. Berndt has taken 73 a photograph of a moment during this song. It showed the Djanggawul Brother drinking from the well made by the 69 Berndt and Berndt, op. cit., p. 325. 70Berndt, Dj anggawul, p. 15. 7^Ibid., p. 18. 72Supra, pp. 172-173. 72Berndt, Djanggawul, Plate 12, opp. p. 96. r ... 178 mauwulan rangga. This action was done in what appeared to be a realistic manner. In the same way the actions of the Wauwalak were realistically performed, for example, this bit of action from the djungqawon. . . . a man, painted with a "string harness" worn by present day women but representing that of the two old Creator Sisters, stood with a spear articulated to his spear thrower. He sneaked up toward the animals. (Men dancing kangaroo and wallaby.) The "hunter" threw his spear and "killed" the leader. Etc.74 All of the acting was done as it had always been done. There must have been the variations that occurred when any performing art was handed down by example without any sort of documentation, but from the native's point of view the performances were all the same and the art of act ing as practiced by the Murngin was not a creative one. It was stretching a point to call the acting in this society an art. There was no profession of acting, nor was acting limited to a special class. Eventually all adult males acted because they all participated in the ceremonies. Some were more skilled than others, but their achievement was not the result of a conscious application of theory and technique. Audience As opposed to Western theatrical tradition or even Western religious tradition there was almost no pure audi ?4Warner, op. cit., p. 273. 179 ence. That is, spectators whose only function was to view the performance. The closest approach to pure audience was the neophytes who sat and watched long stretches of a cere mony without any direct participation. Most of the time during these periods they were being instructed by clan elders. During the parts of the ceremonies that took place in the general camp there were many occasions when the women and the young children formed a sort of an audience, but these occasions were not numerous and generally they were the least sacred parts of the ceremonies. The most usual thing was to consider the adult males as playing dual roles, one of participants and audience. There were times when they sang and watched others dance or times when they watched until it was their turn to partici pate. During these times they were most like audience mem bers. When they were performing, they knew that they were performing for themselves as well as for the others. The reasons for this were a part of the social function which will be discussed in Chapter V. CHAPTER V MURNGIN RITUAL CEREMONIES: SOCIAL FUNCTION Introduction The Murngin society was a self-contained social organization. They were a homogeneous civilization with their own indigenous culture living in a particular environ-' mental setting. This does not deny the influences of alien contacts which have been numerous for many years.^ These contacts modified the Murngin society as one element of social change. This present study was based on field work carried out principally from 1925 to 1950, a time when the nature of the Murngin society was reasonably stable. The analysis of social function was based on how it was at that time. In more recent years, even though Arnhem Land has been a government reserve, there has been increased contact with the white Australian civilization mainly in the form of ^For a complete discussion of alien contact vide Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, Arnhem Land: Its History and Its People (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire Pty. Ltd. 1954) . 180 181 additional missionaries, the military, and some commercial ventures such as cattle ranching. In addition to intro ducing a new religious faith (this had been attempted for many years), these contacts have drastically altered the economic cycle and the traditional Murngin culture is rapidly disappearing. The dramatic ritual ceremonies are not performed as elaborately nor as often as they once were. Consideration of this latest period was excluded as being outside the stated limitations of this study. In applying open system theory to the Murngin soci ety there seemed to be a marked similarity between its "life" and that of a biological organism, but this was not so. The obvious similarities of input-output and reliance on the environment for an energy source were misleading. On the one hand, a biological organism has definite physical boundaries and its subsystems are generally well integrated and interdependent. While on the other hand, the boundaries of a social organization are in many cases vague and open. The character of many social systems is variable and loosely articulated. "The constancies of mutual influ ence among the subparts of a social system are fewer and less perfect than among the parts of a biological system."2 A social system is a structuring of events or hap- 2Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychol- ogy of Organizations (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1956), p. 37. 182 penings rather than of physical parts and therefore, it has no concrete structure apart from its functioning. When a social organization ceases to function, it ceases to exist, and there are no remains. When a biological organism, which is made up of physical parts, ceases to function (dies) the physical body remains for postmortem analysis. For these reasons, it was difficult to take the Murngin society apart to analyze the functions of its vari ous aspects. The major subsystems were considered to be cyclic in nature, intersecting and interrelating with each other in a complex fashion. Structure was seen in terms of events, events which were considered as junction points for the various subsystems. This study focused on five specific events, dramatic ritual ceremonies, and analyzed the func tion of the ceremonies in terms of a number of subsystems. Finally an attempt was made to reach a synthesis of these functions to show the complex interrelationships of the com ponent social functions that existed within a single event, a dramatic ritual ceremony. It was understood that a large number of relation ships existed outside of these ceremonies and that a func tional analysis of the total Murngin society was beyond the limitations of this study. Environmental Setting In addition to its function as an energy source for ? "" 183 the Murngin society, the particulars of the natural environ ment of Northeast Arnhem Land determined when the dramatic ritual ceremonies would be held. "The outstanding natural phenomena were the great seasonal changes which produced heavy rainfall and floods for five months, and for seven months an extremely dry season in which there was no rain and many of the streams, lakes, water holes and inlets dried up." 3 The rainy season was a period when food was scarce. In the early part of the dry season travel was difficult because of the large amounts of high grass which had grown during the rainy season. Later in the dry season when the grass had dried, it was systematically burned all over the . . . 4 country in conjunction with Murngin hunting activities. It was not until the latter part of the dry season with the grass burned and the streams dried up, that it became pos sible for the Murngin to travel to the ceremonial grounds. There was also not enough food until this time to be able to support a large number of people living in the same locale for many months. Religion T. H. Gaster has pointed out that in a primitive 3W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (rev. ed.; New York: Harper and Bros., 1356), p. 378. 4 Donald F. Thomson, Economic Structure and the Cere monial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land (Melbourne: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1349). i ~~...... ".. 184 society, "life was not so much a progression from cradle to grave as a series of leases annually or periodically renewed and best exemplified in the revolution of the seasons. This renewal was not automatic and was achieved by the con certed effort of the society. This took the form of seasonal ritual ceremonies, many of which were dramatic in character. The essence of a primitive society, according to Gaster, was that it possessed a two-fold character. It was "at once real and punctual and ideal and durative."® It existed as a real organization in the present and at the same time as an ideal timeless entity. The seasonal ceremo nies served two purposes. The first was to satisfy immedi ate needs, i.e., next season's crop, etc. The second was to represent the present society's link with its abstract ideal and everlasting existence, and to insure this continuance as well. Gaster saw that the connecting link between these two aspects was Myth. The function of Myth is to translate the real into terms of the ideal, the punctual into terms of the durative and transcendental. This it does by projecting the pro cedures of ritual to the plane of ideal situation which they are then taken to substantize and reproduce. Myth is therefore an essential ingredient in the pattern of seasonal ceremonies.? 5Theodor H. Gaster, Thespis (New York: Henry Schu- man, 1950), p. 4. ^Ibid., p. 5. ^Ibid. 185! In the Murngin society there were two major myths, that of the Djanggawul Brother and Sisters and the Wauwalak Sisters Cycle.® Although there was a certain overlapping of function the ritual ceremonies based on the Djanggawul myth were more concerned with the ideal and everlasting aspect of Murngin society while the ceremonies based on the Wauwalak myth were focused on the satisfaction of immediate needs. The essential distinction between the two is the fact that the Djanggawul are concerned with procreation, while the Wauwalak are, so to speak, interested in main taining the status quo. The Wauwalak are not assumed to have "brought into being" all life, as are the Djangga wul; they symbolically re-enact the situation, but are not the creators of it. . . . The Djanggawul came first, the Wauwalak later.9 Both of the myths and their attendant rituals con tained many of the same themes; reliance on the natural environment, human and animal procreation and the continua tion of the species and its food supply. All of these themes were set against the annual cycle, the alternation of wet seasons and dry seasons. In the Murngin society then, there were two mythologies dramatized in ritual to express the two-fold character of the society, the real and punctual and the ideal and durative. ®The Laintjung and Banaitja myth was somewhat sub sidiary even though it was the basis of the jiritja nara. Infra, pp. 186-187. ^Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul (New York: Philo sophical Library, 1953), p. 12. The performance of the dua nara was primarily a reenactment of the Djanggawul myth. By this reenactment of the initial birth of the people (Murngin) the ideal concept of eternal fertility was expressed in terms of the seasonal cycle. The coming of the wet season renewed the earth and all life, animal and vegetable was "re-born." The Djangga wul insured this and the Murngin were therefore assured of continuing survival by their Creators. It was the performance of the dua nara which guaran teed the continuity of the society; guaranteed it as long as the peremonies were not discontinued. The Murngin could not conceive of the abandonment of the nara any more than we could fully envisage the total collapse of our society and culture.The Ancestral Beings were eternal, but man was not. His existence was guaranteed only so long as he lived in the way dictated traditionally by his Gods. The performance of the jiritja nara was basically a reenactment of the Laintjung and Banaitja Myth. Both moi eties acknowledged the primacy of the Djanggawul as being the only ones who had created people. Although Laintjung and Banaitja were very important Ancestral Beings they did not share the power of procreation. Because of these facts the jiritja nara was more concerned with the ideal concepts •^Ibid., p. 23. 1871 of the continuity of natural species and was only indirectly related to fertility. How then was the function of ongoing fertility achieved for members of the jiritja moiety? In actual prac tice certain jiritja men by virtue of maternal kinship ties participated in the dua nara. In this way both moieties received continued fertility bestowed by Djanggawul. Even so the performance of the jiritja nara could not be ne glected. Laintjung and Banaitja had given the jiritja clans all of their totemic designs, ranggas, and ceremonies. The jiritja clans were obligated to perform these ceremonies in order to insure the continuance of their moiety. Another important aspect of these myths was the way in which the sacred rituals were instituted. In the Djang gawul myth all of the religious objects and ceremonies belonged solely to the Djanggawul Sisters. One day, when the women were away from their camp, Murngin men stole the sacred objects, took them back to their own dancing ground, and began performing the sacred ceremonies. When the Djang gawul Sisters found out what had happened they decided to allow the men to continue to perform the ceremonies while they would now just raise families and collect food. In this way the dua nara was instituted and the roles of Murn gin men and women established. For while it was the men who performed the nara and guaranteed continuity; it was the women, like the Djanggawul Sisters, who gave birth to the 188 children, another example of the two-fold division into the ideal and the real. The dua nara was instituted because of theft, but the jiritja nara was instituted as a result of a voluntary gift from Laintjung and Banaitja. It has been noted that the dua moiety was very conservative, while the jiritja moi ety seemed to embrace new and "alien" ideas. This may account for the difference in the way each moiety's nara was established. djunggawon, kunapipi, ngurlmak The performances of the djunggawon, kunapipi, and ngurlmak were reenactments of various sections of the Wauwa lak Sisters Cycle. This myth with its attendant rituals has spread into Northeast Arnhem Land in recent years.In other parts of Australia where this myth existed the Wauwa lak Sisters were true Fertility Mothers, i.e., creators. Among the Murngin only the Djanggawul Sisters were endowed with the power of procreation so the Wauwalak myth was adjusted to fit the already existing mythology. The Wauwa lak Sisters became the daughters of the Djanggawul and therefore real people, even though they lived in wongar times when Ancestral Beings still were on earth. When the HRonald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (New York: Interna tional Universities Press, 1851), pp. xv-xxiv. In the for ward A. P. Elkin dated the most recent spread of in ceremo nies from 1929 to the late 40's, but there was no informa tion of the spread of this ceremony prior to this time. j 189 Wauwalak were "demoted" to real people the emphasis of their mythology changed. No longer were they creators, but only reenacting a creation story and since they were real women, in effect they now symbolically represented all Murngin women. It was perhaps because of this fundamental change in the Wauwalak myth that the emphasis of the rituals was toward the real and punctual, rather than the ideal and durative. All of the ceremonies were marked by much more explicit simulations of animal and human sexual intercourse, and as part of the kunapipi actual sexual intercourse was a part of the ceremony. The increase in the food supply during the following season would be attributed to one of these ceremonies. For example, if kangaroo were plentiful in the season immediately following the performance of one of these ceremonies the Murngin explanation would be that the kangaroos were plentiful because "we danced him good." It was not intended to present the Djanggawul and Wauwalak myths as fundamentally different in function. They were both creation myths. It was only in accommodating the latter to the former that apparently caused a shift in em phasis so that the Djanggawul stressed the ideal aspects of the society and the Wauwalak Cycle stressed the real. Age Grading The male's life cycle was divided into a number of segments which were usually known as age grades. His ! “....... '.' " '.190 passage from one grade or social grouping to another was determined more or less by chronological age in certain instances, but his status within grades and his ultimate social rank before death was determined by social factors. Birth, circumcision, marriage, and of course death, were life crisis events which marked a change of state from one group to another. These events occurred at relatively fixed times: birth and death, beginning and end, circumci sion age six to eight, and marriage within a few years after physiological puberty. Marriageable age for men was deter mined in the Murngin society by the appearance of facial hair in enough quantity to grow a beard and moustache. Each of these events was marked by some type of ceremony, but only one of them, circumcision, was part of a ceremony in which the whole society participated. Births, marriages, and deaths were celebrated by smaller social units, those who were most intimately concerned with the event, but circumcision was one of the functions of the djunggawon, a major dramatic ritual ceremony. For what reason did the Murngin consider this event in each man's life important enough to be celebrated by the whole group? Circumcision served an important group function as well as an individual one. In Murngin society a basic social division was sexual. There were definite male and female roles. Since the theft of the totems and ceremonies in wongar times, the men have been responsible for maintain- I " " ' ......... .... - - - ....— 191 ing sacred knowledge and performing the ceremonies to insure societal continuity, while the women have been charged with 1 2 bearing children and collecting food. The uncircumcised male child was "sociologically treated as a woman. Circumcision during the djunggawon was the way in which the division of the sexes was made and celebrated. Since the djunggawon was a fertility ceremony this could well have been another reason why the act of cir cumcision was a part of it. Murngin circumcision was a rite de passage which followed the pattern first described by Van Gennup.-^ Rite of separation; the boys were taken by "force" in a mock bat tle from the women's camp and sent on a long journey. Rite of transition; upon their return the boys were placed on the ceremonial ground while certain totemic dances were staged and instruction was given them. Rite of incorporation? the actual circumcision, the cutting made the boys like the other men and after partaking of ceremonial foods they entered the unmarried men's camp. From circumcision to marriage and from marriage until death the individual's social status was determined by the rituals he had seen and the rituals in which he had par ticipated. These rituals were arranged in rank order, 19 1 o Supra, pp. 187-188. JWarner, op. cit., p. 131. ^Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, i960) , pp. lOff. 1 ...... 192; djunggawon, kunapipi, nguriltiak, and finally the jirit j a and dua nara. Young boys, when they were circumcised, did not see all of the djunggawon. By the time a man was married he was participating fully in the djunggawon, kunapipi, and ngurlmak, but it was not until this time that he first saw some parts of the nara. "Years may pass before the complete series was revealed to him, and it was not as a rule until he had reached middle age that he took an active part in the ritual. A man's advancement in status was by the nature of the age-grade system controlled by the older men. Factors such as kinship, economics, and social control entered into the rate of advancement of any one individual. However, there was some room for personal initiative and those indi viduals who showed particular aptitude for religious discus sion and singing and dancing were advanced at an earlier age.16 The function of age grading was present in every ritual ceremony. The degree of participation of each man marked his standing in the group at that time. Kinship Kinship was a major organizational system in the Murngin society and as such served many functions. Perhaps the most important function of the ritual ceremonies in this 1 ^Berndt, D j anggawul, p. 15. ~*~^Ibid. 193 respect were those activities which tended to identify and strengthen kin relations in the group. The performance of any ritual ceremony was an occa sion when large numbers of people gathered together, some of whom may not have seen each other for several years. Since the Murngin kinship system was classificatory, everyone was related. It was common, as the group assembled, to spend a good deal of time in working out everyone's kin relation ships no matter how distant. In these large gatherings, when the exact relationship could not be worked out because of the remoteness of the relatives subsection terminology was used. This was easily established, there being only eight subsections. Since the subsections were in one sense a condensation of the more elaborate kinship system they served to indicate a class of relationship between more dis tant relatives.^ Kin relationships were more formally acknowledged during parts of some of the ritual ceremonies. As a part of the djunggawon the young boy was sent on a one- to two-month trip accompanied by an older relative. It was one of the functions of this trip for the boy to meet and make friends with a number of his distant classificatory relatives. During the preparatory sections (duni) of the jiritja and dua nara there was camp totemic dancing that was ■^Warner, op. cit., p. 122. [ ' " ~ .' ....... .." .......... 194 watched by adolescent boys who would not be permitted to ob serve the ceremony proper. While this dancing was going on several older men would sit with the adolescent boys to tell them their proper relationship to each of the dancing men. The ceremonial copulation practiced as part of the kunapipi was regulated by kinship. Wives were exchanged between distant classificatory brothers. There was reli gious significance to this act and it was very important that the exchange of wives was done correctly. The reenforcement of the kinship system was a par ticular function of the ritual ceremonies, but in other aspects the system functioned during the ceremonies in much the same manner as it did during the day-to-day activities of the group, but with one important difference, the neces sity of carrying out one's kinship privileges, duties, and obligations was heightened because of the religious nature of the ceremonies. Economics The ritual ceremonies could not be held until the economic system was able to produce (1) enough food to sup port the large number of people who gathered near the cere monial grounds and (2) enough raw materials to make all of the ceremonial objects and decorations. The first was a function of the seasonal cycle. The ceremonies were scheduled when the food was available, toward the end of the dry season. It was the duty of every adult male to provide the second. Each male continuously collected those special materials, waxes, feathers, furs, bones, that were needed. If a man failed to contribute his share of these items he suffered a loss of "face" and could be threatened with reli- I Q gious sanctions. ° The need to produce goods in Murngin society over and above those needed for subsistence was to satisfy social obligations which were met by the ceremonial giving of g i f t s . one of the functions of kinship was the obligation to give food and presents of value to persons who were in a particular relationship with the giver, e.g., son to mother1s brother. The economic function of the ritual ceremonies was not entirely based on kinship. With each successive stage of initiation it was obligatory to make gifts to the old men of the clan group.Men who painted the clan designs on the initiates received gifts, the men who performed the cir cumcisions received gifts, and so on. Although there were still kinship obligations there were additional obligations to be discharged during ritual ceremonies for services rendered. For a young man the total obligations were very heavy. He had to work continuously to provide all the nec- l®Thomson, op. cit., p. 32. 19Supra, pp. 107-108. 20Thomson, op. cit., p. 36. r ~.... ' ' 196 essary gifts. Once again the threat of religious sanctions including sorcery was usually a strong enough inducement to keep him working. As he grew older and rose in social status, his obligations to give grew less, now younger men became obligated to him and the cycle continued. Norms and Values— Social Control Norms and values were laid down by tradition. They were contained in the mythology. Presumably they had been instituted by the Djanggawul, the Wauwalak, and the other culture heroes. It was one of the functions of the ritual ceremonies to teach the code of behavior to the boys and younger men. The bulk of this teaching was done during the djunggawon, the first ceremony in which they participated. For example, immediately after circumcision the initiates received the following instructions. "You must not use obscene language. You must never tell a lie. You must not commit adultery, nor go after women who do not belong to you. You must always obey your father and respect your elders."2- * - This type of instruction continued in decreasing amounts through the kunapipi and ngurlmak. The teaching of norms and values was not an important function of the jiritja and dua nara. The information transmitted to the initiates during these ceremonies concerned the fine points of religious thought. ^Warner, op. cit., p. 28. i " .“...... '....' .... “ .'...'....' . 197 Once the norms and values were taught how were they enforced? What was done to prevent deviant behavior? What was the social control function of the ritual ceremonies? Because of the age-grade system the Murngin society was a gerontocracy. One of the most powerful means of control the elders possessed was the threat to withhold initiation into a higher grade. The offender's lack of advancement would be known to the entire group gathered for a particular cere mony. The elders being in closer touch with the totemic ancestors also invoked the threat of supernatural sanctions. Blood feuds were common among the Murngin. The original causes were usually wife theft or a killing and from this beginning a feud could go on for years between two clans, with each revenge calling for additional revenge. With many clans gathered for a ceremony it was always expected that old feuds would flare anew. The ceremonies contained elements to prevent these occurrences and to settle all feuds if possible. The first method was a general one. The ceremonies were religious and the participants were warned that it would be an affront to the totemic ancestors if fighting broke out during the ceremony. This was the least effective method. The ngurlmak ceremony had a section in which old feuds were settled. When an argument broke out, one man, acting foolishly as a clown and speaking a special native V 198 pidgin, would stop it.^2 ceremonial exchange of wives which closed the kunapipi had a social control function. "It established goodwill between participants, and cemented the bonds of friendship, bringing groups closer together. Ill-will and jealousy could not, theoretically, flourish at 21 such a time." Finally, the standard peace-making ceremony, the makarata,2^ was usually performed at the conclusion of every ritual ceremony. This was a very delicate time, the cere mony was over, the participants left the sacred ground, but they were still in large numbers and in close proximity to each other. It was hoped that the closing makarata would keep the peace until the clans dispersed. Ritual Symbols The jiritja nara and dua nara were the Murngin's most important ritual ceremonies. The dominant ritual sym bols used in these ceremonies, according to Turner, should have "represented a whole culture and its material environ ment."2^ Using his criteria, an analysis was made of the dominant ritual symbols to see how nearly this was so. Briefly, Turner held that a dominant ritual symbol ^ Supra, p. 155. no 24 Berndt, Kunapipi, p. 48. Supra, p. 116. 2^Victor W. Turner, "Ritual Symbolism, Morality and Social Structure among the Ndembu," The Rhodes-Livingston Journal, XXX (1961), 3. 199! had three major properties: (1) polysemy, a single symbol stood for many things, (2) unification of disparate signifi- cata, there was some associational link to connect disparate significata in the same symbol, and (3) polarization of meaning, the symbols were bi-polar having an ideological pole and a sensory pole. The two dominant ritual symbols used in the nara ceremonies were the rangga and the ngainmara mat. These symbols functioned in the manner described by Turner. The Murngin saw their entire existence as dependent on the con tinuation of their own species and of the food which sus tained them. They recognized their dependence on the sea sonal cycle and other natural phenomena for this continu ance . The rangga and ngainmara were material objects that expressed in physical form this abstract concept. "The mat was a uterus symbol . . . the source of all life . . . the rangga poles were penis symbols."2* * There were many in stances of symbolic coitus. The rangga were placed in a ngainmara, then removed and "dried" in the sun because they were "wet" with semen and vaginal juices. When the mauwulan rangga was plunged into the ground and removed, water gushed forth, again symbolic coitus with the flow of semen and vaginal juices. 2**Berndt, Djanggawul, p. 6. i ' 200 The description above contained two significata, the ideological act of coitus which was responsible for the establishment of the Murngin and of course, at the sensory pole# the actual physiological sex act. These may have been the most important meanings attached to these symbols, but not the only ones. There were many, many more. Rangga were associated with increase in the natural environment. The mauwulan rangga produced totemic wells and the gushing water was a symbol of the seasonal cycle. The djuda (tree) rangga represented major plant life and there were rangga for each species of animal, bird, and fish. Rangga were totemic emblems which belonged to vari ous clans. The display of these ranggas was a symbol of clan solidarity. The Murngin themselves were likened to rangga, i.e., birth was equated with the rangga being with drawn from the ngainmara mat. Finally, in the largest sense, since all of the rangga and ngainmara had come from the Djanngawul, the cre ators, collectively they symbolized the way of life which the Murngin must follow to insure his continued existence. A similar use of ritual symbols was found in the ceremonies based on the Wauwalak Myth, the djunggawon, the kunapipi, and the ngurlmak. The dominant ritual symbol was Julunggul, a giant rock python (variant of the Rainbow Snake). This was the male symbol and appeared in many forms as a trumpet, drum, bullroarer, decorated wooden post, etc. ! "" 201 The ngainmara mat was used as a female symbol in these cere monies along with the kartdjur, the crescent-shaped trench dug in the ceremonial ground during the kunapipi. The entire ceremonial ground was excavated during the ngurlmak and this too was a uterus symbol. The focus of these ceremonies was on the real and the ritual symbols were used to represent mating and copula tion as a step toward actual seasonal increase. This group of ceremonies also included ceremonial copulation during the kunapipi. Murngin dominant ritual symbols possessed those qualities described by Turner. They were certainly bi-polar in nature. At the ideological pole were found those signif icata which represented the norms and values and the unity and continuity of the society. At the sensory pole were found those significata which represented erotic desires, male and female genitalia, semen and vaginal juices. It was Turner's contention that ritual symbols and indeed ritual itself was a compromise formation between the need for social control and the gratification of innate human drives that would result in the breakdown of that control. This was the final consideration. Synthesis The Murngin society had a real existence on the action level. They did certain things in certain ways with r .................." ' ' ' 202 in the structure of an organized group. Related to this was an ideological level which presumably established norms and values and directed their actions. It was not the intent, nor within the limitations of this study, to establish the primacy of one over the other, i.e., did the actions conform to the ideology or had the ideology been established to con form with the actions? The society was investigated as it was, an ongoing group living in a certain environment organ ized in such a way as to provide for its continued exis tence. The ritual ceremonies were part of this existence. Their performance served certain ideal functions and certain real ones. Ideology was found on both levels. On the ideal level the performance of the ritual ceremonies, which were dramatic expressions of the creation myths, linked the present members of the society with its abstract ideals and everlasting existence. On the real level performance of the ritual ceremonies maintained the seasonal cycle, renewed the earth, and guaranteed the continuity of the people and their energy source, the natural environment. Other real functions of the ceremonies included the teaching of norms and values to the young and their reaf firmation to the rest of the group. These ceremonies were a time when Murngin society exhibited its structural stability by providing for the orderly movement of persons to higher status through age-grading and rites of passage. A function "..“ .' ~ .................... ' .203 of the rituals was ceremonial gift exchange and many econom ic demands were generated and met. All of these real func tions were related to the religious ideology, which was their presumed source, and they were all interrelated. Certain elements of social control were another real function of the ceremonies. These were accomplished by the threat of withholding advancement to higher status backed by religious and supernatural sanctions, and by certain peace making devices. During the performance of the ceremonies, aided by ritual symbols, all of the positive qualities of Murngin social organization were presented. They were presented in close proximity with highly graphic sexual activity, both symbolic and in the case of the kunapipi, actual. It was Turner's position that when the ideological and sensory ele ments were combined in the same symbols in the action situa tion of the ritual there was an interchange of qualities between them. "Norms and values become saturated with emo tion, while the gross and basic emotions become enobled 97 through contact with social values."^7 In this way a com promise formation was reached which affirmed the norms and values of the society and at the same time was able to em brace its conflicts. ^Victor W. Turner, "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual," Closed Systems and Open Minds; The Limits of Naivety in Social Anthropology, Max Gluckman, ed. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964), p. 32. CHAPTER VI SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH Summary Scholarship in many fields during the latter part of the nineteenth century opened the way for a radical reevalu ation of man's early beginnings. Some of this work, partic ularly the ability to read texts of pre-Greek civilizations in the Near East, the concept of unilineal cultural evolu tion, the use of anthropological data of extant primitive tribes linked with the theory of common myths and rituals, made it possible for theatre scholars to develop new theo ries of the "origins" of drama utilizing data and methodolo gies unknown a century earlier. The principal theory, developed by the members of the Cambridge School of Classical Anthropology, used the then young science of anthropology to support the evolution. of drama from primitive myth and ritual. Their theory which became known as the ritual theory was that the form of Greek classical drama evolved from certain primitive rituals per formed as seasonal fertility ceremonies which took the form of a contest or combat (agon) between the old and the new. 204 The validity of the ritual theory was highly dis puted for a number of years. It was shown to have weak nesses, largely because of its reliance on early anthropo logical thought, but was never entirely disproved. In recent years the area of ritual and early drama has not been a major research topic. The ritual approach has not been in favor and general textbooks tend to gloss over early drama and its sources reflecting perhaps the scholarly inconclu siveness of the past half-century. Historical research has not produced a completely supportable theory to account for the emergence of drama, and barring the discovery of some as yet unknown cache of documents, it cannot. However, with the advances of the last fifty years, the use of social anthropological theory may be the most promising avenue open to the theatre scholar who is interested in a fuller understanding of early drama. Social anthropology could provide the theory, methodology, and data necessary to modify and reevaluate the ritual theory. In order to envision how the ritual theory might be modified, the following general hypothesis was reached. 1. There were striking similarities of form between primitive ritual ceremonies and drama. Whereas the ritual theory focused on two specific forms, one for tragedy and one for comedy, investigation will show that there were a wide variety of ritual forms many of which could, in a cer- f ~ ' “. 206 tain society, in a certain time and place, provide the source for a particular type of dramatic form. 2. The important concept of social function was not considered by the Cambridge School. The only functional attribute of these rituals, in their eyes, was religious and when that function waned the 1 1 empty” form was filled in a new way to become drama. In an unspecialized primitive society ritual ceremonies have multiple functions. When we consider the emergence of drama as a process , then many of these functions would carry over for a time. An understand ing of the many social functions of ritual ceremonies will aid in a similar understanding of early drama. This general hypothesis was too large to be tested within the strictures of a doctoral dissertation. A more specific topic was selected within the framework of the gen eral hypothesis. It was a critical analysis of the dramatic form and social function of the ritual ceremonies of a sin gle primitive society. Criteria were established to select the one society to be studied. Basically, this society was to be at the most primitive level, still in existence, and to have been studied by modern anthropologists while their indigenous culture was relatively intact. The society chosen was the Murngin, a group of Australian aborigines who lived on a government reserve in the North Territory. In order to provide an analytic structure for this study a series of seven questions were posed in Chapter One. ' ' ............... -- ---....- . 207 They were answered in Chapters Two through Five. A restate ment of those questions, along with brief answers, will serve as a summary of the body of this study. 1. Who were the Murngin and what was their social organization? The Murngin were a society of Australian aborigines who lived in the northeast portion of Arnhem Land, an Aboriginal Reserve. The climate was tropical, with alternating dry and wet seasons. There was a wide variety of foodstuff, animals, fish, and many edible plants. The Murngin were hunters and gatherers and their behavior was drastically affected by the seasonal changes. Food was abundant during the dry season; relatively scarce in the wet season. Kinship in the Murngin society was a major organiza tional system, very complex and highly sophisticated. The Murngin system was patrilineal, exogamic, and traced seven lines of descent through five generations. All told there were seventy-one distinct kinship terms. This was a classi- ficatory system with kinship extended to everyone in the tribe. The Murngin distinguished between lineal kin and collateral kin, for each relationship had definite obliga tions and responsibilities. To simplify and condense the system all kin were arranged into eight groups called sub sections. One of its functions was to provide a quick way to establish a proper relationship with strangers or distant relatives. r ~ 208 The preferred marriage in the Murngin society was with an assymetric cross-cousin. The Murngin were polygyn- ous and practiced the sororate and the junior levirate. Possession of wives was an economic advantage and a mark of prestige. The average middle-aged Murngin had approximately 3.5 wives. The nuclear family consisted of a man, his wife or wives, and their children. The daughters lived with the family until they were married, but the sons at age six to eight after they were circumcised went to live in a young men's camp. The family was an independent self-contained unit. Each family had its own fire, its own huts, and hunted for and prepared its own food. There was a definite division of labor between the men and the women. The women collected vegetable food, shellfish, and small game. The men fished and hunted for larger animals. In the same manner the women made small utensils and baskets while the men made larger items, spears, fish nets and traps, and all ceremonial items. The Murngin society had a number of organizational units. The clan was the most important one. It was an exo- gamic, patrilineal group averaging forty to fifty members. The clan's territory was theirs by religious tradition and was the site of their particular totemic well. Totems were one way in which a clan was distinguished from others. Each clan also claimed to speak their own dialect, but in prac- - -.... ".........209 tice everyone understood each other. Membership in a clan was by birth which made it a permanent and stable organiza tional unit. Since residence was patrilocal all of the mem bers of the clan did not live together. Female members, who had to marry into other clans, moved away and lived with their husbands' group. Another basic unit was the horde. Whereas the clan was an hereditary land-holding group, the horde was a land- occupying group made up of the male members of a clan, their wives (who remained members of other clans), and their chil dren. The horde was the major hunting, food-collecting, and war-making group. It was an unstable group whose size varied with the seasonal activities ranging from two or three families to all of the members of several friendly clans who shared joint territorial hunting rights. The Murngin society was one in which everything was divided into two distinct divisions or moieties, called dua and jiritja. Moieties were by definition exogamic and each had its own mythology and performed its own rituals or parts of rituals. The phratry was an attempt by the Murngin to form groups of clans within a moiety to increase solidarity. These groups were very weak. Even weaker was the tribe which barely existed. There was no tribal organization, no leadership, and no solidarity. At best a Murngin tribe was a group of clans of both moieties that were geographically ' ' " ■ "■ ' ' "■■■ ■■■“ 210: contiguous, who habitually intermarried, and sometimes vaguely thought of themselves or were thought of as a group apart from the rest. Murngin organizational strength was in the clan and the moiety. The tribe and phratry were very weak and had little effect on the social process. There was no craft specialization among the Murngin. Each family unit made all of the material items used in the culture. In addition to subsistance, a part of the economic system was ceremonial gift exchange. Each man had certain social obligations to give to and receive from others who stood in a special "face-to-face" relationship to him. These obligations could be very heavy, but they had to be discharged to avoid loss of face and religious sanctions. It was the social obligations that made the Murngin indus trious workers. Religion was a dominant quality in Murngin life. In the beginning, totemic ancestors, wongar, traveled through Arnhem Land and gave birth to the first people and gave them their totems, ritual ceremonies, and entire social order. The performance of the dramatic ritual ceremonies was more than commemorative, it guaranteed the seasonal cycle, an abundance of food, and most important, the continuation of the Murngin society. The Murngin considered his life to be cyclic. His spirit came from his totemic well, age-grading and rites of - 211 passage marked his movement from one stage of life to the next, and at death elaborate mortuary rites returned his spirit to the totemic well. The Murngin believed in magic, both black and white, but only some of the clans had practicing "magicians." A black magician had the power to inflict illness and ulti mately by stealing a man's soul, death. Many otherwise unexplainable deaths were attributed to magic which was one of the causes of feuding and warfare. The norms and values of the Murngin society were contained in the mythology. Their enforcement rested with the elders of the group whose chief means of control was the threat to withhold initiation into the higher grades. They would also invoke religious and supernatural sanctions. The most extreme method of social control was warfare which occurred when religious sanctions were not strong enough to maintain order. Warfare was almost always caused by the nee need for blood revenge. From revenge on a one-to-one basis it could grow into a pitched battle between groups of clans. These largest fights, gaingar, were thought of as the spear fight to end all spear fights. There was also a peace-making ceremony, makarata, which could end feuding. It took the form of a mock battle, climaxed by a ceremonial wounding which satisfied the avengers and ended the feud. 2. What was the Murngin mythology from which mate- rial used in the ritual ceremonies was drawn? There were r ' ... ..................................." ' .....212; three major myths which formed the basis of the Murngin dramatic rituals. They were: Djanggawul, Laintjung and Banaitja, and the Wauwalak Sisters Cycle. The Djanggawul was the most important myth, its sub ject was the original creation of the Murngin. Djanggawul was the collective name given to a brother and two sisters who came to Arnhem Land from some mythical island to the East. They brought with them a number of sacred items, the ngainmara mat, a dilly bag, and carved poles known as rangga. As the Djanggawul traveled through Arnhem Land they established the clan totemic wells, deposited rannga in them, and the sisters gave birth to large numbers of people who were the Murngin. Although the Murngin were created they had no ceremonies of their own until some of the men stole ceremonial objects from the Djanngawul Sisters and began to perform ceremonies which until this time had only been performed by the Djanngawul. When the Sisters learned of the theft they decided to let the men keep the emblems and perform the ceremonies. In this way the role of each sex was established. The women were sacred because they bore new life as did the Djanngawul Sisters. The men were sacred because they were the custodians of the totemic emblems and performed the dramatic ritual ceremonies. The Laintjung and Banaitja myth told how the people of the jiritja moiety received their totems, ceremonies, and social organization. This myth existed in a number of ;......." “ ...".......................... "" . 213. versions. In one, Laintjung, an Ancestral Being, came up out of the water near Blue Mud Bay, called all of the jiritja people together, gave them their ranggas, clan totems, and explained the sacred dancing. After a time he turned himself into a paperbark tree and his place was taken by his son, Banaitja, who functioned as a religious teacher. Banaitja's disciples grew to distrust him, to doubt that he was the son of Laintjung, and eventually they killed him. After his death the murderers realized they had made a mis take and repented their deed. They made a roll of paper bark known as a banaitja pad. When this was thumped on the ground during the ceremonies the sound was Banaitja's voice. The Wauwalak Sisters Cycle was widespread in Austra lia, but in the Murngin version the Sisters were the daugh ters of the Djanggawul, i.e., real people, although they lived in wongar times. The Wauwalak Sisters came from far in the interior. They journeyed to Mirrirmina, a sacred water hole in northcentral Arnhem Land, near the Arafura Sea. The sisters had had incestuous relation with their own clansmen, the elder sister had already given birth to a male child, but the younger sister was still pregnant as they started out. During the journey the sisters gathered and named all the plants and animals in the country as well as establishing and naming the clan territories. Before they reached Mirrirmina, the younger sister gave birth to a male child. 214 When the sisters reached the water hole they made camp and the elder sister built a fire and began to cook the food they had gathered on their trip. As each plant or ani mal species was placed on the fire it got up and disappeared into the totemic well. These plants and animals were totems and their disappearance into the water hole symbolized their sacred nature. In the water hole lived Julunggul, a great rock python. When the elder sister profaned the totemic well with her menstrual blood, Julunggul came out and began to spit water into the sky. It began to rain and the sisters, sensing that something was wrong, sang and danced all the rituals they knew, but to no avail. That night Julunggul came out of the totemic well and swallowed all four of them. They were regurgitated and reswallowed during periods of very heavy rain. This symbolized the natural seasonal cycle. The sisters reappeared to two Murngin in a dream and this was how the myth and the ritual songs and dances of the two sisters were passed on to the Murngin society. 3. What were the major Murngin ritual ceremonies? There were five major ritual ceremonies. The most important was the dua nara which was a reenactment of the Djanggawul myth. Second to this was the jiritja nara which was based on the story of Laintjung and Banaitja. The Wauwalak Sis ters Cycle provided the material for three ceremonies. In order of importance they were the ngurlmak, the kunapipi, !...... ' _ ' " . 215 and the dj unggawon. 4. What was the form of these ceremonies in terms of the Aristotelian elements: plot, character/ thought/ diction, melody, and spectacle? The ceremonies were a mixed form, parts of them were in the form of drama and the other parts in the form of the narrative epic. The plots were long with many incidents, but there were no subplots nor any substantial reversal or recognition. The Ancestral Beings' character did not conform to Murngin norms and values, but this was excused because of their function as creators. Totemic animals were treated as stock characters with cer tain human traits ascribed to them. The two main lines of thought were continuation of procreation and fertility and the affirmation of Murngin norms and values. Scholars who were familiar with the various Murngin dialects praised the quality of the diction and music. The songs, in English translation, were complex and sophisti cated. Spectacle was a major part of all the ritual ceremo nies. There were elaborate costumes and makeups, torchlight processions, ritual fire throwing, and a number of events that had great shock upon the audience by utilizing the ele ment of surprise. 5. What was the form of the physical production of these ceremonies: the theatral area, scenery and proper ties, costumes, makeup, music and dance? There were two 216 types of theatral areas. The nara ceremonies used a quad rangular space that was approximately thirty by forty feet. The ceremonies based on the Wauwalak Myth used a space in the shape of an isosceles triangle, approximately twenty- five feet at the base, and forty to fifty feet in altitude. There was no scenery as such with the exception of a hut or shade built in the same manner as an ordinary Murngin shel ter. Rangga and totemic emblems made up the bulk of the properties. The rangga were cylindrical poles of varying length, with little carving. The highly conventionalized decoration was painted using only four colors, red, white, yellow, and black. There was no way for an observer to recognize what a rangga represented without being told. There were also a few emblems carved to represent animals and an occasional emblem painted on a smooth stone. Large decorated poles were used in the djunggawon and the kuna pipi . Those used in the former (warngaitja) symbolized the boys who were to be circumcised, while those used in the latter (yermerlindi) were symbols of the great rock python, Julunggul. Little costume clothing was worn during the ceremo nies, but a great deal of body painting was utilized. These designs were mainly conventionalized, but there were occa sional attempts at representational design. Facial makeup was usually an extension of an overall design rather than an attempt at a facial characterization. There were two types : ....— ” .................— - "■■■• ............... - 217 of elaborate headdresses worn, the pokiti which looked like a large decorated dunce cap and the kurt kurt which was a fan-shaped feathered headdress worn like a modern eyeshade. Two musical instruments were used in all of the ceremonies, clap sticks and the drone pipe, the didjeridu. There were three other musical instruments that were played only in the Wauwalak ceremonies, a long trumpet, julunggul, a bullroarer, mandelprindi, and a drum, uvar. All of these instruments produced the "voice" of Julunggul. There were two main types of songs found in the ceremonies. The narrative song, which had a complete structure and was embellished with sacred "inside" words and "singing" words. Singing words were not sacred but were alliterative or image-provoking synonyms for words in the vernacular. The second type of song was the "key word" song which was short, each word dense with symbolic meanings, and the whole song conjured up a series of images relating to an incident rather than providing any real narrative. The bulk of the ceremonies were performed with some consideration of rhythm and tempo, but within this there were sections containing three types of formal dancing. These were realistic animal dances, stylized animal dances, and extremely stylized posturing that took place when the ranggas and totemic emblems were being handled. The largest percentage of the dances were group efforts, but there was some solo work. " " ■" ‘ ‘ 218 6. Who were the participants in the ceremonies/ the producers, directors/ actors; how were they trained, and in what manner did they carry out their tasks? Production and direction was in the hands of the clan elders, only they had the religious insight and technical experience to assure the correct performance of a ceremony. There were no rehearsals, participants learned from observation and prac tice during the ceremonies themselves. Generally, the most complex activities were carried out by middle-aged men, men who had participated in a ceremony many times. Sometimes, younger men who showed aptitude would be advanced to larger roles. The acting styles varied, there being examples of realistic acting and stylized and conventionalized acting. There was no profession of acting. All adult males acted, because they all participated in the ceremonies. Some were / more skilled than others, but their achievement was not the result of conscious application of theory and technique. 7. What were the social function of these ceremo nies? The dramatic ritual ceremonies had many social func tions. These events were considered as junction points for a number of subsystems that made up the Murngin social organization. The primary function of these ceremonies was religious. This function was considered as two-fold in character, real and punctual and ideal and durative. The seasonal ceremonies served two purposes (1) to satisfy imme diate needs and (2) to link the present society with its i " " ' ■ 219 abstract ideal and everlasting existence. Performance of the ceremonies insured continuance on both levels. The ceremonies served other functions. Age-grading, the Murngin's ever-changing social status as he passed through life, was marked by his degree of participation in any given ceremony. Kinship, the system was reaffirmed dur ing performances of the ritual ceremonies; duties and obli gations were heightened at this time because of the reli gious nature of the ceremonies. Economics, in addition to the economic demands of producing the ceremonies, their per formances demanded that many gifts be given for ritual ser vices rendered. This, of course, was in addition to the normal social obligations of ceremonial gift exchange. Norms and values, they were contained in the mythology and taught to the young during the ceremonies. A certain amount of social control was exercised during the ceremonies by the threat of withholding initiation and invoking religious sanctions upon those who deviated from the norms. During the performance of the ceremonies, aided by ritual symbols, all of the positive qualities of the Murngin social organization were presented. They were presented in close proximity to highly graphic sexual activity. Follow ing Victor Turner's formulation this resulted in a compro mise formation which affirmed the norms and values of the society and at the same time was able to embrace its con flicts. This basic social control function was inherent in 220 all of the dramatic ritual ceremonies. Conclusions Because of the original structure of this study, the conclusions reached were limited and very modest. 1. None of the Murngin dramatic ritual ceremonies, in their entirety, were presented in the form of drama. All of the ceremonies were of a mixed form containing elements of the drama and elements of the narrative epic. Any of the myths that were reenacted during these ceremonies could have been told entirely in the form of drama, but the Murngin did not choose to do so. (There was no evidence to suggest why this was or was not so.) 2. If any of the Murngin ritual ceremonies had been presented entirely in the form of drama, they would have taken a different form from either of the theoretical forms of the ritual theory of the Cambridge School. In none of the myths or ceremonies was there an agon or contest of the Year-Spirit against his enemies, Light against Darkness or Summer against Winter. Neither was there any evidence of a marriage-feast of the Year-Spirit. In the case of the Murn gin society there were seasonal ceremonies to guarantee pro creation and fertility, whose form did not follow the tragic or comic one of the Cambridge School. These seasonal cere monies nevertheless exhibited elements of a form of drama, albeit different, which were quite acceptable when tested against Aristotelian criteria. ' ■ ' ■ - - ' 221 3. The Murngin dramatic ritual ceremonies had many social functions. This study has shown that in addition to religious, the Murngin ceremonies had many functions. It would be unlikely that Harrison's idea of the religious function waning leaving an empty "form" to fill in a new way and therefore producing drama, could happen in Murngin soci ety. There would have to be many, many changes in the social organization before the Murngin ceremonies could evolve into drama. Implications This study was undertaken as a pilot project to begin to test a more general hypothesis. The conclusions of this study led to certain implications regarding the general hypothesis. 1 1. There may be a number of forms of primitive ritual which could evolve into a form of drama. The Murngin ceremonies were shown to have a different form from those of the Cambridge School, one which could evofve into a form of drama. It seems reasonable to assume that.further investi gation may disclose other forms. 2. The social functions of a ritual ceremony were very complex. This may well be the heart of the matter. It cannot be taken for granted that there was an easy change from ritual to drama. This is an area that needs a great deal of investigation. Suggested Further Research It seems promising at this time to test the general hypothesis of this study. In order to do that in a satis- factor manner will require quite a bit of additional research. A few suggestions follow. Form 1. Studies of the forms of ritual ceremonies of other extant primitive societies and those of early civili zations where there is enough data. 2. Critical studies of the forms of early drama of all cultures. 3. When the work suggested above has been done then comparative studies should be made to see if there are recurrent patterns and similarities. Function 1. Comparative studies of social function of ritual ceremonies. Much of this data is already available. 2. Critical studies of the social functions of early drama, and attempts to uncover vestigal functions in early drama. In this way perhaps the functional transitions can be understood. Psychology 1. If we are to come to a complete understanding of the existence of drama then psychological studies should be ' 223: made to determine the nature of the "mimetic instinct" or the "histrionic sensibility." General 1. All drama in all time has some social function. A critical analysis of the drama of any period in terms of its social function could provide meaningful insights into the place of drama in a particular society. The above topics are possibilities. There are others. It is time for the entire question of early drama to be restudied and reevaluated. It is the position of this writer that it can best be done as an interdisciplinary study. In order to do this work well it will take scholars who are exceptionally well grounded in the fields of drama and social anthropology, or perhaps a team of scholars from both fields. The aims of this study were modest, to indicate that there was a possibility that new and fruitful work could be done in this field. If it has done that it is a beginning; the real work lies ahead. BIBLIOGRAPHY 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Baker, George Pierce. Dramatic Technique. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919. Berndt, Ronald M., ed. Australian Aboriginal Art. New York: Macmillan and Company, 1964. Djangqawul. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953. ________ . Kunapipi. New York: International Universities Press, 1951. ________ , and Berndt, Catherine H. Arnhem Land: Its His tory and Its People. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire Pty., Ltd., 1954. ________ . The World of the First Australians. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964. Bowra, C. M. Primitive Song. New York: The New American Library, 1963. Buckley, Jerome H. The Victorian Temper. Cambridge, Massa chusetts: Harvard University Press, 1951. Butcher, S. H., trans. and ed. Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art with a Critical Text and Translation of the Poetics. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951. Carter, Elton S., and Fife, Iline. "The Critical Approach." An Introduction to Graduate Study in Speech and Theatre^ Clyde W. Dow, ed. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1961. Pp. 81-103. Chaseling, Wilbur S. Yulengor. London: The Epworth Press, 1957. 225 Cornford, F. M. From Religion to Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1912. ________. The Origin of Attic Comedy. Ed. with Foreward and Additional Notes by T. H. Gaster. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961. Darwin, Charles R. On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. London: J. Murray, 1859. Devons, Ely, and Gluckman, Max. "Conclusion." Closed Sys tems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety in Social Anthropology. Max Gluckman, ed. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964. Pp. 158-261. Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Collier Books, 1961. Elkin, A. P., and Berndt, Ronald and Catherine. Art in Arn hem Land. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950. Else, Gerald F. The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy. Martin Classical Lectures, Vol. XX. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965. Fergusson, Francis. The Idea of a Theater. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1949. Firth, Raymond. Elements of Social Organization. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. Flickinger, Roy C. The Greek Theater and Its Drama. Chica go: The University of Chicago Press, 1918. Flinders, Matthew. A Voyage to Terra Australis. 2 vols. London: Nicol, 1814. Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1890. Gaster, T. H. Thespis, Ritual Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East. New York: Shuman, 1950. Gluckman, Max. "Les Rites de Passage." Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations. Max Gluckman, ed. Man- chester, England: University of Manchester Press, 1962. r "" ~ ' "" " ------.......... --...2271 Harrison, Jane. Ancient Art and Ritual. London: Oxford University Press, 1918. Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1962. Hart, C. W. M., and Pilling, Arnold R. The Tiwi of North Australia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1961. Havemeyer, Loomis. The Drama of Savage Peoples. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1910. Hays, H. R. From Ape to Anael. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. Horace. "The Art of Poetry." Literary Criticism: Plato to Drvden. Allan H. Gilbert, ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962. Hunningher, Benjamin. The Origin of the Theater. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. Hyman, Stanley. The Armed Vision. New York: Vintage Books, 1955. Katz, Daniel, and Kahn, Robert L. The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1966. Kirkwood, G. M. A Study of Sophoclean Drama. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology Vol. XXXI. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1958. LSvi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1963. Lissner, Ivar. Man. God, and Magic. New York: G. P. Put nam's Sons, 1961. McCarthy, F. D. Australia's Aborigines, Their Life and Cul ture. Melbourne: Colorgravure Publications, 1957. Malinowski, Bronislaw. A Scientific Theory of Culture. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Mountford, Charles P. Records of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1: Art, Myth, and Symbolism. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1948. f “ ” 228 Muller, Herbert. The Spirit of Tragedy. New York: Al fred A. Knopf, 1956. Murray, Gilbert. Aeschylus, The Creator of Tragedy. Ox ford: The Clarendon Press, 1940. ________ . Euripides and His Age. Intro, by H. D. F. Kitto. London: Oxford University Press, 1965. ________ . "Hamlet and Orestes." The Critical Performance. Stanley Hyman, ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1956. ________. The Classical Tradition in Poetry. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1927. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and the Geneal ogy of Morals. Francis Golffing, trans. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1965. Ogden, C. K., and Richards, I. A. The Meaning of Meaning. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927. Ogg, Oscar. The 26 Letters. New York: The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1948. Parsons, Talcott. The Social System. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1951. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy. 2nd ed. rev. by T. B. L. Webster. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. Method in Social Anthropology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963. ________. The Social Organization of Australian Tribes. Oceania Monograph No. 1. Melbourne, 1931. ________ . Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 19 52. , Raglan, Lord Fitz Roy R. S., The Hero. London: Watts and Company, 1949. Ridgeway, William. The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non- Euroyean Races. Cambridge, England: Cmmbridge Uni- versity Press, 1915. ________ . The Origin of Tragedy. Cambridge, England: Cam- bridge University Press, 1916. 229 Schliemann, Heinrich. Ilios, The City and Country of the Trojans. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1881. Simpson, Colin. Adam in Ochre. Sydney: Angus and Robert son, 1956. Spencer, Baldwin. Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia. London: Macmillan and Company, 1914. Thomson, Donald F. Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Landl Melbourne: Macmil lan and Company, Ltd., 1949. Thomson, George. Aeschylus and Athens. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1941. Turner, Victor W. "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual." Closed Sys tems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety in Social Anthropology. Max Gluckman, ed. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964. Pp. 20-51. Tylor, Edward Burnett. Anahuac or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern. London: Longman, Green, Long- manand Roberts, T861. ________ . Primitive Culture. 2 vols. New York: Bren- tano1s, 1924. ________ . Researches into the Early History of Mankind. 3rd ed. rev. London: John Murray, 1878. Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960. Ventris, Michael. "Deciphering Europe's Oldest Script." The Treasures of Time. Leo Deuel, ed. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1961. Pp. 301-312. Vickery, John B. "The Golden Bough: Impact and Archetype." Myth and Symbol. Bernice Slote, ed. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1963. Warner, W. Lloyd. A Black Civilization. Rev. ed. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958. Webb, T. Theodor. The Aborigines of East Arnhem Land, Australia. Victoria: Methodist Laymen's Missionary Movement, 1934. ! 230 Articles Allport, F. H. "A Structuronomic Conception of Behavior: Individual and Collective. I. Structural Theory and the Master Problem of Social Psychology," Jour nal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, LXIV (1962), 5-36. Berndt, Catherine. "A Drama of North-Eastern Arnhem Land," Oceania, XXII (March, 1952), 216-239. Berndt, Ronald M. "Murngin (Wulamba) Social Organization," American Anthropologist, LVII (1955), 84-106. ________. "Some Methodological Considerations in the Study of Australian Aboriginal Art," Oceania, XXXI (1960), 31-62. ________, and Berndt, Catherine H. "Sacred Figures of Ancestral Beings of Arnhem Land," Oceania, XVIII (June, 1948), 309-326. Elkin, A. P. "The Complexity of Social Organization in Arn hem Land," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, VI (1950), 1-20. Hiatt, L. R. "Local Organization among the Australian Abo rigines," Oceania, XXXII (June, 1962), 311-317. "Incest in Arnhem Land," Oceania, XXXV (December, 1964), 124-128. Kitto, H. D. F. "Greek Tragedy and Dioysus," Theatre Sur vey, I (1960), 3-17. Menagh, H. Beresford. "A Way of Separating Theatre from Rite," Educational Theatre Journal, XIX (May, 1967), 117-123T ________. "The Question of Primitive Origins," Educational Theatre Journal, XV (October, 1963) , 236-246. Miller, J. G. "Toward a General Theory for the Behavioral Sciences," American Psychologist, X (1955), 513-531. Thomson, Donald F. "Marrngitmirri and Kalka— Medicine Man and Sorcerer— in Arnhem Land," Man, LXI (1961), 97- 102. Turner, Victor W. "Ritual Symbolism, Morality and Social Structure among the Ndembu," The Rhodes-Livingston P 231 Journal, XXX (1961), 1-10. von Bertanlanffy, L. "The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology," Science, CXI (1950), 23-28. Webb, T. Theodor. "The Making of a Marrngit," Oceania, VI (March, 1936), 175-178. Unpublished Material Asgar, Jlal, "A Historical Study of the Origins of the Per sian Passion Plays." Unpublished Doctoral disserta tion, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1963. Dickens, Milton. "Tentative Definitions of Some Common Research Terms." Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 1964. (Mimeographed.)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

A Historical Study Of The Origins Of The Persian Passion Plays

PDF

"The Ramona Pageant": A Historical And Analytical Study

PDF

Becket's chameleon character: an analytical study of the universal appeal of Thomas Becket's dramatic character

PDF

A Re-Evaluation Of The Major Works Of George Kelly

PDF

A Historical Study Of Oliver Morosco'S Long-Run Premiere Productions In Los Angeles, 1905-1922

PDF

A Critical Study Of The Influence Of The Classical And Christian Traditions Upon The Character Of The Hero As Revealed Through The Concepts Of 'Love' And 'Honor' In Three Restoration Heroic Tragedies

PDF

A Critical Analysis Of The Nature Of Plot Construction And Characterization In Representative Plays Of Harold Pinter

PDF

A Historical Study Of The Belasco Theatre In Los Angeles And The Forces That Shaped Its History: 1927-1933

PDF

A Descriptive Study Of The Value Commitments Of The Principal Characters In Four Recent American Plays: 'Picnic,' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,' 'Long Day'S Journey Into Night,' And 'Look Homeward, Angel'

PDF

A Historical Study Of Gilmor Brown'S Fairoaks Playbox: 1924-1927

PDF

The Nature And Significance Of The Father In The Plays Of Eugene O'Neill

PDF

A Historical Study Of The Characteristics Of Acting During The Restoration Period In England (1660-1710)

PDF

An historical study of the legitimate theatre in Los Angeles: 1920-1929 and its relation to the national theatrical scene

PDF

A History Of The Los Angeles Greek Theatre Under The Management Of James A. Doolittle And The Los Angeles Greek Theater Association, 1952-1969: The Professional Theatre Producer As A Lessee Of C...

PDF

A History Of Theatrical Activity In Fresno, California, From Its Beginnings In 1872 To The Opening Of The White Theatre In 1914

PDF

A Critical Examination Of The Works Of Clifford Odets According To A Psychoanalytic Criterion

PDF

The interaction of Los Angeles theater and society between 1895 and 1906: a case study

PDF

A Critical Study Of Brander Matthews' Dramatic Theory

PDF

An Analytical Study Of Structure, Characterization, And Language In Selected Comedies By Philip Barry

PDF

South Coast Repertory, 1963-1972: A Case Study

Asset Metadata

Creator Goodman, Lawrence Peter (author)

Core Title A Critical Study Of Murngin Dramatic Ritual Ceremonies And Their Social Function

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication (Drama)

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Theater

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Butler, James H. (committee chair), [Move], Sally L. (committee member), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-663341

Unique identifier UC11361804

Identifier 6909022.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-663341 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6909022.pdf

Dmrecord 663341

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Goodman, Lawrence Peter

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA