By Serge Tcherkézoff
The deep constitution of symbolism in spiritual and formality actions has hitherto quite often been studied from views deriving from classical and modern Western notion, which values symmetry, non-contradiction, equality of phrases and the rationality of linear discourse and category platforms have for this reason become outlined in binary phrases (right/left, male/female, black/white). during this booklet, Serge Tcherkezoff offers a brand new standpoint at the learn of formality class. at the foundation of a close ethnography of the rituals of the Nyamwezi of Tanzania, Tcherkezoff argues for an research which acknowledged contradictions and asymmetry inside of ritual structures. Following Dumont, he exhibits that societies are characterized through a hierarchal constitution of values, during which each one person aspect has a which means in basic terms via its place in the complete, thereby changing the inflexible classical structuralist dichotomy with a wealthy multidimensional strategy.
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Extra resources for Dual Classification Reconsidered: Nyamwezi Sacred Kingship and Other Examples (Atelier d'Anthropologie Sociale)
Example text
It would be tantamount to saying that one was no longer a man and that one had no ascendants, or it would imply that these latter were all witches and none of them had therefore become ancestors. The only acceptable aim, and therefore a necessary one, is to become an ancestor oneself. 6 If one fails to achieve this, one is condemned to be merely a wandering spirit who is debarred forever from eternity. One must therefore live, and continue to 'appease' the ancestors, if one is to see one's own children born and, above all, one's childrens' children.
But this is actually a false way of posing the problem for, where a hierarchy is involved, a direct link between various contexts becomes impos- Right or left? 41 sible. Our investigation demands that we oscillate constantly between the situations in which the fundamental values feature, in which the whole of society is staged, and the subtle variations asymmetries, reversals, totalisations - of this or that dual opposition. Once we have specified the references which are essential to a society, and the reordering of contexts which each of these references organise, the difference in value between the poles of a particular opposition may easily be grasped as the disposition of two elements in relation to a whole.
One must be aware of the importance and the form of the relation to the supernatural, together with the hierarchy of principles concerning royal ancestors/familial ancestors. One is then in a position to understand the homology, which is asserted elsewhere, between kashindye, twins and dead kings. In addition, this hierarchical passage sheds light on the man —> woman reversal in the person of the mhoja. Man/woman Let me recall some of the features of this opposition. I have already noted that it seems to be connected to the opposition between paternal and maternal kin-groups, being correlated with it either directly or through the mediation of the left/right opposition.