Reception of the site> magazines> Systems of thought in Black Africa> n°16 ritual in work. Afro-Cuban and afro-Brazilian perspectives
n°16 ritual in work. Afro-Cuban and afro-Brazilian perspectives
Ritual in work. Afro-Cuban and afro-Brazilian perspectives
Arnaud Halloy
Patricia de Aquino : Words of objects. The crossroad of the divinatory shellfishes of Candomblé
Philippe Jespers : Glosses on some steps of guaguanc ó. Pragmatic analysis of a Cuban festive dance
Arnaud Halloy : To play to teach and to learning to play. The erês of a candomblé of caboclo in Belgium
José Jorge de Carvalho : Violence and chaos in Afro-Brazilian religious experience
Michel Agier : Short instants of identity. The ritual community in two "African" carnivals (Brazil, Colombia)
Silvina Testa : Hierarchy in work. Religious organisation and type in afro-Cuban religions
Presentation Summaries Summaries
The ambition of this number is ethnographic and theoretical at the same time. Ethnographic since we offer a series of documents about what it was necessary to call afro-American religions. Theoretical since the various contributions gathered here succeed, expressly or not depending on circumstances, to rather general proposals on a notion visited for a long time by social anthropology : the ritual. At the risk of simplifying a bit, it can be said that the sequences of acts more or less formalized that the anthropologists developed habit to qualify as ritual made the object of two essential approaches. According to a first approach, the ritual is bearing of a signification, it reveals stocks which enliven those who fulfil it. In other words, he has something to say, and it is therefore necessary to read it, to decipher it, to decipher it, to interpret it. According to a second approach, which is perhaps more in favour today, the ritual does not say, he makes. So that he would raise less than a semantics than a sociology of action. This second approach splits up besides in its turn into two currents. They can is to consider that some types of acts, principally different from other acts which we fulfil in social life, must be qualified as "rituals" . The ritual act would distinguish itself so from technical act, from political action, etc. So, a version of this current tends to consider that the ritual acts would be characterised by specific calculated dispositions (Humphrey and Laidlaw, on 1994.) Or it is possible to consider that "Ritualité" , if it is possible to say, is a feature likely to colour all kinds of actions, possibly beside other features. There would be therefore so « the ritual » in salutations, in war, and perhaps even in some technical acts.
Of course, these two big approaches live together in most studies which profession dedicates to the ritual. Even when the ritual is considered to be a sequence of acts, it is also possible to wonder about the signification of symbols manipulated at occasion by those who fulfil these acts. And studies which favour the second approach do not always differentiate both turns which she is likely to take. The reader will not therefore be surprised that, if our contributions have rather tendency to see the ritual as a sequence of acts, they are not always exempt from any interpretative worry.
They will add even that ethnographic ambition and theoretical ambition who were ours are not either loosened to them. Indeed, afro-American cultures in the course of these last years turned out to be a laboratory advantageous for the study of the circulation and of transformations, across time and space, of knowledges and know-how peculiar to various populations (see between other Stefania Capone 2001-2002 ; on 2004). And we think not only here of movements from continent to the other in which were interested for more than a century studies dedicated in’« Africain inheritance » by black populations in America. Because on this point, we join point of view of S.W. Mintz (on 1970 : 11) :
Quite aside from the question of historical origins, the cultural resources of Afro-Americans and complex golden Afro-American culture are by no means limited to those elements that probably African historically are ; such are far less significant than the continuing creative employment of forms, whatever their origins, and the symbolic manners imparted to them.
That is why, if studies gathered here have their place entirely in a magazine africanist - because it is not however possible to disclaim that there is very in the field an Africain inheritance, even if it is partly dreamt and rebuilt by the persons concerned - they hire a more general reflexion on the whole section of social life ; to know, this « continuous creative use of forms », and as well stocks, memories, signification, which they transmit, that are transformed and what is sometimes betrayed.
Patricia de Aquino studied the prophesying practiced every day within Brazilian Candomblé. In a nice and attentive study of case, she notably points out that the task of the soothsayer is less to predict the future than to urge his consultant to envisage the gift in another way. She has a patient as it followed step by step come to see patients because of a son who causes him worry, and with whom they see that its relations change as divinatory sessions succeed one another. Philippe Jespers offers a pragmatic analysis of a Cuban dance, the rumba. Rather than the expression of something else than itself (as for example relation man / woman such as she is found in the Cuban society), the rumba is taken to be what it is, that is to say, as him writings it by remembering Agamben, « an endless [...] purpose process, forever inabouti, of reconstruction (symbolism) of the identity of sexes in correlation the one with other one ».
Arnaud Halloy was interested in a Brazilian worship transplanted in Belgium. Erês, infantile divinities linked to this worship introduce parodic features which encourage the neophytes to carry on him a distanced look, thanks to that they are better in even to internalise conventions. In an analysis of a big comparative ambition, which extends and renews that of Victor Turner, José Jorge de Carvalho shows how violence and so present "chaos" in some afro-Brazilian worship are as such factors of order and of peace. To paraphrase him of a word, however dionysian he is, a worship is sometimes bearing of apolliniennes stocks.
Regarding Brazilian carnivals and Colombians, Michel Agier visits again and questions the notion of identity. The ambiguous, vaguely diabolic faces, which mobilise these carnival rituals, "open" , as he says it, « ways towards the altérité » : I am the one who I am in measure where I am a bit other one...
Silvina Testa wonders about the respective role of the men and of the women in afro-Cuban religions, what leads him to meet the face of the homosexual. Where from a shape in three terms hierarchy of which is changeless in principle (first the homosexual man, then the heterosexual man, and in last the woman), but often contradicted in reality.
Patricia de Aquino : « Words of objects or the crossroad of the divinatory shellfishes of Candomblé », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 11-47.
This article offers to analyse prophesying in Candomblé, Brazilian religion of Africain origin, not across the only data gathered in discussions out of context with soothsayers, but also from the description of a session of prophesying as communicationnelle situation. He appears while divinatory logic answers less the necessity to confer a sense on riot than on that of reconfigurer, by pragmatic procedures, the biography of the consultant. The soothsayer "guesses « nothing, the consultant learns nothing but is forced to approach his life in another way.
Key words : prophesying - pragmatic - game - enunciation - exchange - Candomblé - Brazil.
Philippe Jespers : « Glosses on some steps of guaguanc ó. Pragmatic analysis of a Cuban festive dance », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 49-88.
The author undertakes to surround features characterising both ways to dance the rumba, depending on whether it is danced during a holiday, or as a counterpoint during a religious ceremony. These features are to search in relation between conventions noticed by the dancers and emotional or calculated dispositions which enliven all actors - dancers, musicians and including audience.
Key words : action - rumba - song - intention - rhythm - Cuba.
Arnaud Halloy : « To play to teach and to learning to play. The erês of a candomblé of caboclo in Belgium », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 89-110.
The article offers to show how, in an afro-Brazilian worship installed in Belgium, the game of entities-children introduces a métacommunication who results in a more flexible ritual framing. The importance of this dimension of game in worship is to put in touch with a broader process of ritual training which poses problem.
Key words : training - game - métacommunication - irony - derision Candomblé - Belgium.
José Jorge de Carvalho : « Violence and chaos in afro-Brazilian religions », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 111-148.
From data notably coming from worship Shango and Jurema de Récife, this article shows that violence and riot ritualized, supposed to come from worship more syncrétiques, and linked to the demonstration of malevolent and "heavy « minds , are a constituting aspect of ceremonious activity in afro-Brazilian religions. A parallel with the dionysian worship such as it is represented in the bacchantes d' Euripides shows that this ritual violence and the subversion of the categories which it implicates are the demonstration of a « third state », neither structural nor anti-structural, to be considered to be a specific mode of religious experience.
Key words : Jurema - Shango - violence religious religious experience - Brazil.
Michel Agier : « Short instants of identity. The ritual community in two "African" carnivals (Brazil, Colombia) », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 149-173.
This text studies two ritual creations in the carnival frame, in Bahia in Brazil and in Tumaco in the Colombian Pacific. Both aim at the affirmation of a "black " or "African" cultural identity . They show that ritual context provokes instants of identification to a community, ephemeral instants recall of which will allow to produce, in social and political contexts, emblematic pictures of a « cultural identity » very labile.
Key words : Currulao - afoxés - Ex ú - devil - carnival - Brazil - Colombia.
Silvina Testa : « Hierarchy in work. Religious organisation and type in afro-Cuban religions », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 175-204.
The religious organisation of afro-Cuban religious practices is based on a dynamic crossing by type, which organises the distribution of ritual expenses. Four worship considered here, relating all to a common ideology centered on the representation of the blood, mobilises and organise into a hierarchy the difference of sexes.
Key words : type - spiritism - Palo Monte - Santería - Ifá - Cuba.
PRINT the French / English summaries in format PDF (extracts of the number 16)
Ritual at work : Afro - cuban and perspective Afro - brazilian
Patricia de Aquino : « The words of objects, and the crossroads of Candomblé divinatory shells », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 11-47.
Prophesying in Candomblé, has Brazilian religion of African origins, simple percentage analyzed not only by using dated collected during out-of-context interviews with diviners purpose also by describing has session of prophesying ace has "conversational" situation. The divinatory " logic " simple percentage thus seen to be has response for " Reconfiguring " the person' s biography through pragmatic procedures rather than to be has mere response to the need to give meaning to disorder. The diviner "divine" nothing ; and the person consulting the diviner learns nothing drank simple percentage forced to approach life differently.
Key words : prophesying - pragmatics - play - address - communication - Candomblé - Brazil.
Philippe Jespers : « In gloss they have few guaguanc ó dance steps. In pragmatic analysis of has Cuban dance festive », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 49-88.
The characteristics are described of two ways of dance hall the rumba, respectively during festivities and in counterpoint to has religious ceremony. They are sought in the relation between the conventions observed by dancers and the emotional golden intentional predispositions that enliven all actors - dancers, musicians and onlookers.
Key words : action - rumba - song - intention - rhythm - Cuba.
Arnaud Halloy : « Between playing at learning and learning to play. The erês of has Caboclo Candomblé in Belgium », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 89-110.
How does the play of " child-entities " introduce has metacommunication that leads to ritual framework in year has flexible more Afro-Brazilian cult in Belgium ? The importance of play in this cult should be jeu in relation to has broader process of ritual learning.
Key words : learning - play - metacommunication - irony - mockery - Candomblé - Belgium.
José Jorge de Carvalho : « Violence and chaos in Afro-Brazilian religious experience », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 111-148.
Drawing they material concerning the Recife Shango and Jurema cults (among others), this article shows how ritualized violence and disorder, associated with the demonstration of "Heavy" , evil spirits and attributed to cults of has nature more syncretic, remain has aspect constituting of Afro-Brazilian ceremonial activity. In parallel with the dionysian cult ace portrayed in The Bacchae simple percentage used to deduces that the performance of meaning-subverting ritual violence points to the existence of has pre-representational " third state " , to neither structure nor anti-structure, which simple percentage to be recognised ace has distinctive fashion of religious experience.
Key words : Jurema - Shango - religious violence - religious experience - Brazil.
Michel Agier : « Brief instants of identity. The ritual community in two "African" carnivals (Brazil, Colombia) », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 149-173.
Ritual creations in the carnivals in Bahia (Brazil) and Tumaco (the Pacific area in Colombia) seek to assert has cultural identity "African" golden a ce " Black « . This ritual context creates ephemeral instants of with identification has community. Recalling these brief instants serfs to arouse, in social and political contexts, the emblematic pictures of has labile quite " cultural identity " .
Key words : Currulao - afoxés - Ex ú - the Devil - carnival - Brazil - Colombia.
Silvina Testa : « Hierarchy at work. The organisation of worship and gender in Afro-Cuban religions », Systems of thought in Black Africa, 16, 2004, pp. 175-204.
The organisation of Afro-Cuban religious practices simple percentage based they have dynamics permeated with gender. Gender organises the distribution of responsibilities. The oven cults taken under consideration all refer to has common ideology centered there is conception of blood ; they mobilise and hierarchically rank differences between the sexes.
Key words : gender - Spiritism - Palo Monte - Santería - Ifá - Cuba.
PRINT the French / English summaries in format PDF (extracts of the number 16)
_
