Turner, "Liminality and Communitas" & Metcalf, P., and R. Huntington, Death Rituals and Life Values: Rites of Passage Reconsidered

Résumé du document

Peter Metcalf, Richard Huntington's and Victor Turner's works are all studies of rituals and more precisely of rites of passage. As far as Peter Metcalf and Huntington's works are concerned, the study focuses on the rites linked to death for the Malagasy inhabitants; that is to say it looks for the meaning of the different actions and formalities done during and after the burials. They show that burials can be seen as a process, a passage from life to death. As far as Turner is concerned the emphasis is put on a Kenyan tribe: the Ndembu. He tries to study the process of the rites of passage and the different steps of that process. Both works show how important rituals are, in a study of the bonds in a given society. These anthropological studies try to give evidences that the rites (occasional as well as regular ones) have some social functions, the most important of which is to integrate the people in groups.

Extraits

[...] They are the mirror of some deep needs for the societies, and they help societies to deal with its social values and its specific order. Then this article is a practical example to validate the Van Gennep's tripartite model of rites of passage. The problem is that the chosen categories in the table of oppositions can seem arbitrary. These oppositions serve as justifications for the whole theory, but we can wonder if two different anthropological studies would find the same categories for this society. [...]

[...] Chapter Death Rituals and Life Values: Rites of Passage Reconsidered. In Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington's study and Victor Turner's one are both studies of rituals and more precisely of rites of passage. As far as Peter Metcalf and in Huntington's works are concerned , the study focuses on the rites linked to death for the Malagasy inhabitant ; that is to say that it looks for the meaning of the different actions and formalities done for the burials and after the burials . [...]

[...] The first step is a burial itself, the body is taken away from the society so this step would be a rite of separation. The second step is the gathering and can be seen as a period of liminality that is to say a transition state. Finally, the third step is the reburial, which would correspond to the ceremony of reintegration. So this theory is a good proof of how rites are much more complex than simple events, or simple codes to follow. [...]

[...] Those bonds are characteristic of a specific king of community called communitas Finally, he describes the liminal phase as a process that aims to make people experience of high and low status as we can see with the Installation rite. Victor Turner's work is a brilliant way to give evidences that the rites can modify strongly the social bonds and even create and ephemera new society (communitas) with completely different values and representations. The only thing is that the liminal phase is not out of time and space for me. The rites of passage often take part in a specific moment (weddings, death, and puberty) and a specific place mountain far from the village). [...]

[...] Those anthropological studies try to give evidences that the rites (occasional as well as regular ones) have some social functions and the most important is to integrate the people in groups. Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington's aim is clear; they want to demonstrate that death is a process, not a simple event but a transition. To begin they start by explaining that Malagasy people have different values for their society. The death is not negatively related so as the sexuality. Then, those values are differently linked during the burials. When in Western countries people act respectfully during burials, the Malagasy funerals contain drunkenness, sexual liaisons, and bawdy songs. [...]