Galinier - The Implicit Mythology of Rituals in A Mesoamerican Context PDF

Journal of the Southwest
A Lvi-Straussian Controversy Revisited: The Implicit Mythology of Rituals in a

Mesoamerican Context
Author(s): Jacques Galinier
Source: Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 46, No. 4, New World Edens (Winter, 2004), pp. 661-
677
Published by: Journal of the Southwest
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A Levi-Straussian
Controversy
Revisited:
The
Implicit Mythology of
Rituals in a
Mesoamerican Context
Jacques
Galinier
During
the last
fifty years,
French
anthropology
has been so
greatly
influenced
by
Claude Levi-Strauss that it is almost a truism to
point
this
out
again. Nevertheless,
this influence has never been
constant, despite
an
apparent surrounding
consensus. This
waxing
and
waning
of influ-
ence is
particularly
evident in the field of
kinship
studies. After a
period
of fresh enthusiasm
following
the
publication
of The
Elementary
Struc-
tures
of Kinship ( 1947),
these ideas
appeared
to fall into a
long dogmatic
sleep. During
recent
decades,
with the
exception
of a few scholars like
Francoise
Heritier, kinship
studies
(a
traditional standard of French
anthropology)
seemed to have exhausted their
object (Barry 2000, 10).
A recent issue of UHomme
(June 2000)
raises new
open-ended ques-
tions which
provoke
a sudden
greening
of
kinship
theories in France
along
the lines of Levi-Strauss's ideas
(Levi-Strauss 1947).
The struc-
tural treatment of
mythologies
has not
experienced
the same reawak-
ening.
The
tetralogy
Introduction to a Science
of Mythology
must be
considered as a
unique
chef d'oeuvre which has no
equivalent
so far.
Paradoxically,
if Levi-Strauss's
overwhelming authority
has
discouraged
younger generations
from
forging
new
approaches
to
myth,
it has indi-
rectly
stimulated the theoreticians of ritual. Above
all,
his silence on the
ritual issue offered an attractive
space
to
express original sociological
for-
mulations. The
vulgate
of Levi-Strauss's doctrine on this
topic
is well
known: It is almost
entirely
condensed in the conclusion of The Naked
Man. In
fact,
this is a most
problematic
discussion of a
problem
which
has
gone through
several
perspectives
in the
history
of
anthropology.*
Like
many
of
my colleagues,
I have been both fascinated and
disap-
pointed by
the twists and turns of the Levi-Straussian
magic, especially
by
how Levi-Strauss
attempted
to solve the ritual
problem, by trying
to
Jacques
Galinier is research director at the Centre National de la
Recherche
Scientifique's
Laboratoire
d'Ethnologie
et de
Sociologie
Comparative,
Universite Paris X
-
Nanterre.
662 >
Journal
of the Southwest
detach a
"
mythologie irnplicite"
embedded in routinized
practical
acts
and articulate it to a
people's grand mythology,
and
by
how he consid-
ered ritual as a
poor response
to the
ruling
discourse of a
people's
ver-
bal
myths.
I do not
pretend
to enter a theoretical debate
by drawing up
a new
set of
concepts. My purpose
is
only
to
develop
some
underlying
ideas
readily
available from
my ethnographic experience
in
Mexico, especially
in the Otomi area. These ideas will balance the Levi-Straussian
approach
to the
myth/ritual dispute.
First,
I must confess that
my investigation
of Otomi
mythology
was
a
byproduct
of other kinds of
inquiry, mostly
on ritual. I do not
repu-
diate out of hand the basic role of
myth
in
shaping
the mental world of
peoples.
Nor do I claim that
myths
are irrelevant for
depicting
a native
Weltanschauung.
On the
contrary, myths
stand for the most
complex,
metaphorically
rich of all
spoken art,
whether
they
are executed
by
a
shamanic
expert
or
by
common
people. Nonetheless, among
the
Otomi,
"traditional"
myths
-
those that deal
primarily
with
relationships
between
humans and the other world
-
are
scarcely
remembered and therefore are
difficult to record. In
fact,
Otomi
myths
are
very poorly
documented even
now. The core of the Otomi
mythology
seems to be
strictly
limited to
genesis
and
eschatology;
to the
origins
of Sun and Moon and of
crops
and
fire;
to a set of accounts
concerning
the
Devil,
as a Lord of Earth
and
Moon;
and to sex and death.1 In them it seems that a medieval
European
set of
topics
has been
thoroughly
embedded into a
prehis-
panic
cosmovision.
After
years
of intensive
fieldwork,
I realized that I was more
acquaint-
ed with the
major
texts of Otomi
mythology
than were most of the
Indian
people
of
my generation (then
between
twenty
and
thirty years
old)
with whom I was in touch.
Thus, my professional quest
was not
in
keeping
with the
young people's
interests. That was a
painful surprise
for the naive
anthropologist
that I was and still am. Thus
my problem is,
Why
are the Otomi
myths
so seldom told if we consider them the
key-
stone of the Otomi
Weltanschauungen?
The
problem
is not so much that the
myths
should be confined in
the
memory
of the
badi,
"the men who have the
knowledge,"
and
remain inaccessible to the
profane.
The Otomi are one of the most con-
servative
peoples
in Mesoamerica.
Accordingly,
their current
tradition,
though deeply
transformed
by
colonial
Catholicism,
carries the
lingering
influence of the
prehispanic past.
Their
rigid cosmology
is based on a
strict dualism
opposing Sky
and
Earth,
the
upper
and the lower
part
of
Rituals in a Mesoamerican Context + 663
the
body,
Christian
religion
and Otomi
costumbre,
etc.
Now,
how can
such a dualism still function without a constant and collective reference
to a dense
mythological corpus?
My hypothesis
and
my rejoinder
to Levi-Strauss is that the
major part
of Otomi hermeneutics is the
exegesis
of ritual. Their
"mythological"
knowledge
is
mainly
a reference to cosmic rules which
explain
the
sym-
bolic
aspects
of ritual dramas. This
exegesis
of the intricacies of the ritual
process
is an inexhaustible source for
expounding
a common worldview
and is also a means of
expressing
the connections
among
the elements
of the Otomi cosmic
machinery.
The common form of their
myth, then,
is a
very
short
piece
of nar-
rative,
sometimes reduced to two or three
lines, scarcely
more than one
page long
when written. This concise
presentation obeys
rhetorical con-
straints. Secret
things
must be mentioned in an
elliptical way,
with a mod-
esty
that excludes
direct, spoken presentation.
The shamans or other
narrators take
advantage
of a
pause
in events to insert an ad hoc
myth.
The narration is
always
context
dependent.
The success of a
telling,
or
its
"force," depends
on an
understanding
between the narrator and the
audience,
both of whom can infer connections to other themes. Because
of
this, many segments
of stories can "shift" from one
story
to another.
My
conviction is that this kind of text is doomed to shortness
precisely
because of its "delicate"
(stint 'Unski),
in the sense of
deeply personal
or
sensitive,
essence.
The Otomi
equivalent
to the
Spanish
word cuento is
nyaki,
"lan-
guage-sperm"
or
"point-sperm"
or
"head-blood,"
since the element ki
or khi means either and both semen and blood.
Thus,
Otomi
myth
sto-
ries are considered and are said to be
"heavy," "dangerous," "dirty,"
"contaminating." They
are considered so
by
their
very nature,
without
consideration of their
message
or
plot.
But
they
are also considered to
be a
language
of
verity (makhwani; ma, "place;" khwatni,
"cut" or
"truth")
and difficult to
manipulate. They
can
generate
hazardous con-
sequences,
as when someone reveals
long-hidden
secrets.
Nonetheless,
the
message
is never
surprising,
since its conclusion is
already
known and
accepted. Still,
such a narrative is considered to be a
script
of
death,
a
"cut" or
rupture.
The last words uttered
by
the narrator are
always
the
same:
yapi kwati,
"it is finished" or "he is
finished,"
which also means
"he
just
has had sex." All those assertions define the semantic and con-
ceptual
field of kwati.
Now it
may
seem
strange
that the Otomi
assign primacy
to the action
of ritual over the authoritative discourse of
myth.
This
assignment
raises
664 <
Journal
of the Southwest
open-ended problems
and undermines the
assumption
of the value of
myth
as a
primary
means of
approaching
a native intellectual "black box."
For
example,
the Otomi's Carnival activities reveal the cultural code
underlying
their
usages. During
this annual
event, cosmological
narra-
tives are not limited
by polite
rules
(alcoholic
intoxication is
very helpful
in
this).
Ritual
performances during
Carnival are
numerous,
both col-
lective and
individual,
both formalized and
spontaneous,
as for instance
when a devil
defecates, hangs himself,
or
copulates
with a "dama."2 Such
scatological
dramas are abundant.
They
connect to
multiple
and often
contradictory exegeses, songs, prayers,
and so on. Carnival is
practically
the
only
occasion
during
which such discourses and
meanings
are revealed
to a
profane
audience
(including
women who are considered "too dan-
gerous"
to
participate
in the ritual
itself).
And
they necessarily encap-
sulate elements of standard
mythology.
When I
began
to
study
the
Otomi,
I
thought
that the
myths
would
explain everything
that their rituals left unclear. Not
only
was this
assump-
tion
untrue,
but the ritual
exegesis
was sufficient to
provide
the
gener-
al hermeneutic clues I was
seeking.
When I finished
studying
a
huge
amount of Otomi commentaries on their rituals
-
a kind of
job
that
may
never come to an end!
-
I realized that few of the
myths
I had recorded
actually
fit with their ritual
explanations.
The matter remains unsettled:
What are Otomi
myths
made for? I do not want to fall into a
simplistic
functionalism,
but
my experience dropped
a hint that the
myths'
dis-
creet,
"low noise"
activity
could be a
consequence
of their status as sec-
ondary
to native
exegesis.
Without
doubt, myths occupy
a
peripheral
space
in Otomi
thought. They
do not build a finite
encyclopedic corpus
by
which
priestly
or shamanic
experts
could
legitimate any
and all events
and actions.
To
my knowledge,
the Otomi are not keen on
exegetic
sessions. I have
never attended
deep cosmological discussions, except
in the context of
apocalyptic
cantina
meetings.
These
very
sessions would
support
the
theory
that Otomi
myths
or
mythic exegesis play
a
significant
role
only
during
events characterized
by
altered states of consciousness or "deli-
cate" circumstances. That could be the reason
why my informants,
even
after
years
of
familiarity
with
me,
have
always
been reluctant to tell
myths.
Thus,
it
may
be that
myths
are
readily
confessed
during
"ritual"
peri-
ods and in barrooms because the freedom of narrative
performance
at
those times is attributed to the alienation of the
speaker.
The one who
speaks
is not the usual
person,
but the cosmic
entity
or the ancestor he
Rituals in a Mesoamerican Context < 665
is
supposed
to
embody during
rituals or while
drinking
or
during very
rare trance
performances
after the
absorption
of Cannabis indica.
The
myth
reciter alienates himself in the same
way
that a Carnival
actor in ritual is allowed to reveal
"dirty
secrets" from the underworld
or a drunken barroom murderer is
supposed
to act in the name of El
diablo
enpersonne, zithu, meaning
"the one who eats one's name." All
of these altered states are conceived as a transfer of the soul of the "vic-
tim" into another
bodily envelope,
or vice versa. This transfer is a kind
of diachronic and
synchronic
translation that is not limited
by space
or
time constraints. And the transfer is a
two-way process.
One of the basic
problems
of Otomi
ontology
is that a normal
person
can be "mounted"
by
an
ancestor,
or on the other hand one's soul can
escape
from one's
own
body.
The invasion contains not
only
the "force"
necessary
to
act,
but also
ideas and
representations.
That is
why mythology
is never looked
upon
as a
personal knowledge
but as an
impersonal
set of
representations
that
is
manipulated during
so-called "delicate" contexts and that demand a
specific preparation.
The
myths
come from an
otherworldly past,
"the
very
rotten
time,"
and will survive the death of the teller. This ancestral
-
ization of
myth explains
the
refueling
of its
nzahki, "energy," through
its
constant connection with the ancestors who are the
unending
source
of vital force. Thus
refueled,
the
myth
delivers a truth that one cannot
question,
even if all
myth
narrations use the same
performative
stereo-
typed negation:
"Who knows if all that is true? Nevertheless
yesterday,
the
day
before
yesterday: "mate,
mate makunte ..."
(a
recitation fol-
lows).
Now,
what
really happens during
barroom
drinking
sessions? What
confers
upon
the teller in that
precise
moment an
adequate ability
to
manipulate myths?
The Otomi often mention
something
like a
process,
a sort of twister that induces the transformation of the
drinking
sub-
ject
-
the same
way
as the
eponymous
hero becomes Sun or Moon. This
metamorphosis
is
compared
with the movements of a
donkey turning
over and over in the dust or with
vertigo
or with how one feels when look-
ing
at the moon's reflection on a
pond
surface or with
how, during
the
Volador and the
palo
de horca
ritual,
an actor feels while
turning
from
a
rope
that moves
up
and down between two
poles. Vertigo (iti),
or
dizziness,
is also
proper
to the cantina,
atmosphere
and to sexual inter-
course when man and woman climax and to a condition called
numdho,
the "clear vision." For all these
reasons, myth, namely nydki,
"head-
666 >
Journal
of the Southwest
blood" and also "head-semen"
(since
the
penis
is conceived of as a
"body
who
speaks"),
must be considered as a kind of
logos spermatikos.
Consequently,
we can
distinguish
between two
types
of discourses: a
daylight
one controlled
by
the
living community,
and a nocturnal one
manipulated by
El
Diablo,
which includes
myth plus
the
scatological
nar-
rations of drunken men and
performances
of Carnival actors. More
examples
raise a further
problematical issue, namely
the
relationship
between dream and
myth. According
to the native
point
of
view,
dur-
ing sleep
time the
body
is transformed into a
cenotaph,
that
is,
an
empty
tomb. The soul wanders around the world to attend bizarre or dishon-
est events
(thefts, crimes,
acts of sexual
intercourse, transformations, etc.).
But while the inside is
going outside,
the outside
gets
inside because
during sleep
the
body
is also colonized
by foreign
invaders. This native
theory
carries two
consequences: (1)
A dream narrative is detached from
the moral
person
of the dreamer. He is
just
the
messenger,
a
go-between
from the Lord of the
Universe,
the one who controls the
totality
of
knowledge,
the
"great
rotten
foot,"
or tdskwa.
(2)
Dreamed
messages
can be
immediately deciphered
with the aid of a shared cle des
songes
which is based on a
principle
of inversion between the
explicit
content
of the text and the truth it
conveys.
For
example,
if I dream I am
rich,
I will remain
poor,
etc.
That dream narratives
present strong
connections with
myths
is not
surprising. Frequently,
stories were told to me as
personal dreams,
but
I
already
knew them to be "true
words,"
that is to
say myths. Thus,
in
1995,
1 studied Otomi children's dreams in Santa Ana
Hueytlalpan,
col-
lecting
more than one hundred narrations for this
purpose.
I was
puzzled
by
the
frequency
of dreams connected with
rapture, fall, crime,
disem-
bodiment,
and cannibalism. The same themes occur
frequently
in
myths.
I concluded that in
spite
of the
apparent strong
westernization of Otomi
children's
culture,
their dreams resemble those of adults. This was not a
simple
truism. Given that children's dream narratives are much
"poorer"
from a semantic
point
of view than those of the
grown-ups,
and are
extremely
short
(as, too,
are adult
myths),
we have to admit that Otomi
dreams and
myths embody
the same basic values and rules of formation.
Let us consider the
following proposition: Myth
is a variant of dreams
(or
vice
versa)
and
myth
is
very
similar to ritual
exegesis. Therefore,
a
continuum connects the
"personal" knowledge
of the
subject
with the
collective
experience
of
myths
and rituals. But Otomi
"myth" appears
to be
quite
context
dependent,
framed
by specific
rules of
performance
and definable
by
form but not
content,
since their
myths
do not own
their content but share that with ritual
exegesis.
What then identifies their
myths
as such? Their "truth?" The
storyteller?
The audience?
Actually
the
line is
very
hard to draw. In the Otomi context we can
say
that it is
just
a matter of
circumstances,
and we could also call their
myths
rituals
because the same rules
apply
to what
they say
and
they
are both con-
sidered to be "delicate."
Other kinds of Otomi discourse have the same
"dangerous"
or "del-
icate"
aspect.
But
they
are not considered to be "basic"
texts,
as
myths
are.
Yet I take it as established that Otomi
myths
do not
provide adequate,
ready-made responses
to
cosmological enigmas,
whether or not these
enigmas
are raised in their rituals.
Ritual,
with its dense
symbolic weight,
I believe has the
capacity
to solve Otomi
enigmas.
And so their rituals
deal with
sacrifice, revival, death,
etc.
In an earlier article
(Galinier 1990, 201-5)
I coined the term internal
exegesis
for all endocentrical
discourses,
that
is,
those directed
by
actors
to other actors or to
people
in the audience in order to comment on a
technical
point
or on the
sequence
of a
performance. Obviously,
this is
not
equivalent
to the
"
mythologie implicite^
of
Levi-Strauss,
even if var-
ious contextualized
segments
of
myth
are
present
in such
exegesis.
Opposed
to the internal is "external
exegesis";
that
is,
all the discourses
enacted
by
the actors on the audience
-
during
the
performance
itself or
before or after it
-
directed at the attention of an outside observer. Inter-
nal
exegesis
is more
literal;
external
exegesis
more technical. The former
is
crude,
the latter "cleaned
up."
In the Otomi
case,
this
opposition
is
complicated by
another one. Internal
exegesis represents "tradition,"
or
what the native
people
consider to be the true Otomi
worldview,
which
they
associate with the
underground
and the lower
part
of the
body;
with "one half of the
world,"
mate ra
simhoi,
which the Otomi consider
as "their" world. External
exegesis
is connected with the
upper part
of the
universe and of the
body,
and with the
officially
enunciated
religion.t
Of
course,
this
dichotomy
is not
perfectly systematic,
but it is backed
by
a
strong
consensus. Several times I
gained
access to the internal exe-
gesis
of rituals that most of
my
native friends knew
only through
for-
mal,
"Christian"
interpretation.
We must remember that the
presence
of
the
anthropologist
can distort native hermeneutics.
Only
when I was
sufficiently competent
in
understanding
the vernacular
language
could I
notice the subtle differences between
whisperings
in the dark behind a
mask and the
overt, public
discussions in broad
daylight.
668 <
Journal
of the Southwest
Let us take an
example.
In the eastern Otomi
region,
a
very
famous
ritual called Volador has resisted the
outrages
of colonization
(see figure
1).
Its Otomi
interpretation
is
probably
the most
complete
and com-
prehensive
of the whole cultural area where the ritual is still
performed
(Huastec, Totonac, Tepehua).
The
script
of the Volador is associated
with two
types
of Otomi
interpretations: (1)
The "external"
exegesis:
The ritual
represents
the
flight
of
Jesus
Christ and his ascent to the
"middle of the
sky,"
mate ra simhoi. The
Devils,
who have
pursued
him
since his
birth,
fall down to earth at the foot of the
pole,
and there
they
confess their sins.
(2)
The "internal"
exegesis:
The
pole
is a cosmic
phallus (it
is
clearly
shown as such on an
idolo,
a
paper figure
of the
Lord of the
Volador,
and it is made
explicit through dirty jokes).
In
Chicamole
village,
a
dummy representing
the Lord has an ancestor head
hidden
by
a mask. It stands at the foot of the
pole,
where the Lord is
supposed
to screw
violently (horasu: ho,
"to make love" or "to be iden-
tical
to"; su,
"woman" or
"fright")
a character I call the "woman
crazy
with love." "She" is a male actor who becomes
pregnant during
Car-
nival and
gives
birth to a
doll,
a black
boy
or blonde
blue-eyed girl
called "the little name
eater," t'uzithu, (tu, "little"; thu, "name"; zi,
"eater"),
that is to
say,
the child of El
Diablo,
since "devil" in Otomi is
"name eater."
Moreover,
the revolutions of the sihta dancers
(literally
"the rotten
fathers"),
tied with
ropes unwinding
from the
top
of the
pole
down to
earth,
are a
metaphor
for the transformation and re-creation of life. I
attended Voladors several times in the same and also in different
places.
When I saw a
performance
for the first time
(1970)
I could access
only
the external
exegesis.
I had to wait a
long
time to reach the internal one.
I don't know how
commonly
other Mesoamerican cultures have devel-
oped
such a
split
of
interpretations,
but I believe the Otomi case is basic
to our
understanding
of the relation between
mythology
and ritual
action. We must conclude that Otomi
exegesis
are not
just impoverished
versions of their standard
mythology.
Considered from a
pragmatic point
of
view,
the Otomi
mythology
is remarkable because it contrasts
deeply
with the Amazonian narratives that are fundamental to Levi-Strauss's
studies. Those
spoken epics,
whose enactment can last a whole
night,
have
equivalents
in Caribbean and North American
areas,
which are also
covered in Levi-Strauss's
tetralogy,
the
Mythologiques,
Yet Levi-Strauss
considered Mesoamerica
different,
for reasons he mentioned in The Raw
and the
Cooked, namely
that the
mythologies
of that
region
had been
A Volador ritual in San
Miguel, Municipio of
San Bartolo
Tutotepec, Hidalgo.
Malinche
jumps
on the
top of
the
pole.
He is
supposed
to reach the sun and he waves
in the
four
directions while
playing
a
flute.
The "devils"
sitting
on the
high frame-
work near him will
fly
back to the
underworld,
where
they
will
confess
their sins.
670 *
Journal
of the Southwest
mise en
forme by scholars, mostly Maya
and
Mexica,
so it needed a
spe-
cial
approach
to overcome those difficulties
(Levi-Strauss 1964, 184).:t
For him
myth
recitation is a sui
generis act,
alien to routinized ritual
events
(which
are almost never
interpreted
in his
works,
with the
excep-
tion of a
long
discussion of a Cuna shamanic
cure).
The
myths
of Levi-
Strauss's
theory
are unlike the
swift, fleeting
Otomi texts. For Levi-Strauss
there is an insurmountable barrier between
myth
and
ritual,
as far as
structure, form, content,
and function are concerned. The Otomi case
counterbalances him with the
opposite
situation.
Potentially,
ritual exe-
gesis
has an infinite
extension,
within the limits of the
physical capacity
of the actors to absorb the effects of alcoholic and narcotic intoxication.
It can take
shape
in different
ways: dialogues, songs,
or brief
apologetic
recitations.
According
to
Levi-Strauss, myth
is
equipped
with semantic
properties
that the
"implicit mythology"
of rituals cannot share. In real-
ity,
it is
only by considering
the
very
elaborated forms of
myth
mentioned
previously
that he can
present myth
and ritual as
contrasting
entities.
The Otomi
example provides
a
fairly
conclusive answer to the much
debated
(and generally speaking meaningless) question
of the
primacy
of
myth
over ritual. If we assume that some kind of
exegesis
is an essential
part
of
any
and
every ritual, namely
a technical solution to the
enigmas
of the
script,
the relation can be theorized in a new
way.
This
requires
that we
replace
the term
myth
with
exegesis.
To Levi-Strauss and to Vic-
tor
Turner, myth
consists of the "basic
building
blocks" used to construct
or reconstruct a
cosmology,
and rituals are dramatic reenactments of
events that
supposedly
took
place
at the
beginning
of time.3
I understand that
my conception
of
exegesis
will be criticized because
it
merges
traditional
categories
like
myth, song, tale, dream,
etc. But
what we miss on one side
-
a
typology
of narratives
-
we
gain
in flexibil-
ity
on the other side to move between the "ordres
con^us"
and the
"ordres
vecus,"
as Levi-Strauss would
say.
It is no of use to consider rit-
ual
exegesis
as
just
an
implicit mythology
disconnected from a
"great"
or "noble" one. After
all, my interpretation
is not
contradictory
with
the native
theory.4
Now I would like to raise a collateral
question:
Do Otomi
myths
act
as archives of traditional
knowledge? Obviously
not. The
general
amne-
sia that I found
among
the
young generation concerning
local cos-
mogonies
will
probably increase,
even if we consider that their short
myths
are
constantly renovated,
enriched
by
elements taken from the
Rituals in a Mesoamerican Context > 671
spatial
and
temporal
context of
recitation, including
data
coming
from
magazines, radio, TV,
etc.
Actually,
what seems most
important
is the
fact that the content of the
message prevails
over the
container,
which
means that "traditional"
myths
are doomed to
extinction,
as
magical
objects
revealed
during exceptional
circumstances.
Let us recall this
paradox
in Otomi culture: The standard
myth
form
is
sociologically speaking peripheral,
on the
way
to
complete extinction,
but at the same time these
myths
are a crucial
reality,
inasmuch as
they
are "delicate" and cannot be revealed outside of a ritual context or a bar-
room session. The
drinking
bouts create the
psychological
and formal
conditions for
mystic pronouncement.
This is not
simply
because alco-
holic intoxication induces a
catharsis,
but also because the
speech
that is
generated
in the cantina sessions is bathed with
violence, scatology,
and
eroticism. Drunkenness is the via
regia
to an alienation of the
actor,
to
the
subjective
embodiment of a cosmic force called
"great
rotten
foot,"
taskwa,
or the Devil. The discourse of a drunken man is
immediately
dis-
connected from its normal moral
support
and is
instantly
"universalized."
It is
always
considered as a
"language
of
truth,"
makhwani. The drunk-
en man reveals the
other, Otomi,
side of the world. Whether this be
through song
or
storytelling,
the value is the same.
Moreover, aguardi-
ente is the
indispensable
item
fueling
Otomi ceremonial
life, being
used
for lustrations and as a means for the shaman to communicate with the
entities of the other world. The shaman's behavior cannot be
separated
from that of the drunken man. Both are
apt
to
"topple
over the
edge,"
"on the other side of the
world,"
takwati ra sirnhoi.
I have earlier discussed a
positivist argument forged by
Staal which
echoes
Wittgenstein's epistemological
radicalism
(Staal 1975; Wittgen-
stein
1967, 233-53;
Galinier
1990, 201-5).
If some rituals are voided
of
any
formal
exegesis,
this does not
imply
that
they
are
meaningless.
In the Mesoamerican
context,
it seems
impossible
to
accept
Staal's anti-
semantic,
anti-hermeneutic treatment of ritual. Ritual cannot be
explained
just by
means of
syntactical
rules such as would
govern
the enactment
of a
script (scenario).
Carnival
convincingly
enhances the intricacies of
several
layers
of
overlapping interpretations
which connect that ritual
with Christ's birth on one hand and with
Holy
Week on the other. What
the Otomi teach
us,
as mentioned
above,
is that the status of the "exe-
gesis"
-
and
consequently
of
"myth"
-
is
always
relative. Neither
exege-
sis nor
myth
is an
abstract,
absolute
category.
The Otomi made a choice
672 *
Journal
of the Southwest
to initiate
people
into the
mysteries
of the universe
by
means of the rit-
ual
channel,
while other cultures would choose the
mythical way
or the
dreaming
one.
One
point
remains to be discussed. What historical
process generated
the Otomi choice?
During
the colonial
period,
the Otomi culture was trans-
formed
by
a
long
clandestine
process. Large
sectors of the
prehispanic
worldview were hidden
by
a subtle
strategy
of
"camouflage."
One
might
expect
that their
mythic
oral tradition would be a means of native resis-
tance to
Christianity. Curiously,
the Otomi still
gather
for
night
meet-
ings
at enclosed
places (oratories,
shamans'
houses, caves, etc.)
or in
remote,
hard-to-reach shrines in the
heights
of the Sierra Madre Orien-
tal. There still exists a
deep congruence
between the secret "internal"
ideology
of these
meetings
as well as the
public
rituals and the basic
assumptions
of the
prehispanic
Otomi
culture, namely
a concern with
sacrifice, fertility, ancestors,
and "evil" nocturnal
powers.
And their
pre-
sent rituals reveal a
longtime
obsession with sex and death. This violent
tendency
still dominates their
culture,
so
deeply
that it does not
require
a
transcription
in
any mythological
archive. To reverse the Levi-Straussian
dichotomy,
we could
say
that the
myth says
in an awkward
way
what
their rituals
explain
better.
We all know that the
sociological problem
of how
myths
and rituals
are related can
only
be solved
by examining specific
local histories. Con-
sequently,
we are constrained to
reject any
a
priori, rigid
definition of
either. It would be
wrong
to consider the Levi -Straussian
point
of view
stated in The Naked Man
(Levi-Strauss 1971, 595-611)
as a
general
the-
ory
of
ritual,
since this
problem
has never been a consistent issue for
him. In
fact,
Levi-Strauss has never taken into account the
performa-
tive dimension of rituals. His
priority
has
always
been to
explain perfor-
mance and culture as instances of
binary
codes.
Actually,
one can
agree
with him on at least one
point:
the
necessity
of
discovering, beyond
the
chaos of
experience,
an unconscious "matrix of
intelligibility."
But as
far as the Otomi are
concerned,
it is not
necessary
to summon the human
brain,
but
simply
to
point
out how certain
ideological regularities
are
directly
embedded in ritual enactments.
Native theories will
help
us to reconsider this
point.
For the
Otomi,
it is
important
to
recognize
that action
prevails
over
narration,
in the
sense that this
people
considers the
persistence
of the costumbre as indis-
pensable
to the survival of the human
species. Thus,
the term mate
means at the same time a traditional
fertility ritual,
a
prayer,
and a "half
(of
the
body,
of the
world).
In other
words,
ritual rather than
myth
seems
to be the
perfect
form to
convey
the
message
of the Otomi ancestors.
Ritual maintains a minimum level of communication between the
deceased
antiguas
and the
living community.
This contradicts
Levi-Strauss,
who insists
upon
the
incapacity
of the
ritual to re-create
continuity
out of
discontinuity (Levi-Strauss 1971,
607).
In
reality, though,
it seems that
only
ritual is able to reenact the
cosmic
origins
of
humanity
and to state
humanity's
concerns with them.
But,
in the same
way
that
myth
is
only
understandable
through
its vari-
ations,
ritual is
nothing
but the
repetition
of a
script
written
everywhere
and nowhere at the same
time;
that
is,
a
script
transformed and
adapted
according
to local
spatial
and
temporal
local constraints. Not
only
do
the
sequences,
the
numbers,
and the names of the actors
vary,
but cer-
tain events enacted in one ritual
may
be included on other
occasions,
like
Holy
Week or the
eponymous
saint's
day.
Native
exegesis always
reveals a
high
level of freedom and
flexibility. Moreover,
the variation
in ritual context is
always greater
at the level of
interpretation
than at the
level of action. Native ritual
exegesis
is
very
similar in this
aspect
to
myth.
It is still a matter of
controversy why
Levi-Strauss has never written
an
encyclopedic opus
that he could have called Les
Ritologiques
-
which
would have counterbalanced Les
Mythologiques. Apart
from the
gigantic,
cyclopean
effort it would have
demanded,
the
question
remains
up
in
the air. In
fact,
the
subsequent history
of
anthropology
has shown that
it is
hardly possible
to
"sociologize"
his
thought.
Few scholars have
attempted
to
reinterpret
his work in that direction. In his
Quadratura
Americana
(2001),
E. Desveaux tried to
pull
the
great mythological
scheme on to its feet
through
the
exploration
of
kinship
and
marriage
norms in Native American
societies,
north and
south,
and the
configu-
ration of
political
rules that would reflect this
logic
of
oppositions
in social
inscription. Tentatively,
we can
say
that what raises the
great problem
to
Levi-Strauss,
is the
aleatory
or random
aspect
of
ritual,
which entails
a
great
deal of
improvisation
and is difficult to
express
in terms of
binary
codes. This is true at least in the Mesoamerican context
(perhaps
it is not
true of Pueblo
culture,
for
instance).
Here we face
again
a
long dispute:
On one
side,
ritual is conceived as
a via
regia
to
explore
the main
assumptions
of the native worldview.
On the
other,
this worldview is
precisely
what
guides
ritual
operations.
How is it
possible
to
escape
this
problem?
And what then is left to
myth? Obviously,
it is
necessary
to abandon the obsolete circular
argu-
674 >
Journal
of the Southwest
ment of whether ritual determines
myth
or vice versa. An
ethnographic
world
survey
will
readily
confirm that some
peoples
are
"ritualists,"
oth-
ers are less so or not at
all,
and so
peoples occupy
different
positions
on
a continuum. The same is true for native
groups
more concerned with
mythological knowledge
or with dreams.
The Otomi
(south
of the Huasteca
-
I don't
pretend
to
generalize
to
the whole
area) belong
to the first
category.
This
implies
that we should
put
the term
myth
between
brackets,
since Otomi ritual
exegesis
is more
than a
simple
and
impoverished
version of
myth.
Their
exegesis
is a
par-
ticular form of narration
adapted
to a
specific
mode of action and to
specific
historical circumstances. What remains
puzzling
to me is that
most of the time even the most
gifted
informants are unable to
provide
a clear and
complete synopsis
of a ritual outside the ritual context. It is
as if their
memory
is unable to
synthesize
the different mental
represen-
tations of it into a coherent vision.
Summing up
the
arguments presented here, first,
it is difficult to mem-
orize
complex
actions that
imply
the articulation of different
points
of
view,
technical
skills,
etc.
Second,
the Otomi rituals are
always
delicate
and are
probably
remembered
only
at a
deep level,
where
they
remain
unconscious
through
the effect of
repression.
Let us assume that this
sort of
repression
concerns not
only
the scenario of different
actions,
roles,
and
actors,
but also the
explanations
and
insights
associated with
the
actions,
which are considered to be
highly dangerous.
That is
why
we cannot contrast the technical
aspects
on one side and the
symbolic
and hermeneutic
aspects
on the other.
Globally,
all these dimensions must
be treated as one and the same
reality.
This is
precisely
what we have seen
concerning
the Volador
ritual,
which combines different
layers
of
interpretation,
the native one
being
the most crucial and
probably
the most difficult to reveal. Other exam-
ples
-
like the Todos Santos festival for instance
-
could fit with this
assumption.
All these facts indicate the
particular
status attributed to
myth
in Otomi
culture,
not at all as a charter that
explains
the structure
and the events that occurred in the
world,
but as a collateral narration that
confirms the basic
assumptions
revealed
by
internal ritual
exegesis.
Pre-
cisely
because
they
are
dangerous
to
communicate, they
have to remain
secret. But when a ritual is
enacted,
it is in
very particular circumstances,
where it can
impose
its
authority,
which is
perfectly
consistent with the
fact that it is
generally kept
in
secrecy.
This
ethnographic
excursus within the frontiers of a Mesoamerican
eastern
province
was intended to uncover the extreme
flexibility
of
mythological knowledge
relative to matters of ritual. It shows how a
native
society
has elaborated
throughout
its
history
a
specific
device
which instrumentalizes the discourses embedded in ritual
action,
and
particularly
in "internal
exegesis,"
to
generate
assertive
propositions
on
cosmic law and
order,
a function
generally
allocated to
mythology
sui
generis.
It turns out that Levi-Strauss's idea of the
exegesis
of rituals as
an
impoverished
ersatz of standard
mythology
must be reconsidered. It
is not
only
a
question
of
testing
its
ethnographic validity,
but also of
reflecting
on the
premises
of theoretical
knowledge, beginning
with the
native ones. ^
Notes
1 . The
mythological corpus
I have
obtained,
about
fifty pages long,
includes
tape
recorded texts translated with the aid of the narrator or an
informant,
and
many
stories that I heard and
jotted
down
during
ritual
performances.
The
brevity
of the latter
stories,
collected
during privileged moments, especially
dur-
ing Carnival,
enabled me to write them down
quickly
and
discreetly.
2.
Damas,
or
Sumpo,
are male
players acting
the
part
of urban
prostitutes.
3. The
problem
with Levi-Strauss's works is the lack of a solid
theory
of rit-
ual that would be
part
of a
general sociological
doctrine. Levi-Strauss's ideas
on ritual are formulated
only
in
passing,
in the context of other discussions.
4. As an alternative to the term
nydki (head-sperm: nya, "head,"
and
kiy
"sperm"
or
"blood")
the Otomi will use the
Spanish
borrowed term kwento to
cover all sorts of
discourses,
sacred or
profane,
ritual or not.
Commentary
*
DMB: In the last
chapter
of The Naked
Man,
Levi-Strauss sometimes means
by myth something
broader than
narrative, namely, nearly any "operation
of
the intellect"
(668), any "cognitive
classification for
ordering
the universe"
whatsoever
(668),
and
some, maybe
not all individuals'
"philosophy
of nature"
(669). Therefore,
the
thoughts
that make
up
the Otomi
Weltanschauung
are
included in what Levi-Strauss sometimes means
by myth;
and since
part
of
those
thoughts
were
given
to Galinier in answer to
questions
about the
perfor-
mance of
rituals,
those latter
thoughts comprise,
as Levi-Strauss
said,
a
mythol-
ogy of,
and an
exegesis of,
ritual. But
why
this
mythology
should be called
"implicit"
is a
problem.
Thus, (1)
What could Levi-Strauss mean
by explicit mythology,
if the
implicit
kind is contained
in, among
other
things,
native
exegeses
of ritual? and
(2)
Where do the Otomi and Galinier stand relative to
Levi-Strauss's,
and also to
my
own
(Bahr), concepts
of
mythology?
676 +
Journal
of the Southwest
(1)
Levi-Strauss never
says
what he means
by "explicit mythology" (he
is
not one to make himself
painfully clear),
but I am
quite
sure he includes under
this
heading many
of the
things
we call
narratives,
and
especially
the oral
prose
narratives told in tribal societies. I wish he had
singled
out for
special
attention
something
more
particular, too, namely
the
integrated
oral
prose
narratives on
the whole of Edenic ancientness as told in New World tribal societies.
That,
of
course,
is
my special
interest.
(2)
The
Otomi, according
to
Galinier,
tell
very
little oral
prose
narrative
mythology.
Please note that the
prehispanic
Otomi lived in the mountains above
but under the domination of the
valley-
centered Aztec
empire,
and Otomi rit-
uals since the
Spaniards'
arrival have been
steeped
in a
Spanish-taught religion
of
conquest (Indians carrying
white
god images
on
litters,
to martial
music,
with
fireworks, etc.).
Small wonder the Otomi's
implicit mythology
of ritual
exegesis specializes
in
"Otomizing"
and
scandalizing
the official Catholic
expla-
nation of the ceremonies!
tPZ; In
demonstrating
how Otomi
mythology
is embedded inarticulated in rit-
ual,
Galinier invites renewed
speculation
on the
relationship
between those two
genres.
While
published
over a
century ago, Washington
Matthews' landmark
account of the
Navajo
Mountain Chant contains both a narrative of
origin
and
a full
description
of a
complex ritual, complete
with sketches
by Matthews,
sand-
paintings,
and
bilingual transcriptions
of the
songs, amply demonstrating
the
symbiotic relationship
between this
pairing
of
myth
and ritual. The
original
edi-
tion, published
in 1887
by
the Bureau of American
Ethnology,
lacked an account
of mimed canine
pederasty
followed
by
a
dramatized, playful
dramatization of
pre-coital foreplay
between a human man and
woman,
but both of those were
in the
performance
witnessed
by
Matthews and described in his notes. He omit-
ted them to meet the current
publication
standards.
The
missing portions
were
recently published by
the
University
of Utah Press
in an edition that I
helped
to
prepare.
What has
puzzled
me about the
mimicry,
though
-
seemingly
so out of
keeping
with the
myth
text
-
was
why
it existed
in the first
place.
There seemed to be no obvious link between the
low, bawdy
acts and the
ceremony's origin story,
which recounts the
spirit-
aided
escape
of
a
young Navajo
from Ute
captors.
Galinier's distinction between internal and
external
exegesis helps
to resolve
my puzzlement. Conceivably,
the
bestiality
mimicked
by
men
behaving
like
dogs
offers ritualized
counterpoise
to the knowl-
edge
so
seriously
transmitted
by
the
protagonist's
animal
helpers, especially
since
Navajo mythic
narrative itself often
juxtaposes
mundane
comedy
and ele-
vated seriousness.
Likewise,
the sexual banter between a man and a woman could
be a
comically
ritualized
projection
of the male-female balance so
solemnly pre-
scribed in
Navajo cosmology,
all of which
puts
the
myth-ritual
continuum on
full
display
in a
Navajo ceremony ranging
from low internal to
high
external exe-
gesis.
This is
speculative
to be
sure, perhaps fancifully
so. But it is
refreshing
to be
prompted
that
way by
this
essay,
if
only
to consider how
myth
and ritual inter-
relate. At the outset of
my career,
I was trained to see the
ritual-to-myth
con-
tinuum as an
evolutionary process,
where the former
gradually gave way
to the
latter in
producing
an
ultimately superior
text.
Thereafter,
I
glibly encouraged
students to subordinate what is
ritually performed
to what is
written,
thus main-
taining
an
implicitly print-
biased
hierarchy.
But as Galinier
illustrates, doing
so
is
simplistic,
and in
offering only
verbalized
myths
Levi-Strauss does not
pro-
vide the whole
story.
XDMB: If Levi-Strauss meant that the
separate myth stories,
like
trees,
had been
put
into
whole, organized
"forests"
(or perhaps
we should
say "gardens"),
I
hold that
many
New World
peoples
besides the
Mayas
and Mexicas did
that,
although
some or
many, including
the
Otomi,
did not. I see no
insuperable
dif-
ficulty
to
studying
the
forests/gardens.
DB: I don't believe that Levi-Strauss
always
or
unambiguously
narrows the
scope
of "real" or
"explicit" mythologies
to "tribal
peoples' tellings
of
[Edenic]
ancientness"
-
would that he did!
JG replies:
Neither do I.
Literature Cited
Barry,
Laurent. 2000.
Arguments.
VHomme 154-55: 9-20.
Desveaux,
Emmanuel. 2001.
Quadrature
Americana: Essai d'anthro-
pologie
levi-straussienne. Genieve:
Georg.
Galinier, Jacques.
1990.
Regies,
contexte et
signification:
Notes ameri-
canistes sur deux
propositions
de
Wittgenstein.
In Essais sur le
rituellly
ed. Anne-Marie Blondeau et Kristofer
Schipper,
201-5.
Louvain- Paris: Peteers.
Levi-Strauss,
Claude. 1947. Les structures elementaires de la
parente (The
Elementary
Structures of
Kinship).
Paris: Plon.
. 1964.
Mythologiques*
Le cru et le cuit. Paris: Plon.
. 1966.
Mythologiques'*'*
Du miel aux cendres. Paris: Plon.
. 1968.
Mythologiques*** Uorigine
des manieres de table.
Paris,
Plon.
. 1971.
Mythologiques****
Vhomme nu
(The
Naked
Man).
Paris: Plon.
Staal,
Fritz. 1975.
Exploring Mysticism:
A
Methodological Survey.
Berke-
ley: University
of California Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig.
1967.
Bermerkungen
uber Frazers The Golden
Bough. Synthese
17 233-53.

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