Color The separation of the color spectrum is cultural and arbitrary. – Who’s to say where red ends and yellow begins? Why do we have orange? Why not have a million different color names? Why not have only, perhaps, 3? The Yoruba of Nigeria (Guinea Coast) distinguish only these 3 colors: Funfun (cool colors: white, silver, pale gray) Associated with wisdom and respect. Pupa (red, pink, orange, deep yellow) Passion and pride. Dudu (black, blue, purple, green dark browns, red-brown) Cool, dark, warm. The colors on the crown are both hot and cool. This is necessary to symbolize the wisdom of a king to bring harmony and balance to the community.

– Navaho: Turquoise blue is the ideal blue Blue is the color of celestial and earthly attainment, of peace, of happiness, and success, of vegetable sustenance. – Ancient Egypt: Faience (a fired, man-made substance of crushed quartz and silica mixed with a bit of lime, ash and copper). Also a Turquoise blue. A semi-precious material, beloved by the gods and goddesses. Suitable offerings to the Pharaoh and gods/goddesses.

Time as Symbol We organize our lives around seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. – Time is also arbitrary! Why 7 days in a week? Why not 5 or 16? Our “week” of 7 days is a non-physical symbol that stands for a particular period of time. – Ritual usually goes hand in hand with time. Today: Religious rituals that are practiced on a specific day of the week/day of the month/day of the year? – Examples? Periodic Rituals – Mayan calendar – Egyptian calendar

Time cont. Chronotope: A timescale unique to a certain society – history, time and reality are social constructs and symbolic forms that undergo specific shapings and weighings in every culture and in every age.” (p. 17). – history is not a universal, uniform frame within which each culture develops in its own different way, but rather a product of culture, a cultural form.”

Time cont. Our (Western) time: A linear Chronotope. – Augustine of Hippo ( CE Christian Bishop & philosopher): Christ’s death on the cross was the irreducibly unique and irreversible event that, for the believer, creates a newly linear time. While the heathens wander around in circles (… a calendar, punctuated by the rhythms of mornings, noons, and evenings, births and deaths, repeating themselves over and over again indefinitely.) Christians move toward the consummation represented by redemption.” (linear time) Rites cyclicalize time by observing regulations to the letter and by ensuring that each ritual celebration corresponds exactly with the preceding ones. The model for such cyclical congruence is the cosmos, with its orbital recurrence of astronomical, meteorological, and seasonal cycles. Hence the generation of cyclical time within society serves to harmonize the human order of things with the cosmic. – Mircea Eliade (1949 Le Mythe de L’éternel retour): mythical thinking constructs time as circular, and experiences all events as the recurrence of primordial patterns [ancient cultures typically “froze out” change through the ritual cyclicalization of time], whereas (our) historical thinking constructs time as a line or path of an arrow, along which events are experienced as breach, innovation and change. – Levi-Strauss: Linear time serves to consolidate power and sociopolitical identity: it goes hand in hand with statehood and a written culture.

Canonization Canonization: a ban on variation. – Ex: The Old Kingdom in Egypt (3000 BCE) is the epoch that developed the style and repertoire of Egyptian formal idioms. By reverting to these forms, the later epochs canonized them, elevating style to the status of canon. Canonization, then, is the institutionalization of permanence, a strategy for foiling time, and hence one of the most favored cultural techniques for constructing a specific chronotope

Music as Symbol Music as a symbol used to get across the desired meaning of a ritual – Music can be used to teach, express/affect emotional states, produce altered states of consciousness, to please/contact supernatural powers. Membraneophones, Cordophones, Aerophones, Idiophones – Ex: Sistrum/clappers (Egypt) Since music is symbolic, it is interwoven in the learned traditions of a culture. – Meaning: Music that uses pitch, tone, speed, cadence, beat to convey and emotion (like happiness) in a culture not your own, may not necessarily evoke in you feelings of joy. The reverse is also naturally true. In order to bridge the music symbolism gap between cultures, some artists are employing syncretism (fusion of elements from 2 diff. cultures) to help convey meaning. – Ex: Missa Luba (Catholic mass + traditional tribal instruments/rhythm from Kongo tribe o/t Democratic Republic of Congo » – Ex: Loreena McKennitt (traditional Celtic mythology + modern instruments/synthesizers + occasional Christian elements) » Mummer’s Dance

Dance as Symbol Many traditional religions use dance as a symbol to create meaning – Ex: Vodou ure=related ure=related – Ex: Whirling Dervishes – Ex: Pueblo Eagle Dance

Additional terms Kiva: Usually, an underground ceremonial chamber. Used by the Tewa (Pueblo Native Americans) before they emerge to perform sacred dances. (pp 73-75) Totemism: A special relationship between an animal (or plant/feature of the environment) and an individual/group of individuals assigned/formed during the period of creation. (See pp –Aboriginee groups-) Totem: A symbol/emblem (animal/plant/environmental feature usually) that stands for a certain social unit (a person/group) – Examples in Western Culture: Mascots/ “What animal do you most identify with?”