Performing Ethnography

Author(s): Victor Turner and Edith Turner

Source: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 26, No. 2, Intercultural Performance (Summer, 1982),
pp. 33-50
Published by: The MIT Press
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 Anthropologicalliteratureis fullof accounts of dramaticepisodes whichvividlymanifest
the key values of specific cultures. Often these are case-histories of conflicts between
lineages or factions, spreading into feuds, vendettas, or head-huntingexpeditions. Fre-
quently they describe how criminalbehavior is defined and handled. Other accounts
describe how illness and misfortuneare ascribed to witchcraftor ancestral afflictionand
reveal tensions and stresses in the social structure.Such descriptionsare richlycontex-
tualized;they are not flat narrativesof successive events for they are charged with mean-
ingfulness. The actors commonlyshare a world-view,a kinshipnetwork,economic inter-
ests, a local past, and a system of ritualreplete with symbolicobjects and actions which
embody a cosmology. They have lived through hard times and good times together.
Culture,social experience and individualpsychology combine in complex ways in any
"bit"or "strip"of human social behavior.Anthropologistshave always favored the long-
term, holistic study of a relativelysmall society, examiningits institutionsand their inter-
connections in great detail,locatingthe linksamong kinship,economic, legal, ritual,political,
esthetic and other socioculturalsystems. When they study, say, a particularperformance
of ritual,they are on the look-outfor expressions of shared culturalunderstandingsin
behavior,as well as for manifestationsof personal uniqueness.
Nevertheless, while it may be possible for a gifted researcher to demonstrate the
coherence among the "parts"of a culture, the models he presents remain cognitive.
Cognizingthe connections,we failto forma satisfactoryimpressionof how anotherculture's
members "experience"one another. For feeling and will, as well as thought, constitute
the structures of culture-cutural experience, regarded both as the experience of indi-
viduals and as the collective experience of its members embodied in myths, rituals,sym-
bols, and celebrations. For several years, as teachers of anthropology,we have been
experimentingwiththe performanceof ethnographyto aid students' understandingof how
people in other cultures experience the richness of theirsocial existence, what the moral
pressures are upon them, what kinds of pleasures they expect to receive as a rewardfor
following certain patterns of action, and how they express joy, grief, deference, and
affection, in accordance with culturalexpectations. At the Universityof Virginia,with an-
THEDRAMAREVIEW,Volume26, Number2, Summer1982, (T94)
0012-5962/82/020033-18 $4.00/0
? 1982 by the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology

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scripts"fromthem. Then we set up workshops-really "playshops"-in whichthe students
try to get kinetic understandingsof the "other"socioculturalgroups. Often we selected
either social dramas-from our own and other ethnographies-or ritualdramas (puberty
rites, marriageceremonies, potlatches, etc.), and asked the students to put them in a
"play frame"-to relate what they are doing to the ethnographicknowledge they are
increasinglyin need of, to make the scripts they use "makesense." This motivatesthem
to study the anthropologicalmonographs-and exposes gaps in those monographsin so
far as these seem to depart from the logic of the dramaticaction and interactionthey
have themselves purportedto describe. The actors' "inside view," engendered in and
throughperformance,becomes a powerfulcritiqueof how ritualand ceremonialstructures
are cognitivelyrepresented.
Today, students of social science are familiarwith Bateson's concept of "frame,"and
Goffman's, Handelman'sand others' elaborationson it, includingGoffman'snotions of
"framebreaking," "frameslippage," and "fabricatedframes."To frame is to discriminate
a sector of socioculturalaction fromthe general on-going process of community'slife. It
is often reflexive, in that, to "frame,"a group must cut out a piece of itself for inspection
(and retrospection).To do this it must create-by rules of exclusion and inclusion-a
borderedspace and a privilegedtime withinwhich images and symbols of what has been
sectioned off can be "relived,"scrutinized,assessed, revalued,and, if need be, remodeled
and rearranged.There are many culturalmodes of framing.Each of them is a direct or
indirectway of commenting on the mainstreamof social existence. Some use special
vocabularies,others use the common speech in uncommonways. Some portrayfictitious
situationsand characterswhich nevertheless refer pointedlyto personages and problems
of everyday experience. Some frames focus on matters of "ultimateconcern" and fun-
damental ethics; these are often "ritual"frames. Others portrayaspects of social life by
analogy, includinggames of skill, strength, and chance. Other modes of "play"framing
are more elaborate, includingtheater and other performativegenres. Some social events
are contained in multipleframes, hierarchicallyarranged, frame withinframe, with the
ultimate"meaning"of the event shaped by the dominant,"encompassing"frame. Frames,
in otherwords, are often thenselves "framed."Butlet's not speak of "meta-frames,"except
in a play frame! Nevertheless, ribaldrymay be the most appropriate"metalanguage"for
today's play frames-as Bakhtinargued in his great defense of Rabelais and the "Ra-
belaisian language" he drew from "the people's second world"-in order to reinstate
human good sense in a literaturebedeviled by the cognitive chauvinismof intellectual
establishments, secular and sacred.
Framingframes perhaps makes for intensifiedreflexivity.In 1981, one of our Virginia
graduatestudents, Pamela Frese, who has been studyingmarriage(culturally,structurally,
and in terms of social dynamics) in the Charlottesvillearea-usually in the official role
of photographer-elected to cast the entire anthropologydepartmentas participantsin
a simulatedor fabricatedcontemporaryCentralVirginianwedding.Edithand VictorTurner,
for example, were the bride'smotherand father,and the brideand groom were identified
primarilybecause they were not in the least a "romanticitem."The rest obtained kinship
or friendshiproles by drawingfolded strips of paper from a hat-each slip describing a
role: bride's sister, groom's former girl friend, groom's father's father, bride's drunken
uncle, and so on. A Departmentof Religious Studies graduate student was cast as the
minister. Both faculty and students were involved. A "geneology" of the families was
pinned up in the departmentoffice several weeks before the event. Almost immediately
people began to fantasize about their roles. One of the faculty members declared, as

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Arrangingthe "bride's"veil

father of the groom, that his "side"of the wedding represented$23 millionof "old New
England money." This figure, he remembered,was what the heiress whom he nearly
became engaged to at Yale was alleged to be worth.VictorTurnerwas an old proletarian
Scots immigrantwho made vulgar money by manufacturinga cheap, but usable, plastic
garbage can, and who quoted Robbie Burns,often irrelevantly.The Levi-Straussianprin-
ciple of "binaryopposition"was clearly in evidence.
The "wedding"took place in the large basement of our house at Charlottesville-the
"kiva,"some called it. Afterwards,there was a "reception"upstairswith a receivingline,
real champagne and festive foods. At subsequent sessions students were asked to de-
scribe, or if they wished, to writedown their impressions-partly as seen fromtheir own
"real"viewpoint. The data is still coming in. Several people took photographsof the
differentstages of the event. Otherstaped conversationsand registeredvariationsin the
decibel level of the group duringthe reception.Allthe materialswould add up to several
full length papers. Pan Frese, the originalresearcher,will"writeup"the whole enterprise.
Here, let's consider just the "nesting"of "frames"involved.
(1) The encompassing frame is a pedagogical one-"everything withinthis frame
is data for anthropologicalanalysis."The formulais "let us learn."
(2) Within(1) nests a playframe,withBatesonian"metamessages."(a) The messages
or signals exchanged in play are in a certain sense untrueor not meant; and (b) that
which is denoted by these signals is non-existent. The formulais: let us make believe.
(3) Within(1) and (2) nests a ritual-script-the preparationsfor the wedding and a
Christianform of the wedding service. If this frame had not itself been framed by the
override"allthis is play,"the ritualframewouldhave had its widercultural"moralfunction."
Ritualsays "letus believe,"while playsays, "thisis make-believe."Withoutthe play frame

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 anthropologicalanalysis
2. Everythinginside this frame is not meant, is
play
3. Everythinginside this frame is
ritual;over-riddenby (2)

4. Everythinginside
this frame is the
realityof the depart-
ment of anthropol-
ogy, seen as a
"projectivesystem"
under the protection
of (2)

Nesting of frames

there would have been a real danger that, in terms at least of Catholictheology, a real
marriagewould have taken place, for here it is the couple who are the ministersof the
sacrament of marriage,not the priest, whose basic role is to confer the blessing of the
Churchon the couple. Since ritualis "transformative," the couple would have transformed
their relationshipinto that of spouses by the performativeutterancesof the nuptialliturgy.
Trulyto "playat" performinga ritualdrama is, withoutsuitable precautionsbeing taken,
to play with fire. But it was clear that the "serious"ritualframe was being desolemnized
and demystifiedby its own containmentin the wider play frame. A reminderof play was
the recitingof a poem-an epithalamionby Sappho, in fact-before the service proper
began, by a stranger to the group, though a close friendof the "bride."Of course, in a
real marriage the couple's intentions are all-important.They must seriously "intend
wedlock."
(4) Withinthis frame of fabricatedmarriageritualwas the frame of the parapolitical
structureof the Universityof Virginia'sDepartmentof Anthropology.This framewas covert
but genuine, fabricatedlike the other frames. At the "weddingreception"it was clear in
the behavior of the pretended kin and friends of the groom and bride what the extant
patternwas of cleavages and alliances, oppositions and coalitions, between and among
facultyand students-a delicate situationwe won'tdwellon here. However,these artificial
rufflingswere minor indeed, hardlytroublinga genial group of scholars. But under the

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The couple embrace at the "alter"

The reception line

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The couple feed cake to each Old "grandfather"takes a nap
other

protectionof the play frame and simulatedwedding frame, in words, gestures, conver-
sational style, and dress, in reversals of "real-life"roles and manners,one saw everyday
departmentalpoliticsas a "projectivesystem."
As the evening progressed, frame slippage occurredmore and more frequently,and
people revertedto theirordinary"selves,"thoughfora few "peakmoments"-for example,
when the champagne cork popped-there was the sort of "ecstasy"that E. D'Aquiliand
C. Laughlinin The Spectrumof Ritual(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1979) write
about-the simultaneous"firing"of cerebraland autonomicnervous systems, rightbrain
and left brain,sympatheticand parasympathetic.Itwas interesting,too, to observe which
persons "stayed in role" longest and who could or could not suspend disbelief in order
to play their roles properly.Some, it became clear, thoughtthere was something sacrile-
gious, some profanationof their own cherished values, in enacting what for them was a
religioussacrament. Others, atheists or agnostics, introduceda note of parodyor irony,
into the rituallyframedepisodes. We were surprisedat the wholeheartednesswithwhich
some anthropologystudents played their conventionalroles-for example, the "bride,"
who in real life was having reservationsabout her own marriage,sewed her own bridal
gown. We were also astonished at how well the students understoodwhat phenomeno-
logicalsociologists wouldcall the "typifications" of Americanculture,how almost "instinc-
tively" and "automatically" they "knew what to do next" and how to do it, in fact, how
"natural"many people find it to act "ritually" given the properstimuli,motivations,and
excuse. It was interesting,too, for us to observe how some participantswere almost
shocked into recognizingburiedaspects of themselves. Others were taken over, "pos-
sessed" by what Grathoffand Handelmanhave called "symbolictypes"-priest, bride,
bridegroom,and so on, in the domainof ritualliminality;DrunkenUncle, PitifulLean and
SlipperedPantaloonin the play domain(the "bride'sgrandfather"-a student played this

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 A few comments on this performance:in practice,the hierarchicalnesting of frames
(as shown in the diagram)was overriddenby the subjectiveresponses of the actors, who
evidentlyselected one or another of the frames as dominant.For example, the "bride"
caught herself on numerousoccasions followingthe performancetalkingabout her "wed-
ding" as though it was real. Others remainedresolutelywithinthe play frame; enacted
creativefantasies pivotedon theirchosen culturalroles. One womanremainedconsistently
"dotty"throughoutthe whole ceremony,denouncingthe sexual innuendoes of Solomon's
Songs of Songs in loud tones, and remaininggenerallyobjectionableduringthe subse-
quent receptionand "weddingbreakfast."Others kept on shiftingframes, both duringthe
performanceand forsome weeks afterwards;some remained"inframe"forseveral months
and continuedto call each other by kinshipterms derivedfromthe fabricatedgenealogy.
Most participantstold us that they understoodthe culturalstructureand psychology of
normativeAmericanmarriagemuch betterfor havingtaken partin an event that combined
flowwithreflexivity.Some even said thatthe fabricatedmarriagewas more "real"for them
than marriagesin the "realworld"in which they had been involved.

Stealing the "bride's"garter

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put on several performances.One was a simulationof the midwinterceremony of the
MohawkIndiansof Canada, directedby DavidBlanchard,whichinvolvedthe use of "False
Face" masks, "dreaming,"trancing,and prophesying.Another"ritual"was a deliberate
constructof our students, led by RobertAbernathy,using van Gennep's Rites of Passage
and VictorTurner'sRitualProcess and Forestof Symbols as "cookbooks"or "how-to"pro-
tocols. This "ritual"expressed in terms of symbolicaction, symbolicspace, and imagery,
the anxieties and ordeals of Chicago graduatestudents. Itwas dividedinto three stages,
each occupyinga differentspace. Each participantbroughtalong a cardboardbox in which
he/she had to squat, representinghis/her constricted,inferiorsocial status. There were
episodes, of a sado-masochistic character,representingregistration,in which the actors
were continuallyreferredbetween differentdesks, monitoredby sinister Ihadamanthine
bureaucrats,who continuallyfound faultwith the registrants.Anotherscene, using multi-
media, portrayeda typical student, being haranguedfrom a lectern by an "anthropology
professor"spoutingtechnicalgobbledygook(actuallyexcerpts frompublishedtexts), while
he was typinghis dissertationto the accompanimentof a series of rapidslides of familiar
architecturaldetails of the Universityof Chicago. Finallyhe "died,"and was solemnly
buriedby a group of his peers clad in black leotards.The scene then shiftedfroma room
in the students' activitieshall to a yard in the campus, where the constrainingboxes were
placed so as to represent a kind of Mayan pyramidwhich strongly resembled the new
Regenstein Library,scene of many painfulgraduate attempts at study. The whole group
danced aroundthe pyramid,which was set on fire. This "liminalperiod"was followed by
a final rite in another room of the hall, where student papers that had been unfavorably
commented upon by faculty were cremated in a grate; the ashes were then mixed with
red wine, and two by two the students anointedone anotheron the browwiththe mixture,
symbolizing"the death of bad vibes." Finally,all joined together in chanting"Om,Padne,
Om," representinga "communitasof suffering."This productioninvolvedmusic, dancing,
and miming,as well as dialogue. Manyof the participantsclaimed that the performance
had dischargedtensions and broughtthe groupintoa deeper level of mutualunderstanding.
It had also been "a lot of fun."
There was one curious further"real-life"development.VictorTurnerwas contacted
a
by notoriousdean in charge of studentdiscipline,who inquiredwhethera series of small
harmless fires, started in odd corners of the Regenstein Library,could have resultedfrom
the "ritual."He even suggested that some of the participantsshould be hypnotizedby a
universitypsychiatristto elicit informationabout "wild-looking" people who participatedin
the fire dance around the symbolic Regenstein Library.Turnersaid it was unlikelythat
one of the actors was to blame for the small fires, since ritualtheorysuggested that such
"ritualsof rebellion"(in this case, a "play"rebellion)were cathartic,dischargingtensions
and allowingthe system to functionwithoutserious contestation.He then invitedthe dean
to the next seminar, which was an explanationby a Benedictinenun of a new scriptshe
had devised for the clothingceremony of a postulantwho would be takingher finalvows.
This evidently proved too much for the IrishAmericandean, who no doubt disapproved
of Vatican IIand all its "liberating" consequences includingtakinglibertieswiththe script
of traditionalceremonies. Turnernever heard from him again.
We have described, in some detail, in a Kenyon Review article, "DramaticRitual/
RitualDrama:Performativeand ReflexiveAnthropology," (1, 3, 1980, pp. 80-93, reprinted
in A Crack in the Mirror,ed. Jay Ruby, Philadelphia:Universityof Pennsylvania Press,
1982, pp. 83-97), how we experimentedwiththe performanceof a social dramadescribed
in VictorTurner'sbooks, Schism and Continuity(ManchesterUniversityPress, 1957) and

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workshopdevoted to exploringthe interfacebetween ritualand the theater,between social
and esthetic drama. In subsequent sessions at NYU,we have experimented,mainlywith
dramastudents, in performingCentralAfricanand Afro-Brazilian rituals,aided by drummers
drawnfromthe appropriateculturesor relatedcultures.
These ventures emboldenedus to experimentfurtherat the Universityof Virginiawith
the renderingof ethnographyin a kindof instructionaltheater.Ouraim was not to develop
a professional group of trained actors for the purposes of publicentertainment.It was,
frankly,an attemptto put students more fullyinside the culturesthey were readingabout
in anthropologicalmonographs.Readingwrittenwordskowtowsto the cognitivedominance
of writtenmatterand relies upon the arbitrarinessof the connection between the penned
or printedsign and its meaning. Whatwe were tryingto do was to put experientialflesh
on these cognitive bones. We were able, fortunately,to do more than this, for we could
draw upon the recent first-handexperience of returningfieldworkers.We therefore cast
in the roles of directorand ethnodramaturganthropologistsfresh fromimmersionin field-
work in, for example, New Irelandand the AmericanNorthwestCoast. Students were
encouraged to read availableliteratureon these areas, and were then given roles in key
ritualperformancesof the cultures recentlystudied by their returnedcolleagues.
One of the performanceswe tried to bringoff was the Cannibal(Hamatsa) Dance
of the sacred winterceremonialsof the KwakiutlIndians.Herethe directorwas Dr.Stanley

Kwakiut.
Raven Ma

Kwakiutl Raven Mask

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afterthe performance.Walens condensed the long series of ritualscomposingthe Hamatsa
ceremony into a short script(see Appendix).Mystudents preparedthe ceremonialspace,
which,again, formedpartof the extensive cellarage of my house. UnderWalen'sguidance
they made props, and improvisedcostumes and body decoration,includingface-painting.
For speeches, invocations, homilies, myth-telling,ridiculesongs, and occasional bursts
of competitivedialogue, Walens used FranzBoas's translationsof Kwakiutltexts. Walens
acted as narrator,chorus, and coordinatorthroughout.
A similarformatwas used by MimiGeorge, the ethnographerwho had just returned
from her study of Barok ritualin New Ireland.We have no space to discuss these per-
formances in detail, but it might be useful for those who contemplate doing something
similarto quote fromcomments made subsequentlyby Walens and others. Both,we think,
indicate the high reflexive potentialof ethnographicperformanceas a teaching tool, es-
sentially as a means of raising questions about the anthropologicalresearch on which
they are based, but which the performancestransformin the process of dramaticaction.
First,then, Walens' commentary:

The most obvious aspect of putting on the cannibal ritual was

perhaps the continual feeling that it was play. The actual ritualmust
have been far more serious, more cataclysmic in its experientialeffect
on native observers than it could possibly be on non-natives.Theideas
behind the ritual are so cosmic that withoutthe associations that a
native makes between those overweening social and cosmic forces,
the symbols and actions of the ritualmust lose much of theirimpact.
At the same time, the reactions of the students to the ritualdid
seem to implythat they picked up on the tenor and timbreof the actual
ritual.The sense of aggressiveness, conflict, the controlleddisplay of
hostility and destructiveness did come across despite the constant
messages fromthe actors thatthese were amateursplaying. Of course,
there is a dual element of seriousness and play in all drama;one might
even wonder about the use of the word "play" to refer to dramatic
presentations. Indeed, ritualsoften seem to focus on the revelationthat
reality is merely a fiction, a presentation that humans make for one
another. Vast secrets are revealed as being mere mechanical tricks;
the spirit in the mask turnsout to have the same birthmarkbehind his
left knee as does Uncle Ralph. We may marvel at the technical ability
of an Uncle Ralphor a LaurenceOlivierto make us temporarilysuspend
belief that we are watching them (indeed that may be the most cogent
marvel of drama as a whole) and for a moment to see only a Hamlet,
or a cannibal bird, or a WillieLoman. We might ask why that most
cosmic of modem plays, Waitingfor Godot, seems to be one in which
the action consists solely of play activity,activityin which all the con-
ventionaldramaticmoments are negated by statements of theirirreality.
Contrasthow Beckett handles suicide with the way Chekov or Ibsen
do.
In short, the problems encountered in putting on an ethnographic
performance are not by nature differentfrom those that an opera or
drama directorwould face. In fact, while preparingthe Kwakiutlritual,
I was continuallymade aware of just how much preparation,training,
rehearsal, how many years of stockpilingthe paraphernalia,the foods
for the feast, the validatinggifts, how much patience in achieving the
requisitestatus, must have gone into such native ceremonies. Kwakiutl

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all complexly interrelated,and all of which alter the statuses of the
participantsso that subsequent ritualsmust take account of the newly
acquired or divested statuses of everyone else in the society. We pre-
pared only a minimalamountof food and paraphernalia,and had only
the merest mote of performance, yet the amount of preparationtime
and rehearsal time was tremendous. The amount of camaraderie that
arose among us was also astounding; I was not particularlyfriendly
withthe people who helped withthe preparationsbefore the class, but
since then have felt much closer towardthem. Perhaps one of the most
importantaspects of dramatic presentation is the way in which the
mutualperformance of a fictionunites all its creators.
Anothermatteris thatof performersversus audience. Inone sense,
we were all the audience for this ritual.The Hamatsa ritualnow exists
only in a printed form;we tried to approximatethis form as much as
possible. It was thereforequite unlikethe productionof a play, where
there is a movement toward breathingnew life into a form.By nature,
living ritualsseem to be ever changing. To performa ritualthe same
way twice is to killit, forthe ritualgrows as we grow, its life recapitulates
the course of ours. It becomes the symbol for the society itself. Just
as the experimentaltheater directors of the sixties and seventies re-
belled against the stricturesof our society by contraveningthose stric-
tures in theirperformancetexts, so do Kwakiutlsee the cannibal ritual
as a symbol of the life and death of theirculture,and mournthe demise
of their culture in mourning the demise of its ceremonies. Our play
presentationthen can be seen as a representationof the modern view
of primitiveritualas a whole-that it is slightlyif not completely foolish,
that it is primarilya social act, that it is play-acting.
We imagine our own view of the Kwakiutlis the same as theirview
of themselves. The meaning of the ritual for them is forever unap-
proachable by us. We experience only the ritualwe perform,the one
that actuallytakes place between a group of students, colleagues, and
friendsin the basement of a house in Charlottesvillein December 1981.
If we rejoice in our common experience, well and good. We have put
on a play, we compare notes, and wait for the reviews. As in any play,
we reaffirm,throughthis particularfictioncommunallyperformed,truths
communally experienced. We must also question the validityof that
experience. The situation is not unlike that in which a Plains Indian
presents his vision, gained on a solitaryquest, to a committeeof elders
who review it and give it their stamp of approval, or when a ritualof
fecundityis given validitythroughsubsequent bestowal of approvalby
the relevant deific elders. The reviews are important,as importantas
the productionitself, for they define the commonalityof the experience.
I wonder if I would have asked these questions about the nature
of performanceif I hadn't had to put one on. I certainlyfeel much more
aware of the natureof performanceper se than I did before. Itbecomes
easy to see the messages embedded in ritualsthatremindthe audience
that this is a performance-the little skits in the cannibal ritual,or the
overblownspeeches, the constantrevelationsby dancers of theirhuman
identities. Thereis an interestingparadox here-in Westerndrama, the
performer'stechnique should be so good that he conveys throughthe
maximum of artifice the greatest amount of naturalness to his stage
character. Both poor mastery of technique and overpresentationof the
emotions themselves ("hamming")detractfromthe illusiuonof balance

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gestures, having by greater
than those normallyused in gestural communication,the illusion of
naturalness is possible only with carefully controlled artifice. In the
cannibal dance too there must be this balance-the cannibal dancer
must convey throughthe balanced use of gesture and action the feeling
that he is going to destroy the people in the room. He must make them
fear for themselves-is this not the purpose of all drama-by striking
a balance between naturalhuman motion and alien motion.
I have often wondered how to convey to my classes an emotion
thatwould be similarin characterand degree to thatwhichthe audience
at a cannibal dance might feel when the cannibal firstappears. How
do you convey to people that the instrumentof their own deaths is
present in the room? My classes know me as a cream puff, so I could
never begin to pretend to be the type of psychopathic villainthatmight,
in our society's mythology,strikefear into theirhearts; I have not pre-
pared them to expect it from me, nor do I possess the acting ability
to convey it to them. I thinkthis the most importantfacet of the cannibal
dance-the confrontationeach person has with his own death in a
living embodiment-and can only feel that it was not conveyed in our
play ritual.Douglas Dalton, one of the participatingstudents, giving a
somewhat differentview, wrote:"As the ceremonyprogressed I felt not
so much the antagonistic rivalrythat was overtlyexpressed in the cer-
emony between the bear clan and the killerwhale clan, but the fact
that we were collectively doing something reallyimportant-something
essentially correct. Therewas so much power flowingall over the place
in the longhouse (the Charlottesvillebasement) that night! The spirits
were reallyat workthat evening and we had to keep everythingin line
so all that power wouldn'tdestroy everything!"The Kwakiutlused to
enhance the destructiveness of cannibal dancers, putting on demon-
strations of death by using masks, bladders fullof blood, and the like.
To the audience these must have been very effective; and of course,
there were times when people were reallykilled.
I keep coming back to this one issue-the nature of artificeand
fiction in play performance. I thinkthis is what people in the seminar
were most aware of, a universalof drama, not the particularritualwe
performed.I also thinkthe questions thatlie at the foundationof theatre
and theatricalperformancelie at the foundationof ritualand ritualper-
formance-questions about the relationshipof actors to text, of actors
to audience, or fictionto fictive reality,and so on. I have no doubt that
the students see some of the dramaticnature of the cannibal ritual
dramaticin both senses of the word:it is effective and it is theatre
and that they can now read ethnographyand introjectthose feelings
of theatreinto the dry accounts of dances and songs and spiritnames
which anthropologistshave writtendown. I have breathed lifeinto Kwa-
kiutlritualjust as a directorbreathes life into a play-but I have done
it independentlyof the intentionsof the Kwakiutlauthors,just as a play
production is independent of the intentionsof the play's author.
One has the feeling that ritualsare magical, that for some reason
as yet unknownto science they can communicateto people, not despite
theirartificiality,but because of and throughtheirartificiality.
Ritualsare
efficacious and we wonder how. Just as we know that a good stage
magician is performingtricks-that is, reallynot levitatingthat elephant
or sawing that woman in half-we still marvel at the beauty of the

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 thinking question
of doubt, in an Augustiniansense, as the basis of ritual.In the chart
of frames, each of the inner levels presents more doubt of the outer
levels, each contravenes and obviates the outer levels. It is not that
religion is so much a statement of belief but that at its most effective
it enables us to suspend disbelief in the things that are larger than
ourselves, whether they be deities or nature or historyor the sacred
corpus of anthropologicaltheory. Just as at a ritualwe may have a
momentaryinklingthatthere was somethinggreaterpresent thansimply
a bunch of people playing at ceremony, so in our acting of the cannibal
dance we have an inklingof something which transcends the limitations
of a particularmoment in the history of the anthropologydepartment
at the Universityof Virginia.Comparethis finale with Dalton'sleap into
what he took to be the Kwakiutlview of the Hamatsa ceremony: "The
potlatch ended, in fact, with the assurance that the Kwakiutlwould
continueto keep the worldin orderin a pledge fornext year's ceremony.
The bitterrivalrythat was expressed in the earlyparts of the ceremony
gave way to a final reconciliationand a true feeling of oneness with
the forces of the universe." Perhaps this is the criticaldifference be-
tween esthetic theatre and ritual-the actors on a stage must always
seem to be the characters they portrayor they have failed;the ritualist
must always seem to be nothing other than what he is, a frailhuman
being playing with those things that killus for theirsport. Stage drama
is about the extrapolationof the individualinto alien roles and person-
alities;ritualdramais about the complete delimitation,the totaldefinition
of person.

UnlikeWalens, MimiGeorge insisted that the participantsin the Barokinitiationritual

were not to be instructedin the culture and social structure,but ratherassigned ritual
roles without preparation.This, in the words of one of the participants,Jean-Jacques
Decoster, "providedthe feeling of magic that prevailed most of the evening ... We
went througha rite,and didn'tjust enact a 'savage ritual.'When I went home that evening
and my housemates asked me about the stripes painted on my face, my answer was:
'I have just been initiated."'MimiGeorge, the director,dramaturg,and fieldworkerwho
prepared the scenario, told us that despite the alienness of the context, the students
were "caughtup into the meaning and worthof the ritual."Indeed, she was surprisedby
the similarityof their performanceto its Papuan original.However,she felt that she had
not given the actors sufficientlydetailed guidance, and was continuallybeset by the cry,
"Whatdo I do now?"Whatthis ritualdid bringoff was a kindof existential"double-take."
At one point the "initiands"beat the Tubuan masked figure. It was then revealed that
inside it was merely a human being (in this case VictorTurner).But later, in the garden,
in darkness and simulated firelight,the Tubuan glided in unexpectedly to the beat of
drums.The demystified"spirit"was dramaticallyremystified.Decoster notes, "Themoment
of greatest intensitywas the outdoorceremony ... Ifeltdefinitelyuneasy when we initiands
were lined up and facing away fromthe entity,and it was not Eric(the dancer withinthe
Tubuan) I was turningmy back upon, but trulythe Tubuan, an unknownand decidedly
scary being. In a curious way, the ritualflogging (administeredto the initiandsby the
'elders') worked as a tension reliever."Other "initiands"commented on how close they
felt to one another as against the uninitiatedand already initiated.
We have a thick file of such comments on these and other performancesof rituals

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The "owner"of the Tubuan Initiandsattack the Tubuan
concealed in the costume

in other cultures. On the whole they are enthusiasticand encouraging,though not a few
echo Walens' skepticismabout whetherany culturecan be adequatelytranslatedintothe
action-languageof another.Forourown part,we have not reachedany definiteconclusions
as to the meritsof this performativeapproachto ethnography.Wheneverour classes have
performedscripts based on our own fieldworkamong the Ndembuof Zambiain Central
Africawe have undoubtedlylearned something about that culturethat we failed to un-
derstandin the field. Forexample, when we enacted the girl'spubertyceremony(in which
the novice is wrappedcompletelyin a blanket,laid at the foot of the symbolic"milktree,"
and is compelled to remainmotionless for a long periodof time, while a large group of
initiatedvillage women dance and sing around her), we were later presented with the
followingaccount of her subjective impressionsby LindaCamino,the student takingthe
role of Kankang'a(novice, initiand,literally,"guineafowl").

Aroundand aroundthey danced, again and again withpunctuated

cries and claps. Beneath the blanket I lay still and quiet, firm and
"cool," patiently awaiting the next stage, which I knew would be to
escort me to my seclusion hut. Thena strange thing happened. Time
lengthened, expanded, and my wait seemed interminable,for as the
singing and cries of the women grew lustier, as the pulsation of their
feet and hands quickened to the drivingbeat of the insistent drums,
I began to fear that they had quite forgottonall about me, guinea fowl.

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Tubuaninitiandapproaches Initiandshows mask and
for outdoor rites "yams"(note face painting)

They were having fun; I was not. The drums beckoned me. Their
wrenchingbeats filledmy muscles withtension,demandinga response,
a response I could not give as guinea fowl. The women's enthusiasm
and boisterous cheers challenged me to spring out from the blanket
to join them. At this point, a desire to be like those other women, a
desire to move my body freelyto the sounds of the drumsoverwhelmed
me. I longed to be a woman-alive, vital,responding, moving; not a
dull guinea fowl, still before a tree, unseen, stationary,alone.

We were aware of the ambivalence with which pubescent girls had regarded the
passage to adult social status, but Camino's comments suggested a hypothesis about
how the ritualmight have motivateda real Ndembunovice not merely to accept but to
stronglydesire her new status-roleand membershipin a communityof wives and mothers.
Such a hypothesis would have to be tested out, of course, in furtherfield research, but
the fact that a simulatedritualcould raise it is at least one persuasive argumentin favor
of performedethnography.In our experience the most effective kind of performedeth-
nographyis not the simulationof a ritualor a ceremonytornfromits culturalcontext, but
a series of "acts"and "scenes" based on detailed observationsof processes of conflict.
Rituals,like law cases, should not be abstractedfromthe frameworksof the ongoing
social process in whichthey were originallyembedded.They have theirsource and raison
d'etrein the ceaseless flowof social life,and inthe social dramaswithinwhichcommunities

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commonalitiesand culturaldifferences in relationto a wide range of humansocieties. Our
recommendation,then, is this: Ifwe attemptto performethnography,let us not begin with
such apparently"exotic"and "bizarre"culturalphenomena as ritualsand myths. Such
an emphasis may only encourage prejudice,since it stresses the "othernessof the other."
Let us focus first on what all people share, the social drama form, from which emerge
all types of culturalperformance,which, in theirturn,subtly stylize the contours of social
interactionin everyday life. In practice,this means setting aparta substantialblockof time
to familiarizestudents withthe cultureand social system of the groupwhose dramas they
willenact. Such instructionshould be interwovenwithwhat RichardSchechner mightcall
"the rehearsal process." The resultant instructionalform could be a kind of synthesis
between an anthropologicalseminar and a postmoderntheatricalworkshop. The data
should be scripted;costumes, masks, stage settings, and other props should be made
carefully,with an eye to culturalauthenticity(though heavy-handed realism may not be
appropriate).It is highlydesirable, whenever possible, to bringin a member of the group
studied as a dramaturgor director-or someone in the group who has done fieldwork
should be dramaturgor director.We have foundthatstudents greatlyenjoy these detailed,
technical preliminaries.We have also found that nearlyall the ritualswe have performed
involve at least one episode of feasting. If possible, the foods used in the originalsetting
should be provided,cooked in the traditionalways. Foods, food taboos, and ways in which
food is shared and exchanged make up a kindof culturalgrammarand vocabularywhich
often give clues, when their symbolism is decoded, to basic attitudesand values of the
group and to its social structure.
At least one session should be allocated to a close review of all aspects of the
performanceseen in retrospect.This should includesubjectivestatements by the actors,
the director,the dramaturg,and members of the audience if an audience was thought
necessary. Much of the emphasis will be found to be on culturaldifferences, and the
difficultiesand delights of playingroles generated by culturesoften far differentfrom our
own. In these occasions of interculturalreflexivity,we can begin to grasp something of
the contributioneach and every humanculturecan make to the general pool of manifested
knowledge of our common human condition.It is in dramaticsand dynamics most of all
that we learn to coexperience the lives of our conspecifics, "ourbrotherman and sister
woman,"to quote the great bard of VictorTurner'sown Scottish culture,Robert Burns.

Appendix
Potlatch Script

Greetings
guest-host host-guest
Small distributionof some food

Tellingof myths
guest-return speech

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 Selling of copper

guests' chief gives speech announcing intentionto buy

host's chief acknowledges willingness to sell
price offered is too low; admonishmentsnot to be afraidto pay a lot;
price is broughtup by incrementsto be much more than the previous
price
much telling of myths-calling upon ancestors
ridiculesongs

Insultof Haida throughskit

Small distributionof food

(To hamatsa dance)

Hamatsa(cannibal)ceremony
Follow meals and covenantal songs

Cries and whistles heard from woods (hamatsas and all helpers)

Ghost dancer appears

mentions death, excites old hamatsas and spiritretinue

Hamatsas enter from all over-dance four times around fire

new initiate appears-enters excitedly, circles fire four times; he
is very wild, dressed only in hemlock, with no restrainingclothes;
comes from upper level

People try to encircle hamatsa; he is too wild, enters sacred room,

sheds some hemlock branches-burned

Discussion of why hamatsa has escaped

confession of sins and analysis of ceremonial errors;must be cor-
rected by pledging potlatches, becoming a hamatsa's victim,or be-
coming an initiate;records are kept of who agrees to be a victim.

Adjourment-repurification throughsmoke

Setting of trap for hamatsa

hemlock neckring made; all carry hemlock old man put in center as
bait
hamatsa escapes three times-on fourthtime all join hands and he
is captured
all sing taming songs

Familyof hamatsa is on steps of house-acknowledge theirpledges

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 Screen is set up-hamatsa goes to sacred room

Hamatsa returns
goes counterclockwise four times around fire, each time holding a
victim'sarm in his mouthand pullinghim along; more taming songs,
unsuccessful

All hemlock removed, burned

Distributionof property;display of coppers

All spirits appear to dance-faces black; eagle down in theirhair and
put around the room (carriedin dishes like food)
Hamatsa appears
dances aroundfire-reappears dressed in cedarbarkclothing,a new
piece added each time he reappears
House is totallyshut up, no chinks or light fromoutside

Burningof cedar bark

smoldering barkpassed over head of dancer; everyone says "hoip,
hoip"; much loud drumming,very rhythmic
Hamatsa dances, squatting and turning

Four more days of ceremony follow, during which time no one enters
or leaves the house; no food is served; there is constant singing of
power songs
Hamatsa appears wearing cedar bark only
a simulacrumof him is washed and rituallytreated, then smoked

Hamatsa still trembles

women sing theirmost powerfulsongs simultaneouslywhilemen sing
songs of wildness
A bloody menstrualnapkin from the hamatsa's motheris burned
he is made to inhale the smoke; he immediatelycollapses and has
to be carried from the room

Someone has to pledge next year's ceremonials

The ceremonials end

Victorand EdithTurnerare anthropologists

presentlyworkingat the University
of Virginia.
Victor
Turneris the authorof many books, including RitualProcess and Dramas, Fields and Metaphors.

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