By: Aisling Bronach of House Shadow Drake

Victor Turner was confronted with the enigmatic problem of trying to the individual form and style of each culture. He began as an orthodox British structural-fundamentalist and collected data on social and political organization. Previously, such people as Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown, and Malinowski held that ritual symbols reflected a culture, and that cultural society was composed of interdependent cultural institution which were then made up of social positions and thought that rituals were a way by which a culture could promote social cohesion. (Turner 1992:3) Victor Turner then set out to find a method by which to understand the shifting and changing symbols as a key to understanding a culture. (Turner 1992:4) He used the work of the Gestalt psychologists as a basis for his usage of "positional meaning" which he used to explain the positioning of ritual symbols. (ibid.) Turner also relied heavily on the work of Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst.

Victor Turner was interested in the transmitting of culture symbols from generation to generation. Freud's work, "Interpretation of Dreams," gave him the basis for his work. Freud's work concerned the analyzing of symbols in dreams. Turner's fieldwork with the Ndembu had confirmed that a single ritual symbol could stand for more than one referent, or multivocal, which coincided with what he had found within Freud's book. (Turner 1992:18-19)

The focus of the works of Victor Turner are centered on the multivocalic and polysemic nature of symbols, and their ability to bring together the seemingly disparate significata which are represented by the symbolic vehicle and the polarization of the referents assigned to the major ritual symbol. (Dolgin et al. 1977:183) Charles Keyes uses the term, processual symbolic analysis, to describe the method of analysis used by Victor Turner. (Turner and Turner 1978:243)

Victor Turner defines his methodology as, "... the interpretation of symbols operating in dynamic systems of signifiers, their meanings, and changing modes of signification, in the context of temporal socio-cultural processes." (ibid.)

To understand what a ritual symbol is, we must first define both a ritual and a symbol. A ritual, according to Victor Turner, is "Formal behavior prescribed for occasions not given over to technological routine that have reference to beliefs in mystical beings or powers." (ibid.) Victor Turner describes a symbol as being like a sign except that there is a likeness between the thing which is being signified and the meaning. (ibid.)

Now, what does this all mean? According to Turner, the ritual symbol is, "the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior... the ultimate unit of specific structure in a ritual context." The ritual symbol is defined by semantic relationships. It has multiple meanings, or significata, can be associated with other distinct significata, and can simultaneously condense and represent many things. (Dolgin et al. 1977:184) The ritual symbol also stretches between two poles: the ideological and the sensory. (ibid.) The ritual symbol joins these two opposing poles together and offers both emotion and social values. (Turner and Turner 1978:247)

Each culture has multiple themes which are expressed, and within each theme there exists multiple ritual symbols. Morris E. Opler defines a theme as, "dynamic affirmations that can be identified in every culture." He goes on to explain that by understanding the theme of a culture, you can understand that particular cultures character, structure, and direction. (Dolgin et al. 1977:185) The theme promotes a concept or activity within a given culture, and the ritual symbol expresses the theme.

So, when it is said that a ritual symbol is multivocal it means that it can represent multiple themes simultaneously. (ibid.) A ritual symbol expresses a theme in a formalized manner and does not allow for individual choice in its expression. (Dolgin et al. 1977: 186) Usually, the rituals occur in an organized cyclical fashion. Within the entire system of the ritual, there are clustered together a set of dominant ritual symbols which are centralized during each ritual. (ibid.) Although these dominant symbols occur in all of the rituals, each referent of the ritual symbol may only be used for a selected part of a given ritual. (Dolgin et al. 1977:187) Since a ritual symbol may stand for a large number of referents, during this period of use only a fraction of its total meanings may be demonstrated. (ibid.)

The meaning of dominant symbols is interpreted in three ways by the order of reference: the manifest meaning, the latent meaning, and the hidden meaning. The manifest meaning is that which the observer is completely aware of and is directly related with the goal of the ritual itself. The latent meaning is that which the observer is only partially aware of and may or may not fully understand later. This meaning usually has relationships with other aspects of life within that culture. The last is the hidden meaning, and is that which the observer is totally unaware of and is related to those tings which are shared with all members of a culture such as infancy and possibly prenatal experiences. (Turner and Turner 1978:246)

Sometimes two ritual symbols are placed so that they oppose each other and offer another meaning within the context of a culture. (Dolgin et al. 1977:187) There also could occur multiple symbols which are combined and placed together, and then set so that they form opposing concepts. (Dolgin et al. 1977:188) It is hypothesized that the more complex the ritual symbols and their combinations are the more particularized the message being conveyed, and the more simplistic the ritual symbols and their combinations the more universal the message. (Dolgin et al. 1977:189)

Symbols are attributed with having three different dimensions: the operational, the exegetic, and the positional. The operational dimension shows the simultaneous meaning between the symbol and it's use. The exegetic dimension consists of the explanation of the symbol's meaning by the actors within the system. The positional dimension explains the relationship between symbols. (Dolgin et al. 1977: 190)

Ritual systems include actions, objects, events, and words for communication with unseen powers. It also includes the transmitting of these rites by an oral tradition. (Turner and Turner 1978: 244) Many ritual systems are built upon myths and theology which are the grounds for interpretation. In societies that do not have myths, there are three foundations that ritual symbols are built on: nominal, substantial, and artifactual. The nominal foundation is the name of the symbol. The substantial foundation is the physical and sensory properties of the symbol. The artifactual foundation is the technical side of the conversion of an object for use in ritual. (Dolgin et al. 1977:191)

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