nf tf"ip pur!
\Ji tilt' ^IlLlMyth, ritual and dégradation
Walter E A van Beek
Alles Veiganghche is nur ein Gleichnis Goethe, Faust
Environment and myth
Envnonmental degiadation in developing countnes is tecognized as a majoi pioblem one of the mam factois behmd an mcieasmg gap between the poor South and the rieh North Climate change, extraction of rare minéral re-sources, depleüon of game animais, sahniza-tion, désertification and dégradation of soils all take their toll At least, such is the opinion of the expatnate expeits What is the vision of the paiticipants in these ecosystems on then dégradation of their living environment9 Quite
a few studies have concentiated on this issue foi contemporaneous actors ' I want to ap-pi oach this question fi om a diffei ent angle and see whethei envnonmental pioblems have then repei eussions on oral traditions myths and othei stones reflecting on the relation of the people with then souice of existence As degiadation of the envaonment thieatens es-pecially the future, I shall concentrate on the visions of the future embedded m myths, leg ends and othei tiaditions
In domg so, I stait fiom two premises The first is that dégradation is indeed on the use, but that environmental problems are not a new phenomenon Depletion of resouices has been
an integral factor in many ecosystems of the past as well in many of the woild s chmate zones Foi instance the disappearance of game thioughoveihunting must have had aüaumauc impact on the hunters and gathereis depend ing on that game Examples range fiom the piehistonc Moa hunters of the South Island of New Zealand, who killed off then prey and disappeared themselves, to the Plains Indian culture who had built their existence on the buffalo hunt, and who saw their buffaloes di mmish before their eyes But not only ovei huntmg is the culpnt, the whole envnonment can disappear One of the most diasüc cases known is that of the Ik of North Uganda, who saw their huntmg giounds being turned mto a park and were excluded from their means of existence (Tuinbull 1978) But that has the suddenness of pohtical upheavals Slowecolo gical change may as well tendei a habitat un inhabitable The almost total disappeaiance of people from the Sahaia wheie up tili 5 000 yeais agoathnving huntmg cultute must ha\e flounshed (Wallace 1983 214) isamajoi ex ample Many Islands, with their fiagile eco Systems have been the scène of depletion Easter Island must have sported a dense popu lation, but when the tree covei was lemoved
through overexploitation the population de-clined (Sahlins 1972). Some of the ecological changes may be sudden, such as hurricanes threatening the livelihood of a small Island like Tikopia (Firth & Spillius 1963), but most chan-ges are graduai and become clear over a longer period only. A dryer climate, more erratic rain-fall, a dwindling number of trees, paucity of game animais: they are a constant worry for a population dépendent upon them. These wor-ries, especially when harbored over longer times are what we will look for in the vanous traditions. How do these peoples project their futures in the face of threatening décline?
The second premise zooms in on this prob-lem: myths, legends, and other traditions, be they oral or written, do reflect some of the major concerns of the people in question. Laughlin and Brady (1978) theorized that myths contain ecological information and serve as a repository for survival oriented knowledge from the past. While that particu-lar thesis has not hold up too well in - even quite sympathetic - testing (Londen 1994), the notion that myths address the concerns of the people is basic. Of course, myths are complex taies, with their own logic and dynamics, with their proper etiology in which they explain how 'things came to be' and with their inter-na! contradictions (Baal 1984); for instance, the basic contradiction of myth is that it ex-plains something which is at most improbable by referring to something which is utterly im-possible, viz. the origin of fire handling is explained through a struggle between a hu-man skeleton and a snake (Lévi-Strauss 1971 : 509). Tertullianus' dictum Credo
qu.iaabsu.r-dum, though meant in a different way, is well
applicable. But, the premise is the following: whatever the stränge forms and curious tales of myths and legends, the topics always ad-dress the worries, concerns and crucial dilem-mas of the people, including ecological head-aches. Often these are social in kind and po-litical in conséquence, such as in the famous story of Asdiwal, the Tsimshian myth Lévi Strauss analyzed (Lévi-Strauss 1967).
Asdiwal's exploits and quests are interpreted as tensions within the matrilineal society. But, the background is the ecology of the hunter-fisher ecology of the Tsimshian, and any story begins with a tale of eco-horror: "Famme reigns in the Skeena valley" (ibid. 4), tell about eco-heaven: "baskets filled with inexhaustible supplies of food" and true heroism is shown in a miraculously successful sea-lion h u n t (ibid. 6). Ecological issues are woven into it, in fact are the trigger of the tales. Not only in the Asdiwal myth, but in all Tsimshian rny-thology (Cove 1978:231).
So, indeed, myths often start with an eco-logical problem, a famine, a drought, a storm or a flood. Illness and épidémies feature as well. They trigger migrations, exploits and quests, and thus culture heroes are created who overcome the ecological problems of their people. Eventually, the myths have a message of another kind: they explain the start of so-cial relations, clans and lineages, and animal species. They teil how peculiar features in the landscape came to be, how a political king-dom arose, how the seasons were created, how the heavens were separated from the earth, and, quite important, how ritual is supposed to keep that world intact. So, for the most part their message is not one of direct ecological impact, but one of redistribution of social and of cultural resources for collective identity. In doing so they humanize the environment, re-duce it to human dimensions and instill it with meaning and intent. But, they seem not to ad-dress ecology any further.
tetpreted iety. But, e hunter-any story "Famine tell about haustible is shown ion hunt ;n into it, )t only m hian my-i an eco-, a storm sature as loits and ated who of their message irt of so-d animal res in the cal king-ited, how hè earth, .upposed Tiost part ;ological ocial and entity. In Tient, re-illitwith lot to ad-that in a The situ-t parensitu-ts :ally per-in doper-ing present, ne, never risis (cf. ;sult has stablish-:r way of drought
or the snow storm is not mentioned again. The culture, product of the violent encounter of mythical beings with history, is deemed suffi-cient to cope with recurring problems.
Yet, the problems have not subsided: they are still there, if not in the myths then in other oral traditions. Droughts may have triggered the founding migrations, they are still around, and often in unabated form. The Dogon2 of
Mali, for example tell about their first ances-tors as the fugitives for droughts, and for the turmoil of wars resulting from it. However, they also tell about the worst droughts, which were far more recent, in this Century. They are aware that their environment has changed, with less rain, less trees, more drought and much less game animais, a change that has been gén-érations in the making and seems irreversible. But they do not seem to link this with the push factors for their ancestral migration.
How then, are these éléments accounted for in tales and myths? Where is the follow-up on the ecological problems of the start of the world? How is the present, to use Leibnitz' famous phrase, 'pregnant with the future' ? My thesis is that, also in the worldview of the tra-ditions that we speak of, the changes that set things in motion in mythical times, have not fallen still. Problems are still perceived, and solutions are still sought. What has been rel-evant in the past, is still important today, and does have its bearing on the future: any pre-sumed past implies a projected future, both hinging on a perceived present. In order to render this plausible, we shall explore the pro-jected futures of various cultures, and see whether the almost inexorable changes in en-vironment, the dégradation and the depletion, have left their traces in those traditions. How, then, do people project their future'?
In doing so I shall use the myths and leg-ends, as well as rituals with their texts, as a 'script', a statement with many levels of mean-ing and intent (Scott 1990). Few cultural phe-nomena are as polysemie as myths, and the huge volume of literature on comparative mythology has shown, if anything, that new
levels of 'message' can be productively con-structed. If encountered as a 'scj*ipt' this mul-tiplicity of semantic levels is explicitly recog-nized, in our quest for an explicit or quite im-plicit eschatology. Encountered as script, the myths have to be 'read into', interpreted in various contexts of meaning. This raises the methodological problem of authority. The in-terprétation of myth, and even the définition of what is myth, ritual, and text, as Asad has cogently argued (Asad 1993: 60-61) are up to the scientist, external to the traditions m ques-tion: the interaction between the researcher and the empirical data is crucial. Of course, any interprétation is one among many, and there is no context-free method to solve this metho-dological dilemma. But the proof of the pud-ding is not in the baking but in the eating. The test is a hermeneutic one: how productive are définition and inteipretation in generating ncw insights and new questions. The second prob-lem relates to this: the différence between the reading of one's own fieldwork data and the secondary accounts of others. In dealing with one's own data, one has control of both the data and their interprétation, making for a maximal interaction of the researcher's per-sonality with the empirical field. With sec-ondary data the analyst holds much less sway over the input of empirical data. On the other hand the mastery of data from a secondary source is different: amount, scope, and depth of the available data are much less. I hold, for the moment, that the greater familiarity with the own data balances out with the reduced possibility for intentional coloring of the data in the secondary sources.
The missing end
"Where is yesterday's wind"'
The first impression, especially in oral
cultu-res, is that there seems to be hardly any escha-tology at all. At least compared to the won-drous tales of the start. Even the most
cuit of all spéculations, thé création out of nothing, has received thoughtful comment, as in this Witoto myth:
"In the beginning there was nothing but mère appearance, nothing really existed. It was a phantasm, an illusion that our father touched; something mysterieus it was that hè grasped. Nothing existed. Through the agency of a dream our father, He-who-is-appearance-only, Nainema, pressed the phantasm to hls breast and then was sunk in thought. (...) Only through his breath did Nainema hold his illu-sion attached to the thread of a dream. (...) He tied the emptmess to the dream-thread and pressed the magical glue-substance upon i t (...) Like a fluff of raw cotton. He seized the bottom of the phantasm and stamped upon it repeatedly, allowing himself finally to rest upon the earth of which hè had dreamt" (Radin 1957: 355-56)."
This wonderful story gives in thoughtful de-tail a theory ofcreatio ab nihilo, how the world came to be. All over the world, in many cul-tures, a great variety of taies elaborate on be-ginnings, créations and origins. Many synthe-ses have been written, and these collections of the création stories testify to a long stand-ing scientific fascination. Compared to this treasure house, myths, legends, and tales about the end of the world are in very shoit supply.-"1
Few myths handle the end of the world. Some cultures do have ideas about endings, but not many, and in most cases these endings are the starts of new beginnings. The beginning is eve-ry where, the end is mostly missing. Two ques-tions: why this scarceness? And: is it really the case that people do hardly project any futu-re without any explicit mention in myths? Or is an imphcit, hidden script to be discerned within the mythical corpus?
The answer to the first question is, at least in genera! terms, quite evident. Durkheim pointed out that societies are unable to find themselves bad or evil; societies consider tbemselves eternal, and thus they are not
in-32
clined to predict their own démise. In fact, the question should be turned around: why would a society project its end, project a violent or gradually declining future? Explanation of existence seems pretty obvious compared to the improbability of the end of a sociely Af-ter all, religions are to live with, aimed al the living, and explanations are geared to questions relevant at this moment, and logically -the future is in principle a change m -the pre-sent. Past and future only are interestmg in so far as they explain, help, interpret and give meaning to the present.6 This is what I would
call the 'actuality principle', borrowing (rom geology.7
Onecorollary of this 'actuality principle' is a possible absence of any spéculation whatso-ever. For création myths are also far from uni-versal. In most cases they explain just a little, often the start of a string of villages by an an-cestral migration, or the origin of some pecu-liar features in the landscape.8 Sometimes,
such spéculative thinking seems to be totally absent:
' Among the Lovedu of Transvaal the anthro-pologist asked a young man to enquire at the elders on création myths. The old men in ques-tion severely rebuked him, as hè was lackmg m practical common sense, and discussed whether hè was on the trail to lose his mind" (Krige 1993: 126).
The Kapsiki9 of Caineroon, when confionted
with similar probing on my part, responded with the marvelous counter question: ''Where is yesterday's wind?" Probing is not a normal attitude. In no society, in fact. The same a
for-teriori holds for eschatological spéculations
Doom thinking is obnoxious, irritating and highly irrelevant, formest. So, why dabble m endings?
Fol-2. In fact, the : why would a violent or Manation of ;ompared to society. Af-aimed at the -ed to ques logically ques -; in the pre-resting in so et and give 'hat I would owmg froin 3rinciple' is ion whatso- irfromjuni-just a liltle, ïs by an an-some pecu-»ometimes, o be totally the anthro-at the len in ques-/as lacking discussed his mind" :onfronted responded n: "Where >t a normal âme a for-iculations. tating and ' dabbie in , and some -asons can prcdicted. ften noted, orcd.
Fol-lowing the 'actuality principle', tales about the past are, at least for a considérable part, meta-commentaries on the present (Henige 1974, Jansen 1995), even if they do have a definite historica) content (Vansina 1985). So, as 'his-tory is present politics', and as the future is a reflection of today, one could expect politi-cal, social and ecological problems to gener-ale tgener-ales about endings, even of an apocalyp-tic kind. In situations where problems abound, the projected futures could very well reflect those problems. After all, many societies pass through or have passed through phases of acute politica! as well as identity crises.
When surveying the mylhology, in order to find ideas about 'endings' or at least 'projected futures', it becomes clear that there are large différences between cultures. A small minor-ity of cultures is fascinaled by their projec-tions of the future: they seem to be smitten with apocalyptic fervor. They seem to be con-centrated, as we shall see, in three major ré-gions of the world. Most cultures, however, have a quite different occupation with the fu-ture: they do not project a cataclysmic end-mg, and in other cultures the end of the world is almost totally missing. This, of course, does nol imply that they have no projected future, and also does not imply that the future is thought to be an unchanged continuation of the present. In fact, as we shall see, that is usu-ally not the case. Though projected futures will for a large part be treated as commentaries on thé présent, they tend to project a future dif-férent from thé world today. How, and in what direction is relevant for our analysis, but may-be more important is the intensity of change expected.
Though one usually treats religions with a written script apart from oral traditions, I shall not do so in this comparison. For several rea-sons. One is that thc processes sought seem to differ little m both types of religions; for an-other, thé projected futures of written religions, especially thé apocalyptic versions, in many features resonate with processes of oral trans-mission (Vansina 1985). So, the examples of
African groups, of Meso-American traditions and of Christianity are considered on a par.
Apocalyptic futures:
'Enden sah ich die Welt'
"Who foretells thé âges of the moon? Who teils of the place where the sun will rest"?10
End-stories are rare, but often compellingly beautiful. The clearest examples are the tales of apocalypse, of violent, abrupt and cataclys-mic world endings. In most cases, a violent apocalypse does away with thc old woi ld, ush-ering in a new one: 'a new heaven and a new earth'. But it is the end which is spectacular. and a new beginning is easily drowned in thc apocalyptic violence. The Edda songs from Iceland together with the l arger Nordic mytho-logy, are the most brutal and explicit tales of Apocalypse:
"Brother shall fight and feil each othci An sisters-sons shall kinship stain
Hard is it on earth, with mighty whoredom Ax-time, sword-time, shields are sundered Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls; Nor ever shall men each other spare".11
The list of horrors then grows larger, bnngmg in the animal world A rust colored cock w i l l cry out in the Valhalla and in heli, the fury of the world animais will unieash itself. G arm, the huge dog will howl at the cavern of death: its mouth and mighty jaws wide open. Fennss, the wolf will escape from his prison and roam the world, his Iower jaw dragging thc earth, his upper jaw scraping the heavens; the snake that circles the océans will heave in horrible anger and join the wolf, spitting poison and breathing fire, defeatmg the 432,000 hcrocs of Wodan. A ship, Naglfar, made out of the nails of dead men, will serve terrible giants as a vessel, and other ships will transport the peo-ple of heil, and the peopeo-ple of fire from thc south. Then the sons of Odin wil! be
ned for the last battle: gods, demons, dwarfs, giants, elves and trolls, all will rise for the fi-nal war.12 Finally fire will spread over the earth
and burn the world.'3Marvelous! As an
after-thought, forgotten by most: a new, green and shining world will arise.14
The other dominant apocalypse is the Chris-tian one. Also quite explicit on the last cata-clysm, the scale is more individualistic, much less heroic.
"And you will hearof wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against king-dom, and there will bc famines and earth-quakes m various places: all this is but the beginning of the sufferings" (Matthew 24:6,7). Like the Edda the horrors of the very end are more than human:
"And (...) there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth, the füll moon became like blood, and the stars feil to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale; the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and isiand was removed from its place" (Rév-élations 6: 12-14).
But m this tradition the ending indeed is a new beginning, with salvation as the real
apotheo-sis
"Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matthew 24: 30).
"I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride ador-ned for her husband" (Révélations 21: 1-2).'5
Within Christianity, apocalyptic thinking has led to great diversity between the different versions of the faith, especially in the recent past (Stein 1999, Boyer 1992). Of course, the Christian apocalyptic tradition as such is deep-ly rooted in an older, well-established Jewish tradition of apocalyptic visions. Not only the Book of Daniel and Ezechiel echo in their long standing pessimism, the catastrophes of de-feat and exile of the tribes of Israël and Juda; but also, the later Essenes, with the - probable - inclusion of the Qumram Community, strong-ly testify to a persistent apocastrong-lyptic fervor (Skinner 1997).'6 Their vision on the future is
less on the throes of transition, moie on the salvation through righteousness and the reign of the law through the rightful Teacher, com-ing from the House of David. But then, this example of Jewish apocalyptic thought shows the dynamism of such projected futures. The early apocalypse, Daniel and Ezechiel, seems to have been more 'this-world' oriented: the word 'Messiah' denoting kings and pnests; later, the term accrued its notion of eschato-logical salvation with the 'Suffering Messiah' of Jesaja and Maleachi. The Essenes' vision is thought to be an offshoot of this 'eschato-logisation' (Martinez 1997:118).'7 This
dyna-mism should be borne in mind in vsewing the other eschatologies of the région, which might have gone to similar transformations. Yet, whatever the phase in which they have been put to writing, the différences between them are marked. Compared to the Christian apoca-lypse, an older one of roughly the same cul-tural région, the Zoroastrian one, is more so-ber and much more straightforward ethical. Also, unlike the Edda and the Christian taies, it indicates a natural cause for the initial ca-tastrophe that triggers the end:
"And (...) a great meteor (...) will melt the métal in the hells and mountains, which then will flow upon the earth as a river. All men then pass into that métal and becoine pure: when one is righteous it seems to him like wal-king in warm milk, but when wicked, then it
king bas different ie recent urse, the i is deep-d Jewish only the heir long ;s of de-nd Juda; probable /, strong-c fervor future is e on the the reign ter, com-hen, this ht shows ires. The ;1, seems nted: the l priests; eschato-Vlessiah' s' vision eschato-lis dyna-wing the ch might >ns. Yet, ive been :en them n apoca-ime cul-nore so-. ethicalso-. lan tales, litial
ca-seems to him that hè is walking in molten métal. (...) And in the end, with the greatest affection, all come together, father and son, brother and friend, and they ask each other thus: 'Where have you been these many years and what was the judgement on your soul? Were you righteous, or were you wicked' ?(...) And then, in the end, Ahura Mazda18 seizes
Angra Mainyu, and each archangel his oppo-site. The fallen meteor incinérâtes the serpent in the melted métal and the stenen and pollu-tion of hell are burned in that métal too, until heli becomes quite pure. Ahura Mazda brings the land of heil back for the enlargement of the world, the rénovation of the universe oc-curs and everything is immortal for ever".1'-1
Curiously, also this world ends without moun-tains: the earth becomes an ice-free and fea-tureless plain, a feature shared with Christian apocalyptic features.20
Truly apocalyptic visions, sudden and cata-strophic endings, in fact are rare both in scrip-tural and unwritten religions. Probably two conditions have to be met for an Apocalypse to mature: a long-standing tradition of end tales and violent upheavals in the socio-political sphère (Stein 1999: 5). For both the Middle-Eastern and the Norse material this seems to hold.21 In many other religions these
condi-tions are not met, such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Islam, for one, has little eschatology. The few stories about the end of the world center on the figure of the Mahdi. In Sjiïtic Islam, the return of the 'Imam Mahdi', the rightful Imam, is an essential element of faith. Yet, his coming augurs in an era of perfect Islam in this world, not so much an end of time. In Sun-nitic Islam, the Mahdi tradition seems origi-nally under the influence of Christian dogma about the return of Jesus (Koningsveld 1981: 103); at a later stage the Mahdi became a de-scendant of the Prophet - later even the Prophet himself or a namesake - who, at the end of time, will return to establish a just and right-ful reign on earth, in order to purify religion
(Gilsenan 1982: 143).22 His coming is a
pre-lude to final things may come with some up-heavals and wars, but nothing awesome: a sandstorm, a war without details or insistence on preaching.
In the Sunna, Mahdism never attained the status of article of faith; it remained a folk be-lief with political implications.23 Throughout.
Mahdism has been a political moveinent, with a central ideology of purification: the world, the faith and the umma had to be purified, ei-ther by a khalifa who is a close relative of the Mahdi, or by the Mahdi himself. Also, pro-phets were expected to usher in the last puri-fication: in some traditions (Kapteijns 1982: 203), the prophet Jesus would descend at the end of times to kill the Anti-christ, who would have defeated the Mahdi in the final strugglc. During the Mahdi movements, especially at the turn of the Century, a 'plague of prophets' (Holt 1970: 23) resulted in prophets fighting amongst each other, each instigating revolt against the colonial government. All this is fairly removed from 'official' Islam, and the basic tenets of Islam are no fertile ground of eschatological spéculation (Gilsenan 1982.
144).
Though not prone to eschatology, a major religion as Hinduism is internally so diverse to harbor at least some end visions, in Vishnu-ism. The clearest example is Kalki at the end of our present era. Kalki, the last incarnation of Vishnu, will set out both to end and to save the world. When hè descends his white horsc and starts dancing, the world as we know n will end, and a new world will arise out of the ashes of the old one.24 Characteristic i.s the
absence of heroism: adance instead of a final war. The Christian concern about the position of the individual and the ethics of Zoroastnsm, are absent in the Kalki tradition. The world as a whole counts, and little else. The same holds for Buddhism, where some traces of endings can only be found in Tantrism.2' As for the
Chinese religions, eschatology seems to bc an alien element; even in the most Christian of religious movements, theTai-Ping rébellion,
"*3
:<;
.1«.
eschatology was almost absent (Zürcher 1988).2"
So, the major areas for apocalypses have been Scandinavia and the Judéo-Christian (and Persian) Middle Bast. The only other culture area with similar apocalyptic traditions, to my knowledge, is Meso-America. Here, in Aztec, Maya and also many contemporary traditions of Guarani, Maya, Mixtec and Tupi, the vio-lent ending is very much present. Central Ame-rica has been obscssed with time, contmually performing rituals lest time turn order into chaos. Time is a pyramid, with the steps of the pyramid reflecting the stages m time, and with the descent from one platform to the other marking the periods of serious disorder, of ca-taclysm and disaster. History mevitably runs down, but not in a straight line, not by far. Each dispensation of time, like ours today, calls for sacrifices to keep up the machinery of heav-ens. The Aztec notion is that their multitude of sacrifices stall the end of time, prolong the hfe of a dying sun and give humans a slightly longer respite on the face of this sorry earth. But this era, like the others, will inevitably end in a cataclysm: a world-fire, an fiery earth-quake, a raging flood, a devastating famine. All previous four dispensations have ended that way.27 After each catastrophe the earth is
different' the climate has reversed: wet sea-son becomes dry, cold begets heat. Each of the dispensations also has its proper cultivar, maize bemg the one for this era (Zantwijk 1985)
A thoroughly pessimist attitude runs through this cosmology, not just its apocalypse. In the end human suffering is of no avail. The major irony is that these large cataciysms are more or less virtual. Ultimately, this cosmos, this earth, and our human life are the playing grounds of the gods, those inveterate gamblers who use the zodiac as their ball arena, the earth as the rubber ball and the four cardinal direc-tions as the limitadirec-tions of their field. In our virtual existence, this is reflected in the famous temple ball game. Violence, honor and sacri-fice are the only ways in which life can
tran-scend the fate of bemg a mere plaything 2fl
The Maya, both present day and classic, have and had a worldview of comparable violence Even more than the Aztec, they have their long counts, of 12.5 million days, with a final de-struction of the world by a rain snake. The n, the water will pour out of the sun and out of the moon, drowning the carlh when the old goddess of wrath overturns the heavens (Jensen 1993). Elsewhere m the Amencas, comparable projected futures have been ic-corded (Maybury-Lewis 1992).
Two remarks after this short overview of apocalypses. The first is that of time. Up till now we have interpreted the apocalypse as something to happen in the future, i.e. as the end of a longitudinal time frame. But also, the apocalyptic vision sornetimes can be mict-preted as realities coexistmg at the same time, m différent aspects of existence, or m differ-ent corners of the world. For instance, the Aztec parade of catastrophes befalling on the not-so-unsuspecting world, can be read m a cosmo-geographic way as well: all four pre-vious periods are situated at the corners of the world-square, while the presumed present is al ways in the middle. In rituals all times aie represented in the present, while the 'now' is m constant communication with former dis-pensations of time. So, time séquences are not always séquences. We shall retum upon this problem later.
ng.-s ,ic, have iolence. ieir long "mal de-;. Then, d out of the old eavens nericas, >een re-view of . Up till ypse as ;. as the ilso, the >e inter-ne time, i differ-ice, the g on the ;ad in a our pre-rsofthc esent is mes are now' is ner dis-> are nol :>on this >ries not iew be-A'orld. a e world ; Ihroes, nd shin-leaven', caiypse, alki and h throes )f a new n Chris-an end-ions. In the last
dispensation, while people are trapped in the eternai merry-go-round of endless créations of the Buddhist traditions. There, only indi-vidual enlightenment can be a way out. Only in Norse mythology, this rebirth is shrouded by the sheer violence of the ending. The Meso-American cosmology, finally partially negates the passage of time, similar to Oriental tradi-tions. But there is a tendency to represent this era as the last phase of the cycle, and new be-ginnings picture a really new kind of world, not just another dispensation, as the end of time itself (Boyer 1992): "None will think about the past any longer" (Jesaja 65: 17).
'People iised to fly': the entropy of
the present
"The world will end, not with a bang, but with a whimper" (T.S. Elliot).
Despite the spectacular destruction promised in the apocalyptic traditions, the majority of the cultures on the earth do not envisage vio-lent, cataclysmic endings of the world. What kind of projected future, then, is the more com-mon one? The answer can be quite definite: the major notion of the future is one of a duai fading away, Ablauf in German: a gra-duai decrease, and a slow dégradation of life. Life, in most visions, will not end with a bang but with a whimper. Not hot, not cold, neither fire nor ice, but a consummate tepidity seems to be the genera! expectation. Time is running down, but not in leaps. It runs down slowly, almost imperceptibly, but inexorably. This type of projected future is closely relatcd to the myths and legends on origins: the changes of the past will persist in the future. A fïrst exam-ple from one of the most famous ethnogra-phies of all time: Malinowski's Argonauts of
the Western Pacific: 'the myth of the flying
canoe of Kudayuri':
"All men of Kitava decided on a great Kula expédition to the Koya (...) The Kudayuri
people made their canoe in the village. Moka-tuboda, the head man of the Kudayuri village, ordered them to do so. They were angry. ' Very heavy canoe. Who will carry it to the beach'. He said: 'No, not so; it will be well. I shall just lash my waga (canoe) in the village'. He refused to move the canoe [Malinowski notes that this village is situated 300 meter above sea level, WvB] (...) The man of Kudayuri ordered his crew to man his canoe in the vil-lage. They of the other villages stepped the mast on the shore; hè stepped the mast m the village. They prepared the rigging on the shore; hè prepared the rigging in the village. They hoisted the sail on the sea; hè spoke. 'May our sail be hoisted', and his compan-ions hoisted the sail. He spoke: 'Sit in your places, every man!' He went into the house, hè took his adze, hè took some coconut oil. hè took a staff. He spoke magie over the ad?e, over the coconut oil. (...) He rubbed the staff with the coconut oil. He knocked the canoe's skids with his staff. Then hè stroke with his adze [both ends of] the canoe. He jumped into the canoe, sat down and the canoe flew ! A rock stood before it. It pierced the rock in two, and flew through it" (Malinowski 1922: 312-13). The bewildered other crews always find the Kunayuri canoe arrive before them, even when they set out much earlier. They are irntatcd, especially when they see his gardens weil watered at a time their own gardens are bone dry: he also is an expert on rain magie. The Kudayuri chief is forced to teil some of his secrets to his younger brother, who then k i l l s him and sets out to have his canoe fly also However, he has not received all magie l ore from his older brother and his canoe reinams as a rock. Then:
"... Toweyre'i went into the house and cncd for his elder brother; hè had killed him with-out knowing his magie. Their three sisters be-come very angry with Toweyre'i, as their brother's knowledge was now lost. But thcy had his magie already in their belly, and could
fly: 'They werejyoyova [flymg witches]'". The story relates how these three flew away, pierced rocks and separated Islands, just like their brother's canoe had done, and then turned into stones, in the sea (ibid. 315-16). Since that time, not only the people from Kudayuri lacked the flying magie, but all Trobriand. In fact, the Kudayuri stand for all canoe builders in the islands, Malinowski stresses. From then on, the canoës again will have to sail, slowly m the océan; the magie has disappeared, and flying is reserved for witches only.
Flying is a prime thème in taies about the past.29 The Dogon in Mali point at the caverns
high up the cliff where they live, and teil how their predecessors at the spot, the so-called 'Tellern' (literally 'we found them') used to fly to those caves and caverns. They still point at those high and spectacularly inaccessible spots, high up the sheer cliff, and ask how else the Tellern could have entered them Among the Camerooman Kapsiki, the people of Mogodé village point at some granité outcrop-pmgs on their plateau, sporting large holes: here Hwempetla, their founding ancestor passed through the rock, when hè flew through the air to escape Death in person (who could fly as well, obviously). If anythmg, the thème of flying ancestors illustrâtes the fundamental différence between them and their descen-dants: flying is power, superhuman power. But it is also a fragile power, open to change, open to loss. Yet, U is human, and human action can destroy it. It is ephemeral. and it neverreturns. Flying in the past is power eroded.
In these cases, the érosion of power was feit by the informants. Since the coming of the colomzer, and later the (neo-)colomal state, they had lost their politica! autonomy, and as many tribal groups suffered from forced la-bor, even if the relative peace was appreci-ated (Beek 1988). Though thèmes of power-m-the-past may not have been generated by colonial présence, their prommence in dis-course has.
The heroes of the past were moie powerful
38
in other exploits as well. Hunting, for instance, another arena of power, was done by magie alone. In the West-African Mandé area tales abound of the hunters of the past: they did not even have to go out into the fields They just sat in their door, practiced their hunting magie, and the animais of the bush came and died at their feet. They called the game without hav-ing to walk. The present situation is a weak reflection of this: a hunter must have magie, that is still so. But the magie is just to shield nis intentions from the animais. Among the Dogon of Mali, for instance, animais are deem-ed to know beforehand what humans aie up to, and would never be caught. Only with ma-gie plus a lot of hard work thé hunter can fool thé animais into being shot: present day magie is but a distant echo of its past powers (Beek & Banga 1992). In thé words of a mocking song in Mali: "Bée hunters are numerous, lion hunters are scarce now" (McNaughton 1988 132). The famous heroes of the Sunjata epos also were more powerful, more ruthless, moi e efficient and supernaturally effective than thé people of today. Their praise songs, part of thé famous épie, resound with their heroïc acts "Cutter of gréât heads, tearer of gréât mouths, crusher of gréât bones, crusher of gréât legs" (Jansen, Duintjer & Tamboura 1990: 100-1)
Myths all over the world abound with more-than-human ancestors, heroes and exploits This is routinely interpreted as a glorification of the past, as part of thé process of my th foi -mation itself and la pensée mythologique Of course, a glorification of the past can be a goal in itself: the 'Garden of Eden complex' (Beek 1988) is part of it, as is the rationale of etiol-ogy. the present state of affairs has to be ex-plained, and any origin of a common place situation can only be found m an extiaoïdi-nary e ven t.
nstance, y magie rea taies / didnot 'hey just g magie, I died at out hav-a wehav-ak ; magie, o shield ong the •e deem-s are up /ith ma-:an fooi y magie s (Beek locking )us, lion n 1988: ua epos >s, more than the part of oicacts: •nouths, at legs" 100-1). h more-xploits. fication yth for-que. Of s a goal ' (Beek >f etiol-• be ex-il place raordi-le past-that is sage of present ' is less :ss than
the present. The notion of a diminished exist-ence is inherent and crucial, offering a close parallel to the vision on dwindling resources: less game, less rain, less trees, less fertility, less wisdom, less power. The Bororo of Bra-zil recogmze four kinds of shamans, and each series of générations one type of shaman dis-appears (Nimuendaju 1914). Loss of power and knowledge, each génération, is normal. "Chaque fois un Africain meurt, un bibliothè-que se brûle" thé famous West African histo-rian Ampata B a formulated mis général feel-ing of loss. Mali's bards are sure that thé gén-ération of their teachers knew more, recited the Sunjata epos better, and with their words conveyed more power into Mandé society than today: pupils will never equal their teachers.
This inadequacy of the present shows clearly in the topic of régicide, an old fascination of anthropology of religion. The most thorough study of régicide to date, by Simonse (1992), describes in detail the processes leading up to thé eventual killing of thé Rammaker-Kings of Southern Sudan. Basing himself on Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry and scape-goat vic-timization, he describes how the kings of the région are in continuous suspense over their own well-being. And with good reason, foi-thèse Rainmaker-Kings.30
"In case of a disaster, usually drought, king and Community enter into a crisis relation. The rainmaker makes his first sacrifices, but keeps his most powerful ritual measures for later. If thé drought persists, thé community makes a collective search for broken rules, and thé king/rainmaker has to perform the remedial actions of the community. Later, if still dry, the community starts to blâme the king, and the king starts looking for another possible culprit, to turn into a scapegoat. Still no rains: the community goes to the motions of a simu-lated régicide, and the rammakers perforais his most powerful rites to procure rain. If then the rains still fail to fall, the king has to flee. If he stays, he will be killed by the community, as anonymously as possible: by alive burial,
by cutting open his belly, by strangling him between two pièces of wood, or by all women crushing him under their collective weight. The king - or queen - usually fights back, and dies struggling" (Simonse 1992: 343-44) This 'village apocalypse' is both a direct hu-manization of the ecological problems feit in the area, and an expression of existential m-sufficiency. Rites, even the most potent spells and acts of specialists, are not enough to pro-cure the normal state of affairs. Droughts are getting worse, and the king may be rainmaker, and the rainmaker may be king, his work can be insufficient, and then only his death can bond the community in the face of disaster. The image of a village community killing its king-rainmaker as a last resort to stay alive, more than any other image in Africa, high-lights the decay of the powers that people have to work with, the entropy of the present, and the eschatology of decay that is inscribed m these rituals and perceived in their ecology
One of the most powerful testimomes to this inherent eschatological bent, are the new reli-gious movements, both in the way they rein-vent themselves through new movements and cults, as well as in the way they go about to do that. These movements with their sudden up-risings of new ideas, new idéologies and new churches, often show a fierce résistance to ei-ther the colonial présence or to their own past (Lanternari 1963). Confronted with new co-lonial présence, with massive changes m power structure and technology, many reli-gions hâve thoroughly reinvented themselves. Melanesians saw a way out of their problems through thé ships or planes füll of cargo; Afn-cans reacted to thé Christian colonial churches and thé suffocating régime, by shaping thèse churches m their own cultural form. The Ghost Dance promised thé Paviotso followers of Wodziwob a cataclysm that would soon shake the entire world, in thé course of which the white man would vanish from thé Indian lands "The earth would open up to swallow thé whites, while ail their buildings, goods and
tools would remain for the use of the Indians" (Mooney 1896:702).''
Usually these movements are mixtures of nativism, escapism, eschatological expecta-tions, and political protest, but in very differ-ent blends What is important here, is that even in the most violent of reactions, such as the massive revolt during the second Ghost Dance, the pré-contact situation is not to be restored. Something will remain of the removed oppres-sor. Something of the vigor, the power and the life of the other has to be used to reassert the power of local life. Thus, traditions deern themselves not to be sufficient for the new conditions, just as they - if we read the script correctly - could not retain the pristine force of création before the coming of the white man. Wallace's old notion of 'maze-way réintégra-tion' (Wallace 1966) has remained important: movements are, indeed, a way to reintegrate a world that has shattered around the individual. But my point is that the new intégration is not only a reaction to the présence of the coloniz-ing forces and a reaction to oppression (Lanter-nan 1963), but also an expression of the in-sufficiency of the local religion, both in the face of change and in the face of its own former challenges. Even a nativistic movement rec-ognizes fundamental changes in their lived world. Entropy renders thé présent incapable of füll restoration.
Throughout, religious movements are per-meated by thé notion of loss. The powers of old have diminished, the ancestors have let themselves be betrayed and have sent the cargo to the undeserving white instead of to their black kith and kin; the whites have withheld the most powerful parts of thé bible from thé Africans, robbing them of their rightful inher-itance. The movements intend to restore that loss, and to make a new start, better than the old situation. The sensé of loss is what bmds thé old local traditions and the new ones.
The dynamks of «Echangeable
tradition
"Tradition is thé midwife of ambition" (A.M. Hocart)
For a considérable part this notion of loss m traditional knowledge stems from thé dynam-ics of orality, from the ways oral knowledge is transferred. As rétention by memory is al-ways less than perfect, the notion of loss en-ters easily.32 The création of new knowledge
is less évident, and in many ways is not aimed for, neither wished for nor acknowledged. Oral transmission of knowledge uses thé emic défi-nition of tradition. In thé taies, thé ntuals and in local discourse, thé tradition is considered as the wisdom and practices handed over from earlier générations, in a more or less un-changed shape. Tèm thé Dogon call it, 'thé things we found'. Rhala heshi for thé Kapsiki means 'since thé ancestors', offering the same image of unchangeability. Similar notions are found in almost any oral culture. In f act, for-eigners, anthuropologists among them until ic-cently, have used the term 'traditional' m the same sensé: unchanged and unchangmg, a window on the past, a coipus of knowledge and ritual that is unchallenged.
In thé actual practice of ritual and story tell-ing, ho we ver, a différent picture émerges. Ritu-als change, sometimes even fast and then are adopted as héritage, as traditions. Haphazard changes (Beek 1978) sometimes get embed-ded in thé intenembed-ded procédures and get stuck, not by virtue of âge but by virtue of expe-diency. Stories about history change quickly, and follow political changes and new searches for identity construction. It is in the realm of ethnicity and identity that thé notions of 'm-vented traditions' and 'new traditions' hâve becomecommonplace; however, traditions m not-so-new situations always have had that aspect. Tradition usually is not so much a fixed héritage, but a way to define an expérience as authentic, through a discourse that relegates ail authority to the past, and borrows from that
>n" (A.M. of loss in edynam-lowledge ory is al-floss en-lowledge iet aimed ged. Oral mie defi-tuals and nsidered i ver from less un-1 it, 'the Kapsiki the same tions are act, for-until re-il' in the iging, a wledge
authority. Référence to tradition mandates the present while making a new reconstruction of the past. Any action that might be defined tra-ditional, has no need for any explanation or justification. Thus, the stamp of tradition ren-ders a custom respectable, accepted and part of the collective identity, a 'reinvention of the present through a reinvention of the past'.
Changes in 'traditional ways' are incorpo-rated very easily into the old 'lore', and adop-tion of new, borrowed or invented éléments is by inserting it under the expanding umbrella of 'tradition'. Into their tem the Dogon include biblical stories as part of their mythical prehis-tory (Beek 1991 a): wherever a sprehis-tory présents itself that fills in a void in their coipus of tales, they eagerly adopt it, 'file off the sériai num-bers' and call it 'Dogon', part of their tem.
Once my informants called upon me for my ancestors: who wasour 'foundingfather'. Tak-ing my cue frorn the Bible (as in fact anthro-pologists before me have done, also in Dogon area, Beek 1991 a), I mentioned Japheth, Noah's son, as ancestor of the 'red' Europe-ans. Interesting, for all of them. At the very next ritual incantation, by one of the elders not even present at that fïrst moment, the name
Japetu appeared in the list of invoked
ances-tors, and since then it has stuck.
Traditional stories are - and probably always have been Windows not on the past but on the present, or the near-present. Thus, Jansen ana-lyzed the Sunjata epos as the story about nine-teenth Century Mandé politics, and not the saga of a fifteenth Century empire, as the emic his-torians would have it (Jansen 1995). The re-lations bet ween the 'families'", between the ruler and his lieutenants, fitted well into the recent history of the région.
As a conséquence, the discourse on tradi-tion is quite different from the dynamics of tradition. In their dynamics traditions are flex-ible, adaptive and 'modern'. Here, we are pri-manly concerned with the discourse, the way to look at the past, and at the present through the past.
In the Zimbabwe guerrilla fïght against white
minority rule, the spirit mediums, the divmers and the guerrillas themselves used a tradition-alist discourse: to draw upon the powers of the past, to tap into the reservoirs of past magie and rain making prowess, was the only way to win the war. It was the way to rally all parties under one joint flag, even when those parties had diametncally opposed aims and goals Durmg that struggle and through their inter-actions each of these traditions did change, of course, while clinging to the discourse of the inherited past (Lan 1986).
New messianic traditions show this flexibil-ity as well: while speaking about tradition, change is institutionalized. These cults, which in some of the world's régions spring into life easily and quickly - and in some others are virtually absent - are usually interpreted as a break with the past, a rupture with tradition, as a new way of existence. Lanternan, in his broad study of these movements, shows that this is not the case, most of the time. First, the new forms and notions often stem from colo-nial churches or proselytizing Christian déno-minations: the indigenous churches of Africa, the cargo cults of Melanesia and the messi-anic movements in Asia and Indonesia use the doublé model of local and Christian tradition as their base. New forms are hard to find, and thé new is almost always an amalgam of old and incoming traditions. In religious cuits, as in most of the realm of myths and legends, man is, in the tenns of Lévi-Strauss, a
brico-leur, taking apart the local world, mixing it
with éléments of foreign extraction and assem-bling it anew in a new form and meaning.
More important, this proccss of change by the participants is often seen as a logical re-sult of both local tradition and recent history The foreign éléments selected are those that fit in best with the local tradition, at least with the basic tenets of it Horton's (1975) vision on Afncan conversion implicates a similar contmuity of basic tradition: renewal is a sé-lective process, in which éléments of local and cosmopolitical origin are chosen, amalgam-ated and reinterpreted. Though Horton's
fbs*
proach is based on intellectual premises - in my view but a part of the total picture - the same reasoning applies to religieus forms as well. An example from Central Africa: the movement of Simon Kimbangu was stimulated by the coming of the Salvation Army to the Congo:
"The Salvation Army, seeking strictly humani-tanan goals, unsullied by vested institutional or ecclesiastical interests, opposed to prosely-tizing, quickly became for the natives a most attractive substitute for the Christian missions. (...) The natives recognized that although these spiritual soldiers worshipped the God of the white missionaries, their way of life was based on religious and moral codes which they could understand and which could truly meet their needs and aspirations. Instead of the meti-culous confessions of the missions, the Salva-tion Army proposed a simple act of contriSalva-tion flowing directly from the sinner's heart. The uniforms, the ceremonies accompanied by martial hymns conveying an assurance of vie-tory, the rhythm of the drums and the lively sounds of other instruments in their bands, the colorful flags unfurled against the sky - all ten-ded to cast a spell over the natives who saw m this new religion a beguihng similarity to their own pagan rituals" (Lanternari 1963: 19,20). So, what is at stake in the renewal of religions, is not a break from tradition towards a new religion, but rather a new construction in the dynamic interaction of tradition with its envi-ronment.1' From 'reinvention of tradition', a
process which has been going on through time, to 'the invention of a new tradition' is but a small step. A 'living' tradition changes conti-nually any way, and the discourse on tradition furnishes the most efficiënt means to legiti-mize the present as a weak reflection of the past; after all, the différence between discourse on tradition and practice implies the weakness of anything new. "Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose" But also the reverse holds: "Plus ça reste la même chose, plus ça change".
42
Time and the black hole of riiual
"If we take eternity to mean ... timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live m the present" (Wittgenstein Proposition 6.522). Both types of projected futures, the apocalypse as well as the notion of a diminished piesent and a degraded existence in these days, are grafted on a linear time frame. Time will run out and make a huge bend at the end, or time will taper down, going on forever. Both con-ceptions, however, entail a sériai nature of time. Is that a correct notion, or are other, qui te diverging conceptions of time possible?
The study of time conceptions is dommated by the study of ritual. More than anything else, it is ritual that links past, present and future No cultural institution addresses itself so much to the linkage of the present with the past, and consequently, with the future as the rites in which the deeds of the ancestors are actual-ized for the present. Lévi-Strauss character-izes rituals as 'machines à supprimer le temps ' (Lévi-Strauss 1975). In ritual time is frozen, society and its members are portrayed as a contmuous whole, without fundamental chan-ges, with thé füll weight of tradition, m its emic définition, behind the continuity of past and présent. Ritual is the past m thé présent. Speak-ing of Australian Aboriginal art, Stanner de-scribes a similar 'freezing' of history by the symbolic représentations m Aboriginal art: thé new has to use thé pictorial language and sym-bolism of the old, in order to be valid.~4
con-f ri
telessness, who live in tion 6.522). apocalypse ied present s days, are ne will run nd, or time Both con-I nature of other, quite sible? dominated /thing else, and future, îlfsomuch ie past, and hè rites in are actual- character-;r l e temps' • is frozen; rayed as a întal chan-in its emic 'f past and ;nt. Speak-tanner de-ory by the nal art: the ; and sym-lid.'4 Jgy of time >f cyclical al. Taking w the sago linea have >nception, ituals; his ï tribes of griculture ve a ritua! clical. He timecon-cepts, the répétition and the circle can easily coexist, and should not be considered antitheti-cal. More important, they both are set within a conceived and perceived time that is dis-tinctly linear, as it is processual: even if no-tions of history may be quite different between groups, the exigencies of life, the linear pro-cess of aging and the personal and collective sensés of history form the main frame for con-ceptions of time. So, Gell argues, one should not confound the message of ritual with the main conception of time. The timelessness of ritual is not a négation of time, but a négation of the effect of time on the central tenets of the society, and of the ritual itself.15
Lévi-Strauss highlights that "societies have an atti-tude towards history which denies, not that history has taken place, but simply that it has made any différence to them" (Lévi-Strauss 1967:45). Ritual does "not reverse time: what it does, instead, is to manipulate processes in a symbolic way in order to indicate a certain normative path for events, thereby reinforc-ing (...) confidence in the viability of society" (Geil 1992: 53).
Essentially, this is what the référence of tra-dition amounts to: a déniai of change in the face of history, a déniai of transformation even in a situation of rapid change. It is not a choice between a line and a circle, to use geometrical images. Neither does justice to a joined expé-rience of time running down and ritual time denying its impact. A sagging circle, in the form of a descending spiral, or a zigzag droop-ing slightly downward would be more apt, combining both the répétition and célébration of identity in ritual, and the genera! degenera-tion of time. Such an image also renders the opposition between synchrony and diachrony less sévère: both are part of one vision of the future. The two kinds of time, secular and ritual time, both are part of the individual and col-lective expérience of time and its ravages on the living.
One interesting possibility is the Aztec no-tion of dispensano-tions, menno-tioned above. As argued, the distinction between a series of
dis-pensations and a topologica! arrangement of coexisting eras is not very clear. The past is with us, and the present dispensation is not only connected to the most recent past, but to all past dispensations and modes of existence, however far removed in linear time. The dis-tinction between synchrony and diachrony, indeed, is relative. But this mixing of syn-chrony and diasyn-chrony is not a négation of the processual flow of time. Any emic notion of time and timelessness, such as tradition, is a statement on identity, on the continuity of the society with its own past, i.e. of its identity:
tem, 'what we found' reads as 'what we are',
and 'since the ancestors' is 'our own way'. The déniai of change in ritual, is the déniai of an crippling rupture with the past: 'we are still ourselves'.
Tho'ugh projected futures are rooted in the past, the relation of the present to the past can never be identical to the relation of the future with the present, as both are conceived and generaled under different conditions: the past that generaled the present is structurally dif-ferent from the present generating the future. However, the bottom line of any conception of time is that it continues and that the follow-ing phase is ushered in by the precedfollow-ing one, and that structurally recognizable processes are involved m both transformations It is in these transformations that the conception of time and that of degeneration converge. If the present is a weak image of the past, and the present pregnant with an even bleaker future, human society somehow devours the riches of the past, eats the riches of its environment in order to produce the present. Society then is something of a black hole, in which part of the energy of the past is irretrievably lost. Life itself is not self generating, but feeds on its past, as it feeds on its environment, on the bush around the village, on the wilderness around cultivation. The running down of time implies a society siphoning off its surrounding, with limited efficiency through deplelion of the environment. Ritual, then, is nol only a néga-tion of the ravages of time, but also a
ishing of a failing reservoir of energy - in the face of dwindling resources - as one and the same process.w This we shall illustrate with a
ionger example, that of the Dogon in Mali. Reading Dogon rites as a script, three messa-ges émerge, even if complex and sometimes contradictory. The first is a synchronie one, of both structure and communitas, in Turner's sense (Turner 1969). The structure is in the emphasis within the sacrifïcial complex on lin-eages, seniority and on the proper place in society of both genders: the participants are put into the framework of a lasting structure. The message gels across in vanous ways, or-der of age, m verbal interchange and in a gentle compétition: throughout the we-feeling of each of the groups, be it a lineage, a family, a vil-lage half or a ward. In the death rites the gap between individual and community is less mediated by intermediary groups (Beek 1998): here the individuals dance, walk, sing and drink as one peer among peers, the relative anonymity of the masks enhancing communi-tas aspects.
The time dimension in the initiation (masks and the s igt (Beek 1992)) stresses the passing of time-bound subjects, the initiâtes, through a framework of timeless structures. But there is more to the time-dimension. The re-enact-ment of myth m the mask and sigi dances pur-veys another message- of résistance of that particular part of the Dogon existence to the ravages of time (cf. Bloch 1989), a suppres-sion of the influence of time on the time-bound human beings. In ntual, the powers of old are defined still relevant for today; of course, no-body has the knowledge and expérience of Sene Senu, and no one speaks the ritual lan-guage sigi as well as this first speaker, and evidently the power of the masks themselves tend to fade further, but something of the power and glory of the past is still with the present.
The third message links the past with the future, and speaks of a général décline in terms of relationship with the environment. The masks, especially, embody the bush in
rela-44
tion to the village; the bush is the giver of plenty, home of wisdom, knowledge, power and fertility. The village features as a black hole, where the energy of the environment, the wisdom of the wilds, and the fertility of the animal kingdom are drawn in, used by huinans, and disappear. The ritual has to replemsh the village, which is emptied by the loss of the old men and women, as repositories of the tem, traditions. The bush is a seemingly endless supply of power and fertility So after the sigi a gentle birlh explosion should occur, and af-ter the masks crops should be plentiful (Beek
1991 b).
; giver of ge, power is a black nment, the lity of the y humans, ilenish the oss of the of the rem, ly endless 'er the sigi
ur, and af-iful (Beek ie running if theenvi-age is both ose power, d the same re from the egradation es. So the il, less fer-esent. The on society, the depen-iment: less ss fertility. Ie, indeed, , irst part of Male dinè, )d or 'em-lyara dinè, hè present, hè time of extent with ndent state erceive, in "thecondi-have mul-)ut life has ensive and is in store, irse,
gradu-Degradation:the model for the
feiere?
"Nothing is totally anything in a religion" (Chinua Achebe)
Thus, the running down of time and the dété-rioration of the physical environment are the same process. Viewing the link between the entropy of time and the black hole of society, dégradation not only is a model of the past, but also the model for the future. Both in so-ciety and in the environment, décline is the most evident. On the one hand, social norms are transgressed or negated: 'people have no morals these days, no respect'. On the other hand, rains come more erratic, more unevenly spaced, soils deteriorate, sait encroaches on the fields, the tree cover diminishes and good top soils run down with the rains. Often these t wo kinds of dégradation center on women. Socially, their comportment - at least in the male view - is deemed more loose, less respect-ful and less controllable than in the past. Also, ecological problems often strain gender rela-tions: women expérience ecological pressures first: fetching water, hauling fire wood, and garnering leaves and plants for the daily sauce, they interact with the more fragile parts of the environment. Their problems and concomitant quarrels and tensions m the village may serve as a signal for the rest of society. Some rituals are geared to solve these tensions, but the con-servatism of ntual usually is not on their side.
"The Dogon use the - male - masks, in the ritual calledpuro, to punish and correct way-ward women. Firewood often is an issue, the women cutting tress the men would like to keep as fruit trees. But even if the masks give a se-vere reprimand, the women will continue to eut firewood, whatever male préférences, while 'formerly they used to fear the masks more'" (Beek & Banga 1992).
In this way the large-scale problems of escha-tology and dégradation are brought home in
the very heart of society, the relations between men and women. For the men, at least, this resonates with the genera! notion of loss of power, the dominant différence between the present and the past. The decay of human power is the common denominator of the de-cay both in ritual and ecology.
Throughout, people are coniïonted with mixed signais: the négations of 'tradition' and ritual versus the practicalities of daily life As a conséquence, the environment, as the mam arena between the two, often is viewed with a cunous mixture of optimism and pessimism, with appréhension and trust al the same time Optimism, stemming from an idea of (still) unlimited resources of the bush'7 (Beek 1993),
on the other hand, history tells about many trees, of rieh game, of plenty rain. This reso-nates with the notion of Ablauf m both time and environment.'8 The eventual pessimism of
the ritual répétition of the past becomes tan-gible in the increasingly erratic rainfall, in the fact that they have to shorten fallow penods on the one hand and in their gender conflicis."-1
Ablauf, then, resonates with environmental
dégradation. As part of the same vision, the expérience of the latter is bound to enhance the former. Where most of rituals aim to deny change and try to negate dégradation, the de-cay has become part and parcel of the pro-jected futures. The past produced the present through a général décline in powcrs. and the present will generate a future with a genera! décline in resources. The present may be preg-nant with the future, but lts conception has been in the past.
This relation between eschatology and dég-radation may be indirect, as in many cultures is the case, orquite direct: the 'kings of disas-ter' of Sudan are blamed, eventually, foi the droughts. In fact, each and every disaster, be it a flood, a locust plague or drought has its proper 'owner', a clan responsible for that pro-blem: responsible either for generaüng the problem or for solving it; the two usually go together, often in such a way that the total of altars, rituals and - thus - clans is needed to
K
*v '> , VI
ensure fecundity and continuity. This 'distri-bution of disasters' may work well in generat-ing consensus in thé local Community and in involving thé Community in thé solutions, it also makes thé community vulnérable for change, by demographics, conversions or other processes. So ritual has socialized na-ture, a 'ritual appropriation of the environ-ment' that closely links thé future of the soci-ety with that of nature. The future of one is thé future of thé other. Rituals, just as myths and legends, humanize the environment, en-dowing it with intent and meaning. The gentle eschatology of decay, as an autonomous pro-cess in the society is strengthened by the per-ceived dégradation of the environment and
vice versa. Our examples also show that as
long as the society is deemed fertile and pro-ductive, thé dégradation of the environment may be denied and negated. Récognition of environmental problems as such, may well depend on the notion of cultural and societal insufficiency coming to the fore. Rains really stop falling, when a society no longer can de-fine itself as a self sufficient unity: any envi-ronmental discourse is also a discourse on identity (Beek 1999).
Back, no w, to our first fascination, thé apoca-lypses. The Nordic, Christian and Aztec cata-clysmic futures occur on a level which tran-scends, almost totally, thé human level. The cataclysms are supra-human, the wars are far beyond thé human scale; also, all human rela-tions flounder in the face of the disasters, the signs m thé heavens, thé wobblmg moon, thé falling stars. This cosmic scale and its m-hu-manness is a problem. One hypothesis, simi-lar to thé new religious movements - would be that thé societies in question had been go-ing through intensive crises, through massive transformations, in order to generale these cataclysmic projected futures. Though this would hold for several cases - it has been ar-gued for thé Icelandic material - it is clearly not sufficient: many other cultures have been subjected to massive changes without compa-rable future projections.40 Also, apocalyptic
46
fervor seems to be limited to some régions of thé world. Leaving aside, for thé moment, thé tricky question of origin, we might consider thé apocalypses as the tip of the iceberg of projected futures. The majority of futures is well embedded in général views on time, so-cial relations and the environment, undei wa-ter. Only thé supra-human expressions of thèse visions vie for our attention, as examples of concentrated pessimism about thé way ahead. They are thé unmanageable part of futures that are human after ail. When compared to thé new messianic religions thé différence is clear: thé latter are examples of gentle apocalypses, in a humanized form and on a human scale. Thèse projected futures can be managed, be dealt with: human action and human intei ac-tion make a différence. As long as ritual, myth and ail other harking to the past, are still pos-sible, mankind can deal with the unknown fu-ture, steering an uncharted course between thé Scylla of dégradation and the Charybdis of the Apocalypse.
This article is the product of several public lec-tures, in Rotterdam Studium Generale, at the fust Summerschool of the Research School CERES at Utrecht, and during a visiting lecture at the Univer-sity of Cape Town and the UniverUniver-sity of Western Cape, South Afnca, m 1997. The methodological issue has been central in all discussions, especially at the Cape Town meeting, for which I thank the staff of the Anthropology Department of the UCT
1. For example Parkin & Groll (l992), Hobart (1993).
2. Research among the Dogon was carned out m 1978, 1979-1980, with additional held visits each year tili 1998.
3. Statement of a Kapsiki informant, North Came-roon, when I probed into preceptions of past
