Understanding and Manifestation of Culture—Anthropological Rituals

Tags: culture | ritual

When it comes to rituals, what appears in our mind at once will be a rich picture filled with mystic symbols and the events full of lively, passionate scenario. Rituals, de facto, have played an essential part in the process of human civilization. Over a long period of time, human beings have “reserved” their collective knowledge, memories, and emotions by the manifestation of rituals, so they are able to turn their historical memories, collective knowledge and wisdom into repetitious acting in rituals in terms of symbolic units, objects and behavior accordingly. What interests us is a crucial peculiarity of human behavior—repetition, which comprises what have been said, expressed, felt, thought, etc. The human intercommunication is achieved through incessant repetition while the system of meaning takes shape. This is also how people accumulate their experience as well as how they carry it on from generation to generation.
Therefore, human beings construct collective understanding and build up their common social memories through repetitious behavior. In this way, they will be able to create their own identity and a sense of belonging. In addition, each acting behavior on each ritual equates to a practice of writing this culture once again, and writing on this culture each time symbolizes another interpretation and understanding of this culture. A new re-presentation of such culture will be accomplished through the understanding via the mentioned writing process.
Therefore, we intend to represent the characteristics of every tribe through the manifestation of three major ceremonies with the image of the participants and the instruments included as well—first, the exhibition concerning the ceremony of life, which contains the rituals of birth, child naming, crossing manhood, marriage, and funerals; second, the seasonal ceremonies featuring activities that have to be practiced along with seasons, such as tilling, fishing, and hunting, and third, the ceremonies meant to facilitate the evocation of misfortune and the invocation for blessings, especially when people encounter natural disasters, such as storms, floods, and plagues. Moreover, the collection likewise exhibits the personal figures that get themselves involved in the aforesaid ceremonial activities, as well as the image of ritual instruments. Through the process of display in the rituals, and with its exaggerations and infiltrations, individuals not only experience the delight in singing and dancing of it, but more importantly these rituals allows one to embrace a process of socialization at an individual level. When see take the ritual as a process of linking personal experiences with that of the society, the existence of humans lies not in the question of “existence” anymore, but more importantly on the question of “growth”. Basically, we are able to classify three aspects of what has been “reserved” and “expressed” through the rituals— firstly, the information of the interactions between humans and nature, secondly, the information on the interaction between humans, and lastly, the information on how individuals deal with their internal beings. Each individual retained in the society is to develop a distinction which this society requires him to obtain, a socio-cultural quality. This is exactly what makes humankind evolve from their natural and biological beings to the souls with social and cultural nuance.

Please click on the following links to view more details in our collection.


Rituals on Life—Every Turning Point of Life

Seasonal Rituals—How Humankind Reach the Harmony with the Nature

The Evocation of Misfortune and the Invocation for Blessings—A Promise from Supernatural Powers