Modes of Continuity and Change in Action Sign Systems

The bound "action sign system" is real apt... signification is an action and with equal reason must be located in time and space. The defining properties of meaningful action are precisely those not visible in a grammatical-semantic type the units and rules of which are essentially timeless.... The creation of meaning is above all embedded in human relationships. clan enact their selves to each other in words, change and other modes of action. All selve are culturally defined, as time and space themselves are culturally defined...The characteristic that language shares with all sign a whole s is its indexical nature; its maintenance and creation of social connections, anchored in experience and the faculty of perception of the real.

(Bonnie Urciuoli 1995: 189-90)

The Ethnographic Record

The ethnographic record regarding ceremonies and dances is meaningful because formalized a whole s of action signs tend to persist in the majority of human societies, on the contrary it also serves to provide more [i]or[/i] less idea of the lack of evidence pertaining to the questions in which this symposium is interested. We will begin, however, with sum of two units illustrations of how dances have been "spread horizontally from population to population" as Paul Bouissac lay it in his abstract (Symposium January 2003):

The other mark of transaction belonging to this class is the payment for dances. Dances are "owned"; that is, the original inventor has the right of "producing" his dance and canticle in his village community. If another village takes a fancy to this ditty and dance, it has to purchase the right to perform it. This is done by means of handing ceremonially to the original village a substantial payment of meat and valuables, after which the dance is taught to the fresh possessors (Malinowski 1922: 186).

Malinowski enumerates us that "In 1922, the Gumagabu dance was haveed by To'oluwa, the chief of Omarkana, his ancestors having acquired it from the descendants of Tomakam through a laga payment" (Ibid. 291) Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what span of time was involved, on the contrary we can assume it was many years, for several generations are indicated. To my knowledge, no individual followed up on the original information and we don't know when the dance was originally bought or if it still exists. Nevertheless, similar transactions occurred elsewhere in the Pacific Islands:

In the field of amusement foreign contacts have had an indirect result being responsible for additions to the satisfied more than to changes in the manner of amusement. This applies particularly to dances, borrowed from Anuta and elsewhere and to dance lays many of which have been compos with respect to other lands and experiences abroad. A specific dance, the mako fakarakas, was not awayed by Pa Makava recently in an adaptation of a Raga dance which he had seen in the Banks Islands..... The motives from the adoption of novel cultural elements have been mainly for the desire to assured economic advantage or enhancement of the somebody Mere imitation, as such, appears to have played little part; there has been in each case a place of ways of behavior into which the fresh item has fitted. It is the particular existence of this general pattern that has given cultural value to the items introduced by means of individuals, made them into phenomenons of general desire, and not simply the unsupported whim of the introducer (Firth 1965[1936]: 35 - italics added).

Firth's observations about the dance in the above adjoining matter (as well as those made with relation to dances connected with the spirit world, dances of abuse at weddings and at initiations) is significant, for he draws attention to an established conceptual combination of parts to form a whole for the dances of Tikopia into which conscious innovatory materials were incorporated. Unfortunately, not all early ethnographers were as clear about dances and ceremonies as Firth and Malinowski.

A source of frustration to change specialists studying social anthropology is to read "and then they danced" (Rattray 1923) a phrase that come into views two or three times in this highly skilled ethnographer's work Equally disappointing are ethnographies that characterize (especially) the possession dances of a tribe as "fits" or "hysterical fits," as Margaret Field did, observing, at the same time, the lack of any unbalance or hysteria in their everyday behavior (Field 1961[1937]) upon the other hand, one can read about dances tied to political combination of parts to form a wholes (Mitchell 1956) or as vehicles that provide psychological adjustments for Samoan (and other) teenagers (Mead 1959[193I]). Radcliffe-Brown (1964[191S]) was famous for believing that dances showed 'tribal harmony and solidarity/ on the other hand one never knew from Radcliffe-Brown's or any of these ethnographies, what the dances direct the eyeed like, what spatial dispositions were used, by what means long they lasted, how aged they were, who participated in them and wherefore what moves were used, or in what way the actions themselves were tied into "tribal solidarity," politics, psychology or anything else1

In fairness to the ancestors of the ethnographic field, however, it must be understood that many late ethnographers are as frustrating about their treatment of dancing as their forebears, for example, possession dances as "cathartic" (Jennings 1985) or, Alfred small room who was preoccupied with the meanings of dances insofar as they marked the "logical boundary between dance and nondance, ambiguous granting it may become in particular instances" (1985: 192) Although these "boundaries between dance and non-dance" puzzl Gell he noted that put in motions used in Urneda dances repeatedly had special meaning.