New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xii, 169 pp. (Figures.) US$35.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-19-934114-6.
In Ritual Textuality, Matt Tomlinson presents a provocative study of varieties of ritual performance in contemporary Fiji, one that resonates with seminal anthropological works that have explored how ritual patterns establish and reproduce religious authority. In terms of analysis, he draws on semiotic and linguistic theory in an approach that is text-based and focuses on entextualization—a process whereby discourse is made into signs and texts that are arranged in patterns that can be separated and then replicated through performance. His goal in studying rituals as texts is to understand their efficacy; not merely in terms of how they affect participants, but also their contribution to the formation of language ideologies. In this he addresses what can be termed the cultural work that ritual communication does at a meta-level; the “micro-macro problem” that explores the use of language in relation to “larger social structures, particularly the structures of power and value that constitute the political economy of a society” (Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs, “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life,” Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1990, 19: 79).
Ethnographic research for this work was carried out over nearly two decades in several settings in Fiji, and analyses of four ritual performances are presented: a Pentecostal sermon; a Methodist sermon and ceremonial speeches delivered during Fijian kava ceremonies; testimonies of the Methodist belief in the “happy deaths” of religious converts; and recent post-coup political discourse circulated by Fijian government and military spokespersons.
Tomlinson grounds his analysis of ritual textuality in a review of literature relating to religion and communication which includes an ambitious summary of the complex lexis developed for linguistic and semiotic approaches to religious performance. From this theory he delineates four communicative patterns of entextualization: sequence, conjunction, contrast, and substitution, which are then analyzed in relation to ritual efficacy. One pattern is explored in each of the chapters that follows as each is constitutive to the efficacy of one of these performances.
The first type of entextualization, sequencing, Tomlinson identifies in the American preacher’s sermon delivered at an outdoor Pentecostal rally in Suva where ecstatic participants wait to receive the Holy Ghost. Sequence is evidenced by the numerous examples of a linked looping pattern involving repetition and parallelism. Continually repeating the sequence of declaration-promise-action establishes this text’s ritual efficacy, as repetition confirms the missionary’s performative authority.
In the following two chapters, entextualization in this preacher’s speech is compared to a Fijian Methodist minister’s sermon and an excerpt from traditional Fijian oratory. Significant amongst their differences is the Methodist sermon’s almost exclusive use of declaratives, while in Fijian speeches delivered during kava rituals the performative sequence declarative-promise-action is prevalent. This difference can be accounted for, Tomlinson argues, because the Methodist sermon follows a communicative path that unifies, and repeated declarative statements reaffirm the unity of the congregation that prays, sings and makes offerings in unison.
Tomlinson then considers the Christian communion ritual and focuses on conjunction as a form of entextualization which is evident in patterns of chiasmus, a verbal or literacy device that sees an inverted order reflected in text. Here he presents a detailed comparison of Christian rituals of communion, which use wine and bread to represent the blood and body of Christ, with Fijian kava rituals, both of which demonstrate a chiasmic X-shaped pattern reflected in a ritual crossing over of substances. For Christians, consuming consecrated bread and wine incorporates Christ’s body and blood into one’s being, which simultaneously incorporates oneself into the wider church of Christ, a chiasmic process; while in Fijian ceremonies, kava or the “water of the land or vanua” is presented to the chief so that he can symbolically appropriate it. Yet in taking control, it will turn and destroy him. An interesting aspect of Tomlinson’s discussion is whether kava might replace wine in the communion ritual. Though conceivable for Tomlinson since from a Western perspective kava and consecrated wine are both seen as sacred, transformative substances, it can be argued that as “blood and water” in Fijian culture, these markedly different ritual substances are symbolically too deeply opposed to allow substitution.
Nineteenth-century Methodist reports record the “happy deaths” of converts who joyously await the opening of the gates of heaven, in contrast to Fijian beliefs in a bleak afterlife that offered a series of struggles with other-worldly creatures. Tomlinson argues that the emerging contrast between life and death in these texts established a fractally recursive pattern of entextualization that reinforced a public-private distinction over time, continually pushing Fijian beliefs aside towards a less public space. Incidents he recounts reveal Fijians’ anxiety and negative attitudes towards death and the demonic, which furthered the consolidation of Christian belief. While it cannot be disputed that missionaries encouraged conversion or that Fijians express fear towards their afterlife, it can be argued that this public/private distinction represents a Western ontology, whereas in Fijian culture the significant distinction is between what is hidden versus open or clearly visible. On Viti Levu, villagers are extremely wary of secrets, particularly when anyone closes their doors or goes to a remote location to hide their activities. Secrecy arouses the suspicion that in this hidden space a person may be performing sorcery aimed at harming others.
Tomlinson’s final analysis examines linguistic coercion used by the Fijian state as it attempts to limit criticism and legitimize their seizure of government through force. The monologic discourse it generates explains away violence, claims to speak in a single ethno-nationalist voice shared by all Fijians, and deploys intimidation, imprisonment, expulsion, and censorship as tactics of linguistic repression. Substitution as a textual strategy does not only replace public discourse, however; circulation of a People’s Charter for Change that maps out a “shared utopian vision” for the future also erases it.
In his analysis, Matt Tomlinson provides an ethnographically detailed, well-argued account of entextualization and ritual efficacy in Fiji. His insightful analysis reveals a method of locating language ideology in several contexts, and demonstrates for the Fijian case how ritual performance articulates with structures of power.
Pauline McKenzie Aucoin
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
pp. 755-757