This is an attempt to understand the ritual processes of Holy
Week, by dividing them into phases and sub-phases, as well as to
analyse a variety of transformations in the ritual processes wherein
some processes are emphasized by particular societies until the
implications that the processes try to convey deviate from the
Passion Play, the original theme of the Holy Week rituals. This
paper also attempts to locate my data on the Mixe Holy Week
rituals in the broad perspectives of Mesoamerican ethnography.
Most communities described in Mesoamerican ethnographies
perform each phase of the Holy Week rituals (usually lacking the
Carnival), without giving special emphasis to any particular phase.
This is a type of the simple presentation of the Passion Play. The
typical case is cited from the Mixe Holy Week performances which
I observed in 1973 and 1974, in the highland Mixe villages of
Oaxaca, Mexico.
The second type is a variant of the first one. The simple
presentation is elaborated and enriched with ritual elements such
as characters and ritual performances in which the details of the
Passion Play are re-enacted meticulously. Examples for this type
are found in economically and culturally developed communities
such as Yalalag, Mitla, Tzintzuntzan, Tome (New Mexico),
Chichicastenango, and Chinautla. In this type, the penitente, the
Carnival, and the dualism between Christ and Judas, are added
to the "flat" presentation of the Passion Play, although none of
the three elements is accentuated in the flow of the total ritual
processes. This type suggests three possibilities of transforming
the "flat" presentation of the Passion Play.
The first type of transformation is possible by an emphasis on
the penitente rituals, as reported from MichoacAn, and the hispanic
communities in New Mexico, where the penitente brotherhoods formerly
functioned as mutual help organization in their isolated rural
circumstances.
The second transformation is realized by emphasizing the
Carnival rituals. Syntagmatically, this phase precedes to the
rituals during the Holy Week per se, but paradigmatically the
Carnival rituals are a dramatic highlighting of what is performed
on the days between the Psalm Sunday and the Sunday of Resurrection.
The cases cited are from the highland and lowland
Maya communities, where indio-ladino tensions are reflected in the
Carnival ritual performances bearing a Christ-anti-Christ theme.
Urban cases of the Carnival, cited from Dominica, Andalusia and
others, lack a Christian theme, and the Carnival is performed as
the "ritual of reversals" [TURNER 1978] in which actual class
relationships are ritually reversed.
The third transformation is an emphasis on dualism. Cora,
Mayo, and Yaqui ethnographies offer rich data on this transformation.
Here, Christian images of the Holy Week performances
are overshadowed by the dualistic orientation and images inherent
in their native cultures.
Thus, syntagmatically the so-called Holy Week rituals show
a long series of phases and sub-phases, but paradigmatically the
presentations of penitence and dualism are their main purpose.
The two variations (types 1 and 2) and the three transformations
described above reflect the social situations and symbolic structures
inherent in the native societies, which functioned to incorporate the
Holy Week rituals into their own ritual systems. The main
purpose of this article is to describe and analyse these variations and
transformations and to decipher the implications which they try
to convey.
復活祭をめぐる儀礼の過程の変形と意味 : メソ・アメリカの民俗的想像力との出合い
KH_004_4_002.pdf
(2.65MB)
