ABSTRACT
Like many other primitive peoples the Lele have no systematic theology, nor even any halfsystematised body of doctrines through which their religion can be studied. As practised by them, it appears to be no more than a bewildering variety of prohibitions, falling on certain people all the time, or on everybody at certain times. For the people who obey them, there is presumably some context in which these prohibitions make sense. But what is intelligible in them is not extracted from the rituals and presented in the form of myths or doctrines. Like all ritual, they are symbolic, but their meaning must remain obscure to the student who confines his interest to the rites themselves. The clues lie in everyday situations in which the same sets of symbols are used. It is like a religion whose liturgical language, by metaphor and poetic allusion stirs a profound response, but never defines its terms, because it draws on a vocabulary which is well-understood in nonliturgical writings.
