ABSTRACT
One of the popular questions in recent anthropology is how the memory of groups is conveyed, or how a tradition is invented. Ceremonies, especially commemorative ones, are often mentioned as typical examples of apparatuses which groups use to remember particular events in changing social circumstances. What people commemorate in such ceremonies are not only great revolutions or dramatic historical events but also personal achievements or the presentation of self-images. In addition, the emphasis is not always on the same ideology set by the social structure or asserted by a dominant group. Being on the one hand an apparatus that a particular group utilises so that people remember their version of statements, on the other the ceremony is also an opportunity where ordinary people remember other experiences, sometimes by modifying it within certain constraints in order to create meanings or images in support of their own interests. I argue in this chapter that the ceremony can create multivocal social memories.
