ABSTRACT
This paper attempts two things: first, to state that ritual engenders a certain peculiar, even false, logic that has to be understood as some kind of subjectivity. The second is that the problem of subjectivity constitutes a type or a methodology within the framework and theory of culture. It would therefore be useful for me to illustrate with a few examples of ritual drama whilst simultaneously problematising a particular style, structure, characterisation as well as the context in which they are situated. I shall use theoretical models from social anthropology as well as from folklore and ethnology in Asiatic and in African cultures. After a study of trance and convention among a Yoruba sub-tribe in Dahomey (now Benin republic), Pierre Verger, sensing that a coherent structure or style did not emerge from the study, wondered aloud:
These festivals give the impression of a theatrical performance or even an operetta. Their cast, costume, orchestral accompaniment, solo and chorus differ little in spirit from the mystery and passion plays enacted in medieval Europe in the forecourts of the cathedrals. The salient difference is that in the present case the actors, if we may so call them, are in a state of trance...
In this article, I have not tried to indicate the part played by the simulation or fraud which seem likely affect (sic) this and other forms of possession behaviour. It is enough for us to realise that some of the trances are real, and that people in trance have acquired their conventional behaviour through the application of certain techniques during the course of a more or less lengthy initiation. [my emphasis, Verger, 1969: 64–65]
