ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the semantics of ritual symbols in Isoma, a ritual of the Ndembu, and to construct from the observational and exegetical data a model of the semantic structure of the symbolism. The binary-opposition red cock/white hen is significant in at least three sets of classifications in Isoma. Indeed, single symbols may represent the points of interconnection between separate planes of classification. The Ndembu belong to a great congeries of West and Central African cultures, which conjoin with considerable skill in wood-carving and the plastic arts an elaborate development of ritual symbolism. In other Ndembu ritual contexts, movement represents life and stillness death: the cock is consecrated for slaughter. Lewis Henry Morgan, though he faithfully recorded many religious ceremonies, had a marked disinclination to give the study of religion the same piercing attention he devoted to kinship and politics.
