ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of Durkheim's illustrative cases of collective effervescence and re-understands them from a status-power relational perspective. Durkheim takes no account of the status-power structure among the Aborigines themselves as it operates in one particular regard during the Wollunqua ceremony. Thus the Aborigines, using a carrot-and-stick approach, that is, conferring status and using power, hope to secure themselves from the Wollunqua's power. Durkheim knew that in the Aborigine religious tradition counter-power works. Vovelle writes: Romantic historians have left us with the impression of a collective upheaval, or an unforeseeable wave of enthusiasm. A Goffman would have needed to be present to capture even only some of the ironies and falsehoods that lay beneath the 'common passion'. The gerontocratic principle is clear here and it would be well within its bounds to allow the older men sexual opportunities that would be stringently prohibited for the younger men.
