Prey Into Hunter: The Politics of Religious ExperienceMaurice Bloch has for many years been developing an original and influential theory of ritual. In this book he synthesizes a radical theory of religion. Rituals in a great many societies deny the transience of life and of human institutions. Bloch argues that they enact this denial by symbolically sacrificing the participants themselves, so allowing them to participate in the immortality of a transcendent entity. Such sacrifices are achieved through acts of symbolic violence, ranging from bodily mutilations to the killing of animals. The theme is developed with reference to rituals of many types, from a variety of ethnographic sources, and Bloch shows that even exogamous marriage rituals can be reinterpreted in the light of this thesis. He concludes by considering the indirect relation of symbolic and ritual violence to political violence. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Initiation | 8 |
Sacrifice | 24 |
Cosmogony and the state | 46 |
Marriage | 65 |
Millenarianism | 85 |
Myth | 99 |
Notes | 106 |
| 110 | |
| 114 | |
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abandoned aggressive alleyway ancestors anthropologists argued aspect associated become Benares body bride Buddhism bush cattle central chapter Christianity circumcision ritual concerned conquered consumed consumption cosmogony cremation dead death descent group Detienne Dinka sacrifice discussed divine domesticated pigs dramatic earthly eating ethnography evoked example exogamy external vitality fact female funeral gender Gibson Guinea Hindu Hubert and Mauss hunt idea idiom Ilongot implies initiation ritual Iteanu Japanese Japanese Buddhism journey killing Ladakhi legitimate Lewis Henry Morgan Lienhardt living Ma'Betisek male marriage rituals meat mediumship Meiji restoration Merina millenarian myth native vitality Orokaiva initiation participants person phenomena Phylactou plants and animals political rebounding conquest rebounding violence religion religious renunciation represented reproduction seen Shinto Shinto shrines Shintoism Shona shrine significance similar social society soul speech spirit mediumship stress temple transcendental transcendental element transformation tulah victim village virgin birth Vishnu wife-givers wife-takers women