Specificity of social-anthropological studies of ritual

Many fruitless controversies about 'ritual' are based on the multivocality of the word. By recent work by Tinbergen in ethology confines the term to rigid, highly formalistic, exaggerated behavior by animals in situations of compromise formation, where the animal is moved by contrary impulses to action. Similarly, in psychoanalytic writings the word is reserved for rigid formalistic actions which are defence mechanisms. These uses of the term are congruent with that social-anthropological use which has found that in tribal societies, in situations where there occurs sharp conflict of processes based on inconsistent, discrepant and contrary social principles of values, persons tend to be required to perform rigidly prescribed actions that exaggerate their normal social roles. Illustrations are given from initiation and political ceremonies; and these lead to an analysis of how ritual symbols transmute (sublimate) to ideological values energy roused by emotive stimulants. Thus ritual is directed to assert that social harmony prevails precisely in those situations where this harmony is most imperilled.