The conjunction of non-verbal and verbal performances in ritual is a phenomenon now well acknowledged in the anthropological literature. The prevalent view of these two aspects of ritual, it seems clear, is that they are both modes of symbolic expression analysable as communicative activity. In the 1968 Malinowski Memorial Lecture on “The Magical Power of Words”, for instance, Tambiah has argued that the important feature of this conjunction of word and deed is the manipulation of metaphor and metonym, following Jakobson’s discussion (1956) of these two linguistic forms. Specifically, he says that (Trobriand) ritual “actively exploits the expressive properties of language, the sensory qualities of objects, and the instrumental properties of action simultaneously in a number of ways” based on the principles of similarity and contiguity which underlie the construction of metaphors and metonyms (1968:189–90).

The idea of ritual as a performative, in Austin’s sense (1962), is further developed by Tambiah in his 1979 Radcliffe-Brown Lecture. Here, Tambiah distinguishes two aspects of ritual as performative : the “constitutive” and the “regulative”. The former “achieves the realization of the performative effect” while the latter “orientate(s) and regulate (s)a practical or technical activity” (1979:127–30).There are various implications of this view of ritual (which Tambiah explores) but we may note here that a key feature identified by Tambiah is the redundant social communication of meaning involving “interpersonal orchestration … social integration and continuity” (1979:133).

Fox (whose work Tambiah refers to amongst others) expresses a somewhat similar view. In a description of the ceremonial system of Savu in Eastern Indonesia, Fox (1979), drawing on a later study of Jakobson’s (1970) on auditory and visual signs as semiotic systems distinguished respectively by time and space as structuring principles, has suggested that both (“oration” and “ostension”) may be considered as different modalities in ritual. He then goes on to show that both modalities (at least in the case of the ritual systems of the Savunese and Rotinese which he compares) exhibit the features of complementarity, markedness and parallelism more commonly associated with the analysis of linguistic phenomena.

Though concerned with the verbal and non-verbal aspects of ritual behaviour, Tambiah and Fox approach the subject from different but essentially complementary perspectives. Whilst Tambiah examines specific Trobriand rituals, Fox examines the entire ceremonial system of the Savunese. Yet, it is apparent in their analyses that the significance of specific rituals cannot be grasped without taking into account the totality of the symbolic systems of the societies they look at, and vice versa. In the literary analogy that Fox refers to (1979:171), we might say that in order to understand rituals, they need to be “read” as part of a single “text”. The analogy is, in many respects, an apt one for the analyses that Tambiah and Fox advocate (despite differences in emphasis) both draw attention to the need to examine the ways in which meanings primarily associated with linguistic categories and forms may be expressed, similarly, in non-verbal performances which include the nature of the interaction of participants in ritual situations, the possibility that symbolic meaning may attach to the very participants themselves, and the manipulation of material objects in such contexts. They also establish the necessity to determine the range of contexts within which such symbolic expressions may take place and, thereby, guide the interpretation and analysis of the general and particular significance of these expressions.

These two discussions of the relation between act and language in ritual are instructive and provide a convenient starting point for this examination of Palokhi agrarian rites and, for that matter, the other rituals I have singled out for mention in earlier chapters. As we shall see, it will be necessary to re-examine the Head Rite and ‘au’ ma xae in the context of the ceremonial cycle in Palokhi.

Although there are certain features specific to Palokhi agrarian rites, they nevertheless share two essential generic characteristics which also distinguish the Head Rite and ‘au’ ma xae, namely, the recitation of formulaic prayers, and that most quotidian of activities — eating and drinking — as the focus of most non-verbal ritual performances. As with these two rituals, the prayers in agrarian rites are not impressive, public performances (though they are uttered in generally public situations), nor are the ritual acts highly colourful and dramatic events. They are best seen as falling in-between Fox’s two modalities of ritual, “oration” and “ostension”.

There is, however, one important difference between agrarian rites and the Head Rite and ‘au’ ma xae: agrarian rites are sequentially integrated following the cycle of swidden cultivation and they thus make up a cycle of ritual activities which are repeated annually. They are, therefore, not simply agricultural rituals but also calendrical rites articulated with certain key phases or stages in the agricultural calendar. Furthermore, these agricultural rituals taken as a whole, that is, as an annual complex, are performed individually by households at certain times and as a community with the headman and elders acting as ritual mediators between the community and the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land. In other words, the ceremonial cycle in Palokhi brings together the two different themes of the Head Rite and ‘au’ ma xae rituals — the interdependence of households as a ritual community in the former, and the separate identity and autonomy of domestic groups in the latter — within the overall structure of what is, substantially, a single corpus of annual ritual performances.