RITUALISERET TALE I HOVEDLØSE SAMFUND

Abstract

Hanne Veber: Ritualized Speech in

Headless Societies. The Constitution of

Power and Publicness in the Amazon

Anthropology conceptualizes native

Amazonians as prototypical egalitarian

societies. In these societies, formal leadership

is weak and seldom operative beyond

the extended family or local group level. It is

based on personal prestige and the ability to

inspire confidence. The leader is expected to

guide his following through the topography

of the economic and the socio-political

landscapes but is in no position to give

orders or command. This weak power

syndrome has inspired the term “headless

society” in the literature. Pierre Clastres has

developed the idea that a systematic antistate

campaign is embedded in Amazonian

social structure and therefore, centralization

and consolidation of power has been precluded.

Short of subscribing to Clastres’

argument, it is clear that power in

Amazonian societies, as elsewhere, is based

on consent and this fumishes the only

measure of its legitimacy. The questions

remain, then, how is order constituted in the

absence of explicit mechanisms for enforcement

of rules and norms, and how are

potential conflicts solved? One answer is

furnished by the institution of ritualized

speech or ceremonial dialogue found in most

Amazonian societies. These constitute

devices of meta-communication through

which human interaction is regularized.

Years ago, the Danish anthropologist Niels

Fock explored the Waiwai oho-chant as a

form of legal authority in Weber’s sense,

supplementing the traditional authority on

which Waiwai leadership rested. The

relation between the two forms of authority

remained unclear, however. Greg Urban

views ceremonial dialogue through the

optics of semiotics and demonstrates its

regulative social functions, thus providing a

sophisticated confirmation of Fock’s earlier

hypothesis. Comparative data on ritualized

speech from the author’s fieldwork among

the Pajonal Asheninka of eastem Peru

demonstrates how potential conflicts are

negotiated through ritualized speech and

how the resolutions are confirmed through

their being made public by the ritualization.

In this sense ritualized speech facilitates a

smooth flow of social life - even in the

societies with no head.