38 ‘The Buential Edmund Leach 4 Wogenstein, Tress, 6.421 5 Durkheim, Rormesdidmemates (ed eda, p. 3 6 CE the distinction made by Mercon (Social Theo) between manifs and laten faction. 7. The concept of eidar as developed by Bateson (aver) hae relevance for this paz of my argument 8, [Eds See the exact from Poliscal Sens of Highland Baym spioduced here 2813.2.) 9 Russell, Minar Knowledge p. 479. 10, For che individual, parccipation in «siual may also have other furesions ~ og, 2 cathartic psychological one ~ bac ehis, in ay view, is ouside the purview of the social anthropologist. 11. As this book may be eead by Americana well as by English ancheopologaes | need to emph- sise char the crm exdaae, aT se it, is noc that allernbracing category which i the subject mmatee of American cultural ancbropology. [am a social anthropologist and I am concemed with che social steuerare of Kachin een. For me the concepts of culture and society are quite istine. "Tf sociry is raken 10 bean aggregate of socal relations, chen culrue is the content of those celarions. Society emphasises the human component, che aggregate of people and the ‘elations beeween thes, Culture emphasises che component of accumulated resources, imma- ‘cil as well as matetial which the people inherit, employ, ransmute edd t, and transmit! Frcth, Slercnr of eval Organization, p. 27. For the somerrhat dffeent use ofthe term ealeare curren: among American antivepologsts see Kroeber, Naru of Caltwe, and Seodber and Kluckhoha, Cabwre 2.2 Ritualisation in Man (1966) Ji has become plain that the various contributors to this symposium use the key term ritual in quite different ways. The ethologists are consistent with one another; Professor Hinde's definition will serve forall: ‘itualisation refers to the evolutionary changes which che signal movements of lower vertebrates have undergone in adapration to cheie function in communication’. Such a definition has no relevance for the work of social anthropologists. Unfortunately, although ritualis a concept whichis very prominent in anthropological discourse, there is ‘no consensus as to its precise meaning. This is the case even for the anthropol- ogist contributors to this symposium; for example, I myself use the term in a dif- ferent way from Professor Fortes whose paper immediately follows my own.’ Even so certain major differences between the positions of the ethologist and the social anthropologist need to be noted. For the ethologist, ritual is adaptive repetitive bchaviour which is characteristic of a whole species; for the anthropologist, cual is occasional behaviour by particular members of a single culture. This conerast is very radical. Professor Erikson has suggested, by implication, that we may bridge the gap by referring to ‘culture groups’ as ‘pseudo-species. This kind of analogy may be convenient in certain very special kinds of circumstance, but it is an exceedingly dangerous kind of analogy. It is in fact precisely this analogy which provides the bass for racial prejudice wherever we encounter it. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that ritual, in the anthropologists sense, is in no way whatsoever a genetic endowment of the species. The Aesthesc F Anthropole are not gene distinguished: () Behavie our standards way... we ca @) Behavic and ends but | + We can cal ) Behavic the actors but natively behat powers even € ‘magical’ beha These dist actions consid an Englishma: The orthoc adheres, is to behaviours of ‘complex reaso tion beeween | or trivial so th Although s pologists wou! ogists, would eg. the wl Tels character which is in a whole is self passage, we syllables, phon ritual element trations of thi complexity of or decode the very plain anc tends to be ve conveyed, the Here itis sender seeks t noise, ambigu