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Meg Boswell, Civil Marriage Celebrant, designs and conducts Weddings, Naming Ceremonies, Renewal of Vows & Commitment Ceremonies on the Mid North Coast of NSW, Australia. CelebrationCeremonies.com is designed for couples who wish to be married in Australia understand the legal obligations and the design opportunities available with an experienced Civil Marriage Celebrant. From Nambucca Heads to Coffs Harbour and all between. |
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Rituals and Myths By Jim Boswell What are “Rituals” and “Myths”? Even though we might think that they belong in the ancient past Rituals and Myths are among the most powerful ways that our society and all other societies transmit important messages about our values in life. Far from being ancient ideas that modern humankind has grown out of, rituals and myths are powerful, unrecognised routines of modern life. Modern western society has become a battleground of competing rituals and myths struggling for power. Along with our mobile phones and our four wheel drives our pluralistic society has replaced many of the value systems of traditional cultures with a pluralism of competing value systems. Myths and rituals once central to the entire society have lost their wide appeal. But pluralism doesn’t lessen the need for ritual and myth. It underscores their importance. In our Western society rituals and myths are battling to possess us, but their messages are so much a part of life that we take them for granted and this is the source of their power. We are so emotionally engaged in what is happening that we suspend our questioning minds and buy the message. Ritual and myth are so much a part of our lives we take them for granted. We are shaped by values and we rarely recognise the shaping. Here is a commonly recurring family ritual: Father: "Get into bed and Daddy will tell you a story of Brer Rabbit. Which one would you like tonight?" Child: "The one about the blackberry bush!" Father: "Ah yes. You like that one don't you. OK. Are you ready? Once upon a time Brer Rabbit was hopping happily along the road when he fell into one of Brer Fox's many traps." And so the story of how the rabbit outwits the fox with a cunning deception is recited once again within the warm loving environment of parent and child. The child will fall asleep learning the values of the culture. The weaker but clever rabbit escapes once again from the bigger and stronger fox. This lesson in values may create another hero who will use wit to stand against a future bully. One reason why ritual and myth are such powerful communicators of values and systems is they employ two of the strongest and most lasting tools of communication, emotion and imagination. Rituals and myths often work together. The stories we were told as young children contained values that we probably still hold today, perhaps partly because they were told within a family ritual and the ritual reinforced the myth. The ritual and the myth combine to reinforce the message. The message may be a set of values like "the importance of private property" as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears . "Who's been eating my porridge?" said the father bear. Or the message may be about obligations like the mateship of the Aussie barbecue. Or it may be a strong moral like in The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'. Eventually the townsfolk did not believe the cry for help when it was honestly made. In all these instances ritual and myth work together as powerful allies using the repetition technique of story and human emotion and imagination in a communication that lasts. Because ritual and myth are such excellent communicators of values, societies use them to support the laws and punishment systems. Societies enforce community rules with laws and provide punishments as deterrents. Ritual and myth go much further. Rituals and myths don't only state what we should do or should not do - they also reinforce those messages with powerful appeals to emotions and sensibilities. Everyone knows that ethics is dry as dust and laws challenge some people to break them. But, if you want these lessons to be absorbed into the life of a child tell it as a story. Perhaps tell a story about a puppet whose nose grows every time he tells a lie and tell about boys who progressively turn into donkeys as they drink strong liquor then repeat it a few times to the child on the parent's knee and the messages are much more likely to form life values. Rituals and myths also convey community values. In the Goldilocks story "Who's been sitting in my chair?" is the repeated cry that almost becomes a liturgy. Through this repeated dramatic cry the relatively modern European values of private property are reinforced. (Did Goldilocks and the Three Bears contribute to the creation of the "me" generation?) As Chris Harris points out in his excellent text for religious education, Creating Relevant Rituals the same parents who told their children about the Three Bears also taught their children that Jesus said (Matt 6:28ff) "look at the flowers in the field they don't worry about owning things and you don't need to either." It would be interesting to check whether the tribal cultures that emphasise the importance of sharing for survival and community ownership have an equivalent myth to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Aussie Barby In the nineteen fifties and sixties the separation of the sexes at an Australian party was a national joke. Today Australian men and women stand and talk more in mixed groups at a party than they once did. But at the Australian Barbecue some things remain the same. The men cook at the barbecue even though they may never cook any other meal. The women prepare the other foods such as the salads and even though the salads may require much more time and effort to prepare the salads are secondary to the meat that the men cook. The barbecued meat by the men is central to the ritual. Another element of the ritual is the drink. The drink is mostly brought by all people attending. It is most common for the host family to provide the meat and salads, it is expected that guests will "bring their own" drinks. The drinks will probably be shared but there is an implied obligation that the guests will contribute to the drinks. This happens even without the written invitation that spells out "BYO drinks". What is the significance of this ritual? Why has the Australian barbecue grown up the way that it has? Even amongst generations of Australians with professional young women and sensitive new age men the barbecue ritual continues to play out the myth of mateship. Maybe, the myth of mateship celebrates the Australian bushman. In the nineteenth century the drovers and the shearers and the prospectors represented the unique identity of the Australian bushman. The bushman was a blend of physical toughness, courage in the face of hardship and fierce loyalty to his friends. Men had to stick together to survive in the harsh Australian environment. They worked for the large landowners (the Cockies) and they had to stick together to get a "fair go" against the rich landowners and the establishment. This is the bushman chronicled by Henry Lawson and the Bush Balladeers. Of course the majority of Australian men have always lived in the cities and suburbs. There was even a famous Battle of the Balladeers carried on in verse in the Bulletin between Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson. Patterson wrote about the romance of living in the bush and Lawson wrote about the hell of living in the bush. The bushman myth was just a romantic idea even for nineteenth century Australian men, but they identified with it and Australian men today continue to live it out in the ritual of the barbecue. Australian men are "mates". So each is expected to contribute to the ritual meal by bringing something to drink. It is not a feast laid on by a lord for his serfs but the hospitality of the bush where men share and they provide the bushman's staple food, meat. Women are participants in the ritual, but their contribution, the salads are considered of secondary importance. The women might serve the salad but the men serve the cooked meat. Mostly the participants process to the barbecue with their plates to ceremonially receive the meat from the host. It will be interesting to see how the ritual develops as the emphasis on gender equality continues. Many women have traditionally rejected the mateship-myth because of its emphasis on male dominance and some of its more aggressive and alcoholic outcomes, but I suspect that the self-assured women of the near future will be unthreatened by it. There are signs that the barbecue ritual is being changed by affluence as more elaborate equipment is available and more gourmet foods begin to replace the traditional steak and sausages. The ritual act is still a subtle communicator of the mateship values, but maybe the bonding axioms for Australians of the future generations will be different. Another simple event that is a mateship ritual though not performed as frequently as the barbecue ritual is the "can-yuh-giv-us-a-hand" ritual. It might be to move a load of furniture or to lay slab of concrete, or some other large project, but the ritual follows a particular form. The mates gather for some serious physical work. Women play a support role and provide morning tea and some sandwiches for the breaks and at the end of the job the host will provide a few beers. None of the visiting men will bring food or drink this time. This is a work ritual. They are providing their labour and they know that they will be fed by their mate. They also know that the host male is under an unstated obligation to reciprocate when one of the other mates has a similar project. This is the pay-back because the myth teaches that a man doesn’t "bludge" on his mates. Rituals of this nature are taken for granted they are just a part of life. They are "the way we do things around here" which is a simple definition of culture. Although they are taken for granted they are communicating complicated systems of values and demands amongst the participants. Rituals express and pass on values; and although they may develop and evolve, it is usually very slowly that they change. They normally pass on the tradition or the pattern that has been held dear. At the same time new rituals develop as new values develop. One of my few clear memories of when I was very young we had a family ritual on Friday nights. It was pay day for dad on Fridays and he would arrive home after a drink with his mates with fish and chips so that mum didn't have to cook and after what we then called "tea" we would walk with my baby brother in the pram to the local movies which was then called “the pictures”. When the pictures started a large picture of the King of England came on to the screen and we all stood up for the National Anthem. My dad only half stood up because he “didn't believe in that stuff", but at the same time he "didn't want to do the wrong thing in front of the kids". So he sort of partly rose in his seat. We had many other rituals that families don't have today, but there are still plenty of family rituals today. My son and my son-in-law were present in the delivery room with their respective wives when their children were born. That experience was forbidden to fathers when my children were born. Even though as part of my training for my career I had been present at the birth of other children I would not have been welcome at the birth of my own children. There are rituals that can be developed here. Other examples of liturgies and myths (coming soon ) Return to top
Celebration Ceremonies - Wonderful Wedding Venues Wedding Venues - Macksville to Coffs Harbour. As a Civil Marriage Celebrant Meg is authorised by the Government of Australia to perform marriage ceremonies ... |
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