The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language

This volume brings together representative case studies and surveys that explore research into ritual language, covering theoretical and methodological approaches that reflect traditional inquiries and more recent studies. This recent literature contends that ritual language hinges on the construction of authoritative ontological models about the cosmos and its inhabitants. Ritual speech also orchestrates performances that articulate representations of collective identities, and rests on the diversity of hierarchical forms of authoritative knowledge, displayed in both oblique and direct terms. Moreover, performances, texts, and narratives associated with ritual practices are closely entwined with historical accounts that navigate current memories, recast in a diversity of ways, about ancestral beings and distant or recent pasts, or delimit a terrain in which dialectical relationships with colonial hegemony and Christian indoctrination emerge to transform the social order. Ritual narrative often offers in its structure and delivery momentous representation of the social order, social institutions, social difference, and collective identities, and may also be constituted by claims about relations among species, non-human actors, and material culture.

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language addresses foundational questions regarding the scope, structuring, use, and consequences of ritual language. The chapters examine the relationship between speakers' consciousness and verbal ritual performances, and between ritual language, hegemony, collective authority, and the social world. As the study of ritual speech hinges on extensive analyses of linguistic choices and styles, the contributors draw on data from a wide range of language groups and societies in the Americas, the Middle East, the Pacific, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean.

David Tavárez, Professor of Anthropology, Vassar College

David Tavárez is Professor of Anthropology at Vassar College. His research focuses on language, culture, and history; Mesoamerica; religion and ritual; Indigenous intellectuals; and Native Christianities. His many publications include The Invisible War (Stanford University Press, 2011) and Rethinking Zapotec Time (University of Texas Press, 2022), as well as more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and chapters.

Part I. Ritual Language in History and Anthropology1. Language, ritual, and colonialism: A brief cultural history, David Tavárez2. The anthropology of ritual language: Classic and contemporary approaches, David TavárezPart II. Rethinking Ritual Language in Method and Theory3. The chronotopic and sonotopic work of ritual, Kristina Wirtz4. The language of secrecy, Paul Christopher Johnson5. The ritual language of militarization, Janet McIntosh6. Language and ritual healing, Timothy W. KnowltonPart III. Ritual Language, Colonialism, and State Hegemony7. Ritual language and sacred labor in Greater Mexico, Jennifer Scheper Hughes8. Ritual speech and text in early Cherokee Christianity, Margaret Bender and Thomas N. Belt9. Colonial rule and rituals of royal power in Morocco, Majid Hannoum10. Ritual, media, and the here-and-now of decolonization, Courtney Handman11. Ritual language and forced confessions in China, Magnus FiskesjöPart IV. Ritual Language, Cosmology, and Identity12. Language, ritual, and political legitimation in colonial Guatemala, Sergio Romero13. Indigenous territoriality and the mediation of space and scale in ritual language, Paul Liffman14. Affectivity and repetition in Amazonian ceremonial welcoming dialogues, Alexandre Surrallés15. Language, Nahua life-cycle rituals, and Indigenous identity, Abelardo de la Cruz16. Places that talk--and listen: Southern Quechua, Bruce MannheimPart V. Ritual Speech and the Arts of Sociability17. Drinking, talking, and ritual action, Paul Manning18. Ritual language and police discretion, Sonia N. Das19. Ritual language in West Africa: Participation and performance, Nikolas Sweet20. Language, worldview, and rituals of daily social interaction, Sean O'NeillPart VI. Ritual Language, Mediation, and Pluralism21. Scalar poetics in ritual language, Adam Harr22. Rituals of mourning and the poetics of Papiamentu talk radio, Louis Römer23. Ritualized learning and endangered languages, Morgan Siewert24. Embodied ritual performance and new writing systems, Nishaant Choksi