Emotional Cultivation and the Chaotic Emotion: Towards a Theory of Ritual, Musical, and Emotional Parallel Morphology, as Encountered in Andalusian Ritual Practices
- W. Gerard Poole
- 3 days ago
- 32 min read
This paper is the published version of my multi-media presentation at the "Ritual Dynamics Conference", held in Heidelberg, Germany, 2008.
Body, Performance, Agency and Experience (Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual) Hardcover – December 1, 2010
by Angelos Chaniotis (Editor), Silke Leopold (Editor), Hendrik Schulze (Editor)
The Chaotic Emotion: Towards a Theory of Ritual, Musical, and Emotional Parallel Morphology, as Encountered in Andalusian Ritual Practices
W. Gerard Poole
Part I Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to present an opening argument for the possibility that the varieties of religious experiences might be intimately related to the cultivation of emotional modalities, especially through communal musical rituals. I will propose a theoretical relationship between three key ritual elements: ritual structure, emotional mode, and musical form.
Before I introduce the elements of Andalusian ritual that I will be examining, I need to make some very basic preliminary remarks about where this article is situated theoretically in regards to ritual studies. I will begin by noting that although William James, through his pioneering work, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), did bring the study of the emotions into academic prominence (168, 217, 287, 307), the real focus of his work was, as the title implied, the religious experience itself. James, always ahead of his time, saw possible relationships between the emotions, the religious experience, and the qualities of conscious states (162,369, 403,546, 552-555). But it was not until Nils Wallin, much later, with his own pioneering work, Biomusicology: Neurophysiological, Neuropsychological, and Evolutionary Perspectives on the Origins and Purpose of Music (1991) that we have a theory that proposes a critical role for music in the expansion of emotional categories and an emergent consciousness among early humans, a role that is framed within a neurobiological and evolutionary context. Furthermore, we have witnessed over the past 20 years the rise of a substantial body of neurobiological and clinical literature that also directly links human consciousness to the emotions (i.e.; Juslin and Sloboda 2001; LeDoux 1996; Damasio 1999; Wallin 1991: 481-485, etc.), and that theoretically links the evolution of music with certain evolutionary adaptive advantages (i.e.; Mithen 2006: 106-107, 163, 165-166; Livitin 2008: 4, 54-55; Jourdain 2002: 55-57, 112, 205-218).
What I explored in my dissertation, El Rocio: A Case Study in Music and Ritual in Andalusia (2007) was how the deliberate cultivation of the emotions through music and sacred ritual systems might have played a powerful role in human cultural evolution. However, my work also consistently suggested to me that the religious experience had to be given a central, not peripheral, place within sacred ritual systems if the relationships between the emotions, music, and ritual were to make sense- which brought me back to William James. Furthermore, as I began to formulate my theory I realized that I had inadvertently re-encountered the myth and ritual debate that had raged in the early 20th century. It seemed to me that the issue was still relevant if we are to understand the role of ritual in human culture.
The study of ritual began with a prolonged and influential debate on the origins of religion that gave rise to several important styles of interpretation—evolutionary, sociological, and psychological—from which new fields of scholarship emerged. The simple question at the heart of this productive controversy was whether religion and culture were originally rooted in myth or in ritual.
—Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (1997, 3)
What is at stake if we privilege the role of myth is that the ritual experience becomes peripheral in favor of the enactment of mythological constructs. This was the case with the structuralism of Levi-Strauss, who completely dismissed the study of ritual, and with it, the possible role religious experience, in favor of the primacy of myth and language (1958). The dominance of language based, or discourse, theories within the humanities have retained their position ever since. But what has also been curiously absent from ritual analysis over the past 40 years, is the religious experience itself; with one notable exception, the marginalized discipline called Biogenetic Structuralism, first introduced by Charles Laughlin and Eugene d’Aquili (1974). It seemed that if ritual is dismissed from analysis, so is the religious experience.
One might suppose that in the field of ethnomusicology, a field wherein the analyst is continuously confronted with the phenomenon of music and trance, the trance experience would have been well studied. But this is not actually the case. For a number of reasons (none of them good), ethnomusicologists have been borrowing their theoretical premises from the rest of anthropology. Consequently the family of discourse theories has also dominated ethnomusicology- precisely, given the supposed role of music, where it should not have. A fundamental characteristic of music is that it can function both self-referentially and referentially depending on how it is employed.
An extreme example is the influential work of G. Rouget’s Music and Trance (1985), where he states categorically that musical affectivity is nil and that both music and trance are socially constructed phenomenon better understood within a political context; power inequalities. A milder position is one espoused by Judith Becker (2005), where music plays a slightly more significant role, but only in so far as it serves as a vehicle for “narrative” substitutions of the self (146). Only in the work of Steven Friedson are we presented with a real music and ritual “technology” at work (1996: 166). Unfortunately, Friedson, like Wallin, Laugjlin and d’Aquili, also occupies a very marginalized space within the academic landscape. If one follows the arguments of the three ethnomusicologists cited previously, to what degree they emphasize the role of musical self-referentiality and its effects upon the nervous system, versus its potential to function more like language, within a ritual trance context; is the distinguishing factor in their theories concerning music and trance.
But my studies suggested to me that while the enactment of myth might in fact be the case in many rituals, it was certainly not the case in others. I began to see that if a ritual is enacting a myth then it does function symbolically; like a language. In that case the ritual activity points outside itself in the same way language refers to something outside itself. In these kinds of rituals, there can be can be some efficacy, if very limited, in the application of Discourse theories. However, if the ritual is intended to induce a religious experience, then the ritual activity points to itself; it becomes self-referential and the mythological content plays a very secondary role if any, depending upon the experiential degree of the ritual. In these cases, discourse theories are not only virtually useless, they can be, and have been, very misleading.
Furthermore, I began to suspect that such experiential rituals created the experiences out of which mythological content was generated in the first place; the content that would eventually be enacted through symbolic rituals. Experiential rituals then, generate discourse to a far greter degree than discourse effects the religious experience- hence the virtual uselessness of trying to apply discourse theory to experiential rituals. It is much like attempting to reconstruct a ritual through a myth- something that ritual studies realized was a fruitless endeavor (see Frazer….etc.). For example, we have volumes fo Greek mythology at our disposal, yet we know next to nothing about their rituals. What little we do know, we owe to first and second hand historical descriptions. If all we had were the myths, we wouldn’t even know where to start.
A symbolic ritual then, according to this model, refers directly or indirectly to the religious experiences that underlie the ritual system of which the symbolic ritual in question is a part of. Accordingly, ritual systems could be seen as systems of interrelated formalized human behaviors that generate cultural content knowledge beginning with myths that refer to knowledge of the religious experience. However, the real power of these systems would reside in their ability to integrate basic human behaviors into all areas of human endeavor through a process I called ritual proliferation (Poole 2007, 291). Essential to this process is the role of music and emotional cultivation.
While exploring the ritual and musical relationship I also began to see a parallel between that relationship, and the ritual and myth relationship. I arrived at a simple, but I think useful basic formula:
Myth/ritual ~ Language/music
Or
Myth/religious experience ~ discourse/music
These ratios are simply analogs of the basic semiotic processes of experience and representation, which is the issue at the heart of discourse theories. However, once we understand that by the power of ritual we mean the power of experience, in particular the religious experience, then the parallel with the musical function becomes very interesting, as do the implications for the exaggerated role of language privileged by discourse theories. Studies on the neurobiology of music are revealing that music has the capacity to fully activate or “light up” (as the neurobiologists like to put it), the entire brain in ways that language simply cannot do[i]. Curiously, the only other phenomenon that is comparable (with the exception perhaps of sex), is the religious experience (private correspondence with C. Laughlin; d’Aquili and Newberg 1999: 26). This suggests, tentatively, that musical experiences and the religious experiences might share a number of basic evolutionary commonalities. If we look at this possible relationship in the light of the relationship just discussed regarding the religious experience and ritual, then we come to the consideration of another relationship that is actually very common among ritual practices cross-culturally; the actual identity of music and ritual in the purely musical ritual. There are many examples of human rituals among many diverse cultures, in which the musical performance is the ritual.[ii] Furthermore the sacred music ritual is particularly common (Nettle 1983:165-166).
I am proposing here that ritual, like music, can function along a spectrum ranging from the self-referential (the more experiential rituals), to the referential (the more symbolic rituals). Furthermore, I am arguing that the degree of self-referentialism is directly related to the role of the religious experience. I say that because a symbolic ritual is inherently referring to something outside itself, and I am arguing that what the symbols and discourse within a sacred ritual ultimately must be referring to is the displaced religious experience within its own symbolic content. If I am correct, then we can begin to see the possibility of an underlying connection that would bring sacred ritual, music, and the emotions, into a functional relationship; I am proposing that the underlying connection would have to be the varieties of religious experience.
What follows is based on my dissertation work cited above. I have provided music and video examples online at: www.musicandritual.org/Forms, however the argument of the article can be followed without reference to them.
Part II Proto-ritual forms of station and procession
At the risk of stating the obvious I would like to first draw the reader’s attention to what I believe are the two fundamental proto-ritual forms: The stationary ritual form, and the processional ritual form. They are not behaviors that in themselves automatically indicate a ritual, but rather I consider them to be basic instinctive behavioral patterns, similar to what Nils Wallin referred to as “archaic fragments” (Wallin 1991, 484), out of which deliberate communal human rituals could have come into being.
Frits Staal in his Rituals Without Meaning; Rituals, Mantras, and the Human Sciences (1989), suggests that the oldest rituals in the world consisted of mantras (a kind of structured sound utterances similar to chant) intoned before an alter dedicated to the element of fire. We can easily extrapolate this as sound making around a campfire, or hearth. Since the fire itself according to Stahl was central to the ritual intention as well as being physically central, it served as a focal point for these early rituals and was inevitably either physically present or represented. These fire rituals may have utilized many different mantras that were performed at different times and for different purposes (65-67). In other words, at the ritual site, the fire alter, were performed a variety of rituals differing in mood and intention.
For purposes of this article, what is essential to understand about the stationary ritual form is that it is a site through which intentional emotional states can cycle through. For instance, in the stationary Catholic Mass, the cycles of the Church calendar move through it. The Mass, in a very real sense, takes on the color and mood of the changing seasonal cycles of the Church. The basic structure of the Mass, the ritual sequence of events, remains virtually the same (New Advent, “Liturgy of the Mass”), only the “mood” and theme of the didactic elements change; the symbols and their exegesis. Furthermore, within a single Mass, there can be a number of emotional responses to different discursive elements.
The processional proto-ritual, on the other hand, is constituted by choreographed (or structured) communal movement that will inevitably tend to manifest a single focused emotion, a single mode and purpose. Naturally the proto-processional ritual structure can be used to manifest a variety of intentions and modes, but not within the same procession. If the reader considers this relationship between the ritual procession and a single purpose, a single emotional mode, it becomes self-evident; it really can’t be otherwise. We can even say that in many ritual systems processions will manifest emotional modes that cycle through a stationary ritual. In Catholicism for instance, there are many specific processions for specific times of the year and they will start within a Church after a Mass. The distinction is that the procession will manifest a specific intention at a specific time. It employs choreographed movement and when combined with internalized musical structures, can be a powerful tool through which to focus and intensify specific emotions. Because of the innate characteristic of the processional ritual, its singular focus in terms of intent, they can provide us with an opportunity to look closely at the relationships that might exist between ritual structure, emotional content, and musical structure- and most specifically, how they might change in relation to each other over time within a given practice. The processional rituals are especially of interest because throughout the world we can still find societies wherein ritual processions are common place and that still function as living vital rituals within the culture- by that I mean, they still generate cultural content; new music, new literature, new aesthetics.
Below I provide some examples from within Andalusian ritual system to demonstrate the fact that many specific musical forms, and even entire musical genres, can originate as processional music. The list will also highlight to the reader the fact that some very basic processional modalities seem to be fairly common among many, if not all, human societies, and they present us with useful examples of how various categories of emotional modes and aesthetic values can be cultivated in very particular ways. Some processions, such as the Bull Fighting procession, can be very unique to the specific culture, while others such as the funeral, coronation, and wedding processions are quite common. Again, for the most part the fact that processions exist, and are possibly ubiquitous, is something most of us might consider as common knowledge, but it is also true that processions are a cultural phenomenon that scholarship has not paid much attention to. Furthermore, that there is often a very specific musical component to most processions is also something taken for granted, yet processional music as a historical and evolutionary phenomenon has received virtually no academic attention even by musicologists. Finally, it should be noted that even today, we can still find new musical genres being generated by processional practices as is the case in some of the examples below.
Specific Ritual Processional category | “Station” within Cyclical Ritual System | Loosely associated word for emotional cast, or “dye”[1] | Musical Form |
Andalusian Romerías: Processional Pilgrimages such as El Rocio. | Tend to be in the Spring.However these processions are not overtly linked to the cycles of nature. They are directly related to the Catholic Calendar, but with local peculiarities. | Joy/ glorification/ praise/renewal | Sevillanas Rocieras (since early 1970’s: generates an extensive popular music industry),
Fandangos Family (since at least 19th century: continues to generate popular music)
|
Corpus Cristi | In accordance with the Church Calendar | Mystery/miraculous/glorification | Gregorian chant (traditional, circa 12th century) |
Holy Week | In accordance to Church calendar. | Loss/sorrow/purgation/salvation/redemption/ glorification | Saeta (late 19th century, early 20th: Continuous to generate popular music)
“Military” marching band (since the late 19th century, limited seasonal popular music).
|
Wedding | Human life cycle | Happiness/Hope/New Possibilities for the future/fertility/social cohesion/procreation/perpetuation of family, clan, nation… | Alboreas (Gypsy)
[Currently there is no single musical form specifically for wedding processions] |
Funeral | Human life cycle | Loss/hope/promise of eternal-life/redemption | Playeras[iii] (Gypsy, late 19th, early 20th century)
[No longer are there specific funeral processional music]
|
Military Procession/Parade | Manifestation and projection of National identity and projection of military strength. Territorial marking. | Power display/Triumph/Territorial domination/ Crisis response/ | National Anthem, Military Marches, Spanish Paso Doble (19th Century) |
Coronation | Legitimizing (and/or sanctifying) social/cultural order and authority. | Pride/Joy/Solemnity/Grandeur/Legitimization of authority and stabilization of social order | 19th or 18th century (“Romantic”) anthems or sacred Catholic hymns. (no longer newly composed for the occasion; no music industry). |
Bull Fight Processions (“Ballet of Death”) | [Uncertain original purpose, today it is a national spectacle with no religious function] | Masculine display, cultural identity, human drama | Spanish Paso Doble (19th Century- limited music industry in Andalusia, but has generated a world wide industry as a Ballroom Dance genre). |
Carnival/parody | According to Church calendar, but not officially a religious ritual celebration | Social reversal/fertility/parody/social commentary | Tanguillos de Cádiz (Late 19th Century, still performed, new compositions)[iv] |
“Chaotic Procession” | ???? – Can happen within almost any sacred Andalusian procession, but today they seem to occur mostly within those carried out by the laity. They are not a discreet genre in and of themselves, but are culminations, of certain Holy Week and Romería processions] | Mystical, ecstasy, fear/awe, anxiety, overflow, excess, emotional intensification, emotional convergence | [Noise/ineffable: At their chaotic culmination, both music and language are transcended and cease to function coherently] |
The short and incomplete list given above reveals an incredible historical and cultural scope just in terms of musical genres. The Corpus Cristi Gregorian chants can be over 1,000 years old, while the Paso Doble of the Spanish bullfights have been exported from Spain and introduced into popular cultures all over the world as a genre of Ballroom dancing (!) I will now look at the three overtly sacred processions from the list: The processional pilgrimages, or romerías, the Holy Week processions, and the Corpus Cristi processions in order to present an example of how rituals may proliferate from within other rituals as distinct emotional categories.
The three interpretive modalities of the Mass
The Mass, according to church doctrine as described in the Catholic Encyclopedia (C.E.), has three interpretations through which communion may be understood:
· Sacramental/Mystery: Mystery of transubstantiation and communion with God through the Holy Spirit
· Sacrificial: Ritual atonement, call to consciousness, acknowledgment of sacrifice, sorrow, penitence, rogation
· Celebratory: Resurrection, Easter Sunday, triumph of life over death, intercession, rogation.
These three approaches, or interpretations, may be seen as corresponding to the three basic emotional ritual “modes”, (again, as I am referring to them) within the Andalusian Catholic Ritual System.
· De Gloria: Devotional, celebratory, and joyful, “de Gloria” rituals transferred to Mary as “Daughter, mother, and wife” of the Christ (Clark 1981, 109). Blessings, bounty of God on earth, renewal and life affirmation, also rogation as intercession; the romerías are rituals of glorification. These rituals are carried out by lay brotherhoods.
· De Penitencia: Passional/penitent, purgative, sorrowful; Holy Week processional rituals. These rituals are also carried out by lay brotherhoods.
· De Mysteria )/Sacramental: Contemplative/miraculous, mystery, meditative: the Corpus Christi processions, adoration of the sacrament, solitary or internal pilgrimage, quest. The actual processions of Corpus Cristi in Andalusia are carried out primarily by the clergy.
As the chart reveals, entire musical genres have emerged in Andalusia directly from these three processional emotional modalities generated from the Mass. The three ritual modes, although distinct in the initial emotional focus, also provide an example of a circularity that can easily occur no matter which modality one begins with. The “joyous sorrow” is a common phrase used to describe the Passion. Likewise, a common phrase found in Andalusian lyrics is “Alegre canto mis penas,” or “Joyfully I sing my sorrows.” Noticing these seemingly paradoxical emotional relationships, even if they seem superficially to be only semantic juxtapositions, is the first step towards understanding the phenomenon that I am calling “emotional convergence”, a phenomenon that can follow from deliberate ritual emotional intensification to an extreme degree. This phenomenon will be discussed further on with the “chaotic procession” of La Salida, below. But first I must give a brief introduction a third element that plays a critical role in Andalusian Catholic ritual: The Andalusian musical form.
Part III Introduction to the Andalusian Musical Form
First of all we must be clear that the Andalusian form, called palos, literally “sticks” or “staffs”, are not what we might think of as a composed song. Also, no Andalusian palo is a standalone phenomenon; there are many palos, all interrelated in what we might call a “tree” or family of musical forms. I have provided a series of interpretations of a single form in order to demonstrate the fact that for many listeners each example will seem to have little in common with the other (Forms/1). It will be difficult to hear what it is, structurally, that the sequence of songs are supposed to have in common. However, the commonality in emotional “mood” (or mode) will be obvious. This brings out a critical distinction between a song and an Andalusian palo: A song can be sung in many different ways that can change the emotional tone mode of the song. But an Andlusian palo has the emotional content inherent within its performative structures; an essential aspect of learning to perform the palo is to learn the emotional content of the particular palo, especially as it contrasts with the other palos of the tree. The internalized structures and the emotional modality are inseparable. The solear form, is the solear emotional content. As we will see in the case of the Sevillanas, this does not mean that the palo cannot change, or that its emotional content cannot change, but what it does mean is that if the emotional content changes, the musical structure of the palo will change as well, and if the process continues, a new form will emerge out of the old form to become a new palo, and I argue, a new emotional “mode”. This may seem controversial, but I am suggesting that with a new musical form emerges a new emotional nuance- however subtle, which is to say, a phenomenological corollary. In a very real sense, to learn an Andalusian musical form is to learn an emotional behavioral -and this becomes very apparent when visually observing a performance.
[However, making the leap from a behavioral practice, in this case from a musical performance, to a phenomenological state, has only recently been made possible by the application of the new neurobiological technology, as cited above. This very problem is what frustrated Otto (……….) when confronted with establishing a direct link between concepts of the Holy, and religious ritual (Bell……)].
Part IV The Sevillanas: A Specific Example of Music, Ritual, and Emotional Parallel Morphology
The history of the Sevillanas (seh-vee-ya-nas; a song, or woman, from Sevilla) can be explored through any number of works and to them I have nothing new to add (see Gil Buiza 1991). What is important concerning this paper is to reiterate that the Sevillanas Rocieras emerged directly from within the ritual practices of the processional pilgrimage of El Rocio and beginning with the early 1970’s dominated popular music in Andalusia for nearly 25 years (Vol. 4).
Each Sevillanas is divided into four sections, or coplas. The Andalusian copla however, differs from the common understanding of a poetic verse in one essential aspect. Each Andalusian copla is traditionally a stand-alone comment in its subject matter, and so the Andalusian coplas within a single Sevillanas rarely tell a story and are usually completely unrelated to each other. Each of the four Sevillanas coplas that traditionally constitutes a complete Sevillanas is exactly the same length—a total of 40 measures of 3/8. There is an introductory section wherein the melodic motif is introduced (see below), followed by three tercios, or “thirds”. The traditional Sevillanas are up tempo and lively.
Introduction: 6 (measures)
First Tercio: 12
Second Tercio: 12
Third Tercio: 10 (last two beats of 10th measure are silent)
The 10th measure is not actually completed in the third tercio. The dramatic cerre, or “closure,” on the first beat of this final measure leaves a two-beat silence.
In terms of rhythmic structure there is also the question of the compás. The compás is neither the meter nor the count but rather the rhythmic accents that give the form its special character. This is especially important when delineating between forms that share the same meter. Here is the basic Sevillanas accent pattern:
Ø > > >> > >>
1 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 3 4 2 3 5 2 3 6 2 3 etc.
The accents are provided by the palmas (hand clapping) or the tambor (large field drum common at the Rocio) if there is one. The above is the basic accent of the introductory segments and the transitions between tercios and between coplas.
As to the melodic structure, unlike nearly every other palo, there is none. The only requirement of the Sevillanas is that the melody fit the strict rhythmic structure. Furthermore, the melody must have a signature introduction that fits within 2 measures of 6 counts and is characteristic of the melody itself.
In the non-danced version of the Sevillanas Rocieras there is no regard to the 4 copla groupings, and the singers may go on indefinitely and stop whenever they wish. Examples might be when a pilgrim dedicates a copla to another person in passing along the camino (“way”, “route”), or when singing to the Virgin at night, or any poignant ritual moment. In its present form the Sevillanas Rocieras maintains the rhythmic and melodic structure of the Sevillanas but it can be slowed down to a near-“libre” (arrhythmic) potential, depending on the singer and the particular circumstance of the song’s performance. But it should be noted that these options for the stand alone verse are only characteristics of the Sevillanas Rocieras and were developed within the pilgrimage.
Musical Performance Site Within Ritual
| Musical Structure (always Triple Meter) | Tempo | Emotional Mode | Popular Culture |
Processional and local processional pilgrimages (including rest stops along the way)
| 4 copla structure in group successions | Up beat | In the festive “Feria de Sevilla” style | Origins as mix of court dance and processional seguidillas, and local popular dances of Sevilla, especially the famous Feria de Sevilla. 17th Century (?)- present |
Processional Pilgrimage of El Rocio (including rest stops along the way and celebrations at night around fires or at homes) | 4 copla structure but flexible if there is no dancing | Medium to up beat | Still up beat and festive along the camino and at the nightly celebrations.
A more intimate Sevillanas emerges from liminal devotional rituals | Sevillanas de Feria are combined with new immerging Sevillanas Rocieras wherein the lyrical content is the chief difference (early 1970’s)
As the new Sevillanas Rocieras are becoming a musical phenomenon in Andalusia, entire sections of record stores are devoted to them. (1975- persent)
|
Intimate songs sung by individuals to the Virgin at night, or to each other in private or in public along the camino | 1 copla structure either in isolation or in succession (no dance) | Very slow marking, either with low drum or soft palmas. At times there is no rhythmic marking at all.
| Intimate and devotional when sung to the Virgin, intimate and endearing when sung to each other. | Recordings come out that deliberately attempt to capture the more intimate mood.
*** At the same time, the discos and new “Sala Rocieras” created upbeat dance mixes of even the very slow intimate songs. Mid 1970’s- mid 1990’s peak. |
Single voice from out of the crowd during full procession at key symbolic stops along the way (i.e. an important river crossing), or to the Virgin upon arrival at the Hermitage | 1 copla structure in isolation | arrhythmic | Intensely devotional. These performances stretch the emotional bounds even of the new Sevillanas Rocieras. | I witnessed these spontaneous performances on numerous occasions along the Rocio pilgrimage. No resonance in popular culture outside of the Rocio itself to date. |
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What is significant about this transformation process? First of all it must be reiterated that the intimate Sevillanas Rocieras is completely the work of the Rocio ritual practices, yet they spread from there to become a powerful force in popular culture (Gil Buiza 1991: Vol 4). Furthermore the popular performers were all pilgrims themselves. (Poole 2007:291-295 Gil Buiza 1991: Vol 4). Secondly, the Sevillanas Rocieras began as processional songs sun along the way to El Rocio. The singing begins the moment the pilgrims leave their churches in procession at the end of the “send-off” Mass, the Misa de Romeros (“Mass of the Pilgrims”). However, the ritual sites at which the transformational process from Sevilllanas to Sevillanas Rocieras, did not occur initially within the processions or within any rituals that could be identified officially through the itineraries. The sites for transformation were at the margins even of the pilgrimage itself.
The third point relates the process of musical/emotional morphology to the pilgrimage process itself. As I pointed out in my work on El Rocio (Poole, 2007: Chapter 2), pilgrimages are boundary penetrating rituals: social, territorial, and emotional. Social boundaries are penetrated through a temporary communitas, as Victor and Edith Turner (1978) brought to light concerning the nature of pilgrimages in general, and very evident at El Rocio. The territorial boundary crossing is signaled by the locations of the pilgrimage sites. They are usually in isolated, often difficult to access locations, as though the journey into territorial margins makes more concrete the penetration to the social margins (Turner 1978: 250-256; Van Gennep 1960: 15-21).
Furthermore, the emotional intensification cultivated all along the pilgrimage route through prolonged singing and dancing is also continued by devotional intensification at the unofficial sites within the pilgrimage. After having observed these sites over and over again while participating in El Rocio, I am convinced that it was at these marginal rituals that the transformation of the parent musical form, the Sevillanas de Feria initially sung in procession, was transformed into the Sevillanas Rocieras. Once sufficient deformation occurred at the marginal and informal ritual sites, the Sevillanas Rocieras eventually immerged as a new sub-category within the general Sevillanas form. Another indicator that supports this hypothesis is that when recording studios attempt to make an “authentic” Sevillanas Rocieras CD, one that “captures” the “real” Rocio, they make a recording that simulates the late night singing around the campfire or late night singing to the Virgin[v]. The Sevillanas form has morphed from a strictly dance form with occasional personal imprint (see group Form2/A) into a devotional chorus form (2/B) that eventually continued to evolve into an intensely intimate personal devotional form (2/C).
Furthermore, the Sevillanas Rocieras are still in a process of ritual/emotional morphology. On numerous occasions I witnessed the sudden bursting into song at very emotional stops along the camino. One took place at a very symbolic river crossing. A young lady sang out to the Virgen with an intensity that created an instant silence among the hundreds gathered around the carreta. She was so overcome with emotion that she couldn’t finish the song. Her friend, another young lady, finished singing for her. At these ritual moments, I feel the Sevillanas Rociera may be in the process of making another transformation, perhaps into a new form that would rival in intensity the Saeta of the Holy Week processions. As of this writing I have never heard a recorded version of this type of Sevillanas Rocieras. The last point: at El Rocio the intensification of the emotions continues until the final ritual of the Salida (section IV). There, the breaching of emotional boundaries continues and even the Sevillanas Rocieras are breached and reduced to noise.
The three central ritual elements I am treating here are: (1) ritual structures, (2) internalized musical forms, and (3) emotional modes. The central feature of the model I am proposing concerning these three components of the ritual process is that they each transform and proliferate in a parallel relation to each other. Where there is ritual proliferation in the way of break-off rituals within the system (such as the processional rituals of Andalusia breaking off from the central ritual of the Mass to become their own ritual phenomenon), or the emerging of marginal, unofficial rituals within a particular ritual, such as the singing rituals to the Virgin late at night along the pilgrimage route to El Rocio, new musical forms emerge that structure new emotional content, new emotional nuances within the spectrum of emotional modalities of the practitioners. I am proposing that the look, sound, and feel, of Catholic Andalusian “glorification” changed at El Rocio with the emergence of the Sevillanas Rocieras, and those changes were embodied within the communitas of pilgrims, and that through them the resulting aesthetics were communicated into the society at large.
My argument proposes that these new musical behaviors constitute, at the very least, new subtle nuances of differentiated emotional states/ modes within the spectrum of cultivated emotional modes within Andalusia culture. The Sevillanas Rocieras is the only example I presented here, but it is in no way an isolated case. Nearly all the Andalusian forms evolved out of previous forms rather than being deliberately composed (for Fandangos see Merchante 1999; for the Saeta, see Steingress 1994: for general overview see Pohren 1962; Infante 1929; Molino 1963). However, no one, to my knowledge, has traced these morphologies to ritual practices. I am also proposing that he Andalusian musical form is an excellent example of a tradition of musical forms that can serve as tools with which musical structures can be internalized and externalized for the purpose of emotional focus and internal emotional structuring. The Andalusian tree of forms is also an example of how many rituals can be considered to be almost purely musical rituals. In this sense, the proliferation of musical forms, the proliferation of emotional nuances, and the proliferation of rituals are often one and the same phenomenon.
Part IV The “Controlled Chaos”: Emotional paradox
Before we can talk about the chaotic emotion I must first give another brief introduction. The culmination of the pilgrimage of El Rocio is a procession called the Salida (the coming out). Here is a succinct picture of what happens based on my experiences as a participant observer:
The Salta la Reja (The jump/climb/assault over the railing” ): The brotherhood of Almonte arrives in an elaborate procession to the doors of the hermitage some time after midnight in the early hours of Lunes de Pentacostes (Monday of Pentacost). Suddenly they break all semblance of order to charge into the church, and swarm over the high rails that surround the Virgin in order to and seize what they adamantly insist is theirs, and By that act the brotherhood of Almonte proceed to take into their own hands a direct and unmediated control of their relationship to Her. They breach the symbolic and physical boundaries between themselves and the Virgin, and take Her out from within the Church’s hierarchical control, and out into the streets among the people (Poole 2007: 375 )
As impressive as the Salta la Reja is, it does not really prepare one for what follows:
The first recurring events are the attempts by the throngs of people to touch the Virgin or hold on to the palanquin. The Almonteños (members of the brotherhood) strive to block them or push them away. Needless to say, the pushing, shoving, and cursing is greatly aggravated by the fact that the image is “floating” above the churning sea of humanity. There are currents of people surging back and forth and all around the Virgin, while at the same time she is being forced through the streets on the shoulders of the Almonteños. Another group of Almonteños surrounds the Virgin to protect her from, and guide Her through, the mass of people. (ibid:381)
The second recurring events are what I call the “crunches.” These are moments when the Virgin turns into a portion of the crowd that has also surged towards her. The people directly in front of her have to move back and out of the way. Often, however, the float is approaching too quickly for them to get out of the way in time, or the mass of people behind them is too dense for them to back up any further. At these moments, people begin stumbling forcefully into each other, and several times I witnessed people being knocked down before the float changed directions and relieved the pressure. These are definitely moments of near-pandemonium (ibid: 380 ).
The third recurring event is the “scare” event. It looks like the Virgin is about to be toppled over. Sometimes she comes close to capsizing on one side or the others and at other times she starts to sink within the sea of people. These events are usually related to the “crunches” in combination with too many people pulling and pushing against the palanquin, It can also happen while there is a replacement of the Almonteños who are carrying the Virgin from below. When she is suddenly pushed up and righted, there is great cheering and applause. Needles to say, she never sinks completely and never quite capsizes. (ibid.:381 )
But what is equally extraordinary is that in the midst of this emotional pandemonium, men can be seen in tears embracing each other while others shout and praise Her. Although there are occasionally claims of miracle cures (Báñez 1999), for the most part the experience seems to be more about a direct emotional encounter with the Virgin. The adoration among the people is palpable as she moves through the turmoil in the streets to visit the houses of certain brotherhoods. As the Virgin approaches the brotherhoods, there are individual priests waiting for her in a state of near hysteria seated on the shoulders of a brother hood member; gesticulating wildly and yelling out praises to her. Often times there are groups of people singing to her as she approaches. It is pandemonium, and it continuous throughout the night and well into the next day.
The first essential characteristic I would bring to the reader’s attention is that both music and language are driven to their structural limits. The praises being shouted to the Virgin by the priests and by the throngs of people in the streets resemble more a form of glossolalia than poetry, and the singing of the small groups along the route is completely drowned out by the overwhelming noise of the event. Furthermore, the singers often break down into tears and have to stop singing for a few moments while they compose themselves. The Salida is neither a musical or poetic event: but it is an emotional event.
But what emotional category can we ascribe to this ritual of chaos? Are the pilgrims still in the basic joyful glorification mode that characterized the pilgrimage up until then? What I experienced was as flurry of emotions ranging from anxiety, to fear, to elation, and the emotions What I witnessed among the people in the streets seem to extend from the ecstatic into the near hysterical. It would seem that the emotional mode of joyful glorification that had been cultivated and intensified throughout the pilgrimage had itself been breached. What, if anything, can we make of this? It is tempting to relate the event to the many ecstatic practices found around the world. However, despite what might seem to be superficial commonalities between devotional ecstatic rituals cross-culturally, we cannot be certain these emotions are actually similar (see James; 552; Eliade 1964: xi-xxi; Lewis 1971: ix-xx; for three different approaches to this question).What I feel is at the core of the Salida is not any single categorical emotional mode at all, but rather a sudden convergence of emotions that manifests as a physical/emotional state of paradox; not as in a linguistic based or cognitive contradiction, but as an experience. I would suggest that what I witnessed, and to a degree experienced, was an experience of unity comprised of seemingly contradictory emotions. But what might this imply in terms of emotional cultivation? We can at least say that the chaotic emotion seems to be a result of prolonged emotional intensification that then reverses itself from a specific emotional mode, into an overflow, or convergence, of many, even contradictory, emotions. The result; an experience of paradox, defies any specific emotional category. In the literature of ecstatic states there is no consensus as to the nature of ecstasy. But what all the literature does seem to imply is that these states are cultivated primarily, if not exclusively, through religious ritual, and that music is almost always a key component.
While the ritual cultivation of the focused musical/emotional relationship forms the basis of the ritual process I am describing, I would suggest that the Salida experience of “controlled chaos” provides a ritual arena wherein the very boundaries of the emotional self are stressed and for some, breached completely. I believe, nonetheless, that we can call this experience, at least provisionally, a “variety of religious experience”. As the history of religion in general and El Rocio in particular amply demonstrates, one could argue for the adaptive value of religion simply on the basis of its power to generate culture (Bell 1992: 173-174, 76-79). But religions don’t come into being independently of the religious experience. What then might be the evolutionary underpinnings for the religious experience and its relationship to the musical ritual?
Part V Possible Evolutionary basis for the Variety of Religious experiences as the cultivation of emotional categories through music and ritual
The field of Biogentic Structuralism offers a model for how different intensities of religious experiences can be attained to, and roots them within structural potentials latent in the human nervous system (Laughlin 1974; 1990). The theory recognizes two general ritual types that affect either of the two general nervous branches of the nervous systems. The “slow rituals”, such as meditation, stimulate the parasympathetic, or quiescent, system. The “fast” rituals, such as the Salida, stimulate the sympathetic, or arousal, system. When driven to extremes, one system will then stimulate rather than inhibit (as they normally do) the opposite system, and this gives rise to five basic states:
· The Hyperquiescent State
· The Hyperarousal State
· The Hyperquiescent state with Eruptions of the Arousal System
· The Hyperarousal State with Eruption of the Quiescent System
· The Simultaneous Maximum Discharge of Both the Arousal and the Quiescent systems.
The fifth state listed above is the rarest and results in a “breakdown of any direct boundaries between objects, as sense of the absence of time, and the elimination of the self-other dichotomy” (d’Aquili and Newberg 1999, 26). The phenomenon that causes the simultaneous stimulation of one system by the other is called “spillover” or “overload” and is the result of one system reaching its maximum capacity and triggering the other. Biogenetic structuralism provides a model for how a general religious experience of varying degrees of intensity may be approached through a number of techniques. It would seem that the approach to the religious experience being cultivated at the Rocio is that which begins with the Hyperarousal state- days and nights on end with very little sleep, singing, dancing, praying, and using (mildly) alcoholic beverages. It was an uncanny experience watching, amidst the almost violent intensity of the Salida, people stopping to hug each other, crying and embracing, while the chaos swirled around them. It was as though they had broken through to a silent stillness within the noise. I can only infer at this point that what I witnessed was an emotional movement among the pilgrims that began with the musical/ritual/emotional arousal, and for some, perhaps only a few, culminated in something approaching the “Maximum Discharge” experience modeled above: hyperactivity and stillness at once.
What I suggest is lacking in the Biogenetic Structuralism model, is an explanation for how a ritual system might come into being. The model of musical/emotional/ritual morphological relations that I presented briefly in the Introduction, serves as a first step towards accounting for how ritual systems might have emerged from emotional musical practices of early humans. The theory builds first on the current literature in the neurobiology of the emotions that points to a strong and direct link between consciousness and the emotions (referred to in the introduction). The second step I took was to take seriously the pioneering work of Nils Wallin, the founder of the field of Biomusicology (1991), also mentioned in the introduction. Wallin argues that at a very deep level, the emotional intention required to deliberately make a vocal tonal flow has certain homologous relationships within the neurobiological substrates (ibid). Although the neurobiological relationship between the act of making a musical sound and gesture through the focusing of the will is difficult to put into non-specialist terminology, here are some citations of Wallin that I believe present the critical aspects of his theories as they apply to this paper.
“According to these proposals, the syntax of emotional display in higher mammals and some bird-species would, in an evolutionary perspective, be regarded as a primordial qualification of the syntax of the human emotional repertoire…That conclusion immediately raises the question of whether there is also-encoded in each species—a mutual dependency and interaction, not only parallelism, between the two evolutionary pathways: between what I would call the phenomenology of emotion as neurophysiological process and , respectively, as behavioral display of sound gesture and music” (Wallin 1991, 483).
I understand this to be an argument for a neurobiological process that would underlie, and link, an emotional phenomenological category with intentional musical and choreographed activities; in terms of evolution the two are not only parallel but mutually dependent.
“The finest emotional gradations; the morphodynamic power regulating emotional process and emotional expression was used to develop and establish, starting from primordial genetic forms, a sort of ‘catalogue’ of patterns of emotion…..Such an encoded semiotic catalogue is a necessary prerequisite for ceremonial activities such as rite and music, where each epoch of human history and each region of human culture has used archaic fragments to build ever new and varying forms” (484).
The above passage indicates that subtle gradations of emotional changes within the human catalogue of emotions have resulted from direct conscious manipulation through human ritual, and specifically musical ritual. I presented in the morphology of the Sevillanas an example of how such a process might still be occurring in a present day musical ritual practice. But furthermore he also argues that there are behavioral “archaic fragments” underlying ritual acts. I have been arguing that this is the case for the proto-ritual forms of station and procession.
“Yet if in man, emotion as an emergent and dynamic sub-aspect of mind-becoming-conscious is also intended to act in the maintenance and development, respectively, of a purposive behavior…in virtual and functional and conscious learning as well, then there must exist a kind of specific, richly diversified morphology of not only the repertoire of vocalization as display of emotion or as releaser of emotion, but of emotion, per se, as neurophysiological process, as “objets menteaux” (482).
Again he links the morphology of the emotions, as concomitant with purposive behavior, with a morphology of musical activity, and both to an emergent self-consciousness. Wallin offers us at least a basis in evolutionary theory for how the relationship between emotions and consciousness may have come about through deliberate musical practices among late hominids and early humans. Walter Freeman (2000: 422) suggests that musical/emotional practices increased intellectual capacity among early humans as by-products of musically induced altered states in relation to social bonding, while Steven Mathin (2006: 139-155) links intellectual expansion to the evolution of the physiology required for bipedalism as related to music and dance. Both approaches look to ethological organized display gestures and sound making behaviors as evidence. But what all the theories of the writers referred to above point to, if they prove valid, is that at some point along the way in the evolution of a fully conscious Homo Sapient, instinctive sound and display behaviors evolved into the deliberate formal behaviors we now recognize as sacred musical ritual systems. What I hope to have made at least plausible in this article, is an argument for considering the varieties of religious experience to be closely linked to the human spectrum of emotional modalities, some portions of which may have been the by-products of deliberately cultivated music and ritual practices. Furthermore, emergent consciousness among early humans may have been itself the by-product of proto-ritualistic practices evolving out of basic display and sound making gestures that were in turn rooted in ethological behaviors, or “archaic fragments”, inherited from our distant evolutionary past. I have presented here, in very condensed form, a possible mechanism through which Wallin’s basic concepts relating tonal flow, focused emotion, and consciousness, could have been perpetuated through deliberate human ritual; parallel music, emotion, and ritual morphology, driven by the pursuit of the religious experience.(Poole 2007, Chapter 11, and 13). Ritual systems can then be understood as total cultural semiotic processes through which a communal, and individual, “knowledge of the self” is formulated. Once we can model a process wherein the variety of emotional modalities are understood in terms phenomenological states, states that can be cultivated through ritual, especially musical, we can argue for a direct relationship between human evolution, ritual, and the religious experience.
1 Interview with Robert Zatorre in The Washington Post, “Sciene” section, 1/22/2007
2 The literature is simply to extensive to even begin citations. What is curious is that the subject of the purely musical ritual has not been addressed by scholarship.
3 Pohren 1962: 134
4Interview with Flamenco artist, Manolo Leiva, Spring of 200.
5 There are countless such recordings. One is “Una Noche en el Camiono” 2007, by the Flamenco Sevilla Ensemble
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