The end of rituals

A dialogue between theory and ethnography in Laos

Abstract

Some predict that ritual will inevitably disappear, for better or worse, due to the growth of science or rationalism. Others claim that ritual persists or even proliferates, as it is a necessary part of human society or cognitive order. Yet others argue that the disappearance of ritual and religion is only illusory, and that what presents itself as non-religious, even as scientific, is in fact religious and ritual by nature. Yet, although anthropologists are frequently confronted with the disappearance of rituals and cosmological ideas, this is acknowledged far more than it is discussed, being either treated as obvious or ignored.
This article offers a perspective in which the discontinuance of ritual is taken seriously as a source of anthropological insight. lt has two aims. First, it attempts to specify and formulate a specific question and to situate it within the anthropological discourse. Secondly, the exploration of the question is framed by the ethnography of the Rmeet in
northern Laos, data that inspired its formulation. The issue is complex in both regards, the answers presented here at best sketchy and tentative. The dialogue between theory and ethnography serves to heighten the level of abstraction in order to make comparison possible.
The question is, What are the conditions for the discontinuance or reduction of rituals from the perspective of a specific society? How can the reduction of a ritual system be explained by the ideas at the core of the system?