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鈥淚 always feel my stomach churn when I look at someone being impaled by a spear through the cheeks,鈥� writes , an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut specialising in the study of extreme rituals. The version of the Thaipusam Kavadi ritual found in Mauritius is his favourite 鈥� if that is quite the word. Devotees endure many piercings, from a few needles through their cheeks to several hundred spikes perforating their entire body, 鈥渁s well as hooks from which they hang bells or limes鈥�.
It is an intricate affair, but by no means exceptional. From the hazing ordeals of US fraternities to the initiations practised by criminal gangs and military groups around the world, ritual is everywhere. 鈥淚f you can find a human society without any rituals,鈥� writes Xygalatas, 鈥淚 will happily reimburse you the cost of this book.鈥�
Why rituals exist is a puzzle. Ask a person from Bulgaria or Spain why they walk over burning coals each year, and they are likely to shrug and say that they are doing as their ancestors did. Further explanations are more subtle, but no more revealing. The Thaipusam Kavadi ritual is said to commemorate the god Murugan receiving his spear from his mother, enabling him to lead an army against the demons.
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But what if those stories were explanations after the event 鈥� genuine attempts to rationalise behaviours more ancient than any tale, more ancient, indeed, than reason itself?
Not every ritual performer in this book is human. Magpies, crows and ravens perform death rites. Chimpanzees build cairns and visit what we might dare to call sacred trees; at any rate, these regular tree visits are an occasion for dancing and feverish excitement. The pattern isn鈥檛 hard to spot: the more social a species is, the more ritualistic it is.
Supposing that ritual behaviour evolved very early, especially in avian and mammalian lines, it shouldn鈥檛 be too hard to figure out how this adaptation is advantageous. Perhaps ritual is the primary mechanism by which we develop theory of mind and establish group identity. More specifically, social beings become anxious in the absence of their fellows, and grief, though maladaptive, is a special form of anxiety that binds social groups together. That being the case, death rituals might exist to ameliorate the anxiety triggered by bereavement.
Xygalatas has spent 20 years fleshing out these ideas, and in that time it has become a hybrid field. Biometric sensors and hormonal sampling are used to explore the neurophysiological effects of various rituals, while more traditional ethnographic methods, including psychometric tests and surveys, reveal some of the motivations behind ritual practices.
The results aren鈥檛 altogether convincing. The work is solid enough, but Xygalatas frames his conclusions in terms of how healthy ritual practices can be. Evidence suggests that 鈥� or would be, if conditions like depression didn鈥檛 often make motivation difficult. 鈥淐ultural rituals may help circumvent this problem by exerting external pressure to participate,鈥� says Xygalatas. To me, this doesn鈥檛 feel like a compelling reason to go walking over hot coals.
Xygalatas can鈥檛 be blamed for wanting to put a positive spin on this fascinating and rapidly developing field of study. But even as I was reading this book, that Russian children were dressing up as tanks and missiles in time for Russia鈥檚 8 May Victory Day parade. This engrossing account begs a sequel, about how ritual so often proves dysfunctional among hypersocial Homo sapiens.
