Symbolic Classification in Alimentary Processes
That alimentary ritual processes also manifest intellectual states of affairs and that food classifications correspond to those of the spatial and social order is seen once again in relation to tsoru and can perhaps be most simply demonstrated in the construction of the house. The house’s two rooms are contrasted to one another in the same way as tsoru and lakka’* food. In the big outer room, the daily activities of cooking, sleeping, and eating take place; guests are received here, and affinal relatives may come this far into the house. In contrast to the outer room, the color of which is not subject to any explicit rules, the inner room is only painted the color of the earth, and the central house post (doron deli) is considered a representation of the earth deity at the level of the house. This room is entered only by agnates and women who have married into the agnatic group, those who have become part of the “own” group through tsoru com- mensality. Sacrifices are carried out there for doron deli, and tsoru is prepared. Just as only agnates are permitted to enter this room, the tsoru cooked there enters only their bodies. The complementary lakka’* meal is prepared at the cooking hearth in the outer room and can be distributed in the village as “wandering rice” (bulani bat). The pairs of opposites tsoru/lakka’*, inside/outside, agnates/af- fines are in analogical relationship to one another, and the category of food, place, and social relationship listed first in each case is in this context senior (boro) in comparison to the junior (sano) category listed second. In other words, a central characteristic of these categories consists in their hierarchical relationship to one another, articulated in the idiom of seniority. This classification is thus also an ideology, a configuration of value-ideas (cf. Dumont 1986). In the words of Marshall Sahlins (1999, 415), “classification is a moral judgment: what is so distinguished is good, and right to be so distinguished.”
The value-ideas that articulate space at the level of the house also find expression at the level of the village. The inner area - the place of sacrifice and of tsoru - stresses the significant connection between the agnates and the earth and assigns a subordinate, outside position to the affines. The village ideally consists of a group of agnates - the Four Brothers - who as “earth people” (matia) share tsoru with the local earth goddess (hundi) in the village center; the affines live in other villages, that is, outside. The relationship between house and village is thematized in multiple ways in the rituals of the annual cycle, especially through the sequence of ritual events, and corresponds to the hierarchical opposition between a part (house) of the village - or the sum of the parts (gulai ga, all the houses of the village) - and the village as a whole (ga matam). This relationship is again embodied in the person of the sacrificer (pu- jari) as he is contrasted to all the other inhabitants of the village: he has the most senior status in the village, his house stands for the village, and his house god is synonymous with the village goddess. In the festivals of the annual cycle, he is the first to perform the ritual actions - such as the fetching home of the first ear of grain - acting as a representative of the whole; the individual houses then complete his collective actions. Likewise, the pujari’s transgressions always affect the entire village. The village’s ritual cook (randan) is contrasted to the sacrificer. He is conceived of as a “wife,” is subordinate to the pujari, and is considered the second-most-senior person in the village. The status and the functions of these village dignitaries reveal the fundamental significance of sacrifice and food - or the sacrificial meal, tsoru - for the Gadaba.
Alongside relationships oriented inward, toward the territory and the earth, external relationships are also vital for a village. While the relationship between house and village is primarily characterized by processes of collecting, sharing, and redistributing, the relationships between a village and its environment are primarily marked by reciprocal exchange. A village exchanges brides for brides (milk) and sacrificial offerings for rice (bride) with external affines, and it exchanges buffaloes (duma) and tsoru with external agnates. The exchange partners here are either other villages or gods localized in the environment, like the affinal river gods kamni. Other relationships, like the one between the village and the forest, are likewise reciprocal, although the Herder of the Forest (bon goudo), to whom the Gadaba present sacrificial offerings in order to legitimate the hunt, is not conceived of in either affinal or agnatic terms. An additional external relationship, ranked by the Gadaba as the most senior (sobu tu boro), is the relationship between “liver” (koloj) or “divine” (takurani) moitr.
Other than this ascription of the most senior status to the moitr relationship, the different external relationships are not explicitly ranked, either in comparison to one another or in comparison to the internal relationships of sharing.[1] However, it is clear from the wedding ritual, for example, that the commensal unit of the Twelve Brothers is assigned higher status; its tsoru is more important than that of the Four Brothers or the mothers' brothers. In my view, the significance of the tsoru complex allows us to draw the overall conclusion that the agnatic relationships of eating together and sharing food are more highly valued than the exchange relationships between different local groups, even if the articulation of this valuation varies according to the ritual context.
Despite - or perhaps precisely because of - their high status, the “liver” moitr take on no ritual function. They do not participate in the processes of regeneration, reproduction and transformation; tsoru is not shared with one’s moitr (although one eats from the same plate), and neither brides nor buffaloes are exchanged. Although they most often belong to other descent categories, they are not affines, and at the same time that they are not affines, they are also not agnates. Unlike affinal and agnatic relationships, which are accumulated in the bridal couple at a wedding by tsoru feeding and commensality, the moitr relationship is not activated in any similar way. The collective moitr relationship was established at some former time by the gods, has existed undiminished outside all ritual processes ever since, and apparently needs no regenerative measures; only “memory meat” (china manso) is given to the moitr.
The tension between “self” and “other,” a motif that surfaces in the rituals and myths in myriad ways, characterizes this relationship to a very particular degree. Moitr are identical, and nevertheless there exists between them a relationship that prescribes absolute veneration and selfless giving. Moitr are displaced alter egos for one another; perhaps we should even speak of transcendental alter egos, since they are like gods for one another. For the Gadaba, the moitr relationship represents the ideal case of a relationship, perhaps because it denies the usual forms of relatedness. No reciprocal exchange takes place between moitr, as it does between different affinal and agnatic groups, and neither do moitr share food, as happens within an agnatic group. The moitr’s selfless giving and “eating from one plate” stand to a certain extent outside the ritual system and the bai/bondu classification. While, normatively, a high-caste Hindu in the last phase of his life, having refined himself through a series of rites of passage (samskara), seeks to bring an end to his inner-worldly existence, the Gadaba appear to have integrated a collective quasi-outer-worldly element into their system in this life.
Equally external and one-sided in their relationship, but nevertheless contrasted to the moitr, are those threatening categories that fundamentally take and never give. The most prominent representatives of this category are the demons soni rau, who stand outside the moral order and are conceived of neither as agnates nor as affines. Also included, however, are fellow human beings who inflict destruction (nosto), who in most cases belong to the commensal tsoru community as agnates. They also try to devour the lives or the land of their brothers, and their dark activities are contrary to the social order (niam). The despised but feared category of the one-sided eaters intervenes without warning in all areas of life, for which reason healing rituals are found both in the rituals of the life cycle and in those of the annual cycle. One can negotiate with the onesided eaters, pay them tribute, provide them with surrogate victims, or try to use violence against them oneself, to turn prey into hunter, or goat into tiger, in the Gadaba’s rendition of Maurice Bloch’s (1992) felicitous phrase, but these creatures have no place at one’s own table. The different relationship types are summarized in figure 21.
Figure 21: Model of the Alimentary Relationship Types
The relationship of eating together and sharing tsoru is indicated by the two circles. The “twelve brothers, thirteen seats” represent the encompassing ritual unit. The tsoru commensality of the Twelve Brothers is a signifier of the social order (mam) par excellence, and the sharing of tsoru within the framework of the house community is ultimately also a reminiscence of this community. How?ever, the Twelve Brothers do not share tsoru with their affines; rather, each group eats tsoru on its own. From the perspective of the Four Brothers - a village - various external relationships result: 1) agnatic and affinal reciprocal relationships of feeding and eating, 2) a positively one-sided relationship to the moitr (giving/ feeding without demanding), and 3) negatively one-sided relationships to demons (soni rau), sorcerers (pangon lok), and witches (daini).[2] The relationships of devouring exist outside the moral order of the baro bai tero gadi, but are part of the ritual processes. Conversely, the moitr are part of the moral order, but do not actively participate in the ritual system. Like the commensal relationships within the village, the first two relationship types are described by the Ga- daba as good and even (soman) and exist in concord with the social order (niam); in contrast, the third relationship type brings misfortune (bipod) and is correspondingly devalued in comparison to the others.
The properties of food and eating seem to make them especially suitable for shaping and representing social life. Food is the foundation of life, difficult to obtain, and most often a scarce resource. Obtaining food compels cooperation, and the need to eat is just as much a cause of feuding as it is of reconciliation that makes exchange and trade possible. The raw materials of nutrition are capable of endless alteration and shaping as food, but they keep for a limited period of time. The ideas of transformation, change, and continuity - through preservation processes - are immediately entailed in the matter of food. In addition, food passes through the body and thereby offers a foundation for concepts of the person and of identity (cf. Meigs 1997,104f). Participation and kinship are equally generated and symbolized by the shared ingestion of the same food (cf. Robertson Smith 1997, 257). Food is bound up with each individual’s primary experiences. Already at the mother’s breast, consumption is linked to cultural patterns, insofar as the mother, as part of a society, imposes a “feeding regime” (Freud 1997, 109) on the child, and already at this stage, eating and drinking go beyond the mere ingestion of nourishment and include processes of signification. As a consequence of the child’s early experiences with the ingestion of nourishment, also, food is an emotionally charged symbol, equally capable of expressing love and aggression. This emotional, psychological, and libidinous potential of eating and food does not determine their cultural significance, but it gives the symbol its dynamism and effectiveness.
In highland Odisha, these universal characteristics of food and eating have assisted in expressing a specific cultural pattern. Feeding, sharing, and devouring are alimentary modes that are articulated in the Gadaba’s rituals and that make reference both to relationships and processes and to value-ideas. They designate types of relationships based on reciprocal exchange, sharing food, or violent consumption, with food elements sometimes also being used as metaphors for the relationships: milk in the case of the affines and tsoru in the case of the tsorubai. In addition, feeding, sharing, and devouring are central processes in the formation of social relationships. As alimentary activities, they transform a person’s status, regenerate a group’s solidarity, or destroy someone’s body, life, or harvest. Finally, these terms stand for the valuation of different forms of relatedness and distinguish the balanced relationships of sharing and exchange from the unpredictable and destructive relationships of one-sided consumption.
- [1] In the event that a local group maintains the same type of relationship with two other groups,however, these relationships are differentiated through the idiom of seniority.
- [2] The Gadaba relationship types are a specific expression of far more general patterns ofexchange. Sahlins’s (1965, 147f) distinction among “balanced,” “generalized,” and “negative”reciprocity characterizes the relationships described here between agnates/affines, moitr, andthe demons, respectively.
