The Ritual as Performance
Rituals have been the focus of many anthropological studies in the past. Stemming from such anthropologic studies is the examination of ritual as performance by ethologists (Schechner, 1976). According to Victor Turner (1974), ritualized movements consist of beings moving in accord with cultural scripts. The study of rituals often reveals insights into social realities.
The movements involved in a Wai Khru ceremony can be directly linked to the social and cultural values that Thai people implicitly and explicitly place on their country, ancestry, religion, and ability to perform and teach performance. According to the Thai people, as knowledge is passed from a teacher to a student, a transcendental exchange of wisdom and talent occurs, expressly at the will of the teacher. The recognition of the social hierarchy involved in the teaching process, as described, is revealed through the Wai Khru ritual. Also, as Erving Goffman (1959) asserts in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, social interactions can be viewed as performance. The Wai Khru ritual is a performance that is representative of the social interactions common to the Thai culture and society—reifying the regard for the Wai Khru ritual as a metaperformance as well as a ritual.
A ritual is defined as a state or condition characterized by the presence of established procedure or routine (Marriam-Webster, 2004). In the Thai culture, paying respect to teachers or honoring them is part of a daily routine. Having respect for the teachers in the classroom is an established procedure and an expected social norm in the Thai culture. Richard Schechner (1976) notes that there are two types of rituals, instinctive and cultural. Schechner asserts that both types of ritual serve as forms of communication that endorse group cohesion. Thai students exhibiting unreserved reverence for teachers in the classroom and throughout their lives is a pattern that Schechner referred to as “culturally ritualized behavior patterns” (Schechner, 1976, pp.30).
Natikan
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Revised: 05 May 2004 11:16:52 -0500
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