The period extending from December 15 to the last day of the Fiesta of San Sebastián on January 25 is the richest segment of the annual ceremonial calendar of Zinacantan. The complicated rituals that characterize this period dramatize the e…The ceremonial schedule is divided into two major phases: (1) Christmas to New Year’s to Day of Kings; then, following a lull of equal time, (2) a phase of intense activity during the Fiesta of San Sebastián. The two phases are like the two…Edmund Leach (1961) suggests that "formality" and "masquerade" are paired opposites and, as such, modes for moving in and out of "sacred time." He suggests that, "A rite which starts with formality [e.g. a wedding] is likely to end in masqu…
Edmund Leach
anthropologist · 3 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Edmund Leach was a British social anthropologist whose structural analysis of ritual categories provides a framework for understanding how ceremonies mark temporal and social boundaries. In this course, his distinction between "formality" and "masquerade" as paired opposites enables readings of how Zinacanteco ceremonial cycles use ritualized behavior to transition between sacred and profane time. His work here grounds discussions of how systems—whether cultural or computational—encode meaning through structured opposition and cyclical organization.
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