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Place
of dance at Sirbi, Maramures, Rumania (1972)
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I was thus
confronted with a major difficulty of kinship studies. Do not the essential
acts presiding over the rules that govern the choice of a spouse reveal
the actor's total commitment by attitudes and postures, gesture and music,
cry and song, tears and laugh, food consumption and satisfaction of sex
drive, and words ? Do not events sanctioning matrimonial settlements
take place in form of processions with fixed composition, itinerary, destination ?
Do not they use as major instruments banners and veils, crowns and ties,
ritual food and alcoholic drinks, dance steps and figures ? The sacramental
phrases pronounced by the priest in church, the long texts of pardon shouted
out by the master of wedding do contribute to compose the semantic fields
where messages are exchanged. But for the texts themselves, do not the versified
form, the position of the voice, the style of sound emission, the melody
of the cry or song determine the meaning of the words exchanged, as much
as the words of articulate speech/discourse ?
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