Rewriting Ritual Lent Day 29

As part of the introduction to Drama for grade 8 and 9 boys we start by exploring rituals. The earliest known ritual evidence has been found in the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana dating back 70 000 years ago. It is some 30 000 years older than the oldest evidence of rituals in Europe. The cave is so hidden that archaeologists only discovered it in the 90s. It contains a rock which has been hand carved to resemble a huge python - with scales and everything. Behind the huge rock is a little niche where the Shaman would hide and so when the python would ‘speak’ it was actually the Shaman speaking. He even had a secret exit through the back of the cave so that no one would know that it was in fact his voice issuing from within the bowels of the snake. The remains of thousands of arrow heads have been found at the base of the python’s head. They were carved from rock found hundreds of kilometers from the cave and were burnt as ritualistic sacrifices. This suggests that this cave was a very significant ritual site for the San people and that people travelled for hundreds of miles to be part of the rituals associated with the python. 

When I examine this ritual with my boys we discuss the spiritual significance of all rituals. The fact that earliest man repeated behaviours that unified him with his fellow man and gave him a sense of something greater than himself is truly significant. I would suggest that the moment we developed a sense of human consciousness and community was the time we started to understand that there is indeed a sacred spirit which connects us all to each other and to a greater power. What we do with that knowledge and connection is up to us, I may be so bold as to suggest free will here. 

The other thing I discuss with my boys when examining this ritual is the very apparent theatrical threads that undergird most rituals - people taking on the character of something or someone else, song, dance, storytelling, secret backstages that allow for the mystery of a talking python to be kept alive - even the idea of sacrificing, ‘paying’, things of value in order to be part of the experience. I remember when I was doing my Masters project in a rural township I wanted to make our performances free but my supervisor insisted that people had to pay something to watch the performances (even R1) because if that transaction didn’t happen it would lessen the value of the experience. It seems even the San knew this - there’s no such thing as a free lunch. 

The rituals by which we navigate our years - the church services, birthdays, weddings, Bar Mitvahs, Easters, Christmases, Ramadans, Diwalis - are how we punctuate our life stories. They are the big moments that remind us that we belong to something and that life has meaning beyond our day to day existence. They are what we look forward to. 

And exactly a year ago we lost all of them. 

Children’s birthday parties were attended by immediate family members only. Christmas was down scaled. Church, temple, mosque doors were closed. Weddings were postponed. We stopped hugging and shaking hands. 

And now our children can’t remember a world without restrictions. The other day I was showing Gray the video of our wedding. His first exclamation when seeing footage of all our guests arriving was - ‘Mom they’re not wearing masks!’ And a little part of me died   My five year old cannot remember a life without masks already. 

Today  I watched footage of King Goodwill Zwelithini’s funeral. How sad to have beautiful Zulu women decked out in the full regalia of their culture with beads and skins... and white disposable face masks. 

And perhaps, as a theatre practitioner, my saddest news of the week - the closure of the iconic Fugard Theatre. This to me is tragic on so many levels - our cave of wonder; the place where, through tricks of light and voice we are able to escape, to dream, to take part in the earliest ritual of mankind is dark. A place where shamans and magicians transport us to other worlds, other possibilities and in so doing connect us to the power of a collective imagination has closed it’s doors forever. 

The other day we had our first communion at school in a year. Tables were laid out with the grape juice and bread under the beautiful plain trees outside the chapel and after watching a streamed church service in our classrooms we were invited to walk to the chapel and receive communion. Some people then chose to pray in the chapel afterwards. And this was a significant moment for me. Teachers and boys alike sat and wept. With gentle pats on the back boys comforted each other   It felt like a huge hunger and thirst had been quenched. That for the first time in a year we had truly reconnected to each other and to God through the most significant ritual in the Christian faith. 

Only time will tell what kind of a long term impact this pandemic has had on society, on our children. We may have to rewrite rituals and reconsider which ones are important to us. The gathering of people to celebrate something will take on a far more momentous spirit but we will have to think twice before we hug someone. 

As long as we still ache to be together, to worship together, to cry and laugh together then we will be able to return to our caves, clutching our arrows of sacrifice and partake in moments of magical connection in order to celebrate the spirit that we cannot see, but that we truly know is there.