Festivals

Unity and Diversity

Diversity has many sources. A society may have a diversity of people. There may be, for example, many immigrants present in a society. There may be conquered people who require incorporation into the group. Many religions may be at hand or political groups. The source of diversity may be economic, class based, or rank based. No matter what its source, there must be a means for uniting these diverse interests. Festivals play a significant role in forging a common or transcendent identity.

Underscoring the need to address both diversity and unity is the element of reversal found in festivals. Festivals are meant to transform people, to take them from one place to another. Thus, after World War I, when many immigrants came to the United States, the United States government issued a manual of activities to promote patriotic solidarity. A number of festivals were suggested. One festival had immigrant children being wheeled onto school stages in a shoe. Each child was dressed in his or her traditional clothes. Once on the stage, the children emerged from the shoe and shed their traditional clothes, revealing them dressed in American clothing. This was a graphic example of shedding one identity and putting on another one.

Rituals of inversion or reversal are found in all festivals. By breaking the rules, performers draw attention to the rules, thereby reaffirming social unity and the importance of the rules. For example, in mummers' plays, which are performed in many English-speaking communities around the world, such as Newfoundland, Canada, and Philadelphia, participants in riotous pantomime provide a rollicking good time, when even the most staid of people engage in rule-breaking behavior. However, these times of simple fun not only provide a break from the tedium of everyday life, they also highlight problems within society. By burlesquing these problems, mummers and carnival performers hold these problems up to ridicule, not so subtly prodding those with the power to address these problems in order to fix them.

Another example lies in the Palio festival of Sienna, Italy. The Palio combines many different elements. It is a parade and horse race, linking political and religious aspects. These competitions are carried out on one level of the city's life. Without appropriate supervision, however, the various competing forces would get out of hand. Hence, there is a higher level of the city's life, the level in which final power resides, overseeing the competitions. Thus, the competitors are free to let their wilder instincts run rampant, knowing that if they stray too far out of bounds, they will be brought back to a safer place. This allows for the airing of all sorts of grievances and the calling to the attention of those in authority the need to address them and find solutions for them. Unity is thus aided by seeming chaos.

...