ボントック族の通過儀礼 : 動物範疇のパロールとして

Abstract

The aims of this paper are to present some field data on the rites of passage of the Bontok Igorot of northern Luzon and to give a structural analysis of these ritual performances. Living space of the Bontok is classified into such categories as house, residential place, terrace field, forest and so on based on the relative degree of inside/outside opposition. The same principle of classification seems to be applied to the animal-plant categories and cooking categories as well as the categories of socio-religious activity. The ritual process of rites of passage is nothing but a transformational process of the category of human being. This symbolic transformation is realized by using many classified symbols such as animal, plant, living space and ambiguous boundary. Killing (head hunting, sacrifice, harvesting) and cooking are agents of transformation which act on categories of three levels of creatures such as men, animals and rice plants. Among the Bontok, ritual performance is a parol of the symbolic classification of their world, and ritual process is ordered by their fundamental classification systems and restricted agents of transformation.