… The ability to create such formality is evidently a sine qua non of being able to manipulate it, and only those who become skilled in the art will have access to that kind of power.
This will be my last post from Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and Power in Japan and Other Societies by Joy Hendry (1993):
… A fairly clear and straightforward example of temporal wrapping in Japan is to be found in the way events are separated off from the time surrounding them by quite marked beginnings and endings. This is true of a wide variety of events, from mundane, everyday occurrences to the grandest ceremony. The form of these beginnings and endings is clearly decided by society, so that they could qualify to be classed as ritual, although sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from what one might better describe as ‘routine.’
Hendry gives many examples of temporal wrapping. I’m going to pick out brief extracts from two to give some sense of what she’s talking about:
… Kindergarten is a place where beginnings and endings become more clear and elaborate generally. Although children will arrive at a variety of different times, there is invariably an opening sequence before the events of the day begin, and several ritual ways in which the day is divided up.
… A foreigner coming to the tea ceremony for the first time may find the whole thing extremely tedious, possibly quite painful, for it is essential to sit on one’s feet in a formal position throughout the chief part of the procedure, which, even in its shortest form, lasts long enough to inflict discomfort on those unused to the kneeling position. Most of the action is carried out, slowly and deliberately, by the person serving the tea (the host/ess), who gives the guest a chance to move only twice: when they are presented with their cake, and when they receive their bowl of tea.
Moving on to issues of power (I am skimming quickly over this, so it’s pretty choppy):
… [Esther N.] Goody identifies three functions of greetings in her study of the Gonja people. They are, first, ‘to open a sequence of communicative acts,’ secondly, ‘a means of defining and affirming both identity and rank,’ and, thirdly, ‘a mode of entering upon or manipulating a relationship in order to achieve a specific result.’ The first, probably a universal function of greeting, corresponds with Japanese ‘beginning,’ the second, found wherever the form of greeting varies with status, also encompasses the Japanese case in the formal distinction of status. The third leads us beyond these examples, however. In the Gonja case, this is a type of greeting which precedes a request of sort, or what Goody refers to as a ‘greeting to beg.’
… If we concentrate our attentions only on the parts of these [ceremonial] gatherings when people appear immediately to be influencing the proceedings, i.e. the type of political activity we are used to in Western systems, I think we may well also be missing something important. This would perhaps be equivalent to our overriding interest in unwrapping things, in getting to the essence of something. Just as Salmond warned us not to stop at the ceremonial role of the elders, we must also, on the other hand, be careful not to underestimate the power of the ritual elements of proceedings. Indeed, we must try not to throw away any layers of wrapping before we understand more completely the role they may be playing.
… The socialization of children in appropriate polite behaviour struck Bloch as interesting in Madagascar because of the way the focus of correction and direction of behaviour was not so much on the content of what was said but on the manner in which it was said. He compares this with the attention paid in English society to the use of words such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ as well as suitable intonations of the voice which are thought of as respectful and not ‘cheeky.’ Bloch saw the reason for this attention to regulating the manner of speech as concerned with a concomitant (hidden) restriction, in a subtle and effective way, on the content of what was said.
The formal behaviour which Merina children gradually learn in this way equips at least some of them as they grow up to participate in the formal exchanges which Bloch identifies as important elements of social control in Merina society. Bloch argues that the formality, by its very nature, ‘dramatically restricts’ what can be said, and more importantly, perhaps, the responses to it. Once a formal situation has been created, he argues, it is almost impossible to object to proposals which come out of it. The ability to create such formality is evidently a sine qua non of being able to manipulate it, and only those who become skilled in the art will have access to that kind of power — that layer of Merina wrapping.
… [J.M.] Atkinson uses the wrapping metaphor in a discussion of the importance of ‘wrapped words,’ among the Wana people of Sulawesi, to ‘hint at a meaning without confronting others directly.’ Her paper describes a highly formalized type of speech, or poetry, which is used to express elegant, but nevertheless very often political statements in an indirect way, disguised from all but those who share knowledge of the appropriate context.
… In … these cases we are concerned with political activity which is not immediately obvious, sometimes even to those involved. We are also concerned with a cultural preference for the avoidance of conflict. … we sometimes need to look further for the locus of power than the politics of our own societies would suggest. We need to see, for example, that ‘politics is concerned not only with exercising power but also with reproducing the mechanisms which make power possible.’
… Wrapping in Japan is a veritable ‘cultural template,’ or perhaps we could add another metaphor and call it a ‘cultural design.’ It makes possible the marking of the whole range of life-stages and statuses, thus representing and recreating, the hierarchical order which, in turn, gives rise to the locus of power relationships.
… It is evidently important not to try to take off the layers of wrapping we find elsewhere, always to be seeking essences, because in this way we may be throwing out some of the important cultural information we need, perhaps only to find nothing at all — or a strange, significant emptiness — inside.
Hendry never addresses the linguistic conundrum inherent in the word ‘wrapping.’ By definition ‘wrapping’ is something that is of secondary (or no) importance. If/when we are talking about “important cultural information” then we aren’t talking about wrapping. I think this whole book has been about the interesting transformation or inversion from what starts as a throwaway mannerism into meaningful/necessary core (and observational confusion for those not aware of this inversion).
My most recent previous post from Hendry’s book is here.
-Julie
