SIEMENS, Stephen David (CSUF)
AZANDE MOURNERS AND BABIES: INSTANTIATION IN CULTURAL MODELS OF BEREAVEMENT AND NASCENCE

The logic of instantiation for Azande mourners resembles the logic of instantiation for Azande babies. The Azande respond to both bereavement and birth by using cultural models of gradual recovery. I observed rituals for mourners and babies during 19 months of participant observation in Southern Sudan. Mourners are instantiated to particular stages of mourning through rituals led by women. Women's ritual actions gradually instantiate the mourner as being in a particular stage. Each ritual brings the mourner closer to a normal non-mourning condition. The normal condition is a prototype that mourners resemble in various degrees. Elsewhere I have shown that babies undergo a similar process.

I compare instantiation in the ritual of 'putting on mourning' with the ritual of 'bringing out baby.' A prediction from a mathematical theory motivates my choice of rituals to compare. Azande experts identified an analogy between other rituals. When the explicit analogies are represented as a formal model, Lorrain's mathematical theory of analogy (1974) predicts additional analogies beyond the analogies proposed by Azande experts. The theory predicts that 'putting on mourning' will be analogous to 'bringing out baby.' Both rituals eliminate old attributes and link new attributes to the ritual passenger. Mourners and babies even share some attributes. However, unlike babies, some attributes of the recovering mourner were present before bereavement. The logic of instantiation for the two rituals is similar but not identical.