The considerably more muted response to the Queen MotherХs death (which, incidentally, also consisted largely of queuing) was inevitably described as Фa public outpouring of griefХ. So was the even less impressive reaction to the death of the former Beatle George Harrison. Every time a child or teenager is murdered or dies in some other newsworthy manner, and a dozen or so friends and sympathisers lay flowers outside their house, school gates or local church, this is now a Фpublic outpouring of griefХ. Pretty much anyone who dies in the public eye, unless they were for some reason widely detested, can nowadays expect nothing less than a Фpublic outpouring of griefХ.
CALENDRICAL RITES AND OTHER TRANSITIONS
Calendrical rites include big celebrations such as Christmas and New YearХs Eve, and others that occur at the same time every year, such as Easter, May Day, Harvest Festivals, HalloweХen and Guy FawkesХ Night, as well as MothersХ Day, ValentineХs Day and Bank Holidays. IХm including our annual summer holidays in this category, as they are seasonal and therefore essentially calendrical, even though they do not occur on fixed dates. (Some nit-pickers might argue that the summer holiday is not, strictly speaking, a ФriteХ, or at least not in the same sense as Christmas or Harvest Festivals, but I think it qualifies, and will explain why later.) Also in this category would be the daily/weekly work-to-play transitional ritual of after-work drinks in the pub, but IХve already covered this one in detail in the chapter on work.
Under Фother transitionsХ IХm including life-cycle rites of passage other than the major ones covered above Р such as retirement celebrations, ФsignificantХ birthdays (decade marks) and wedding anniversaries (silver, golden) Р and rituals marking other social/place/status/lifestyle transitions, such as housewarmings and Фleaving dosХ.
This all adds up to an awful lot of rites, many of which, like the major life-cycle transitions, are in most respects largely similar to their equivalents in other modern Western industrialized cultures. Gifts, parties, special meals, songs and decorations at Christmas; chocolate eggs at Easter; cards and flowers on ValentineХs Day; alcohol at almost all festive occasions; food at most; etc. Rather than attempt to describe each rite in exhaustive detail, I will focus mainly on the broader unwritten social rules governing peculiarly English patterns of behaviour associated with these rites.
All human cultures have seasonal and transitional celebratory rites of some sort. Other animals just automatically register things such as the passing of the seasons, and adjust their behaviour accordingly: humans have to make a huge song-and-dance about every little calendrical punctuation mark. Fortunately for anthropologists, humans are also quite predictable, and tend to make pretty much the same kind of song-and- dance about such things Р or at least the festivities of different cultures tend to have a lot of features in common. Singing and dancing, for example. Most also involve eating, and virtually all involve alcohol.
The Role of Alcohol
The role of alcohol in celebration is particularly important in understanding the English, and requires a little bit of explanation. In all cultures where alcohol is used at all, it is a central element of celebration. There are two main reasons for this. First, carnivals and festivals are more than just a bit of fun: in most cultures, these events involve a degree of Фcultural remissionХ Р a conventionalised relaxation of social controls over behaviour. Behaviour which would normally be frowned upon or even explicitly forbidden (e.g. promiscuous flirting, raucous singing, cross-dressing, jumping in fountains, talking to strangers, etc.) may, for the duration of the festivities, be actively encouraged. These are liminal periods Р marginal, borderline intervals, segregated from everyday existence, allowing us, briefly, to explore alternative ways of being. There is a natural affinity between alcohol and liminality, whereby the experience of intoxication mirrors the experience of ritually induced liminality. The chemical effects of alcohol echo the cultural chemistry of the festival.
But although humans seem to have a deep-seated need for these altered states of consciousness, for an escape from the restrictions of mundane existence, liminality is also rather scary. The fact that we restrict our collective pursuit of altered states and alternative realities to specific, limited contexts suggests that our desire for this liberation is by no means unequivocal Р that it is balanced by an equally powerful need for the stability and security of mundane existence. We may be enthralled by the liminal experience of the carnival, but we are also afraid of it; we like to visit alternative worlds, but we wouldnХt want to live there. Alcohol plays a double or ФbalancingХ role in the context of festive rituals: the altered states of consciousness induced by alcohol allow us
to explore desired but potentially dangerous alternative realities, while the social meanings of drinking Р the rules of convivial sociability invariably associated with the consumption of alcohol Р provide a reassuring counterbalance. By drinking, we enable and enhance the experience of liminality that is central to festive rites, but the familiar, everyday, comforting, sociable rituals of sharing and pouring and round-buying, the social bonding that is synonymous with drinking, help us somehow to tame or even ФdomesticateХ the disturbing aspects of this liminal world.
So, there are the universals. But there are also some cross-cultural variations. Although alcohol and celebration are inextricably bound together in all societies where alcohol is used, the connection appears to be stronger in ФambivalentХ drinking cultures Р those with a morally charged relationship with alcohol, where one needs a reason for drinking, such as England Р than in ФintegratedХ drinking cultures, where drinking is a morally neutral element of normal life and requires no justification. The English (along with the US, Australia, most of Scandinavia, Iceland, etc.) feel that they have to have an excuse for drinking Р and the most common and popular excuse is celebration. In ФintegratedХ drinking cultures (such as France, Spain and Italy) there is little or no disapprobation of drinking, and therefore no need to find excuses for drinking. Festivity is strongly associated with alcohol in these integrated cultures, but is not invoked as a justification for every drinking occasion: a celebration most certainly requires alcohol, but every drink does not require a celebration.
The Celebration Excuse Р and Magical Beliefs
As well as cross-cultural research with my SIRC colleagues on festive drinking, I did a study a few years ago specifically on English celebrations and attitudes to celebrating. This study involved the usual combination of observation-fieldwork, informal interviews and a national survey.
The main finding was that the English appear to be a nation of dedicated Фparty animalsХ, who will seize upon almost any excuse for celebratory drinking. As well as the established calendrical festivals, a staggering 87 per cent of survey respondents mentioned bizarre or trivial events that had provided an excuse for a party, including: Фmy teddy-bearХs birthdayХ, Фmy mate swallowing his toothХ, Фwhen my neighbourХs snake laid eggs after weХd thought it was a maleХ, Фthe first Friday of the weekХ and Фthe fourteenth anniversary of the death of my pet hamsterХ.
In addition to the more outlandish excuses, over 60 per cent admitted that something as mundane and insignificant as Фa friend dropping inХ had provided a good enough excuse for a bout of celebratory drinking. More than half the population celebrate ФSaturday nightХ, just under half have celebratory drinks merely because ФItХs FridayХ and nearly 40 per cent of younger respondents felt that Фthe end of the working dayХ was a valid excuse for drunken revelry.
Calling a drinking session a ФcelebrationХ not only gets round our moral ambivalence about alcohol, providing a legitimate excuse for drinking, but also in itself gives us a sort of official licence to shed a few inhibitions. Celebrations are by definition ФliminalХ episodes, in which certain normal social restraints can be temporarily suspended. A drink that has been labelled ФcelebratoryХ therefore has even greater magical disinhibiting powers than a drink that is just a drink. ФCelebrationХ is a magic word: merely invoking the concept of celebration transforms an ordinary round of drinks into a ФpartyХ, with all the relaxation of social controls that this implies. Abracadabra! Instant liminality!
This kind of magic works in other cultures as well Р and drinks themselves can be used to define and ФdictateХ the nature of an occasion, without the need for words, magic or otherwise. Certain types of drink, for example, may be so strongly associated with particular forms of social interaction that serving them in itself acts as an effective indicator of expectations, or even as an instruction to behave in a specified way. In most Western cultures, for instance, champagne is synonymous with celebration, such that if it is ordered or served at an otherwise ФordinaryХ occasion, someone will invariably ask ФWhat are we celebrating?Х Champagne prompts festive, cheerful light-heartedness, which is why it would be inappropriate to serve it at funerals. In Austria, sekt is drunk on formal occasions, while schnapps is reserved for more intimate, convivial gatherings Р the type of drink served defining both the nature of the event and the social relationship between the drinkers. The choice of drink dictates behaviour to the extent that the mere appearance of a bottle of schnapps can sometimes prompt a switch from the ФpoliteХ form of address, sie, to the intimate du. In England, although we do not have the same clear linguistic distinctions, beer is regarded as a more informal, casual drink than wine, and serving beer with a meal indicates expectations of informal, relaxed behaviour Р even guestsХ body language will be more casual: slumping a bit rather than sitting up straight, adopting more open postures and using more expansive gestures.
In this respect, then, the English are not very different from other humans, but our belief in, and need for, the disinhibiting powers of both drinks and magic words is perhaps stronger than most other culturesХ, as our social inhibitions are more formidable. Our ambivalence and magical beliefs about alcohol are defining features of all English rites of passage, from the most important life-cycle transitions to the most trivial, trumped-up, teddy- bearХs-birthday rituals.
Christmas and New YearХs Eve Rules
The English year is punctuated by national calendrical holidays: some are mere commas, others are more important semi-colons; the Christmas holiday and New YearХs Eve are the final full stop. Most calendrical rites were originally religious events, often ancient pagan festivals appropriated by Christianity, but the Christian significance of many of these rites is largely ignored. Ironically, they might be said to have reverted to something more like their original pagan roots, which serves the Christians right for hi-jacking them in the first place, I
suppose. Christmas and New YearХs Eve are by far the most important. Christmas Day (25th of December) is firmly
established as a ФfamilyХ ritual, while New YearХs Eve is a much more raucous celebration with friends. But when English people talk about ФChristmasХ (as in ФWhat are you doing for Christmas?Х or ФI hate Christmas!Х), they often mean the entire holiday period, from the 23rd/24th of December right through to New YearХs Day, including, typically and traditionally, at least some of the following:
Christmas Eve (family; last minute shopping; panics and squabbles; tree lights; drinking; too many nuts and chocolates; possibly church Р early evening carols or midnight service); Christmas Day (family; tree; present-giving rituals; marathon cooking and eating of huge Christmas lunch; the QueenХs broadcast on television/radio Р or pointedly not watching/listening to the Queen; fall asleep Р perhaps while watching The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz or similar; more food and drink; uncomfortable night);
Boxing Day (hangover; family ФoutingХ of some sort, if only to local park; long country walk; visiting the other set of relatives; escape from family to pub); 27thР30th December (slightly strange ФlimboХ period; some back at work, but often achieving very little; others shopping, going for walks, trying to keep children amused; more overeating and drinking; visiting friends/relatives; television; videos; pub);
New YearХs Eve (friends; big boozy parties or pub-crawls; dressing up/fancy-dress; loud music; dancing; champagne, banging pans etc. at midnight; fireworks; ФAuld Lang SyneХ; New YearХs resolutions; taxi- hunt/long cold walk home) New YearХs Day (sleep late; hangover)
Many peopleХs Christmases may not follow this pattern, but most will include a few of these ritual elements, and most English people will at least recognise this rough outline of an average, bog-standard Christmas.
Often, the term ФChristmasХ comprises much more than this. When people say ФI hate ChristmasХ or moan about how ФChristmasХ is becoming more and more of a nightmare or an ordeal, they are generally including all the ФpreparationsХ for and Фrun-upХ to Christmas, which may start at least a month ahead, and which involve office/workplace Christmas parties, ФChristmas shoppingХ, a ФChristmas PantoХ and quite possibly, for those with school-age children, a school ФNativity PlayХ or Christmas concert Р not to mention the annual ritual of writing and dispatching large quantities of Christmas cards. English people understand ФChristmasХ to include any or all of these customs and activities, as well as the Christmas-week celebrations.
The school Nativity Play is, for many, the only event of any religious content that they will encounter during the Christmas period, although its religious significance tends to get lost in the social drama and ritual of the occasion Р particularly the issue of whose children have been fortunate enough to secure the leading roles (Mary, Joseph) and the principal supporting ones (Three Kings, Innkeeper, Head Shepherd, Angel-of-the-Lord), and whose must suffer the indignity of playing mere background shepherds, angels, sheep, cows, donkeys and so on. Or the school may have been gripped by a sudden fit of political correctness and attempted to replace the traditional Nativity with something more ФmulticulturalХ (ФweХre all very multiculti round hereХ an Asian youth-worker from Yorkshire told me). This being England, the squabbles and skirmishes over casting and other issues are rarely conducted openly but are more a matter of indirect scheming, Machiavellian manipulation and indignant muttering. On the night, Fathers tend to show up late and record the second half of the Nativity on shaky, cinЋma-vЋritЋ video, unfortunately focusing throughout on the wrong sheep.
The Christmas Panto is a bizarre, quintessentially English custom. Almost every local theatre in the country puts on a pantomime at Christmas, in which a childrenХs fairy-tale or folk tale Р such as Aladdin, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Dick Whittington, Mother Goose, etc. Р is performed, always with men in drag (known as Pantomime Dames) playing the main female parts and a woman in menХs clothes as Principal Boy. Tradition requires much noisy audience-participation for the children, with cries of ФHEХS BEHIND YOU!Х ФOH NO HE ISNХT!Х ФOH YES HE IS!Х (a ritual into which adult members of the audience often throw themselves with considerable gusto), and a script full of salacious double-entendres for the grown-ups (at which the children laugh heartily, before patiently explaining them to their parents).
The Christmas Moan-fest and the Bah-humbug Rule
ФChristmas shoppingХ is the bit many English people are thinking of when they say that they hate Christmas, and usually means shopping for Christmas presents, food, cards, decorations and other trappings. As it is considered manly to profess to detest any sort of shopping, men are particularly inclined to moan about how much they dislike Christmas. But the Christmas-moan is now something of a national custom, and both sexes generally start moaning about Christmas in early November.
There is effectively an unwritten rule prescribing Фbah-humbugХ, anti-Christmas moaning rituals at this time of year, and it is unusual to encounter anyone over the age of eighteen who will admit to unequivocal enjoyment of Christmas. This does not stop those who dislike Christmas taking a certain pride in their distaste, as though they were the first people ever to notice Фhow commercial the whole thing has becomeХ or how Фit starts earlier every year Р soon thereХll be bloody Christmas decorations in AugustХ or how it seems to get more and more expensive, or how impossibly crowded the streets and shops are.
Christmas-moaners recite the same platitudes every year, fondly imagining that these are original thoughts,
and that they are a beleaguered, discerning minority, while the eccentric souls who actually like Christmas shopping and all the other rituals tend to keep quiet about their unorthodox tastes. They may even join in the annual moan-fest, just to be polite and sociable Р much as people who enjoy rain will often courteously agree that the weather is beastly. The cynical Фbah, humbug!Х position is the norm (particularly among men, many of whom find something almost suspiciously effeminate about an adult male who admits to liking Christmas) and everyone loves a good Christmas moan, so why spoil their fun? Those of us who actively enjoy Christmas tend to be almost apologetic about our perversity: ФWell, yes, but, um, to be honest, I actually like all the naff decorations and finding presents for people... I know itХs deeply uncool...Х
Not all Christmas-moaners are mindless, sheep-like followers of the Фbah-humbugХ rule. Two groups of Christmas-haters who have good reason to complain, and for whom I do have sympathy, are parents struggling on low incomes, for whom the expense of buying presents that will please their children is a real problem, and working mothers for whom, even if they are not poor, the whole business can truly be more of a strain than a pleasure.
Christmas-present Rules
A gift, as any first-year anthropology student can tell you, is never free. In all cultures, gifts tend to come with some expectation of a return Р this is not a bad thing: reciprocal exchanges of gifts are an important form of social bonding. Even gifts to small children, who cannot be expected to reciprocate in kind, are no exception to this universal rule: children receiving Christmas presents are supposed to reciprocate with gratitude and good behaviour. The fact that they often do no such thing is beside the point Р a rule is not invalidated just because people break it. It is interesting to note that in the case of very young children, who cannot be expected to understand this rule, we do not give Christmas presents ФdirectlyХ, but invent a magical being, Father Christmas, from whom the gifts are said to come. The traumatic discovery that Father Christmas does not exist is really the discovery of the laws of reciprocity, the fact that Christmas presents come with strings attached.
English squeamishness about money can be a problem in this context, particularly for the upper-middle and upper classes, who are especially sensitive about it. Talking about how much a Christmas present cost is regarded as terribly vulgar; actually telling someone the price of their present, or even that it was ФexpensiveХ, would be crass beyond belief. Although general, non-specific complaints about the cost of Christmas presents are allowed, harping on and on about the financial aspects of gift-exchange is uncouth and inconsiderate, as it makes recipients of gifts feel awkward.
Actual expenditure on Christmas presents seems to be inversely related to income, with poor, working-class families tending to give more lavish gifts, especially to children, often going heavily into debt in the process. The middle classes (particularly the Фinterfering classesХ) tut-tut sanctimoniously over this, and congratulate themselves on their superior prudence, while tucking in to their overpriced organic vegetables and admiring the tasteful Victorian ornaments on their tree.
New YearХs Eve and the Orderly-disorder Rule
New YearХs Eve, which more of us will admit to enjoying (although some of the bah-humbug brigade make the same complaints every year about the boring sameness of it all) is a more straightforward carnival Р with all the usual, standard liminal stuff: cultural remission, legitimized deviance, festive inversions, altered states of consciousness, communitas and so on Р and it is more obviously a direct descendant of pagan mid-winter festivals, uncluttered by Christian meddling with the imagery or sanitization of the rituals.
As with FreshersХ Week, office Christmas parties and most other English carnival rites, the extent of actual debauchery and anarchy tends to be greatly overestimated, both by the puritanical killjoys who disapprove of such festivities and by those participants who like to see themselves as wild, fun-loving rebels. In reality, our New-YearХs-Eve drunken debauchery is a fairly orderly sort of disorder, in which only certain specified taboos may be broken, only the usual designated inhibitions may be shed, and the standard rules of English drunken etiquette apply: mooning but not flashing; fighting but not queue-jumping; bawdy jokes but not racist ones; ФillicitХ flirting and, in some circles, snogging, but not adulterous sex; promiscuity but not, if you are straight, homosexuality, nor heterosexual lapses if you are gay; vomiting and (if male) urinating in the street, but never defecating; and so on.
Minor Calendricals Р Commas and Semi-colons
And as New YearХs Eve is understood to be the most debauched and disinhibited of our calendrical rites, the rest (HalloweХen, Guy FawkesХ Night, Easter, May Day, ValentineХs, etc.) tend to be pretty tame Р although they all have their origins in much more boisterous pagan festivals.
Our May Day, with staid, respectable, usually middle-aged Morris Dancers and the occasional innocent childrenХs maypole, is a revival of the ancient pagan rites of Beltane. In some parts of the country, counter- culture/New Age revellers with dreadlocks, beads and multiple body-piercings celebrate May Day alongside the Morris Dancers and the Neighbourhood-Watch/Parish-Council types Р an odd-looking juxtaposition, but generally amicable. HalloweХen Р fancy-dress and sweets Р is a descendant of All SoulsХ Eve, a festival of communion with the dead, also of pagan origin and celebrated in various forms in many cultures around the world.
The practice of lighting bonfires and burning effigies in early November is another pagan one Р common at Фfire festivalsХ welcoming the winter (the effigies represented the old year) Р adapted in the seventeenth century to
commemorate the defeat of Guy FawkesХs plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It is still also known as Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night66, and is now celebrated with firework-parties over a period of at least a fortnight, rather than just on the night of the 5th of November. ValentineХs Day Р cards, flowers, chocolate Р is a sanitized Christian version of the Ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, originally held on the 15th February, which was a much more raunchy celebration of the Фcoming of springХ (in other words, the start of the mating season) designed to ensure the fertility of fields, flocks and people.
Many people think of Easter as one of the few genuinely Christian calendricals, but even its name is not Christian, being a variant of Eostre, the Saxon goddess of spring, and many of our Easter customs Р eggs and so on Р are based on pagan fertility rites. Some otherwise non-practising Christians may go to a church service on Easter Sunday, and even some totally non-religious people Фgive something upХ for the traditional fasting period of Lent (itХs a popular time to restart oneХs New-YearХs-Resolution diet, which somehow lost its momentum by the third week in January).
As calendrical punctuation marks go, these are mostly just commas. Easter qualifies as a semi-colon, as it involves a dayХs holiday from work, and is used as a reference point Р people talk about doing things Фby EasterХ or Фafter EasterХ, or something happening Фaround EasterХ. ValentineХs Day also just about counts as a semi-colon, although we donХt get a day off work, as it plays a significant part in our courtship and mating practices (significant enough to cause a big peak in the suicide rates, anyway).
In addition to these ФmainstreamХ national calendricals, every English ethnic and religious minority has its own annual punctuation marks: the Hindu Divali and Janamashtami; the Sikh Divali and Vaisakhi; Muslim Ramadan, Eid- Ul-Fitr and Al-Hijra; Jewish Chanukkah, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, to name just the first few that immediately spring to mind. And every English sub-culture has its own calendricals Р its own annual tribal gatherings and festivals. These include the upper-class ФSeasonХ, of which the Royal Ascot race-meeting, the Henley Regatta and Wimbledon tennis championships (always abbreviated to just ФAscot, Henley and WimbledonХ) are the principal events. The racing fraternity have the Grand National, the Cheltenham Festival and the Derby in addition to Ascot; Goths have their annual Convention at Whitby in Yorkshire; New Agers, other counter-culture groups and young music-lovers have their Festival at Glastonbury; Modern Druids have the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge; the literati have Hay-on-Wye; opera-lovers have Glyndebourne and Garsington; dog-lovers have Crufts; bikers have the BMF Show at Peterborough; horsey folk have Badminton, Hickstead and the Horse of the Year Show; and so on. There are thousands of these sub-cultural calendricals, far too many to list, but each one, to its adherents, may be much more important than Christmas. And I have only mentioned the ФChristmasesХ Р every sub-culture has its own minor calendricals as well, its own semi-colons and commas.
But even the minor punctuation marks are necessary: we need these special days, these little mini-festivals, to provide breaks from our routine and give structure to our year Р just as regular mealtimes structure our days. ThatХs Фwe humansХ, of course, not just Фwe EnglishХ, but we English do seem to have a particular need for regular Фtime outХ from our rigid social controls.
Holidays...
Which brings me rather neatly to the concept of holidays, and especially the summer holiday. I am including this under Фcalendrical ritesХ (although nit-pickers might argue that technically it is neither) as it is an annually recurring event of possibly even greater cultural significance than Christmas, which in my book makes it calendrical, and a ФliminalХ ritual conforming in important respects to the pattern identified by van Gennep as characteristic of rites of passage, which in my book makes it a ФriteХ. (And this is my book, so I can call things calendrical rites if I choose.)
In terms of punctuation marks (I can labour metaphors too, if I wish), the summer holiday is an ellipsis (...), the three dots indicating passage of time, or something unspoken, or a significant pause or break in the narrative flow, often with a suggestion of mystery attached. IХve always felt there was something decidedly liminal about those three dots. There is certainly something very liminal about the summer holiday: this two- or three-week break is a time outside regular, mundane existence, a special time when the normal controls, routines and restraints are suspended, and we feel a sense of liberation from the workaday world. We are free from the exigencies of work, school or housekeeping routines Р this is playtime, ФfreeХ time, time that is ФoursХ. On holiday, we say, Фyour time is your ownХ.
Summer holidays are an alternative reality: if we can, we go to another country; we dress differently; we eat different, special, more indulgent food (ФGo on, have another ice-cream, youХre on holiday!Х) Р and we behave differently. The English on their summer holiday are more relaxed, more sociable, more spontaneous, less hidebound and uptight. (In a national study conducted by my SIRC colleagues, Фbeing more sociableХ was one of the three most common responses when people were asked what they most associated with summer, the other two being Фpub gardensХ and ФbarbecuesХ, which are both essentially also about sociability.) We speak of holidays as a time to Фlet our hair downХ, Фhave funХ, Фlet off steamХ, ФunwindХ, Фgo a bit madХ. We may even talk to strangers. The English donХt get much more liminal than that.
English holidays Р summer holidays in particular Р are governed by the same laws of cultural remission as carnivals and festivals. Like ФcelebrationХ, ФholidayХ is a magic word. As with festivals, however, cultural remission does not mean an unbridled, anarchic free-for-all, but rather a regulated sort of rowdiness, a selective spontaneity, in which specified inhibitions are shed in a prescribed, conventional manner.
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