35 pages • 1 hour read
Mary DouglasPurity and Danger
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The System Shattered and Renewed”
It is not true that primitive cultures confuse the sacred and the unclean. However, it is true that primitive religions often sacralize dirt and uncleanness, which they had rejected. The search for purity can become paradoxical or contradictory, as when sexual purity is interpreted to mean no contact between the sexes. In order to avoid such contradiction, societies often try to include dirt and uncleanness within a coherent philosophy or worldview. Douglas terms this a “pessimistic” religion, as opposed to an “optimistic” one, the latter of which attempts to evade or ignore the problem of dirt and uncleanness.
Douglas cites tribal death rituals where the reality of death is confronted and even embraced. In these cases, ritual harnesses the power of pollution for good (199). This contradicts the assumption of some anthropologists that primitive societies try to deny the reality of evil or death.
Chapter 10 Analysis
In the final chapter, Douglas considers the question posed at the start of the book: whether the sacred and the unclean are ever confused, as some early anthropologists maintained. Douglas rejects this, though she notes that religions do often sacralize uncleanness. She therefore rephrases the question: In what ways can dirt and uncleanness become creative? That is, how can the negative force of pollution be included within a coherent worldview, rather than swept under the rug?
Douglas analyzes the stages in which matter is rejected as dirt and pollution. At first, it is recognized as a danger, “recognizably out of place, a threat to good order” (197). After it’s rejected and discarded, it loses its identity and thus its sense of danger. Douglas describes dirt in this stage as an “apt symbol of creative formlessness” (199). However, its dangerous stage gives dirt its power. It is the job of ritual to harness this power for good.
Using the philosopher William James as a springboard, Douglas considers whether religions and philosophies should be classified as “pessimistic” or “optimistic” in their view of evil—that is, whether they shun and reject evil as lying outside the world of reality, or try to include it within the scope of their thought. Expanded to the subject at hand, this would imply the question of whether a society is “dirt-rejecting” or “dirt-affirming.”
She examines two tribal death rituals: the Nyakyusa sweeping dirt onto mourners, and the Dinka ritual murder of their spear-masters. The spear-master is a priest-like figure in the tribe who symbolizes life and truth. By preventing him from dying a natural death, the Dinka preserve his life in his body, and the spirit of life is thus transmitted to his successor for the good of the tribe. From these examples, Douglas concludes that ritual is used to confront—rather than magically smooth over—the reality of evil.
