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| omnipoetics:ortiz [2025/04/23 23:56] – [Works Cited] mary | omnipoetics:ortiz [2025/04/24 00:43] (current) – [The Sacred Clown] sydneyb |
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| ====== The Sacred Clown ====== | ====== The Sacred Clown ====== |
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| ====== Alfonso Ortiz ====== | ====== Alfonso Ortiz ====== |
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| ====== "Sacred Clown" ====== | ====== "Sacred Clown Synopsis" ====== |
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| Ortiz's study of the sacred clowns opens many different doors. Ortiz begins his writing by noting that on June 22nd and 23rd of 1968, he had heard about a public ritual that was to held on the 23rd in a rather conservative Hopi village and he plans to see the proceedings for himself. While observing from a roof, Ortiz notes that there are two groups of dancers (one that is dancing in perfect sync) while the other group is just a little off in their movements. Both groups are labelled "kachinas," which is a spirit being in the religious understandings of the Pueblo people, but they provide a really fascinating juxtaposition even before the clowns' appearance as both group represent different tribes, natural forces, and attitudes. For example, the out-of-sync group is supposed to represent the Navajo tribe (at least from Ortiz's understanding), so the clowns are not the only members of the rituals that critique aspects of other tribes around them. | Ortiz's study of the sacred clowns opens many different doors. Ortiz begins his writing by noting that on June 22nd and 23rd of 1968, he had heard about a public ritual that was to held on the 23rd in a rather conservative Hopi village and he plans to see the proceedings for himself. While observing from a roof, Ortiz notes that there are two groups of dancers (one that is dancing in perfect sync) while the other group is just a little off in their movements. Both groups are labelled "kachinas," which is a spirit being in the religious understandings of the Pueblo people, but they provide a really fascinating juxtaposition even before the clowns' appearance as both group represent different tribes, natural forces, and attitudes. For example, the out-of-sync group is supposed to represent the Navajo tribe (at least from Ortiz's understanding), so the clowns are not the only members of the rituals that critique aspects of other tribes around them. |
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| However, when both groups stop their dance to go eat and rest for the next half of the festivities, that is when they send in the clowns. The clowns are easily identifiable with their paint and their corn-husk hats that look like horns. Much like a stand-up comedy routine, the clowns hold no punches for everything and everyone around them as they have make fun of everything, and "They [the clowns] do this by burlesquing missionaries, traders, government officials, members of neighboring tribes, anthropologists, and other people who touch on their lives; the clowns always pick on individuals, agencies and institutions which give them proper theatrical fodder for making some moral-ethical point about themselves" (Ortiz 271). Along with their vicious mockeries of everything that exists, the clowns are also extremely physical, such as the ordeal with the cactus (Ortiz 271) and the audience loves them, because who wouldn't? At their heart, the clowns represent how one is not to act, because while it is funny, if taken to the extreme, it stops being humorous. | However, when both groups stop their dance to go eat and rest for the next half of the festivities, that is when they send in the clowns. The clowns are easily identifiable with their paint and their corn-husk hats that look like horns. Much like a stand-up comedy routine, the clowns hold no punches for everything and everyone around them as they have make fun of everything, and "They [the clowns] do this by burlesquing missionaries, traders, government officials, members of neighboring tribes, anthropologists, and other people who touch on their lives; the clowns always pick on individuals, agencies and institutions which give them proper theatrical fodder for making some moral-ethical point about themselves." ((Ortiz, Alfonso. “The Sacred Clown.” //Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Towards an Enthopoetics//, edited by Jerome and Diane Rothenberg, University of California Press, 1983.)) Along with their vicious mockeries of everything that exists, the clowns are also extremely physical, such as the ordeal with the cactus and the audience loves them, because who wouldn't? At their heart, the clowns represent how one is not to act, because while it is funny, if taken to the extreme, it stops being humorous. ((Ortiz, Alfonso. “The Sacred Clown.” //Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Towards an Enthopoetics//, edited by Jerome and Diane Rothenberg, University of California Press, 1983.)) |
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| Eventually, from Ortiz's perspective, these groups who preform the rituals are not different at all and instead must be viewed together. According to Ortiz, "Between the kachinas and the clowns, we obtain a well-balanced portrayal of what the Hopi know about living; the kachinas remind men that if they but join their hearts periodically in these rites of mass supplication to the ancestral deities, life will continue as before in abundance and harmony; the clowns, by injecting a bit of the mundane and the commonplace, the ludicrous and the whimsical, into these most solemn of occasions, remind the people that this other side of life, too, is their own and that it must not be forgotten in the commitment to an exacting calendar of religious observances" (272). The groups of kachina and clowns also act as affirmation of the Hopi tribe's identity which is notable after centuries of suppression and the fact that they are the minority in the region. The clowns, while they technically profane everything, be it holy rituals or spaces, they also serve as a reminder to be mindful about what is sacred in people's everyday lives. | Eventually, from Ortiz's perspective, these groups who preform the rituals are not different at all and instead must be viewed together. According to Ortiz, "Between the kachinas and the clowns, we obtain a well-balanced portrayal of what the Hopi know about living; the kachinas remind men that if they but join their hearts periodically in these rites of mass supplication to the ancestral deities, life will continue as before in abundance and harmony; the clowns, by injecting a bit of the mundane and the commonplace, the ludicrous and the whimsical, into these most solemn of occasions, remind the people that this other side of life, too, is their own and that it must not be forgotten in the commitment to an exacting calendar of religious observances." ((Ortiz, Alfonso. “The Sacred Clown.” //Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Towards an Enthopoetics//, edited by Jerome and Diane Rothenberg, University of California Press, 1983.)) The groups of kachina and clowns also act as an affirmation of the Hopi tribe's identity, which is notable after centuries of suppression and the fact that they are the minority in the region. The clowns, while they technically profane everything, be it holy rituals or spaces, they also serve as a reminder to be mindful about what is sacred in people's everyday lives. |
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| | {{tag>USA New Mexico Hopi Essay Ritual Theory Sacred Symposium_Of_The_Whole}} |
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