The Ritual Significance of Play

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the notion of "deep play," play with multiple levels of anthropological and sociological significance, is demonstrated in both Balinese cockfighting and American baseball. The author points out that rituals are shaped in dialogue with culture and the difficulties humans experience, not for simple rewards. The paper relates that ritual creation may arise out of uncertainty, but it is a social and spiritual uncertainty, as well as an uncertainty of what actions will transpire.

From the Paper:

"All of these rituals came after long years of baseball practice and performing well in a series of games. Although they might seem like purely mechanical and useless acts against he effects of chance "of bad weather, bad calls, or a cramp in the arm or leg" they might even be said, like the Andean coca chewing to have physical effects that positively impact the potential game. The caffeine in the iced tea, the coolness of the beverage, the buzz of the Beech-Nut Tobacco, even, in today's nutritionally conscious times, the Omega-3 fatty acids present in the tuna, in a perfect meld of protein and carbohydrate loading all have physical, albeit subtle affects upon the baseball player's physical as well as mental state. This is not to say that having an ice tea is the same as chewing a coca leaf. However, the physical aspects and effects of rituals created for the player in his own world have physical effects upon the player as well as analogs with the rituals that are generated in more communal and long-term cultural settings."

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