“Describing the rules of the game is not the same as explaining why one move has been played” (Bazin 2008: 422, our translation.)
Fig. 1. The scene...
Fig. 1. The scene of the plate
Photo: Stéphen Huard.
- 1 The conventional unaccented transcription (Okell 1966) is used to romanize Burmese words. I have ch (...)
- 2 The data presented in this paper are drawn from 20 months of fieldwork in Myanmar conducted during (...)
1It is February 4, 2016 in Gawgyi, a small village of approximately 500 people located in the Sagaing Region, about ten kilometers from the city of Monywa in central Myanmar. I attend a shinbyu. This is the name given to the Buddhist ceremony at the end of which young men are temporarily ordained as monks. As guests partake of the feast offered by the donors organizing the ceremony which I am filming at their request, I notice a particular situation—let’s call it “the scene of the plate.” Usually, this kind of ceremony is well codified; everyone has a place and follows a role depending on whether he or she is organizing, helping, being invited, etc. However, the presence of the camera heightens the staging. At around 8 am, the organizers, a couple, begin to move around the banquet tables as if to reveal their role as donors (ahludaga1) to the seated guests. As ahludaga they fund the feast and share the merit (kutho) acquired from the donation of their sons to the monastery. The woman, smiling, asks a first table if the food is good. Gradually, one senses a certain uneasiness on the face of her husband, who stands next to her, arms flailing. They move to a second table where four other villagers are eating. Here the donor begins trying to personally serve the guests individually; a typical gesture, as when one receives guests at home for example. When the donor starts to serve the woman in blue, a man standing behind me says to her, “Go on, go on [eating],” instructing her in a joking tone to continue the scene. These words trigger a growing expression of discomfort around the table as people smile, look up at the camera and understand they are being filmed. However, another guest rebels. An elderly woman from the neighboring village of Myinmilaung removes her plate from the table with both hands and signals that she has “had enough.” The gesture of giving suddenly becomes a charade. The host couple turns to me with uneasy smiles, looks at the camera once more, and then after putting the spoon back on the serving plate, the woman invites me to follow her on to another table with a hand gesture.2
2This scene is only ambiguous for the outside observer who is not familiar with the “codes” of politeness, the biographical trajectories of the people present or the ordinary modus operandi of this ceremony and what the offering of food can mean during the banquet of a shinbyu. So how can we analyze this sequence of actions? Has a “move,” to use Jean Bazin’s metaphor of the game (epigraph), been made on the chessboard of power relations? Is the old woman simply saying that she is no longer hungry or does her gesture signal a refusal to be entrapped in this staging of the relationship? Is the couple overdoing it? And, finally, how can we make sense of the discomfort, or unease, of the hosting donors and of the guests during this scene? To this, we must add the hierarchical dynamics at play in this transforming political space, where relations between villagers, in terms of patronage and obligations, are constantly being recomposed (Huard 2019b). The current proliferation of increasingly ostentatious ceremonies is a sign of this transformation, affecting village hierarchies against a backdrop of regional and national economic acceleration since the democratic transition of the 2010s.
- 3 This minimalist definition is inspired most specifically by Emmanuel Pannier’s introductory article (...)
- 4 On the notion of test, see the work of pragmatic sociology and anthropology, and in particular Bolt (...)
3The basic question is what is at play in “the scene of the plate”? To answer this question, I propose to consider this interaction as a “social setting” (Weber 2001: 485) in which different issues are at stake, putting to the test the interpretation of the transfers taking place. The notion of “social setting” refers to the context in which an interaction takes on its meaning and which works as a cognitive and normative framework constituted by language and various procedures for the qualification of action. The concept of transfer is understood in a restricted analytical sense, namely the simple movement of something (good or service) from one entity to another.3 In order to address the stakes of transfers, the scene is considered as a test,4 i.e., the moment when uncertainty about the worth of one-another is at stake (Blondeau & Sevin 2004: 10), thereby opening up the debate on the more or less political meaning of the transfers at work.
- 5 Notably Athané (2011), Mauss (2007), Pannier (2015), Pickles (2020), Testart (2007), and Weber (200 (...)
4The “scene of the plate” thus becomes an entry-point for describing the interactions and the various transfers that take place during a ritual. In the absence of direct explanations of the actors involved—which I have only in fragmentary form—giving an account of the sequence of discomfort amounts to questioning how the gift of food is qualified when it is made during the feast celebrating the religious donation of sons to a monastery. To do this, I draw on the literature on non-commercial circulation while assuming a more general epistemological stance. I mobilize works on transfers5 through two main approaches. The first is normative and consists in making a partial typology of the transfers at stake during a shinbyu to analyze how this gift of food, when ritually framed under the register of religious donation, can be interpreted as an act creating obligations (Schober 1989). The second approach is inspired by the work of Florence Weber who, in the tradition of “polyphonic theories of nested worlds” (2007: 34), insists on the fact that different social settings enable and give meaning to the multitude of transfers that take place during this kind of event (invitation, gifting of food, money or mutual aid, sharing of merit, etc.). This approach makes it possible to insert the “scene of the plate” into its ceremonial context and to better understand the political processes at play in the interpretation of the transfers. Furthermore, the epistemological angle of this article is descriptive and attempts to follow the “anthropological hypothesis” as defended by J. Bazin (2008) and summarized by Thierry Bonnot as follows: “Even if we are initially unaware of the rules of the game and are therefore unable to describe what is happening, we can learn to play in order to understand the actions (or even to play ourselves) and to teach others how to play.” (Bonnot 2009: 242). The aim of this article is thus to describe the rules of the game of transfers at work in a shinbyu in order to sketch out possible readings of the “scene of the plate” and the moves that may have been played there.
5We know that the “scene of the plate” stages a gift of food during the feast of a shinbyu. One must first recognize that the “donation” of a son to the monastery is the general context; it gives meaning to the event and triggers a set of relatively standardized actions and transfers. As such, a shinbyu follows the register of religious donation, “register” being understood as a normative system that frames actions as well as outlining the roles of those involved and the stages of the ceremony. Let us consider these elements one by one.
- 6 On this particular point see Robinne (2002).
- 7 Rarely explored, arrangements for funding the ceremony can range from a full funding (of the banque (...)
- 8 Shway Yoe (James G. Scott) described this first in 1882. Manning Nash (1965) and later Melford E. S (...)
6The shinbyu celebrates the entry of a boy into the monastery and is the first step of a longer rite of passage by which boys become adults, qualified for marriage,6 and members of the lay community after leaving the monastery. Although in practice there may be several types of donors involved in arranging a shinbyu, depending on the circumstances,7 I will refer to the couple who organize and finance the ceremony and who “give” their son to the monastery as the donor(s). This ceremony is relatively well documented in Western anthropological literature concerning Myanmar. A number of authors (Shway Yoe 1882; Nash 1965; Spiro 1971; Brac de la Perrière 1989, 2009, 2015, 2017; Houtman 1999; Robinne 2000, 2002; Rozenberg 2009) have described and interpreted the significance of this donation ceremony in Myanmar, its merit-oriented aspects, or its connections with other rituals.8 Shinbyu is generally translated as “the making of the king/prince” (Brac de la Perrière 2009: 121) referring to how boys are first “crowned” kings to better emphasize their renunciation of the world by becoming novices. It is a complex ceremony of multiple phases that can last several days. The first, during which guests are invited to a large feast is ostentatious and held in a ceremonial pavilion erected at the donors’ home. Another, more modest, takes place in the monastery where the boy, after having his hair shorn and exchanging his royal costume for a monk’s robe, enters the monastic community. The gifting of a child to the monastic community generates merit then shared between the donors, guests, and all sentient beings through the mediation of monks under the ceremonial pavilion at the donors’ home. In practice, giving a shinbyu is a matter of lavish expenditure, although it can be extremely sober in theory. Manning Nash (1965: 125) sees in the assumption of responsibility for this ceremony a measure of prestige in that the donor demonstrates the place he or she holds in the community through the expense, and the number and prominence of both the lay and monastic guests. Simultaneously, the shinbyu is also a period of intense social activity where many transfers occur. It is necessary to prepare for the ceremony (renting equipment, activating the village solidarity, inviting people, etc.) as well as to organize a feast, a procession, a performance with musicians, and the rituals of ordination and merit sharing.
- 9 Ahlu in Burmese is the equivalent of dāna in Pali-Sanskrit. Ahlu is a noun that generally refers to (...)
- 10 On the variety of terminology for gift in the Burmese Buddhist context, see Bernot (1992).
- 11 On this debate, see the clarification made by B. Brac de la Perrière (2015) and her discussion of t (...)
7In more conceptual terms, a shinbyu is part of a larger set of “religious donations” (ahlu)9 made to monks that may take many other forms such as gifts of money, monastic robes, and food. These transfers represent a paradigmatic way of accumulating merit in Myanmar. I have chosen to retain the term “religious donation” in its emic sense—giving as a Buddhist meritorious act10—to speak of this transfer between donor (lay person) and receiver (the monastic community). In this sense, I follow the clarification made by Bénédicte Brac la Perrière (2015) on the “Buddhist donation” in the context of Burmese studies, and in particular on the thorny question of qualifying merit, namely whether or not it is the outcome of reciprocity.11 This author proposes to consider “religious donations” for what they do, which is to mark the difference in status between the layman and the religious precisely because the donation is not reciprocal (ibid.: 391). In practice, a monk receiving a gift has no obligation to give in return. What returns to the giver is merit, a spiritual reward that improves prestige and social status in this life and determines future rebirth in a specific plane of existence according to karmic law. Return (merit) is inherent in the act of giving and purity of intention is a primary condition for the accumulation of merit. Thus, monks do not distribute merit in the sense of there being a stock of it and a lay person cannot demand merit from monks. The latter simply allow the dissemination of merit, for example by receiving a donation or performing a ritual of merit sharing and are in this sense a “field of merit” (Brac de la Perrière 2015: 389).
- 12 On the sharing of merit through this rite of consecration, see Brac de la Perrière (2009: 126; 2015 (...)
8This configuration between donor (layman) and recipient (monk) and the circulation of merit is at the heart of the register of religious donation. During a shinbyu, it is according to this register that social positions are redistributed between the people who participate: donors, monks, initiates, and guests. The whole initiation ceremony thus crystallizes in the donation of one or more sons to the monastery creating a return flow of merit by way of the monastic community. Julian Schober (1989: 122-123) has shown that, for certain religious donation ceremonies and in parallel to the main donation, there are transfers of food and merit between donors and guests which contribute to the making of hierarchical relationships. Expanding on Frederick Lehman’s assertion that “to make merit is to increase power” (1984: 241), J. Schober insists on the fact that these transfers, unlike religious donations, create an obligation for the guests and other participants involved, to either reciprocate or enter into a relationship of dependence with the main donor called the kuthoshin or “master of merit” for the occasion. During a shinbyu, merit is shared towards the end of the ceremony in the yaysetkya (pouring of water) consecration ritual, referring to a libation in which the donors pour water into a silver plate while a monk recites the appropriate consecration formula calling the Earth goddess as witness.12
9To sum up, a shinbyu is a ceremony inscribed in the register of religious donation and within which the circulation of merit, resulting from the gift of children to the Sangha and acquired through the intermediary of the monks, participates in the making of new power dynamics. It is therefore possible to analyze how this register informs the “scene of the plate” as an encompassing context. However, this scene stages another transfer, that of the gifting of food. Before analyzing how this transfer fits into the register of religious donation, let us examine the context in which it takes place.
- 13 This list can be extended to five “masters of gratitudes” if one distinguishes between the Buddha, (...)
- 14 According to B. Brac de la Perrière (2009), the obligation of novitiate is associated with the life (...)
- 15 The difference between debt and obligation (commercial and non-commercial spheres) has been explain (...)
10For J. Schober (1989: 105), this transfer, especially when it is staged as a ritual, is either an expression of “gratitude” (kyayzu) when it is made towards people of higher status, or one of benevolence when it is directed towards inferiors. Regarding the first case, her explanation refers to obligations embedded in life cycles conceptualized in Burmese Buddhism in terms of “blessings” or “gratitudes.” Parents, teachers and the Buddha are the three “masters of gratitude” (kyayzushin) that a person is born with.13 These blessings, or benefits, would entail an obligation of gratitude on the part of those who receive them, and hence on the part of children.14 Gratitude is not a debt, however, because the benefits are not quantified, contracted, or accounted for.15 Thus, gifts of food made either to beings in the realm of the sacred, such as monks, or to laypeople considered superior to the person making the offering, would be considered an expression of gratitude rather than an attempt to create new obligations (Schober 1989: 105).
11In the second case, giving food to those who are statutorily inferior would, on the contrary, allow for the creation of obligations:
Food given to those below one’s own station in life, even if it is given in a ritual context, is considered an expression of one’s loving kindness (metta) and compassion (karuna) for less fortunate ones and dependents. In return for this kindness, obligations must be repaid. On account of the dependency thus created, the recipient comes under the influence and power of his benefactor whom he owes gratitude (kyei: zu: shin) [sic] and in whose dominion of power he now exists. (Schober 1989: 105.)
- 16 Kadawde refers to any expression of respect for beings of higher status (whether spirits, parents, (...)
12This theory clarifies two ways of interpreting a transfer of food: as a way to express gratitude and as a way to create obligations. If these transfers are ritualized when they are made to superiors (one thinks in particular of the ritual offerings or kadaw bwe16 which attest the hierarchical relationship), they are rarely ritualized when they are directed towards inferiors. Following J. Schober’s thesis, the feast given at a shinbyu would in this case be considered as an act that creates obligations and, potentially, hierarchy. Those who make the religious donation would be superior because they share the merit and give food. In other words, the meaning of the gift of food at a shinbyu would be determined by the register of religious donation, which would remove any ambiguity about the meaning of this transfer: those who eat at the banquet are the guests of the donors (and therefore their inferiors) precisely because the latter are making a religious donation.
- 17 J. Schober’s thesis is in line with the more classical ones on Southeast Asia in general, according (...)
13The first problem with this theory is that it remains an abstraction. Its value lies in the fact that it allows us to understand the registers that can be mobilized, but it does not, for example, help us explaining the “scene of the plate.” It omits the temporalities of social relations, the hierarchical transformations and the different types of transfers that link people to each other. It is therefore necessary to know the social hierarchy (which is neither defined nor fixed) and to know which social space is being discussed, because the gift of food is equivocal and can take on different meanings. The hypothesis is that giving food is potentially obliging someone when it is not explicitly an expression of gratitude.17 Obligation and hierarchy should not be confused, and if this type of transfer allows for the creation of obligations, such as having to invite for one’s shinbyu those who have invited us for theirs, it does not create them all the time. Hence the second problem with this theory: food transfers are not limited to the register of religious donations. Just during one shinbyu, there are at least four transfers of food: a gift of tea leaf salad to solicit mutual aid from the villagers (1), a meal brought to the monks (2) before the banquet for the guests (3), followed by a distribution of sweets thrown out by the novices during the procession (4) (and one could add the first alms given to the novices by their parents the following morning). Not one of these transactions is an expression of gratitude or creates obligations. Even when the gift of food is part of a ritual that defines social positions and the rules of the game, its interpretation can be put to the test according to its staging and the actors present, especially during a feast.
14Thus, beyond the register of religious donation, there are many other transfers at work between the donors, the (future) monks, the village community, and the guests before and during a shinbyu. These transfers are part of the local sociability and can also sometimes participate in the actualization and transformation of power relations. A shinbyu can thus be understood as an event celebrating a religious donation that encompasses a set of transfers whose temporality is not reduced to the event itself. What is interesting for the purpose of this article—and ultimately for the analysis of the “scene of the plate”—is to describe the series of “social settings” during which transfers take place.
15For Florence Weber, commercial and non-commercial circulations make sense in “social settings” that remain “ritually separate and socially connected” (Weber 2007: 35). In order to describe the sequence of scenes and transfers during a shinbyu, it is necessary to focus on the analysis of “nested worlds” and more particularly on the devices that normalize the contexts of exchange:
Beginning an interaction with fixed formulas is a means of stating unambiguously what one is doing. Rituals of politeness are socially effective techniques: they allow the event to be inscribed in a series of similar events and are used to open and close a sequence that makes sense. Above and beyond the rituals, material devices fix the meaning of “what is happening here.” Among the material devices, places, postures, and gestures (the bodily hexis, adapted to the situation) count, but also the technical tools, particularly all the procedures for inscribing transfers in series, by way of registers or of listing in columns in which calculations are implemented. (Weber 2007: 37, our translation.)
- 18 This expression simply refers to the ways of thinking mobilized during a transfer, delineating the (...)
16Like the polite formulas opening an interaction, transfers contextualize the action by following the rules of a game that takes place within broader activities. Transfers are thus part of “contextual rationalities”18 (e.g., commercial, non-commercial; Weber 2007: 36) that intermingle but do not usually merge with one another. The following description closely blends narrative and analysis in order to illuminate some contexts of interactions, material devices, gestures, words, and exchanges that took place during the shinbyu from which the “scene of the plate” is taken.
- 19 The duration of this period corresponds roughly to the rainy season from June to October.
- 20 “Dependent worker” is not a literal translation, but a way of stating what is meant by the category (...)
- 21 Yatmiyathpa literally means “parent of a dwelling area.” There may be several yatmiyathpa in one vi (...)
- 22 U Lin is one of the village big men who, by making village affairs a space where the eminence of in (...)
17In February 2016, sometime before Buddhist Lent,19 U Myo and Daw Mya, a couple and “dependent workers”20 (myaukthu) who have experienced an improvement in their living conditions in recent years, performed a shinbyu for their two sons. They had been saving for several years to fund this event. To set a suitable date for the ceremony, the couple spoke with U Htay, the former village headman, who is now the “official elder” (yatmiyathpa).21 He is known for his ability to recognize auspicious signs based on the Burmese Buddhist calendar and people’s horoscopes. U Lin, the teacher in charge of the village public school, is also the “head of the group of unwed boys” (lubyogaung). In tandem with the female “head of the unmarried girls” (abyogaung), U Lin is in charge of the material organization of the village ceremonies. These two individuals are very important in Gawgyi, because they activate and control the collective organization of the village based on marital status and mutual aid. They have become the living memory of the meritorious acts and engagement of each individual for the smooth completion of key ceremonies in people’s lives (ordination, marriage, funerals, etc.).22
- 23 These “things” are accumulated over the years and renewed through a fund controlled by the leaders (...)
- 24 The abbreviation MMK refers to Myanmar's currency, the kyat, whose exchange rate to U.S. dollars in (...)
18During their meeting with U Lin, the couple U Myo and Daw Mya made a budget and agreed with him on the rental of “village things” (ywabon pyitsit)23 for the date of the shinbyu. The rented items include dishes, cooking utensils, high and low tables, chairs and stools, bamboo structures and plastic tarps for hosting the guests. In Gawgyi, U Lin is in charge of helping with the preparation before and during the ceremonies of the villagers while being able to mobilize the groups of single boys and girls of the village to carry out various tasks if necessary. Depending on the desire of the donors and their financial means, the shinbyu is more or less elaborate. For this one, there will be a traditional Burmese music group from Mandalay that will be hosted under a large “ceremonial pavilion” (mandat) with the novices and guests. All this at a cost that varies according to the duration of the shinbyu (generally 1 to 3 days), the food offered, the number of guests, the fame of the musicians, etc. The rent of the “village things” is limited to 50 000MMK24 (about 30 euros), which the donors are well aware of and which they pay a few days later. The meeting with U Lin enables the preparations to begin.
- 25 Using the term engagement (in its etic sense) allows one to see the gift of solicitation as a pledg (...)
- 26 The word “responsibility/duty” (tawun) is a bit strong here when solicitation is usually done by as (...)
19During this same week, the donors send letters of invitation to family members, friends, and acquaintances. These invitations solicit the presence of the recipients while mentioning the donation that will be made to the monks, the expected merit, and its ritual sharing. The invitations are not sent at random. It is important not to forget a person who has already invited you for a similar ceremony. Some invitations are used to strengthen alliances (economic or other) by formalizing new relationships via a religious ceremony. A few days before the shinbyu, donors solicit their close friends, family, and acquaintances to assist in various stages of the ceremony. In this regard, some of the items purchased for the ceremony are intended to be given as gifts to solicit an engagement25 to help. For example, cigars and pickled tea leaf salads are offered to several individual villagers by young men under the guidance of U Lin. On this day, I was given a cigar to help serve the guests and wash the dishes with an explicit request, “Do you accept this responsibility?”26 Other villagers are invited like this to come and assemble the bamboo structures that will cover the feast or build the ceremonial pavilion. And still others are given tea salads to help disassemble them. In this case, the transfer of food (and cigars) is a solicitating gift.
20The day before the official start of the ceremony, once the main pavilion is built, the two village chefs simmer the main dishes in huge pots cleaned beforehand by several unmarried girls. The girls also help with the cutting of vegetables while a group of young men, also single, bring the tables and chairs. In Gawgyi, the collective organization for this type of event is well established. The only challenge is to make sure that things go smoothly. In the evening, the sound system is turned on to indicate the beginning of the festivities and U Lin calls the villagers to gather. Many people come to share cigars, tea, betel and tea leaf salads, especially the elders and those who helped with the preparations.
- 27 On this transfer, see Brac de la Perrière (2015).
- 28 A photograph of this set-up can be seen in Huard (2019a: 85).
- 29 The table in front of the ceremonial pavilion on which fans are stored and behind which are seated (...)
- 30 According to the terminology provided by Weber (2007: 25-26), the idea of a chain of transfers cove (...)
21Very early the next morning, a meal is brought to the monastery and the donors, once the food has been placed on the table, squat around it and raise it for a few seconds with the help of the senior monk (hsayadaw) who, seated, recites a ritual mantra before the table is placed back on the ground. This transfer (hsunkat) is considered a religious donation to accumulate merit.27 Between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. most of the villagers and many guests come to the ceremony to the rhythm of the music of the band. As soon as they arrive, they are invited to go and eat. However, most of them, even before greeting the hosts and passing through the ceremonial pavilion, stop at a table where fans are piled up and given to the guests in exchange for a sum called “help-money” (literal translation of aku-ngway).28 This kind of transfer is not compulsory (“exigible” in French), but socially encouraged and is not found in all shinbyu in Myanmar. Its amount is recorded in a book dedicated to this purpose and carefully kept by the donors after the ceremony. It is a kind of account book that allows one to know how much has been given and by whom in order to know how much should be returned. This material device29 is similar to that found at weddings and sometimes funerals. Here, it is a tool of reciprocity that allows for a partially collective financing of the ceremony. In principle, everyone gives what they want. In practice, what is transferred is recorded so that the recipient can transfer an equal or greater amount to the donor in the near future when they invite me to a ceremony (a religious donation or a wedding). For example, if I give 10,000 MMK (6 euros) to U Hla in a religious donation ceremony, he will “give” me 10,000 MMK, or more, for mine (or to my daughter at her wedding). This kind of transaction, which could be called a mutual aid donation, is part of a chain of transfers30 between individuals and families: the exchange is never closed, and it is difficult to keep an exact account of it, because if today I help you for this ceremony, tomorrow you could help me for mine. Given the relatively large number of ceremonies to which a person is invited during his or her lifetime and their local significance, these transactions involve relationships of reciprocity, obligation and accountability that are articulated at different levels. Hence, also, the importance of the leaders of the statutory groups who mediate them by recording the amounts in registers. Thus, this shinbyu is intertwined with many other local ceremonies, where villagers represent the largest number of participants and where other kinds of transfers take place.
22After having given or not given the “help-money”—family relatives living far away often give more, because they cannot participate in the preparations—the guests cross the interior of the ceremonial pavilion where the future novices are seated dressed as “princes in the making” (shinlaung). Behind them hangs a sign featuring the names of the donor couple (U Myo and Daw Mya) in gold letters, in front of which most photos will be taken. Along the way over to the feast, almost every conversation begins with the traditional greeting “Have you eaten?” This routine greeting takes on its full meaning as it opens up one of the central dramas of this kind of ceremony. One must eat. It is a duty. One can only leave after having eaten. The guests follow one another to the tables. Many people are busy working to ensure that dishes are always full. The guests follow one another. The young men take turns to serve the food. Some of the adults are organizing the service, gauging the need for plates and cutlery. In the background, several men take turns washing the dishes. The atmosphere is often friendly, jokes are exchanged, cigarettes are passed around as betel quids are shared. It is the same in the open-air kitchen, where the men adjust the cooking of the rice according to the arrival of the guests. There is a sense of camaraderie in these spaces if enough people are helping to keep the festivities going. Irritation and complaints abound if no one pitches in.
23The flow of guests increases sharply around 8am. In a way, the flow of food redefines everyone's functions during the ceremony. There are those who give it, those who receive it, and those who serve it. The guests are those who eat. The donors are those who feed. One must feed until the guest's belly is full. As I film the guests eating, the couple of donors get caught up in the game and serve some of the guests directly onto their plates, which is unusual. It is at this point that one of the guests refuses to participate and a feeling of unease sets in for a few seconds; this is the “scene of the plate” described briefly in the introduction and analyzed in detail below.
24After eating, the guests go to drink and wash their hands from large water vessels set up for this purpose. Some girls and women help to provide fresh water and ironed towels. By 9:00 a.m., the atmosphere quiets down, everyone has eaten, and people are preparing for the procession while latecomers and guests from afar are having their meal. The dishes are washed, the pots cleaned and the leftover food collected for the next day's banquet or sent to the very old who cannot attend the ceremony.
25The next step is a ritual procession. It is announced for 11 o’clock by microphone. The procession, whose length can be another sign of prestige, wanders through the village following the main paths from the donors’ house to the monastery. Following the novices, carried on wooden palanquins in the image of royal elephants, are dancers, musicians, and a singer whose voice is amplified by the sound system mounted for the occasion on a bullock cart. The “princes in the making” throw treats that are eagerly grabbed by children watching the parade, their families gathered on the doorstep for the occasion. This transfer of food—the throwing of sweets by a prince from the top of his elephant—echoes J. Schober's proposal in that it is the staging of a hierarchical relationship to which only the children subscribe. It is a little later, in privacy, that the immediate family goes with the boys to the monastery so they may have their hair and eyebrows shaved, put on their robes and commit themselves to following the Buddha’s teaching as novices.
- 31 Since I did not film this sequence, I was unable to see how the sharing of the merit was organized (...)
26In the afternoon, a few monks from the monastery, those who were the first to receive a gift of food in the morning, come to the ceremonial pavilion. Their coming heralds the ritual of sharing merit. As mentioned above, this consecration ritual consists of declaring that one person shares the merit of the donation of sons to the monastery with all sentient beings. The organizing couple makes a libation by pouring water into a silver plate while a monk recites the appropriate mantra.31 The merit from the donation then forms a “field of merit” that reflects on the people who participated.
- 32 On this aspect, see Brac de la Perrière (2009: 116-117) and note 13 of this article.
27At the beginning of the evening, the music group resumes its dances and comical performances. The audience is mainly composed of women and children sitting cross-legged on large mats. No one dares to dance, except for some tipsy men gathered on the right side of the stage under the close supervision of a “security service.” Led by the village headman, the security service is made up of a few young people dressed in firemen’s uniforms and safety shoes, armed with dissuasive sticks and accompanied by older men, to watch out for any outbursts that might occur, especially around the female dancers. When the show is over, the music stays on all night as if to indicate that the party continues. Eventually, at dawn, the young novices leave the monastery to collect “alms” (hsunlaun) for the first time. The two sons of U Myo and Daw Mya make their way among their new peers. Before the collection begins, they walk briskly toward their old home. Their first alms are given by their parents, particularly their mother.32
28In summary, a shinbyu is more than a religious donation celebrating an initiation rite. The register of the religious donation informs the roles of the participants and the meaning of certain transfers, notably those concerning merit. However, throughout the ceremony, a set of other transfers unfolds, each with its own rationality, based on material devices (the ceremonial pavilion, the feast, the table with the fans, the procession, the sound system, etc.) and stereotyped formulas (calling the villagers by microphone, inviting them to eat, etc.) that indicate what is happening and/or is about to happen. These transfers follow one another without ever really merging, each person following their role from one social setting to another. There is as much learning (for example for the children or the ethnographer) as repetition (for the adults who are used to these rituals). One of the challenges is to maintain the flow of the event, notably through the collective organization of mutual aid. But what interests us here more particularly is to analyze the moment of unease during the “scene of the plate” and, to do this, we must look at how the gift of food, which can have multiple significances, is integrated into the register of religious donation during this feast.
- 33 This confirms in any case that an ethnographer is not a simple collector of actions and discourses; (...)
29Let us return to the moment of uneasiness described in the introduction. The photograph (fig. 1), taken from a filmed sequence, shows the moment of tension. As I filmed the event, the donors (standing) began to personally serve their guests. This is something I have never seen before at this kind of event. In doing so, they staged their position as donors in a ceremonial context. The moment had to be captured. Perhaps the donors would not have performed so dramatically, going as far as serving their guests personally, if I had not been there, camera in hand. I have a role in this scene, I participate in it, even hidden behind a tripod. (Interestingly, the donors preferred not to revisit this incident, however minor it may have been.)33 The presence of the camera added a degree of intensity to the staging that itself created a certain unease for the actors involved. The donors play the game; they show off for the camera. This was brought under the spotlight by a man off camera when he jokingly advises one of the seated women to “carry on” as if nothing special was going on. It is then that a second woman refused to be taken in by the charade withdrawing her plate with both hands when the donor tried to serve her directly.
30Is her gesture a way of saying something about the staging and ultimately about the donors? If there is resistance or discomfort, it is because the donors’ gesture is potentially ambivalent and that there may be a conflict of interpretation. F. Weber’s analyses invite us to move in this direction:
Returning to the ethnographic observation of transfers, the key to interpretation proposed by the theories of nested worlds is to examine the conditions of bliss [félicité], both objective and subjective, that allow a given interaction to proceed smoothly. There are two possible scenarios. Either the transfers are framed by a legal or normative system and a material device which remove all ambiguity from them. Each of the partners of the prestation knows what they are doing and shares this implicit knowledge with the others. [...] Or the different partners in a given transaction have at their disposal several ways of thinking about the transaction and play on this ambiguity to inscribe their action on several registers. Once again, two cases arise: either misunderstanding allows the transaction to continue, or ambiguity leads to its interruption or to conflict. (Weber 2007: 36, our translation.)
31There is ambiguity because making a transfer is sometimes a test, a moment of uncertainty where the qualification of the action is negotiated and where a power relationship between people is actualized and transformed. In this sense, the “scene of the plate” is a reflexive moment where the qualification of the transfer, and ultimately of the relationship between the actors, is uncertain. Thus, the question is: what ways of thinking and what interpretations are potentially at work there? Let us examine different issues that can give meaning to the context: the register of religious donation, the multivalence of the gift of food, the question of hierarchy and that of discomfort.
32First, we have seen that the entire ceremony is subsumed within the register of religious donation. This is the encompassing context, the one that gives meaning to the event, its raison d'être; and that triggers a set of relatively standardized actions. To perform a shinbyu is to redefine the roles of people during the ceremony (donors, guests, novices) and after. But does this mean that the guests become statutorily inferior to the donors when the latter share their merit with them? Let us take up the theory of J. Schober and F.K. Lehman to see how the “scene of the plate” shows its limits. According to this theory, the circulation of merit resulting from the donation produces relationships of patronage:
Through giving, he [the donor] becomes the patron of a field of merit, however extensive or insignificant. Burmese designate such patron[s] in ritual contexts as ku.thou shin, “owner of merit”. [...] Honorifics like owner of merit designate a patron over a particular domain of power and influence or a field of merit. [A patron] redistributes the benefits of his hpoun [power]: to all who share in his deed (kamma) and merit (ku.htou) and thus create obligations among his clients. [...] Those who share in the patron’s merit and hpoun: owe him gratitude and obligation. These are difficult to repay as redistribution of merit establishes a status hierarchy separating patrons from clients. (Schober 1989: 122-123.)
- 34 Ability to make donations that would flow from my “raw power" (hpon). Note that monks are generical (...)
33Thus, I would oblige others by my ability to make religious donations,34 and the field of merit created by these transfers and shared by a rite of consecration is an archetype of this. What this theory proposes would play out in the case of a shinbyu in a game with three players: the donors (who donate a son to the monastery), the monks (who allow the sharing of merit) and the guests (who receive the food and the merit). The guests would thus be de facto inferior to the giver(s). And since the “the scene of the plate” takes place during the feast, the gift of food can be interpreted according to the register of religious donation as a creation of obligations (and not as an acknowledgement of gratitude). The donors therefore staged themselves personally serving guests, making clearly visible what everyone knows: they are the donors.
- 35 Patronage relations follow a logic of permanent actualization rather than a logic of induction. One (...)
34However, if this had been the case, the “scene of the plate” would not have been a moment of discomfort where the qualification of what is happening is at stake. In other words, although the theory of J. Schober and F.K. Lehman clarifies that during a shinbyu the circulation of merit and food is encompassed under the register of religious donation, it leaves no room for the actors’ agency and reflexivity. To add more substance to this argument, it is necessary to clarify the kinds of transfers involved (previous section), to note that the gift of food can have multiple meanings, to recall that people are embedded in a complex web of ceremonies throughout their lives, and to avoid assuming that performing a shinbyu is to make oneself superior to one’s guests in general. There are, moreover, many differences between the invited attendees, all of them accepting for a time to “play the guest” insofar as they are not caught in a game of fools.35 The denser context of ordinary socio-political life is somewhat put aside to allow a momentary redistribution of roles and relationships. But this remains fragile. And even if a general staging is necessary to “make a shinbyu,” this may come up against interpersonal dynamics and hierarchical relationships whose temporalities extend beyond the ceremony.
35Hence a possible interpretation of the old woman’s gesture: she may wish not to be enmeshed in the staging of a relationship of patronage. Her gesture of withdrawal may underline that this way of giving food, even inscribed in a ritual sequence that momentarily defines the roles, may carry ambiguities when performed by these particular people in this instance. The accentuation of the staging—and therefore of the hierarchical position of each person—could tip the interpretation to the side of the gift creating obligations by endowing the donors with this intention. The nesting of the gift of food within the register of religious donation, at a precise moment, within a particular relationship and through a specific gesture allows us to propose this interpretation: the guest is given to be seen as inferior. However, these registers alone tell us nothing about the relationship between these people or their intentions and the ambiguity is not the result of any illusion about the meaning of the gift of food, for the actors are well aware of the multiple interpretations. Intentions can be gauged when they turn into actions whose qualification can be problematic; it is in this sense that this transfer is a test of the power relations between these individuals.
- 36 On the transmission of inheritance, its temporalities, and its centrality to access to land in this (...)
36Another tack is to ask whether the larger (and longer) context intruded into this scene by way of the gesture of withdrawal. Let us begin with interknowledge, because people have some idea, even if approximate, of the biographical trajectories of others (and of previous transfers and ceremonies), and then move on to economic and political transformations. This is the world of local sociability where people evaluate the economic conditions and statuses of each other. In this case, the donors fall into the group of “dependent workers” (myaukthu), a catch-all category that makes sense in contrast to the “real farmers (owners)” (taungthu). This couple, like many others, saved for many years to be able to carry out this donation. It is important to remember that this is an exceptional achievement. They recently received some land as an inheritance36 and, in order to set up a betel garden, they sold all their sheep, which had previously provided them with an extra income. They are thus transforming their household economy. Being able to give a shinbyu during this period shows that they are on the road to success.
- 37 On this point, see Huard (2018, 2020), Nash & Nash (1963) and Nash (1965).
- 38 See Huard (2019a, 2019b). Although members of the main landed-farmer families (taungthu) are found (...)
37Does this mean that the gesture of the old woman, who is a widowed landowner, can be described as the syndrome of an opposition between “landed farmers” and “dependents”? It would be wrong to reduce this sequence of actions to this simple opposition. In any case, no one has expressed it openly although this tension does exist in a more diffused form. This hierarchy is rooted in the ability to transmit (knowledge and capital), to be autonomous, and even to create dependencies (in the domestic economy) in relation to farming.37 It reflects a political ideology derived from local history that legitimizes a social order, defines the paths to bigness and categorizes people according to their family history and personal achievements. But this hierarchy is transforming, as the recent broadening of economic trajectories affects how a person’s status is valued.38 As such, while the old woman’s gesture may be read in terms of local political relations that extend beyond the ceremony, more realistically, it may be simply a way of telling the couple that they are not so well-established, that they should not show off, and, that they should stay in their place.
- 39 The work of S. Bekker in social psychology gives an idea of the potential meanings of discomfort. F (...)
38It is also possible that discomfort may have played a role here. However, no one expressed it openly, and for good reason! Bear in mind that in the “scene of the plate,” only the one man behind me directly refers to the staging by telling one of the people to “carry on” as if nothing had happened. The course of action had to be followed through, especially since it was being filmed. Thus, it would appear that there was no room for a feeling of discomfort to be openly manifested. To articulate this feeling in Burmese, we speak of a “power” (a) which can be affected, bruised, or in pain (na), hence the expression a-na (“discomfort/being embarrassed”) whose plasticity allows this feeling to be expressed according to the relational context (restraint, fear of offending, of being offended, etc.). Sarah Bekker (1981) has identified several mechanisms of discomfort in the bamar society39 and, more recently, Tomas Cole (2020) has shown how this feeling refers to situations where relationships can easily slip from the egalitarian register (recognizing a common humanity) to the hierarchical register (recognizing a preeminence). One of the roles of this multifaceted expression is to give the opportunity to name, before, during or after an interaction, a feeling linked to the fact that the meaning of the situation may be equivocal (and that the “power” of one of the persons present may be or have been “affected”). To mobilize this expression is, for example, to indicate that different interpretations are possible and that one way to avoid ambiguity, and thus a situation of discomfort, is to follow prescribed norms that stabilize the understanding of what is happening “here and now” (i.e., rules of politeness, deference, etc.). The gift of food, filmed and staged in this way, could be interpreted in different ways according to a reading grid that oscillates, depending on the actors, between the discomfort of being seen accepting to be served directly (for the first woman whose discomfort was underlined by the man standing off-camera) and the discomfort of being shown as inferior to the donating couple by this gift (for the woman who withdraws her plate).
39The staging of this transfer, in this way, at this moment, had the effect of creating uneasiness around the table. Everyone knows and sees that the act is a gift of food. What makes the interpretation of the action uncertain are the potentialities opened by a particular staging of this act. If there is any confusion, it is about the interpretation of a gesture (serving directly onto the plate in front of the camera) which relates to an equivocal transfer. The meaning of the gift of food, when it is not ritually contained between two poles (as an act of recognition or as the creator of an obligation), can lead to negotiation and thus put the relationship between the actors to the test. Thus, the equivocal nature of the gift of food allows for the interference of stakes that extend beyond the scene and blur the cards that the ceremony had, for a time, redistributed.
40To outline some possible readings of the “scene of the plate,” it was essential to combine the analysis of non-commercial circulation with the ethnography of interactions in order to show how the qualification of the gift of food is open to negotiation, even when this transfer occurs during a religious donation ceremony. The interpretation of the transfer thus depends on the stakes involved in the interaction. The description of a shinbyu showed that this ceremony is more than an initiation, as this religious donation to the monastery establishes a momentary reconfiguration of roles and positions during the ceremony. In other words, doing a shinbyu simplifies social complexity for a period of time by distinguishing between donors, guests, novices, and monks. The register of religious donation provides the framework for an event in which a set of transfers, each with its own rationality, unfolds, supported by material devices (the table with the fans, the ceremonial pavilion, the banquet, etc.) and standard formulas (invitation to eat, sharing of merit, etc.) that clearly indicate what is happening and/or is going to happen. Furthermore, some transactions follow rules that go beyond the scope of “this” donation, as in the case of transfers of “help-money” for example.
41Nevertheless, in order to analyze the “scene of the plate,” we had to clarify how the gift of food can be interpreted in relation to the register of the religious donation during the banquet. We saw that this register closely links the circulation of merit with the making of patronage relationships. It appeared that the gift of food also potentially participates in this making, particularly when it is framed by ritual, as it was here by being part of a sequence of the ceremony. However, the discomfort conveyed by the photograph shows that the staging of this transfer led to questioning its meaning in a specific context, as the gesture might have intimated a difference in status. Thus, even ritually framed, one should not overdramatize the gift of food. The plasticity of the gift of food means that it can be found in many situations ranging from hospitality to gratitude, because it operates, to use Michel Naepels’ expression, between “the poles of conflict and friendship” (1998: 328). The “scene of the plate”—service directly to the plate, removal of the plate—can then be analyzed as the old woman’s refusal to be belittled by the staging of a patronage relationship, as a way of telling the couple that their gesture is out of place at that particular moment, and that they are not so important. A moment of awkwardness, a sense of discomfort, a look at the camera, then the donors move on to their next scene, inviting me to follow them with a wave of a hand.
42Confronting a particular scene with a normative set, and in particular with the theory of the making of status differences through the control of the circulation of merit and food, allows us to see that people do not readily assume inferior status. That said, the theory of J. Schober and F.K. Lehman does have the merit of clarifying a normative register with which, however, it is necessary to integrate the temporality of relations in order to understand the making of hierarchies which, let us remember, are neither fixed nor given. This also invites questions about, for example, the articulation of temporalities that delimit a political space and the descriptive tools available to the ethnographer to conduct a case study (Mitchell 1983). Finally, this article has shown that some transfers can be considered tests when the qualification of the action brings into play several possible interpretations, allowing underlying stakes (such as hierarchical transformations, or the question of discomfort) to interfere in the interactions. The main confusion remains, however, for the outside observer who, although trying to learn to play by the rules of his interlocutors, remained silent and perplexed behind his camera, wondering if the old lady was simply not hungry anymore.