Following the advice and example of Professor Monica Wilson, I asked Ndembu specialists as well as laymen yo interpret the symbols of their ritual. As a result, I obtained much exegetic material. I felt that it was methodologically important to keep observational and interpretative materials distinct from one another. The reason for this will soon become apparent.
I fount that I could not analyze ritual symbols without studying them in a time series in relation to other “events,” for symbols are essentially involved in social process. I came to see performances of ritual as distinct phases in the social processes whereby groups became adjusted to their external environment. From this standpoint the ritual symbol becomes a factor in social action, a positive force in an activity field. The symbol become associated with human interests, purposes, ends, and means, whether these are explicitly formulated or have to be inferred from the observed behavior. The structure and properties of a symbol become those of a dynamic entity, least
within its appropriate context of action.
Structure and properties of ritual symbols
The structure and properties of ritual symbols may be infered from three classes of data: (1)external form and observable characteristics; (2) interpretation offered by specialists and by laymen; (3) significant context largely worked out by the anthropologist.
Here is an example. At Nkang'a, the girl's puberty ritual, a novice is wrapped in a blank and laid at the foot of a mudyi sapling. The mudyi tree Diplorrhyncus condylocarporn is conspicuous for its white latex, which exudes in milky beads if the thin bark is scratched. For Ndembu this is its most important observable charactertic, and therefore I propose to call it "the milk tree"