We shudder back thankfully into the light of social day. Here the significant element of symbol meaning are related to what it does and what is done to it by and for whom. These aspects can only be understood if one takes into account from the beginning, and represents by appropriate theoretical constructs, the total field situation in which the symbol occurs. This situation would include the structure of the group that performs the ritual we observe, its basic organizing principles relationships, and, in addition, its and perdurable extant division into transient alliances and factions on the basis of immediate interest and am bitions, for both abiding structure and recurrent forms of conflict and selfish interest are stereoed in ritual symbolism. Once we have collected interpretations of a given symbol, our informants' work of analysis has indeed just begun.