Fataa, fa'a, fo'o'a : « dire », « faire », « parfaire » : conceptualisation et effectuation de pratiques rituelles mélanésiennes (Fataleka, Salomon orientales)

Theories of ritual exist: Durkheim, Mauss, Hocart, Van Gennep. But their explanations are based upon a priori descriptions which are either weak or inadequate. Before interpreting a ritual, a valid approach must be found. Having put forth this observation and made this reservation, the author enters into a description of rituals belonging to an archaic culture which, acting in a context of the ancestral dead, accomplishes these rituals and thinks in terms of them. First, the author examines the categories of the empirical word and action (speaking, proclaiming, acting, causing) in contrast to the single category of the ritual Word and Act. He then proposes a reading of propitiary and expiatory rites which concludes with a presentation of the forces implicit in these processes. The article ends with a study of the symbolic necessity of the notions contained in the relations between the sexes and the rapport with the dead: impure, not impure, sacred.Guidieri Remo. Fataa, fa'a, fo'o'a : « dire », « faire », « parfaire » : conceptualisation et effectuation de pratiques rituelles mélanésiennes (Fataleka, Salomon orientales). In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 31ᵉ année, N. 1, 1976. pp. 218-236