The meaningful gestures of archaic man

by | Sep 13, 2018 | Senza categoria | 0 comments

In western tradition communication takes place mainly through acts of speech, with respect to which mimicry assumes an increasingly secondary importance. The oldest attestation of this fact is provided by Aristotle who states that there is a close correspondence between the ten categories of thought, ie the supreme ontological principles used by man to classify the knowable reality, and the rules of the grammar,  that are necessary for the construction of sentences, phrases and words of a given language. In other words, our culture is closely linked to the phonetic model, to the world of words, to the point that one could not formulate an argument without first activating a kind of discourse in which words are mentally formulated. So the way we think is like talking without using the voice.

On the contrary, the data provided by primitive and prehistoric cultures confirm that there is an inseparable link between the thought and the way of expressing oneself directly with body. In the archaic tradition body is considered the main communication tool, to the point that the spiritual element itself is able to act only if it is supported by  a gestural tool. In his research, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, has shown that for primitive man every gesture is endowed with an intrinsic ability to interact with the world and to produce positive or negative effects on it.  For Mauss “technical action, physical action, magic-religious action are confused for the actor” (MAUSS, 1935).

In 1938 the philologist Tchhang Tcheng Ming  has also shown how the most archaic stages of Chinese writing derive from the language of gestures. In fact, many of the signs used in it do not directly represent natural objects, but are schematic reproductions of the corresponding descriptive gestures. The position of the praying man with raised arms, for example, that in conventional mimics designate the “tree” object, is used by writing to represent the word “tree”.

In the oldest forms of Chinese writing the presence of the human figure is fundamental to determine the meaning of each sentence. The versatility of the hieroglyphics would make them incomprehensible if their meaning was not fixed by the presence of gestural signs. In Chinese writing the contribution of the gesture is fundamental.

fig.2

In the image above the element A (shown in the three forms of Chinese writing: ancient, middle and modern) is composed by three elements (added in the parenthesis) whose set determines the meaning: hand + flesh + divinity = sacrifice. The element B consists of two elements: foot + wild boar = to chase. >In the element C  the gesture of the raised arms designates the tree: C1 = tree; C2 = grass; C3: grass + soil = grow (Tchang Tcheng Ming, cit. p. 62). It should be noted that the Dakota Indians make the same gesture of growth slowly raising the right hand placed in front of the body, with the back facing forward and the fingers separate; to indicate the growth of the grass they do the same gesture near the ground (Mallery, cit., p. 343)

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