Abstract: | Ceremonial space is hard to classify; the often-discouraging
variety of manifestations renders, by its simple existence, the various proposed classifications. This turns out to be true for the rites of traditional societies, as well as for those of modern societies. Yet, any classification is a problem of perspective, a problem of choosing criteria, or one of differentiation: in the specialised bibliographies, the most frequent distinctions call upon the belonging of ceremonies to either a certain type of culture (archaic rites and modern rites) or to the object of the ceremonies (rites of the human life cycle and rites of the natural cycles), to the purpose of the ritual action (positive and negative rites), or to the relationship with the sacred (magic and religious rites, sacred and laic rites), finally, to the relationship with the history of a community (celebration and memorial rites) or to the degree of social mobilisation (interactive and mass rituals). |
