The Forest of Symbols

A classic of ethnographic description and symbolic analysis based upon fieldwork among the Ndembu of Zambia—a must read for anyone interested in sociological and psychological implications of ritual belief and practice in a small-scale, non-literate, kinship-based society. 

A stellar example of what is lost by cancelling "colonialist" literature and discarding the very concepts of "culture" and "religion" as relics of Western intellectual imperialism. 

In 10 essays on color symbolism, circumcision rites, rites of passage, social dynamics, and more, Turner lays the groundwork for his proposition that ritual is the key to religion and religion is the key to culture. 

Taking his title from the great poem by Baudelaire, Turner draws on many years of fieldwork among the Ndembu people of Zambia to show how symbolism operates and how it infuses meaning into ritual practices, especially in periods of liminality—the uncertain, betwixt-and-between phase in many rites. He analyzes symbolic expression with great sensitivity, bringing it alive in powerful prose. Above all, he exposes the inadequacy of reducing symbols to simple ideas, e.g. the lion symbolizes valor.  He demonstrates that symbols are multi-vocal and that they can communicate many meanings and shades of meaning: hence their power in the developed world… show more.