Cultural Memory Art CMA: systematic use of dynamic, performative, and incarnated somatic processes for cultural memory purposes. In the present study, CMA is also called mnemotechnics. Examples for CMA may be dance traditions, [452] and the song/rhythm/epic Aborigine tradition as described by T. Strehlow. [453] The reason for adopting a special term instead of the more common "oral tradition" is that in many cases, the CMA is extraverbal. Usage of the special term avoids the tacit, and misleading, implication of the word "oral tradition", that the transmitted material is verbal in content or completely verbalizable (and could consequently be written down without resulting in transmission loss).

->:WRITING_CRIT, p. 193, ->:STAAL_RITUAL, p. 225, ->:CULTURAL_MNEMO, p. 230

This section presents a description of the somatic factors: the human body as cultural transmission and cultural memory device. The range of the human impressive and expressive capabilities will be reviewed and classed here. This classification includes the semiotic communication models, but covers a wider range, since many somatic modalities have no direct semantic content, while they still are part of the cultural transmission. The basic semiotic descriptions of communication models are given in Posner (1997: 247-356), Noeth (1985: 129-137), and Krampen (1997: 247-287). These models are based on the instances of sender, communication channel , and receiver. In semiotic terminology, for anything to be appreciated as a sign, [454] it must be noticed, distinguished, experienced, and by any way impinge as sensory inputs in the neuronal networks of the brain. In information technogy, this is called the input channel . The main sensory channels are: auditive, visual, kinesthetic, tactile, smell, taste. (Encarta: Sense organs).

The expressions are the converse of the impressions, covering all the kinds of productions that the human body is capable of. If something is to serve as a cultural transmission instrument, the human body must be able to produce it , and modulate it, consistently, repeatably, and the results must be consistent with the intentions. This will cover the range of expressions. In information terminology, this is called the output channel . Between the impressions and expressions is a complementary relationship, but it is often not symmetrical . Among these modalities, many non-language, non-written cultural patterns are transmitted.

The range of impressions of the human being is roughly coincident with the senses, with addition of various forms of body experience. The term is derived from Hume (Popkin 1956: 210 ). The present usage is adopted from Whitehead (1934: 28-41).

Cassirer (1954, III: 30-36) gives a similar discussion of the differences between phenomenal sensory experience and the physically measurable data.

Peirce (1931-1958) defined the most general case of experience, the phaneron, which is related to the phainomenon in Heidegger's "Sein und Zeit" (1977).

CP 1.285: English philosophers have quite commonly used the word idea in a sense approaching to that which I give to phaneron. But in various ways they have restricted the meaning of it too much to cover my conception (if conception it can be called), besides giving a psychological connotation to their word which I am careful to exclude. The fact that they have the habit of saying that "there is no such idea" as this or that, in the very same breath in which they definitely describe the phaneron in question, renders their term fatally inapt for my purpose.

The relevant articles in (Posner 1997: 247-356) are: Strube (1997: 294-299) for the auditive channel, Landwehr (1997: 288-293) for the visual, Heuer (1997: 300-305) for the tactile, Kröller (1997: 306-315) for the chemical (smell, and taste), Moller (1997: 316-324) for the electric and magnetic channels.

A subclassification is made in social range (proxemics), after (Hall 1976: 118-133), Noeth (1985: 365-375):

1) far-senses: pertaining to events more than 10 m away [455].

2) near-senses: events of interpersonal communication, official social behavior, range of arms and feet, 1 m to about 10 m.

3) intimo-senses: events occurring in intimate settings, close physical body contact.

4) proprio-senses: events inside the body, and of body-states.

Strube (1997: 294-299). The auditive domain is connected directly to that most important element of culture: language. In terms of information processing, it is notable that there is an almost exact match between expressive and impressive capability of the human body, i.e. the human voice can produce a similar range of sounds as we are able to hear. It is also possible to speak almost as fast as one can understand. This is the culturally most important advantage of auditive productions. Their most important problem is that they are ephemeral. Once a word has been uttered, it is 'gone with the wind'.

Impressions: Hearing involves physiological response to air vibrations of a frequency between 16 and 16,000 Hz. Range up to 100 m for verbal communication, about 1 km for signalling as in whistling. Hearing is effected with fine hairs in the cochlea that are sensitive to the vibrations of the specific wave length of audible sound. Low frequency vibrations can be felt with the skin and body organs.

Far- to near-sense.

Expressions: The audible productions of the human body are mainly made with the breathing and vocal apparatus, like speech and song. Non-language vocal sounds are covered under the term para-linguistic (Noeth 1985: 273-279). Seezing is an involuntary expression that has found considerable attention in ancient culture with respect to omens: Dufour (1898,II: 98-99) mentions that sneezing was attributed to the invisible visit of a protective deity, "the bird of Jupiter Conservator". We can then add the sounds of the digestive system (the fart as most conspicuous, see: smell), and miscellaneous: clapping, tapping, and finger-knuckle and knee joint cracking [456]. Dufour (1898,II: 97) makes note of a remarkable aspect of ancient Roman non-verbal communication, that the Roman nobles, who abhorred any verbal expression of the sexual or excretive sphere, had devised a whole system of signs for this domain. A cracking of the finger joints was the signal for the attendant slave to fetch the urinary pot for the master to relieve him/herself.

Landwehr (1997: 288-293). Impressions: Vision involves physiological response to electromagnetic radiation (of the spectrum of visible light). Far- to near-sense. The visual domain is connected directly to the most important CMM component of civilizations: writing. The phonographic writing process involves a transformation of data from the auditive domain to the visual. McLuhan assumes that fundamental changes in sensory organization were brought about by alphabetic writing (Mcluhan 1972: 177-178). They involve a societal emphasis of sensory orientation to auditive and visual (Noeth 1985: 361-362).

Heuer (1997: 300-305), Noeth (1985: 361-365), Tasten (1996). The tactile sense is connected to the physical properties of weight, density, rigidity, and texture of objects. It also overlaps with the heat/cold sensorium. The fine hairs covering the whole body process tactile sensory data, as well as special tactile receptors in the skin. Since vibrations can be perceived through touch, there exists an overlap with the sense of hearing. Low frequency sound patterns can be felt with the body skin if a vibrating object touches it. Montagu (1974: 180-181). We can touch only by direct physical contact. The tactile sense is a typical near- and intimo- sense.

As Noeth (1985: 361) notes, the dominance of the visual and auditive senses leads to a tendency of cultural repression of the tactile sense. In many cultures, and increasingly so, as the organizational level rises toward civilization, the tactile dimension is more and more covered by taboos, and only allowed in special settings, like medical and intimate. But a specific kind of tactile impressions and expressions is cultivated diligently: the punitive cultures (below). Montagu (1974) gives an extensive account of the sensory capabilities of the skin and its importance in the life of humans, and presents an in-depth treatment of the socially disruptive side-effects resulting from repression of the tactile dimension in the child rearing practices among many of the "higher" civilizations. (Puritan English and WASP Anglo-Americans serving as glaring examples), (236-240). He compares this to the more freely expressed tactile experience of indigenous cultures (183-219). Gay (1993: 181-212) accentuates that the punitive side (below) of the tactile dimension has an overall effect on cultural psychopathology, and his data support Montagu's diagnosis.

The tendency of cultural repression of the tactile sense may also affect the CA study of the tactile dimension in a negative way: Montagu (1974: 184) explicitly mentions a study by Williams among the Dusun of North Borneo "as the only anthropological study of the tactile sense in an indigenous culture that he knew of".

As sense of the intimate, touch is connected to the marital arts ->:MARITAL_ART, p. 219. Another large field of cultural patterns of touching is massage ->:MASSAGE_ART, p. 220.

While the domain of pleasurable touching tends to be culturally repressed, the painful tactile stimulation of skin (in punishments and initiations) is not only expressed much more liberally and freely world wide, but one can even say that there is a cultivation of inflictment, a systematics of punishments and tortures that form cultural patterns. The converse situation to the pleasureable case holds: painful stimulation of the skin is practiced very widely and elaborately in highly civilized societies as well as indigenous ones. This theme is treated in more depth elsewhere.

->:EXISTENTIAL_CMM, p. 205, ->:INITIATION_PATTERN, p. 229, ->:PANETICS, p. 233

Some cases in point are:

1) The elaborate practices of ritual torture and genital mutilation at initiation procedures practiced by indigenous and civilized peoples.

->: INITIATION_PATTERN, p. 229

2) Ritual torture as part of ceremonial and religious activities: Well known are the Maya, Aztec and North Amerind. Benedict (1934) makes the (self-)torture aspect an important classifier of dionysian societies.

The Aztecs valued especially human skins for their rituals, which were considered most suitable when obtained while their owners were still living. See the accounts of Bernardino de Sahagun, as recounted by James Frazer (Campbell 1996,I: 251-254). Flaying humans was of high enough ritual import that there was a god dedicated to it: Xipetotek, "the Lord of the flayed ones", Markman (1992). So the Aztecs made the mass live flaying in public ceremonies a cultural institution. [457]

3) Widespread are practices of ornamental scarification, tatooing, tribe markings, that are having their resurgence in present western subcultures, like piercing. See:

->:SKIN_CMM, p. 161

4) Then the punitive cultures, mainly of higher civilizations. Around this have arosen whole schools and high colleges of flagellation and the high art of torture. Siu (1993) has compiled a bibliography with several thousand entries on the various methods, techniques, and frequencies of usage. Also: Villeneuve (1988), Gay (1993), (Encarta: Punishment, Torture), Foucault (1969).

The accomplishment and sopistication of torture techniques world wide are impressive. While the Europeans have not been unimaginative at all, inventing ingenious methods of torture, the Chinese must be considered the grand masters of them all, having invented the "water drop torture" and "death by a thousand cuts" [458].

Literature: Kröller (1997: 306-315), Tembrock (1971), Wright (1964), (1982), Morris (1984), Corbin (1982), Classen (1993), Kohl (1995), Riechen (1995) Bourke (1891).

Impressions: smell is a chemical sense, and connected to air and breath. It detects small molecules dissolved in the air . Expressions: human body odor in general, sexual odor in specific. Far- (e.g. smoke) near- and intimo- sense. S mell nuances are difficult to characterize verbally, and therefore cannot be verbalized (and written down) very well. Wright (1982: 111-114) .

Drawing on data from animal signalling systems, smell is one of the most important, and quite markedly concentrated to the sexual sphere. [459] Tembrock (1971), Wright (1964) (1982). It would be a great wonder if this connection of smell and sex hadn't preserved itself through to the animal species homo indigenus , only to be maximally repressed in the equally animal species homo civilisatus . Ebberfeld (1996), (1997), (xxxx) [460], Kohl (1995).

Cultural practices cover ceremonial hygiene , toilet procedures, perfume, smoking. As with the tactile dimension, modern western civilizations tended to repress the natural human odor, or covers it with perfumes. Guérer (1995: 37), Classen (1993: 9, 15-36). For their importance as cultural patterns, the variances and specialities of {smell / odor} culture deserve a closer scrutiny in the present context. As with the tactile sense, the repression of smell by civilizations may also affect the CA research negatively. Of the few CA data that the literature research has been able to locate on indigenous smell culture , was Classen (1993: 1), who describes the Ongee of the Andaman islands as a culture who live in a world ordered by smell. Another is the account of Eskimo (Inuit) smell culture: Montagu (1974: 179-180). Also Schleidt (1995). A practical problem with CA researches of smell culture is that there exist no smell-recorders, like there are tape recorders available for sound recordings, [461] and it is difficult for the ethnological researcher to distinguish between "smell culture" or just a "sloppy lack of hygiene".

(143): The greatest curse that the Tartars have is: "I would that thou mightest tarry so long in one place that thou mightest smell thine own dung as the Christians do."

Smell is (or could be) a crucial diagnostic instrument for the medical profession (Guérer 1995: 42-43), Corbin (1982: 53-68), Wright (1982: 129-132). Any metabolic imbalance will express itself through the smell. Arabic doctors could diagnose a sick harem inmate without seeing her, by a wet cloth that she had wrapped around her body for one night. Similarly with taste: For more audacious doctors, the tasting of a patient's urine will provide an even better diagnosis, much more efficient than any chemical analysis. This is used by Tibetan doctors. Personal communication with Tibetan practicioners on the Ulm meeting of tibetan medicine, organized by Prof. Dr. Aschoff, Universität Ulm 1996.

To paraphrase Hamlet: To bathe or not to bathe, this is the question... of body odor. An extreme example of neurotic smell repression may be the proverbial civilization dweller who takes five showers a day, or the woman who daily uses intime spray to cover up any natural smell traces that she may have left on her body. (So ardently celebrated in U.S. TV commercials). Ebberfeld (1996: 207-208).

Corbin (1982). The historical pattern of the European odor culture shows several remarkable reversals performed with regards to patterns of cleanliness and smell. Corbin describes in detail the heroic efforts that were made in the 19th century to ban the pestilential stench that penetrated the whole of European social life. This had not always been the case. The Romans were avid bath-takers, (Dufour 1898,II: 23-26) and built their thermal bath temples wherever they went, leaving this heritage after their empire collapsed. In the middle ages, bathing culture was not as comfortable but still quite lively in Europe, but it caused problems with the Christian moral code. Not the least reason why the baths were so popular was that both sexes were in the same bathtubs, and did that either completely naked, or just scantly dressed. This caused a lot of excitement for the participants and the authorities alike, and was reason for a lot of great literary masterpieces of sin and damnation preaches from the pulpits. When the Syphilis became endemic in Europe, the authorities had a good reason to clamp down on the vice, and the bath-houses were shut down. Schmölzer (1993: 319).

The culture of aromatic scents and fragrances has a rich history probably reaching back to prehistoric times, and was widespread in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China. Kohl (1995: 174-179), Morris (1984). Because smell works strongly on unconscious levels, it is "intimately" connected with religious ritual, as the use of incense in Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist religious practice shows. Schleidt (1995: 92). The popular francincense of Christian ritual is from Northeastern Africa and the Arabian peninsula. (Encarta francincense). The Arab chemical technology brought an advance in fragrance processing through various distilling methods which gave rise to perfumery. Morris (1984: 127-284).

Another smellable expression of the human body is the fart. Elias (1997,I: 164, 266-272). Although it is tabooed in modern Western civilization, there are cultural applications, like the farting contest. It is to be noted that the fart is the voice of the belly, and bespeaks its own truth, wording messages that cannot be uttered with the vocal cords, and therefore evade written recording. The Egyptians esteemed this so highly that they had an own god for the fart: Pet.

Clemens Alexandrinus, in Dufour (1898,II: 98): Aegiptos crepitus ventri pro numinibus habent.

Cicero, in Dufour (1898,II: 98): stoici crepitus aiunt aeque liberos ac ructus esse opportere.

Erasmus, in Elias (1997,I: 164): Reprimere sonitum, quem natura fert, ineptorum est, qui plus tribuunt civilitati, quam saluti.

Kröller (1997: 306-315), Geschmack (1996), Bibliography: Geschmack (1996: 319-342). Widely known examples of CMM usage: cooking, food and drink culture. Food has multisensory effects, because there are strong smell and tactile elements .

Impressions: "Before living beings were able to see and hear, they were able to taste. Taste is phylogenetically the oldest sensory facility". Geschmack (1996: 229). Taste is a chemical sense, and connected to watery solution of chemicals and the physiological processes of eating and drinking. We can only taste something that we are incorporating. The survival value of the taste sense is that it supplies an instant chemical analysis of the thing tasted. There are actually very few harmful natural substances that don't taste or smell bad, like mushroom poisons. If something is determined harmful by the taste sense, one can usually still spit it out without greater harm. Schleidt (1995: 93-94). Taste is an internal or proprio-sense. To be experienced, something from outside has to be brought into the body and chewed. It is also an intimo- sense.

Expressions:

The cultural taboo zone surrounding the tasteable bodily expressions is thick and dense. It is an area deeply steeped in dark, stark, and forbidding mythology, magic, and rituals. The most extreme form of tasteable human body product is the human body itself, which appears as a frequent cultural pattern in indigenous culture: Cannibalism. Benedict (1934: 131, 164, 178), Villeneuve (1965). Other literature, e.g. Bourke (1891) .

(135) Martial Epigram XXXVI: minxere et cacare.

Churchill performed the strongest possible magical conjuration of archaic powers, when he promised the English people " blood, sweat, and tears ". This proved to be an effective magical counter-weapon to the German " Blut und Boden ". Wars are not won with arms alone.

Adding to this mother's milk, sperm, saliva, urine and feces, we have listed the whole range of tasteable human body products. Characteristically, when someone in our civilized societies even mentions these tasteable human body products, he is described as "tasteless". Ebberfeld (1997). Concerning the matter of sperm, the following accounts are instructive. In certain societies, sperm was the substance which {represented / contained} the manly ethos, or male virtue (greek: araete). Gennep (1960: 171). Therefore it was a ritual practice that the older members of the society transmitted the araete to the younger ones. In New Guinea, this was done orally, each boy had to swallow a certain amount of araete dispensed by his superiors, until the council of the elders had determined that he had swallowed enough araete, and was declared mature. (Levay 1994: 189/190) (Simbari Anga), (Arbeitsgruppe 1989: 143-144) (Baruya). In ancient Greece, the araete was dispensed anally, leading in modern times to the completely unfounded and unwarranted suspicion that ancient Greek society had been homosexual. Dover (1978), Reinsberg (1989).

The positivistic scientific study of the sensorium underlies the general law, that the stimuli and effects can be scientifically measured and predictably reproduced. The somatic channels listed above can be scientifically validated. Then there is a class of phenomena that falls out from this raster: the para-senses (or para-channels). In the positivist view these are outside the scope of serious research, and discounted as phantasy or as non-sense. But their widespread intersubjective occurrence, the many occasions when people believe they themselves or others, make use of such facilities, renders their treatment in the present context of CMS valid and necessary. These occurrences form extremely stable and durable cultural patterns, as thousands upon thousands of books in the mystical and esoteric literature testify. They include mindreading, clearvoyance, precognition, spirit -channeling, -encounters, and -travels, voodoo, conjurations, exorcisms, uage of charms, and amulets, etc. The whole magical and shamanic theater abounds with {claimed / imagined} application of these phenomena. Since many of these phenomena have a strong cultural role in indigenous societies, they have been extensively treated in the CA field, e.g. the famous novels of C. Castaneda (one of which had been accepted as CA PhD dissertation at the U. of California: Kohl 1993: 413), H.P. Duerr (1993), Goodman (1974-1990), Kressing (1997), Rösing (1990-1993).

->:TRANCE, p. 206

General literature, e.g. Noeth (1985: 244-250), Haarmann (1992b), Lucadou (1997). The subject is also systematically treated in memetics as a prime example for a class of phenomena that have no physical referent but still enjoy a phenomenal intersubjective replicative success. In Germany, a large resource for this subject is the library of the Freiburg "Institut fuer Grenzgebiete der Psychologie".

Moller (1997: 316-324), Popp (1979), Bdw (1996). Many animals have electric and magnetic sensors and effectors. Electric fish are best known. Conversely, many fish, even if they produce no electric activity, can sense electric fields. Humans can sense a static electric field, if it is strong enough. Everyone who has come near to a TV tube can attest to this. The bristling of skin hairs functions as electric receptor. Some anecdotal accounts exist of sensitive people also feeling magnetic fields. Then, people have different propensities to generate electrical charges. This depends not only on weather condition and plastic carpets and synthetic clothes but also on metabolism. Women in menstruation seem most susceptible to this. Weather sensitivity patterns have been tentatively linked to air ion sensitivity (Bdw 1996) .

Extreme states of somatic experience serve as widely used CM devices. Among these: food and water deprivation, {toxic / hallucinatory / psycholytic} drugs, pain, near-death experience, punishment, ritual torture and ritual mutilation at initiation. In the framework of cultural memory, the various procedures of initiation used by various cultures serve as particularly ingenious coding and powerful mnemonic devices for the transmission of cultural patterns.

->:NIETZSCHE, p. 77, ->:INITIATION_PATTERN, p. 229, ->:PANETICS, p. 233

[452] ->:DYNAMIC_CMM, p. 203

[453] ->:ABORIGINES, p. 222

[454] ->:PEIRCE_SIGN, p. 154

[455] Evolutionally and survival related, the dividing line is the minimum distance to keep in face of potential enemies.

[456] From my field notebooks: Bruce Lee was the only one known to be able to produce the same effect with his spinal vertebrae joints. It was an impressive sound, that still makes it worth the while to see ( er... to hear ) a Broce Lee movie, especially if one knows how he is producing this sound. Most viewers in the West never noticed.

[457] The gruesome record of mass human sacrifice seems to have been the tearing out of the hearts of 14,000 victims in four days and nights, at the occasion of the dedication of the temples of Uitzilopochtli and Tlaloc in 1487. Siu (1993: 49). The flesh of the victims was distributed to the populace (Wilson 1978: 94, 237).

[458] Source: Prof. Ye.

[459] ->:MARKING, p. 154

[460] Habilitation (in progress at 1997) at Universiät Bremen, Prof. H.P. Dürr, "Geruchsempfindung und Sexualität", Dr. Ingelore Ebberfeld.

[461] Illich (1988: 5)

[462] also: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/nf/0 (URL),1518,15235,00.html , ->:PROF_YE, p. 187

[463] From my personal field notes: the fact that those ubiquitous "post-it" sticky marker-pads that one can easily attach to any objects of the environment, are yellow, seems to support this hypothesis. One more circumstantial piece of evidence towards this was the printed motto that I read on one of these stickers: "The more I have found out about men, the more I like my dog". (That is: the dog makes no pretenses and still does the real thing.)