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The word "symbol" is extensively used in many areas of academic study. In general, of course, the word refers to something which stands for something else. (Click me.) But in particular applications, the meaning can be much more specific, and the process of "standing for" can be difficult to understand.
Because they are created in specific cultural contexts, symbols can have different meanings in different contexts: A rainbow is the symbol of:
Behaviors can be symbolic too, sometimes the same behaviors that are non-symbolic in other contexts. For example, a barber routinely places a hand on a child's head to steady it while the haircut is in progress. A barber may place a hand very gently on the head of an adult to indicate a direction in which the head should be moved. The hand on the child's head is not symbolic: it is just moving the head. On the adult's head, the light touch is a symbol of the desired movement, and it is up to the adult to move the head. But the hand of a priest on one's head is quite different again, and even more obviously symbolic, conveying blessing, baptism, or even ordination, depending on the context.
Symbols can be made up of other symbols. The European flag is a symbol of the European Community, but each individual star on it is a symbol of one of its constituent nations. A legislator "represents" a constituency, not just casting the constituency's vote, but also speaking as the voice of the constituency, and being welcomed in foreign countries as a sign of their friendship for the whole constituency.
Probably language is the most elaborated and most highly structured system of symbols that humans use. The actual sounds we make symbolize categories of sounds, which in combination symbolize words, which in turn symbolize concepts, many of which are symbols of other concepts, and so forth.
Many symbols are associated with social structure. In our society, popular culture makes playing golf a symbol of high social standing. It is true that playing golf requires some leisure time and the money for greens fees. So in some sense, playing golf is a sign that the player is not penniless. But the symbolization is greater than that. Jokes about rich people playing golf and (formerly) a tradition of country clubs designed to exclude whole classes of people suggest that the activity (and the equipment associated with it) has the ability to make a symbolic "statement" that the golfer is a person of high social standing.
What happens if the golfer does not in fact occupy a high social position? One effect is that such an exception weakens the symbolic significance of golf as a marker of social standing. People for whom golf is an important symbol of social standing may be annoyed about this. "How can they let people like that in here?" they may ask. The attempt to exclude "people like that" has inspired legislation throughout most of human history.
The most famous case of legislation actually restricting access to a symbol comes from ancient Rome. In Rome, wearing a toga with a purple border was a symbol of belonging to the Roman Senate. For an ordinary Roman to wear a toga with a purple border was made a punishable offense. The issue was not the risk of being mistaken for an actual senator ("impersonating an officer" in modern terms), but rather making a claim to being as important as the senators. The Roman laws confining toga borders to senators (and governing other symbols of status) are called "sumptuary laws." (Click me.) Another example would be the imperial Chinese prohibition on yellow roofs on buildings not associated with the emperor.
Generalizing beyond "sumptuary laws" to the underlying process, it is convenient to describe the status-linked monopolization of symbols as "sumptuation" or "sumptuary process." (Click me.) Beginning with the individual differences in possessions and power that followed the dawn of the Neolithic, we see the process of sumptuation at work as people in positions of wealth and power represented their "superiority" by monopolizing some kinds of goods or activities.
Two related issues are particularly important in studying ancient societies. One is the use of symbols to exalt kings. The other is the monopolization of other people's labor (or life) as a symbol of one's power and social position.
Mystification. The use of symbols to exalt kings and to make them seem different from ordinary mortals is a particular case of a more general process that some scholars have called "mystification." Mystification refers to disguising real power through the use of diversionary cultural symbols that make human social arrangements seem more than human, even cosmologically inevitable.
Two examples are the symbols of kingship among the Nyoro of pre-colonial Uganda and the ancient Egyptians, symbols by which the person of the king is made to seem, if not exactly divine, as least more than human. Among the Arapesh and the Aztecs we also see systems of religious symbols that have the effect of defining certain social events as "necessary" because demanded by gods who oversee the welfare of human beings.
Power Over Life. The objects and actions that are used as symbols are many and various. But a recurring theme is the use of scarce goods and other people's labor. By definition, scarce goods are not available to everybody, and the ability to gain access to them and to use them is therefore a sign of one's power, making control over scarce goods a more or less natural symbol of power. It is no accident that gold and "precious stones" are used in ritual celebrations of wealth and power around the world, and it is not merely because they are pretty.
The ability to control other people's labor is also a sign of wealth and power, and it is conveniently symbolized by physical objects that are the fruit of spectacular amounts of human labor either to manufacture (such as fine embroidery, sculptures, or pyramids) or to locate (such as gold or gems) or to transport (such as cedars from Lebanon or marble from Italy). We of course think of the famous temples and palaces of antiquity, but a recent example is the "House of the People" (Casa Poporului) built by the Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu in Bucharest. Specifications for the immense building (which included a throne room for Ceaucescu himself) required that carpets and draperies be hand woven in Romania, that floors be of Romanian marble, and that ceilings be decorated in Romanian gold leaf. Hand weaving and marble and gold leaf clearly were intended to demonstrate the state's total power over Romanian labor and resources. (Click me.)
Slavery & Human Sacrifice. In archaic societies one symbol of great power over other people is slavery. An even more powerful symbol is the right to take human life at will. In many societies (especially Bronze Age empires) we find these practices institutionalized and associated with government or upper-class mystification. We see human sacrifice as an important part of the mystification of government process among the Aztecs, for example, who practiced it at a scale unknown elsewhere. Part of what makes the modern world "modern" is the gradual reduction in these extreme processes of mystification and sumptuation. (We don't do human sacrifice any more.) But the mix of politics, social class, and dramatic symbols of legitimacy are still with us.
Both mystification and sumptuation are fundamental symbolic processes sustaining social order in non-foraging societies. Although it is convenient to illustrate them with extreme examples, and although they help us to understand these examples, the two processes lurk behind much of life in most societies throughout recorded history.