Mummers and moshers : Two rituals of trust in changing social environments

Abstract

This article compares two seemingly disparate rituals: the disguised house-visiting in rural Newfoundland known as "mumming," and the aggressive dancing known as "moshing" that occurs at concerts of some popular music. Both are activities where participants place themselves at risk of harm at the hands of other participants, and both can be seen as rituals simultaneously demonstrating trust and trustworthiness. For such rituals to be successful in promoting trusting relationships, there must be a pre-existing trust among the participants, and the rituals must be closely governed by spoken or unspoken rules that maintain the fine line separating demonstrations of trust from a violence that can injure and destroy relationships. This hypothesis is examined by the effect of the absence of these conditions on the two rituals. (Risk, trust, Mumming, Moshing) This article compares two activities that appear to be very different from each other: "mumming" and "moshing." Mumming (also known as "mummering," or "janneying") was a traditional form of disguised Christmas house-visiting that occurred in the small fishing villages of Newfoundland, Canada. Moshing (also known as slam dancing) is a seemingly aggressive colliding of bodies that occurs with members of the audience at concerts featuring such forms of music as punk rock and metal in an area known as a "mosh pit." Despite their apparent differences, both modes of behavior are a form of costly signaling that I refer to as rituals of trust. This hypothesis is evaluated by examining how both rituals are altered by changes in the social environment in which they occur. TRUST, RITUALS, AND COSTLY SIGNALING THEORY "For the better part of our evolutionary history ... the well-being of any individual rested heavily in the hands of others" (Wiessner 2002:21). Humans are constantly faced with situations where there are benefits to co-operating with others, but these may involve the risk that the other person may defect, cheat, or take advantage for short-term benefits. Trust is what reduces that risk and allows having the long-term mutual benefits of co-operation, or what is known in evolutionary theory as reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971). The confidence that the other person will act as expected is trust, that which allows overcoming "immediate self-interest in anticipation of delayed returns" (Wiessner 2002:23). Because "trust can form the basis for mutually supportive relationships that would not be possible without such trust" (Irons 2001:292), it is of great "interest in organizational research and the social sciences" (Fichman 2003:133), with examples ranging from team-building exercises in corporations (Dyer 1987) to political science studies of trust among nation states (Kydd 2000). As the familiarity of the phrases "rites of intensification" and "rites of solidarity" suggest, many anthropologists have assumed that certain rituals--i.e., repetitive forms of stereotyped social co-operation (see Lavenda and Schultz 2003:72; Levinson 1996:194)--are forms of communication that influence people to refrain from taking short-term advantages in order to reap larger, longer-term benefits, and to trust other individuals to do the same. However, the link between rituals and co-operative relationships is still a subject of debate. Recently there has been an attempt to use Costly Signaling Theory (CST) to explain exactly how some rituals have the communicative effect of building trust and commitment in long-term co-operative relationships (Atran 2002; Cronk 1994; Frank 1988; Irons 2001; Smith and Bird 1999; Sosis 2000a, 2000b, 2003, 2004; Sosis and Alcorta 2003; Sosis and Bressler 2003). This approach attempts to account for religious rituals "that are costly in time [e.g., praying five times per day] and sometimes in other ways" (Irons 2001:293), such as pain (e.g., the sun dance), energy (e.g., the sacrifice of food or money, or prolonged dancing), or risk (e. …