Ritual drama

In pre-literate societies tribal rituals of socio-economic importance included some with narrative elements. These ritual stories explaining ethnic origins or accounting for natural phenomena were imbued with a magical quality, requiring in some cases a mimetic interpretation of the roles of supernatural beings, heroes, or celestial and terrestrial forces. The evolution of ritual drama incorporated a narrative or theatorical structure with a beginning and an end and an intermediary agon, conflict or crisis. The ends were catastrophic or victorious and the beginnings started from quiescent circumstances or from human, natural or supernatural violence. Ritual drama originated with magical lore presented as dance or mimetic gesture, accompanied by music and cadenced voice. In modern societies ritual behaviour is no longer unified in ritual drama but is exhibited in all its component forms such as social organization, rôles, clothing, eating and mating habits, leisure time activities (particularly visual sports), warfare, etc. To a certain extent, television programming with paid commercials, taken in its social, phenomenological entirety, may be the ritual drama of modern man.