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The  Semiotics  of  Religious  Amazement  

Massimo  Leone,  University  of  Turin  

 

In  Hjelmslev’s  version  of  Saussure’s  structuralism,  the  terms  “expression”  and  “content”  

replace  those  of  “signifier”  and  “signified”.  A  topological  metaphor  is  introduced  in  the  

description  of  the  sign,  as  though  the  signified  was  something  that  must  not  only  be  signified  

but  also  “contained”.  When  semiotics  is  applied  to  the  study  of  religious  texts,  languages,  and  

cultures,  one  is  left  wondering  whether  such  topological  metaphor  of  containment  could  not  

be  pushed  further,  namely,  replacing  the  term  “expression”  with  the  term  “container”.  

Imagining  the  sign  as  a  relation  between  content  and  container  might  seem  to  betray  

Saussure’s  belief  in  the  substantial  unity  of  the  two  faces  of  signification.  

Nevertheless,  that  is  the  case  mostly  if  the  container  is  imagined  as  a  sort  of  box,  as  a  

receptacle  that  human  communication  fills  with  semantic  items  so  as  to  transport  them  

elsewhere.  Yet,  there  is  another  way  of  interpreting  the  ‘containment’  of  signification.  The  

‘container’  should  be  imagined  not  much  as  inert  box,  but  as  pattern  of  forces  whose  aim  is,  

above  all,  that  of  containing  other  forces.  In  this  case,  though,  “containing”  is  to  be  interpreted  

not  only  in  the  sense  of  “holding”,  but  also  in  the  sense  of  “restraining”.  

The  restraining  action  that  the  signifier  /  container  exerts  on  the  signified  /  content  is  best  

conceived  with  relation  to  the  French  paleontologist  André  Leroi-­‐Gourhan’s  philosophy  of  

techniques.  In  his  1943  L’Homme  et  la  matière  [Humans  and  Matters],  he  developed  a  

philosophical  hypothesis  on  the  anthropology  of  weaving,  considered  as  trans-­‐cultural  

technique  through  which  human  beings  manifest  the  sense  and  the  practice  of  order  that  they  

have  attained  through  evolution.  Deleuze  and  Guattari  philosophically  fleshed  out  this  line  of  

anthropological  reflection  in  a  passage  of  Mille  plateaux  [A  Thousand  Plateaux]  (1980),  where  

they  define  the  opposition  between  “espace  lisse”  [smooth,  unrippled  space]  and  “espace  

strié”  [ridged,  rippled  space].  According  to  the  two  philosophers,  human  techniques  that  

create  “rippled  space”  are  essentially  techniques  of  control,  centered  on  the  sense  of  view,  

whereas  the  sense  of  touch  is  put  in  relation  with  unrippled  space  and  haptic  phenomenology.  

Following  this  hypothesis,  Leroi-­‐Gourhan’s  interpretation  of  weaving  indicates  one  of  the  first  

steps  in  a  long  cultural  evolution,  through  which  humans  have  sought  to  impose  a  visual  order  

on  the  disquieting  chaos  of  nature,  including  their  own  human  nature.  The  invention  of  

perspective  would  be  another  major  step  in  this  anthropological  evolution.  

Taking  the  lead  from  Leroi-­‐Gourhan  and  Deleuze  &  Guattari,  the  anthropology  of  rippling  

could  be  generalized,  in  view  of  a  new  definition  of  the  sign  as  relation  between  content  and  

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container.  From  this  point  of  view,  signification  would  result  from  the  human  attempts  at  

controlling  the  forces  of  the  environment.  That  seems  to  overturn  the  intuitive  conception  of  

signification,  which  is  mostly  thought  of  as  a  way  to  give  course  to  communicative  

intentionality;  as  positive  dynamic.  The  definition  of  the  sign  as  containment  technique,  on  the  

contrary,  focuses  on  signification  as  elaboration  of  hindrances;  as  negative  dynamic.  

In  hindsight,  an  intuition  of  this  negative  dynamic  is  also  in  the  word  “expression”,  which  

etymologically  refers  to  a  “pressing  out”,  and  therefore  to  the  presence  of  an  obstacle,  a  

contrasting  force,  without  which  such  pressing  out  could  not  take  place,  exactly  as  a  hard  

object  must  be  pressed  against  an  orange  in  order  to  squeeze  the  juice  out  of  it.  This  intuition  

of  the  negative  side  of  signification  is  certainly  present  in  Peirce,  in  the  distinction  between  

immediate  and  dynamic  object,  but  is  not  absent  either  in  structural  definitions  of  the  sign.  In  

structuralism,  indeed,  the  hindrance  that  enables  signification  is  nothing  but  the  grammar,  or  

the  code.  

Conceiving  signification  as  constraint,  more  than  as  possibility,  might  be  fundamental  in  the  

specific  but  vast  field  of  the  semiotics  of  religion.  Being  a  branch  of  cultural  semiotics,  the  

semiotics  of  religion  works  along  two  apparently  opposite  directions.  On  the  one  hand,  

singling  out,  describing,  and  interpreting  signs,  texts,  and  languages  that  develop  across  

religious  denominations,  so  as  to  understand  to  what  general  anthropological  or  cognitive  

need  they  respond.  On  the  other  hand,  classifying  differences,  showing  how  historical  and  

contextual  pressure  has  brought  about  specific  forms.  For  instance,  on  the  one  side,  semiotics  

is  interested  in  the  catholic  rosary  as  the  cultural-­‐specific  token  of  a  broader  type,  where  

counting  devices  belonging  to  different  spiritual  traditions  are  to  be  subsumed.  On  the  other  

side,  semiotics  focuses  on  the  peculiar  morphology  that  this  device  takes  on  in  Catholic  

contexts,  considered  either  in  their  historical  evolution  or  freezing  a  phase  of  them  into  a  

synchronic  section.  

Both  tasks  are  complicated,  but  their  difficulty  is  of  different  kinds.  Whereas  the  comparative  

work  necessitates  systematic  perusal  of  historical  and  anthropological  data,  as  well  as  a  solid  

semiotic  framework  of  analysis  and  interpretation,  the  generalizing,  cross-­‐cultural  endeavor  

cannot  escape  speculation  in  the  domain  of  the  semiotic  philosophy  of  religion.  Semiotics  

indeed  has  not  only  the  ambition  to  provide  linguistic,  textual,  and  semiological  skills  to  those  

who  interpret  signs  in  religion;  it  also  cultivates  the  higher  ambition  of  coming  up  with  a  

definition  of  religion  sub  specie  signi  [from  the  perspective  of  the  sign].  

The  latter  task  is  complicated  for  not  only  the  definition  of  religion,  but  also  its  own  semantic  

field  is  culturally  biased.  What  groups  of  phenomena  individuals,  cultures,  and  even  scholars  

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and  societies  of  scholars  decide  to  categorize  under  the  label  “religion”  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  

fact,  but  outcome  of  complex  and  not  always  transparent  negotiation.  The  fact  that  nowadays  

Christianity,  Judaism,  Buddhism,  and  New  Age  might  all  be  classified,  and  studied,  as  

“religion”,  results  from  this  invisible  negotiation.  Present-­‐day  political  and  legal  controversies  

about  whether  Scientology  or  Falung  Gong  should  also  fall  in  the  same  category  show  that  this  

negotiation  is  ongoing,  accompanied  by  power  struggles  and  heavy  social  consequences.  

To  this  multi-­‐dimensional  polyphony,  the  semiotics  of  religion  adds  a  fresh  voice,  unburdened  

by  the  influence  of  theology,  history,  or  anthropology,  while  looking  at  them  with  attention  

and  respect.  Faced  with  the  task  of  determining  the  quintessence  of  religion,  semiotics  must  

come  up  with  a  philosophical  hypothesis  that  rests,  nevertheless,  on  the  empirical  and  inter-­‐

subjective  observation  of  signification  processes.  Given  the  range  of  cultural  phenomena  that  

the  current  scientific  discourse  ascribes  to  the  semantic  field  of  “religion”,  what  semiotic  

features  appear  cross-­‐culturally  throughout  these  processes?  And  what  features,  on  the  

contrary,  make  them  unique  or  separate  them  into  groups  and  families?  Moreover,  what  new  

rearrangements,  both  at  the  cross-­‐cultural  and  at  the  comparative  level,  are  made  viable  by  

the  introduction  of  the  semiotic  perspective?  

It  might  be  ventured  that  one  of  the  common  denominators  of  religious  phenomena,  

considered  from  a  semiotic  point  of  view,  is  amazement.  There  is  something  amazing  in  every  

religion.  Of  course,  such  amazement  should  not  be  defined  simply  as  emotional  response,  but  

as  semiotic  process  connecting  the  religious  experience,  language,  and  the  human  cognition.  A  

clue  to  a  better  definition  of  amazement  is  in  the  etymology  of  the  word.  Semanticists  know  

well  that  the  etymology  of  a  word  does  not  always  correspond  to  its  current  semantic  field.  

Yet,  it  provides  an  indication  about  what  cultural  trends  have  shaped  the  meaning  of  the  word  

throughout  history,  thus  turning  the  word  itself  into  a  knot  in  a  culture’s  evolution.  

In  Old  English  one  finds  the  verb  amasian  [“confuse,  surprise”]  and  its  past  participle  amarod  

[“confused”].  Significantly,  19th-­‐century  etymologists  referred  the  word  “amaze”  to  Old  High  

German  meis,  which  used  to  designate  “a  basket  carried  on  the  back”.  Later,  the  Norwegian  

etymological  dictionary  by  Falk  and  Torp  indicated  among  the  meanings  of  mase  “lose  

consciousness”  and  “become  delirious”.  

Two  semantic  lines,  hence,  intersect  in  the  etymology  of  “amazement”:  on  the  one  hand,  a  

reference  to  the  patient  activity  of  weaving;  on  the  other  hand,  a  reference  to  loss  of  mental  

control.  The  former  can  be  related  to  the  constraining  dimension  of  semiosis,  already  evoked  

above  through  Hjelmslev’s  meta-­‐linguistic  choice  of  “content”,  Leroi-­‐Gourhan’s  emphasis  on  

weaving  as  the  technique  that  models  the  human  conception  of  orderly  cultural  patterns,  and  

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Deleuze  &  Guattari’s  views  on  the  fabrication  of  ‘rippled  space’.  The  latter  element,  that  is,  loss  

of  mental  control,  is  equally  central  in  the  semantics  of  amazement.  That  is  why  the  lexeme  

“maze”  has  been  extracted  from  the  verb  “amazement”.  A  naïve  etymology  has  the  verb  

“amazement”  derive  from  “maze”,  but  historically  the  reverse  is  true.  “Maze”  in  English  

designates  an  amazing  place,  that  is,  a  place  whose  intricate  weaving  represents  a  challenge  to  

mental  control.  

To  this  regard,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  English,  unlike  other  languages,  distinguishes  

between  labyrinths  and  mazes.  Although  the  semantic  line  separating  the  two  is  thin,  the  first  

word  is  usually  referred  to  intricate  spatial  structures  where  nevertheless  a  single  path  

inexorably  leads  from  entrance  to  goal;  the  second  word,  on  the  opposite,  usually  designates  

complex  spatial  structures  that  provide  a  multiplicity  of  choices.  The  spatial  structure  of  

labyrinths  is  usually  unicursal,  meaning  that  it  can  be  traced  in  one  continuous  line;  the  

spatial  structure  of  mazes,  instead,  is  usually  multicursal,  meaning  that  it  cannot  be  traced  in  

one  continuous  line.  

Both  labyrinths  and  mazes  are  designed  to  prompt  a  cognitive,  emotional,  and  pragmatic  

response,  but  in  different  ways.  Upon  entering  a  labyrinth,  one  does  not  know  whether  its  

path  will  take  to  the  goal;  one  therefore  continues  to  walk  through  it,  anguished  by  ignorance,  

while  every  twist  adds  to  the  feeling  of  spatial  and  emotional  disorientation.  However,  finding  

the  exit  in  a  labyrinth  is  a  matter  of  faith,  whereas  finding  the  exit  in  a  maze  is  a  matter  of  both  

faith  and  choice.  In  a  maze  too  there  is  no  certainty  that  the  path  will  take  to  the  goal,  but  the  

anguish  of  the  labyrinth  is  increased  by  necessity  of  choice;  at  every  turn,  one  fears  that  the  

wrong  decision  has  been  taken.  That  is  why  maze  in  German  is  called  Irrgarten  or  Irrweg  [litt.,  

the  garden,  the  way  of  erring].  

Distinction  between  labyrinths  and  mazes  helps  to  more  precisely  define  the  semantics  of  

amazement:  if  maze  is  the  spatial  matrix  of  amazement,  then  amazement  originally  is  the  

emotion  of  feeling  lost  in  front  of  a  vertiginous  multiplicity  of  choices.  The  current  semantics  

of  amazement,  though,  tends  to  bear  a  positive  connotation.  “Amazing”  is  what  wonders  and  

surprises  in  a  positive  way,  generating  a  feeling  of  euphoria.  However,  the  euphoric  tone  of  

amazement  should  not  surprise.  After  all,  both  labyrinths  and  mazes  turn  often  into  playful  

places  exactly  for  they  provide  narrative  potentiality.  Complicated  as  they  may  be,  indeed,  

they  offer  human  beings  the  perfect  spatial  metaphor  of  faith  and  will  overcoming  ignorance  

and  adversity.  The  vertiginous  thrill  created  by  the  meandering  structure  of  the  maze  adds  to  

the  existential  fulfillment  that  one  attains  coming  out  of  it.  

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On  the  basis  of  these  considerations,  the  semiotic  definition  of  religion  as  the  human  

dimension  of  amazement  can  be  more  analytically  explained.  Like  a  maze,  religious  cultures  

often  present  believers  with  an  intricate  pattern,  which  manifests  itself  through  the  words  of  

sacred  texts,  the  movements  of  liturgy,  the  gestures  of  prayer,  etc.  Like  in  mazes,  there  is  

something  both  anguishing  and  playful  about  these  patterns.  On  the  one  hand,  the  structure  of  

the  religious  maze  seems  to  constantly  remind  believers  that  they  are  confronted  with  

vertiginous,  overwhelming  infinity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  maze  provides  believers  

with  a  narrative  vade  mecum.  That  does  not  simply  mean  that  religions  show  the  way  out  of  

the  maze  they  construct,  which  would  be  a  trivial  interpretation  of  their  role.  More  subtly,  it  

can  be  argued  that  the  religious  maze  represents  the  extraordinarily  complex  simulacrum  of  a  

key  existential  feature  of  the  human  species.  

Peirce  sought  to  capture  it  through  the  concept  of  unlimited  semiosis.  The  perennial,  

unstoppable  flight  of  interpretants  is  not  an  exception  in  human  cognition,  but  the  rule.  Not  

only  human  beings  cannot  stop  thinking,  but  thought  most  frequently  unfolds  in  apparently  

chaotic,  unsystematic  way,  exactly  like  the  meandering  structure  of  a  maze.  Such  mental  

proliferation  is  indeed  at  the  core  of  human  linguistic  ability,  and  has  proved  the  most  

effective  feature  of  the  human  species  throughout  evolution.  

Interestingly,  Umberto  Eco  has  labeled  “fuga  di  interpretanti”  [litt.,  “fugue  of  interpretants”]  

this  erratic  burgeoning  of  interpretants.  “Fugue”  is  both  a  musical  term,  designating  the  

contrapuntal  composition  mastered  by  Bach,  and  a  psychiatric  term,  indicating  the  loss  of  

one’s  identity,  the  sinking  of  the  psyche  into  anguishing  disorientation.  These  two  semantic  

lines  seem  to  reproduce  those  that  intersect  in  the  etymology  of  “maze”:  on  the  one  hand,  the  

frightening  feeling  of  losing  mental  control;  on  the  other  hand,  the  playful  evocation  of  infinity  

as  something  that  can  be  traveled  through,  guided  by  faith  and  cunningness.  Deleuze  &  

Guattari’s  critique  of  ‘rippled  space’  was  indeed  also  a  complex  eulogy  of  the  theoretical  

virtues  of  mental  derangement,  which  the  style  of  Mille  Plateaux  embodied  against  the  

capitalistic  drive  to  control  and  its  visual  devices,  from  the  perspective  to  the  panopticon.  As  

Umberto  Eco  has  underlined  in  its  typology  of  the  labyrinth,  the  decomposition  of  its  

containing  structure  brings  about  the  rhizome,  which  is  exactly  the  cognitive  model  endorsed  

by  Deleuze  &  Guattari.  

However,  classifying  religions  as  instances  of  ‘rippled  space’  that  seek  to  canalize  the  human  

inclination  to  mental  erraticism  would  be  reductive.  Religions  are  conglomerates  of  

interpretive  habits,  but  they  are  not  only  that.  On  the  contrary,  from  the  semiotic  point  of  

view,  religions  seem  to  play  a  double,  paradoxical  role.  They  place  believers  in  a  maze,  but  

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simultaneously  they  provide  them  with  an  aerial  view  of  it.  For  the  believer,  the  existential  

experience  of  being  immersed  in  a  complex  matrix  that  elicits  an  emotional  response  of  

disorientation,  awe,  and  even  fear  is  inseparable  from  a  euphoric  vision  of  order,  be  it  the  

unicursal  order  of  a  labyrinth,  when  religions  interpret  existence  as  destiny,  or  the  

multicursal  order  of  a  maze,  when  they  consider  it  as  choice.  Playfulness  is  germane  to  

religions  for  play  too  features  this  constant  shift  from  two  paradoxically  co-­‐present  

dimensions  of  immersion  and  detachment,  vertigo  and  control.  

Given  the  human  adaptive  capacity  for  burgeoning  thinking,  religions  provide  narrative  

frameworks  in  which  such  capacity  is  both  vicariously  exalted  and  tamed.  From  this  point  of  

view,  the  religious  experience  is  inextricably  linked  with  the  linguistic  one,  for  language  too  is,  

structurally,  infinitude  and  control,  proliferation  and  grammar,  maze  and  labyrinth.  The  

abstract  coincidence  of  language  and  religion  confirms  the  need  for  a  semiotic  perspective  on  

both,  but  simultaneously  underlines  two  responsibilities,  linked  with  the  two  dimensions  of  

semiotic  research  evoked  above.  

First,  the  parallel  between  religion,  language,  and  mazes  must  be  supported  by  empirical  

evidence  from  the  interconnected  study  of  nature  and  culture.  The  neurophysiology,  

cognition,  and  cultural  elaboration  of  infinitude  must  be  studied  in  their  reciprocal  influences.  

Second,  semiotics  of  religion  faces  a  comparative  responsibility:  if  religion  is  a  maze,  semiotics  

must  observe  and  analyze  every  turn  of  it  in  order  to  come  up  with  an  articulated  

classification  of  both  patterns  and  practices.  The  maze  that  Judaism  proposes  to  believers  is  

different  from  that  of  Christianity.  They  share  a  general  principle,  but  they  embody  different  

conceptions  of  infinitude,  path,  choice,  goal,  destiny,  etc.  

Returning  to  Hjelmslev,  the  semiotics  of  religion  is  after  the  form  of  each  religious  maze,  as  

well  as  after  the  evolution  of  this  form  through  history  and  contexts.  But  here  “form”  should  

be  meant  according  to  the  Danish  linguist’s  original  conception,  not  as  pattern  that  has  

already  shaped  a  certain  matter,  that  is,  as  substance,  but  as  constraining  scheme  before  any  

substantiation.  For  instance,  the  semiotician  of  Christianity  is  interested  not  as  much  in  the  

structure  of  liturgy  in  17th-­‐century  mass,  as  in  how  this  structure  translates  into  verbal  and  

gestural  codes  a  more  abstract  framework,  which  can  be  extracted  from  those  codes  and  

identified  as  the  early  modern  Christian  form  of  religious  experience.  The  difficulty  of  the  

operation  derives  from  the  fact  that  Hjelmslev’s  cultural  forms  cannot  be  perceived  as  

separated  from  the  matters  they  shape,  and  must  therefore  be  excerpted  from  them.  Yet,  that  

might  be  the  most  important  specific  contribution  of  semiotics  to  the  study  of  religious  

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phenomena:  pinpointing  how  the  containment  of  infinitude  is  arranged  in  each  religious  

culture,  tradition,  period,  and  context,  through  which  articulatory  maze  or  labyrinth.  

The  risk  of  getting  lost  is  even  higher  in  this  enterprise  than  in  that  of  navigating  through  a  

medieval  maze.  Yet,  a  good  point  of  departure  is  represented  by  the  explicit  diagrammatic  

representations  that  often  circulate  in  religions.  In  several  cases,  indeed,  religions  adopt  

diagrammatic  expression  in  order  to  communicate  the  skeleton  of  their  inner  form,  as  though  

providing  a  fractal  miniature  map  of  the  maze  they  immerse  the  believer  into.  What  follows  is  

an  example  of  the  diagrammatology  of  the  sacred  that  semiotics  should  carry  on  in  a  

comparative  and  systematic  way.  

There  is  no  lack  of  attention  in  semiotics  toward  labyrinths  and  mazes.  Umberto  Eco  devotes  

paragraph  2.3.5  of  his  Semiotics  and  the  Philosophy  of  Language  to  “The  Encyclopedia  as  

Labyrinth”,  proposing  a  typology  of  labyrinths,  mazes,  and  rhizomes  as  well  as  positing  the  

encyclopedia  as  model  that  captures  the  “flight  of  interpretants”.  The  title  of  one  of  Eco’s  last  

books  on  the  semiotic  theory  of  knowledge,  From  the  Tree  to  the  Labyrinth,  also  bears  on  the  

topic.  Curiously,  Peirce  too  devoted  attention  to  mazes,  however  not  in  order  to  explain  them,  

but  in  order  to  construct  them.  In  1909  he  published  in  The  Monist  an  article  entitled  Some  

Amazing  Mazes.  A  Second  Curiosity.  The  article  consists  in  the  thorough  description  of  how  

mathematics  can  be  used  to  create  sophisticated  and  ‘amazing’  card  tricks.  One  should  not  

forget  either  the  deep  influence  that  Borges’s  imaginaire,  so  replete  with  labyrinths,  exerted  

on  contemporary  semiotics.  

However,  while  Eco’s  epistemological  insights  on  the  gnoseology  of  labyrinths  might  remain  

in  the  background  of  an  enquiry  about  mazes  in  religion,  and  Peirce’s  own  mazes  provide  

further  evidence  of  the  American  semiotician’s  exuberant  diagrammatics,  the  primary  

concern  for  the  semiotics  of  religion  is  to  analyze  the  various  schemes  through  which  

religious  cultures  represent  their  own  abstract  form.  

The  sand  drawings  of  Malekula  are  an  exemplary  case  study.  Malekula  is  the  second-­‐largest  

island  in  the  nation  of  Vanuatu,  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  region  of  Melanesia.  Male  natives  

traditionally  engage  in  the  production  of  extraordinarily  complex  and  skillful  sand  drawings.  

Here  follow  some  examples  (Figs  1  and  2):  

 

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These  drawings  have  been  a  key  object  of  anthropological  inquiry  at  least  since  1914,  when  

the  British  ethnologist  John  Layard  recorded  some  of  them  during  his  visit  of  the  New  

Hebrids,  now  Vanuatu.  Christian  missionaries  had  already  produced  sketches  of  these  

drawings  and  sent  them  to  the  attention  of  the  British  ethnologist  Alfred  Cort  Haddon.  One  of  

his  students,  Bernard  Arthur  Deacon,  first  gathered  extensive  documentation  about  them  

during  his  stay  in  the  island  between  1926  and  1927.  As  Deacon  wrote  in  one  of  his  notes,  

edited  and  published  after  his  premature  death  in  1927  by  British  anthropologist  Camilla  H.  

Wedgwood:  “The  whole  point  of  the  art  is  to  execute  the  designs  perfectly,  smoothly,  and  

continuously;  to  halt  in  the  middle  is  regarded  as  an  imperfection  […]  Each  design  is  regarded  

rather  as  a  kind  of  maze,  the  great  thing  is  to  move  smoothly  and  continuously  through  it  from  

starting-­‐point  to  starting  point.”  

In  the  same  notes,  Deacon  reports  a  local  myth  that  points  at  the  religious  relevance  of  the  

drawings.  When  people  from  the  Seniang  district  of  Malekula  die,  they  must  reach  Wies,  the  

land  of  the  dead,  through  a  specific  road.  At  a  certain  point  along  the  way,  they  come  to  a  rock  

called  Lembwil  Song,  lying  in  the  sea  at  the  boundary  between  the  Seniang  and  Mewun  

districts.  The  land  of  the  dead  is  situated  behind  the  rock,  surrounded  by  a  high  fence.  Sitting  

by  the  rock  is  a  female  ghost,  Temes  Savsap.  On  the  ground  in  front  of  her  is  drawn  the  

complete  pattern  know  as  Nahal,  “the  Path”  (Fig.  3).    

 

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The  path  that  the  deceased  must  go  through  so  as  to  accede  to  the  land  of  the  dead  lies  exactly  

in  the  middle  between  the  two  symmetrical  halves  of  the  drawing.  But  as  soon  as  the  dead  

approaches  it,  the  female  ghost  hurriedly  rubs  out  one  half  of  the  pattern,  so  that  the  dead  

cannot  find  their  way  any  longer.  Only  precise  knowledge  of  how  to  redraw  the  missing  half  of  

the  pattern  will  enable  the  dead  to  see  the  path  again.  However,  if  dead  people  do  not  know  

how  to  complete  the  pattern,  the  female  guardian  of  the  path  eats  them,  so  that  they  will  

never  reach  the  land  of  the  dead.  

A  vast  anthropological  literature  bears  on  the  sand  drawings  of  Malekula,  including  Layard’s  

1942  classic  Stone  Men  of  Malekula.  This  literature  indicates  how  the  complex  patterns  

ritually  drawn  and  redrawn  by  Malekula  natives  serve  multiple  purposes:  as  graphic  

mnemotechniques,  they  transmit  traditional  knowledge  about  the  mythical  history  and  

geography  of  the  island  from  generation  to  generation;  as  pastime,  they  structure  the  rhythm  

of  existence  in  Malekula;  as  complex  craft,  they  determine  a  hierarchy  of  skills  and  wisdom;  as  

abstract  diagrams,  they  enable  a  practice  of  concentration  and  contemplation;  as  

mythograms,  they  represent  formulae  for  dealing  with  the  afterlife,  as  is  evident  in  the  myth  

reported  above.  

From  the  semiotic  point  of  view,  it  can  be  argued  that  the  visual  patterns  and  the  

performativity  of  these  drawings  embody  the  essential  form  of  Malekula  spirituality,  the  way  

in  which  the  local  religious  culture  seeks  to  both  contain  and  restrain,  within  a  ritual  shape,  

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the  specific  relation  that  is  posited  between  life  and  death,  immanence  and  transcendence,  

infinitude  of  forms  and  finitude  of  drawings.  The  sand  drawings  of  Malekula  are  therefore  

patterns  of  amazement  in  the  sense  that  was  evoked  before:  they  playfully  represent  the  maze  

of  potentialities  that  human  life  implies,  and  simultaneously  transmit  ritual  knowledge  about  

how  this  maze  can  be  navigated  through.  The  extraordinary  feature  of  these  sand  mazes  is  

that  they  are  successfully  traversed  by  the  same  gesture  that  create  them,  as  though  

embodying  the  inextricable  interconnectedness  of  existence  and  labyrinth:  as  soon  as  the  

finger  touches  the  sand,  it  starts  creating  a  maze  for  itself,  but  spiritual  wisdom  will  allow  the  

same  finger  to  come  out  of  the  sandy  maze  without  mistakes.  The  maze  therefore  functions  

according  to  both  its  etymological  roots:  it  is  a  place  of  potential  confusion,  but  it  is  also  

weaving,  pattern  that  instructs  on  how  to  proceed  from  the  entrance  of  life  to  its  goal.  

Building  on  existent  and  copious  anthropological  literature,  the  semiotics  of  religion  should  

pursue  multiple  aims.  First,  analytically  describing  the  grammar  of  these  drawings,  the  way  in  

which  their  lines,  curbs,  dots,  and  passages  are  articulated,  nominated,  arranged,  and  

associated  with  a  semantic  plane  of  narratives  and  a  pragmatic  level  of  performativity.  

Second,  pointing  out  how  each  of  these  drawings  work  as  pattern  of  amazement,  playfully  

situating  ritual  designers  in  the  middle  of  a  maze  while  providing  them  with  traditional  

knowledge  about  navigating  through  it.  Third,  formulating  hypothesis  on  how  these  visual  

patterns  embody  the  abstract  form  of  Malekula  religiosity,  its  peculiar  way  of  solving  the  

riddle  of  relation  between  life  and  death,  infinity  and  finitude,  thought  and  language.  Fourth,  

the  cultural  semiotics  of  religion  should  engage  in  the  difficult  task  of  comparing  different  

religious  mazes  and  their  diagrammatic  expressions.  

Several  religious  cultures  adopt  complex  visual  patterns  in  order  to  have  believers  ritually  

experience  the  amazement  of  spatial  vertigo  while  providing  them  with  performative  control  

over  them.  The  yantras  of  Tantric  Buddhism  are  a  good  example,  as  well  as  the  diagrammatic  

decorations  in  the  icons  of  Byzantine  hesychasm.  There  is  a  common  denominator  in  these  

visual  and  ritual  constructions,  a  similar  way  of  evoking  the  core  of  religious  experience  

through  a  paradoxical  simulacrum.  At  the  same  time,  each  of  these  patterns,  and  the  

performative  practice  that  they  entail,  inflect  the  principle  of  the  maze  in  a  peculiar,  religion-­‐  

and  context-­‐  specific  way.  

The  semiotics  of  religion  should  look  at  both  these  dimensions  of  commonality  and  variety,  

and  engage  in  its  own  labyrinth  of  recognition  and  surprise.