711. Wallace, A.F.C. "Revitalization Movements: Some Theoretical Considerations for their Comparative Study." American Anthropologist 58, 1956b: 264-81.
Movements have functional stages: "mazeway reformulations [see item 712], communication, organization, adaptation, cultural transformation and routinization" (p. 489). Most are not connected with acculturation because acculturation is generally an evolutionary process, but these are revolutionary movements (Lanternari finds fault with this view because of the continuity between social drift ("chain-reaction processes") and deliberate action and between macro-temporal and micro-temporal processes). [I would take a simpler view and notice that people may respond in a deliberate and revolutionary fashion to such drifting processes; what they do may not itself be acculturative but is certainly a response to the process].
[Overall this is an extraordinarily rich discussion of the topic. Wallace's invocation of the organismic analogy seems to me unnecessary. A simple social-systems view would probably have suited as well, since it is a property of all systems that they will operate to prevent the maximization of any variable, such as Wallace's "stress." This notion certainly applies at the individual level but to extend it to the level of the society as a whole is a misapplication of hierarchy theory. This is evident when Wallace mentions hunger on the individual level as a source of stress, then, with no intervening stages, says that hunger in a group will stress the whole society, arguing that what happens on the cellular level also happens on the social level (p. 266). This is straining the analogy, without some discussion of the formation of the hungry group. Wallace does observe that societies are much more functionally redundant than individuals, however.]
Participation in such sudden and drastic change as these movements [sometimes] bring about involves a similar change in the individuals involved, particularly the prophet, who often will have been a drifter and possibly psychologically disturbed before his vision, which frequently has a markedly therapeutic effect both for the prophet and for his disciples, and possibly some followers. [However, Wallace's observation that many prophets acknowledge this emotional disarray prior to receiving their visions should be taken more critically; it is a very common phenomenon for converts to radically and often inaccurately denigrate previous experience, presumably to heighten the drama of the conversion experience (see item 314).] Revitalization thus includes most of the previously observed types of these movements, which cannot be seen as exclusive. Wallace supposes that myths, legends and rituals reflect memories of such events and may have begun as reports of prophetic visions; this is of course no more than interesting speculation. Because these movements follow a nearly uniform process (broadly speaking) no matter where they occur, they can be considered "behavior units."
The structure of this process is: steady state (where stress stays within more or less tolerable limits), increased individual stress (where cultural methods of reducing stress begin to falter, typically in acculturation situations), cultural distortion (where this stress persists and accumulates [and here Wallace becomes tautological: "rigid" persons retain the old ways rather than change while "flexible" ones attempt at least personal "mazeway" changes, including maladaptive ones like drug addiction, corruption, etc. (p. 269)], which may become new cultural patterns but never amount to the kind of holistic change that is called for. Stress increases.
If this process is not checked, the society will die. The revitalization phase begins with the emergence of a leader, who, frequently owing to a vision, will reformulate the whole "mazeway" for the culture, frequently making use of partial innovations already present but in a new synthesis with elements of the old culture. The visions involved here have similar structures: a supernatural figure appears, promising help and proposing new rules which, if followed, will lead to personal and social reintegration, doom if they are ignored. The old order is declared dead [as in fact it often is].
Wallace offers a Freudian analysis of these visions, but we should note that instead of being symptomatic they are most frequently radically therapeutic for the visionary and for his eventual followers. [I suspect there may be an unobserved intervening variable here; it may not be the dream itself that is therapeutic but the absolute conviction that it conveys, so that the prophet, who frequently was something of a drifter before, is galvanized with a new purpose and self-confidence which serves to resolve his old problems; he must himself be a testimonial to the efficacy of his vision, though this is a structural not a cynical observation].
Sargant (1949: item 594, 1951) observes that these conversion trances are medically similar to shock and frequently occur after periods of extreme deprivation and stress. These visions are structurally, and in psychological terms, functionally similar to shaman trances, guardian-spirit experiences and conversion [and, perhaps, near-death experiences] as seen around the world. These visions are clearly distinct from religious paranoia, where the visionary believes she becomes the supernatural; in prophetic visions, this does not occur. Instead, the prophet believes he has been visited and given a mission by the divinity.
In the next phase the prophet begins his mission by spreading the word and seeking converts, and this phase will continue throughout the life of the movement. Disciples and followers begin to adhere to the prophet, often experiencing "hysterical" visions like his. Their relationship to the prophet is similar to his with the god÷dependent, subservient and dedicated. The revolutionary movement will meet opposition, and this phase is crucial. If it is sufficiently "realistic" to successfully predict the opposition's moves and plan its own, it is likely to succeed; if not, it will be destroyed. In the former case, it will transform society, more or less according to its doctrine.
712. ———. "Mazeway Resynthesis: A Bio-Cultural Theory of Religious Inspiration." Transactions of the New York Academy of Science Series II, 18 (2), 1956d: 626-38.
Wallace begins with a brief sketch of the history of the Handsome Lake Movement, proposed as a case study to illustrate his model of "mazeway resynthesis" in the special case of religious inspiration.
At the time of Handsome Lake's vision (1799) the Seneca Nation had gone from the position of one of the three major powers in northern North America to a rural proletariat in extreme deprivation and hardship in the course of a single generation. Alcoholism was rampant, and Handsome Lake suffered heavily from it and other typical miseries of his people among whom he was a chief, albeit a despised one.
This was a typical prophetic career. Handsome Lake's alcoholism and other troubles had made him so ill that he was bedridden, and then he had his vision [which seems to have been a near-death experience; Wallace reports that his relatives were preparing to bury him when he revived]. Following this vision and others he became a widely-known and well-respected prophet, and quickly recovered from his ailments, giving up alcohol for the rest of his life and leading his people to do likewise, also adopting white agricultural practices and modes of life while retaining in "pure" form certain traditional rites and practices.
Wallace accounts for this and similar phenomena in terms of the "mazeway" and its degradation under environmental and personal stress. To simplify, mazeways are individual and cultural "maps" of how to live in one's society (see Wallace 1957, item 713 for a fuller explanation).
[While this theory is not subject to disproof, it is not inherently unlikely either and offers at least a conceptual linkage between stress at the level of the individual, on one hand, and his society, on the other, since the effects of disarray or resynthesis at one level can be seen to have effects at the other. However, Wallace supposes that the religious vision is brought on by an "automatic" process at a sufficiently severe level of stress, i.e., when it is nearly terminal. But if these processes are automatic, why are they not general? Why didn't all the Seneca have visions akin to Handsome Lake's, since the level of stress was roughly equivalent for the whole community? Wallace notes that there had been a good many ephemeral prophets among the Seneca before Handsome Lake had his vision as we might expect under the circumstances, but Wallace's theory offers no explanation of why their visions apparently didn't take while Handsome Lake's literally saved his people.]
[Could it have something to do with the three Quaker missionaries living in the area who had been trying, not to make Christians of the Seneca (itself something of a miracle) but to get them to adopt the "Protestant work ethic" (p. 628) and might have made good opportunistic use of Handsome Lake's vision to suit their own ends? It is clear from Wallace's narrative, though he doesn't spell this out, that the Quakers' program was nearly identical to what Handsome Lake proposed, bearing in mind that the Quakers didn't seem to much care about what the Indians believed, so long as they adopted "correct" procedures. (Lest that sound cynical, it should be noted that the survival of the Seneca could have come about in no other apparent way than their adoption of white economy.) So they might have enthusiastically supported the vision, and this support might have made the difference to its acceptance by the Seneca.]
713. ———. "Mazeway Disintegration: The Individual's Perception of Sociocultural Disorganization." Human Organization 16, 1957: 13-27.
Wallace draws an interesting analogy between culture and the mazes run by laboratory animals. Culture is of course much more complicated than any maze, and the course through it that an individual chooses is only one possible, more or less successful route. When this maze and the way through it are destroyed in some disaster, even if the destruction is only symbolic, those affected will often show symptoms of a state of shock wherein they are initially in a dazed condition. As the process moves along, they are docile and obedient, eager for news of other survivors, grateful for help offered but anxious that others be served first. Later they are euphoric, thankful, and show intense public spirit.
It is in this condition that revitalization movements are particularly likely to arise, when survivors for the moment at least forget old patterns of social distance. This process occurs whether or not survivors have suffered any personal loss, which leads Wallace to his conclusion that disruption in the prevailing socio-cultural pattern is sufficient to explain this process.
714. ———. "The Dekanawideh Myth Analyzed as the Record of a Revitalization Movement." Ethnohistory 5, 1958a: 118-30.
Treats the Dekawanidah myth as though it were an orally transmitted and distorted report of a revitalization movement. This essentially senseless exercise becomes even more so when the argument becomes circular: certain distortion "must have" occurred since this is a historical record of such a movement.
715. ———. "The Psychic Unity of Human Groups." In Studying Personality Cross-Culturally edited by B. Kaplan. New York: Harper and Bros, 1961c.
Uniform motivations are neither necessary nor possible in social organizations. It is only in the social sciences and the rhetoric of demagogues that their presence is insisted on, though it is entirely chimerical, being beyond direct observation.
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