A book a day: Ignacio Jáuregui: Rituals. A journey along the thread that unites us: from Jerusalem to Benares

Original language: Español

Year of publication: 2023

Valuation: Highly recommended

Already in the prologue of the text the author warns us: this is not an anthropological text nor an essay on religion. It is, simply and plainly (although it is very little simple), a travel notebook, an attentive and undisciplined observation that has as its center, in its broadest sense, rituals, understanding these as codified ways of doing things, with an impractical component, that last over time, transmitted through generations and that serve, ultimately, as links of belonging.

So, this Rituals by Ignacio Jáuregui moves away from the scholarly treatise with a profusion of data and dates and focuses on small things, on sparks of ephemeral beauty, on comprehensible episodes that favor obtaining a general impression.

Divided into three parts (Between believers, Presences and Ceremonies), the text breaks down uses and customs that speak of the passage of time as well as the undeniable adaptive capacity of the human being, of experiences that we must place above belief, of procedures that we tend to vilify (and I’m the first, mind you) but that define us and give us more or less unstable grips.

And although it is not the author’s intention that History or Religion be central in the text, it is inevitable that both sneak into the vast majority of them and lead us to reflect on intolerances and influences, on transplanted traditions, on rituals and business, about the absurdity of our often simplifying Eurocentrism.

Beyond the above, from that aspect that history lovers surely enjoy, the text stands out for other reasons:

• his evident desire for style, especially achieved in metaphors and images.
• its visual and sensory power. It is clear that the material brings that power “as standard” (India, Iran, Jerusalem, Ethiopia, etc.), but then you have to put it black on white.
• your look/focus. On the one hand, the traveler steps aside and acts as more of a “medium” between scene and reader; On the other hand, he is deeply respectful of what he sees, which does not prevent the apparent objectivity of the descriptions from adding subtle touches of irony and humor.
• his love for detail, for the little things in life (a young woman before a golden altar in an Orthodox church, some children soaking in the square of Isfahan, the green dress of one of the friends of an Ethiopian bride, etc. ), for those traits of shared humanity beyond space and time

To my credit I can only mention some small reiterations that make it, more so in the final part of the book, a bit long.

For the rest, these travel notebooks are highly recommended reading, which we hope will be updated in the near future. We’ll be alert