“Liminality” is a concept that has interested anthropologists and students of pilgrimage for the past two decades. In Latin, a limen is a threshold, which is an in-between place – not inside, not outside the house. So, “liminality” is a kind of “threshold-ness” a being in-between – just like a pilgrim on a journey, not at home, but not yet at a destination, either. (The term was first used by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, who used it to described the intermediate phase in a ritual initiation, where the person undergoing a rite of passage has left her old identity, but hasn’t yet taken on a new one. ) I once heard Jás Elsner (Pilgrimage Past and Present: Sacred Travel and Sacred Space in the World Religions, 1995) say that the entire experience of a modern international flight is liminal. You enter a strange space; your old identity is left behind (you have to carry papers even to prove who you are); you fly over a space often claimed by no one; and when you arrive at the new destination, you have to go through the ritual of disembarking, showing your passport, and, at that point, become a “new” person. The time in-between the start and the finish of your journey, or pilgrimage, is a “liminal state”.
Airports themselves often feel “noplace” (at least inside of them). In the air, as a traveler, you’re also “noplace” and “nowhere” at once. I think this might be especially true in those short hallways between the plane and the customs and passport control, before you’ve actually “entered” the new country. You’ve not really set foot on the state territory, actually ... but you are someplace, as well. You can see it, and touch it, and slip on it if you get tangled up in your luggage. Makes you wonder how “real” modern nation-state borders really are—and who decides where they are, when they begin and end, and why.
Anthropologists of pilgrimage, especially Victor and Edith Turner (Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 1978), also like to talk about the communitas of pilgrimage—another Latin word that means here a sense of shared community, and especially the shared community of the band of travelers: a new identity of being pilgrims together.
Felix Fabri spent almost three months in a “liminal state” on his way to Jerusalem. Felix enjoyed a sense of communitas with the other pilgrims on his ship, but communitas also had its limits for him, too. On his way to Jerusalem in 1480 (his first trip), he tells us that the French pilgrims and the German pilgrims did not leave off their old identities for one new happy pilgrim band, at all:
“...we unanimously decided that no more games of cards or dice should be played on board of the [pilgrim] galley, that no quarrels, oaths, or blasphemies should be allowed, and that the clerks and priests should add litanies to their usual daily prayers. Indeed, before this decree was made, much disorder took place in these matters, for men were gambling morning, noon, and night, especially the Bishop of Orleans with his suite; and withal they swore most dreadfully, and quarreled daily, for the French and we Germans were always at blows....For the French are proud and passionate men; and therefore, I believe that it was an act of divine providence that they were separated from us, and our galley cleared of them; for we should scarcely have reached Jerusalem in their company without bloodshed and the murder of some of us.”
[Felix Fabri, The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri, trans. and ed. by Aubrey Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society; vol. VII, p. 20.]
This is a fascinating view of travelling, both in ancient and modern times. I suppose the journey itself could have been as influential for the old pilgrims as their experiences in the Levant. For many it was no doubt their first exposure to foreign peoples, customs, flavors, scents, and languages. I would imagine even the most jaded and educated would have found some aspects either wondrous or horrifying. After three months the person arriving in the Holy Land would have been mentally and spiritually prepared to view the holy sites and relics with fresh eyes and minds.
ReplyDeleteHow long was a normal pilgrimage during Fabri's time? In his first entry his said that he would divide his pilgrimage story into 12 chapters, one for each month he was on pilgrimage but in this entry it says he only spent three months traveling to the Holy Land. So essentially he spent six months traveling and six months actually at his destination. Was that typical or more or less than normal?
ReplyDeleteI understand that concept of liminality. Not only with flying and feeling as if there's nothing below, above, or in general anywhere around you but also when driving on a 99 mile stretch of I-55 that separates home-home and dorm-home. I can see why this is quit befitting for a pilgrimage for despite how loudly I turn the music up, or bicker with the slow drivers in front of me (as if they can hear me), I cannot escape some sort of reflection on that seemingly endless stretch. Perhaps that's why I hate traveling so much hmm...
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by the outlawing of gambling and dice too. It reminds me of the parents who set their children up with DVD players on long journeys to keep them thoroughly distracted. I agree with the men who stood against this, after all I'm certain no one goes on pilgrimage for entertainment value. One goes for a journey or reflection and therefore shouldn't be distracted from these.
I love that there's a record of pilgrimage from the 1400's that we can compare and contrast to now. It's very poetic the similarities.
I had never heard of this liminality concept before, but it makes sense and to be honest I always felt like airports were limbos on earth, like college. I think back when people traveled on foot or by boat, or caravan type thing, there was really the "in between" place like today. Because, especially roadtrip or foot-trip, its still a place wherever you are and I consider that part of the trip. The journey can be just as or more important than the final destination.
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