Editing Ritual (section)

===Political rituals===
[[File:Parade through Macao, Latin City 2019 16.jpg|thumb|Parade through Macao, Latin City (2019). The Parade is held annually on December 20th to mark the anniversary of Macao's Handover to China.]]

According to anthropologist [[Clifford Geertz]], political rituals actually construct power; that is, in his analysis of the [[Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali|Balinese state]], he argued that rituals are not an ornament of political power, but that the power of political actors depends upon their ability to create rituals and the cosmic framework within which the social hierarchy headed by the king is perceived as natural and sacred.{{sfnp|Geertz|1980|pp=[https://archive.org/details/negaratheatresta00geer_1/page/13 13]–17, 21}} As a "dramaturgy of power" comprehensive ritual systems may create a cosmological order that [[Sacred king|sets a ruler apart as a divine being]], as in "the divine right" of European kings, or the divine Japanese Emperor.{{sfnp|Bell|1997|p=[https://archive.org/details/ritualperspectiv00bell/page/n146 130]}} Political rituals also emerge in the form of uncodified or codified conventions practiced by political officials that cement respect for the arrangements of an institution or role against the individual temporarily assuming it, as can be seen in the many rituals still observed within the procedure of [[parliament]]ary bodies.

Ritual can be used as a form of resistance, as for example, in the various [[Cargo cults|Cargo Cults]] that developed against colonial powers in the South Pacific. In such religio-political movements, Islanders would use ritual imitations of western practices (such as the building of landing strips) as a means of summoning cargo (manufactured goods) from the ancestors. Leaders of these groups characterized the present state (often imposed by colonial capitalist regimes) as a dismantling of the old social order, which they sought to restore.<ref>{{cite book|last=Worsley|first=Peter|title=The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of 'Cargo Cults' in Melanesia|year=1957|publisher=Schocken books|location=New York}}</ref> Rituals may also attain political significance after conflict, as is the case with the [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnian]] syncretic holidays and festivals that transgress religious boundaries.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=HadžiMuhamedović |first=Safet |url=https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HadziMuhamedovicWaiting |title=Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape |publisher=Berghahn |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-80073-219-3 |edition=Paperback |location=Oxford |language=en}}</ref>