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06979_Field_TCUM T544.txt
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providing release of particular tensions. They are collective and
popular art forms with strict conventions. Ancient and
nonliterate societies naturally regarded games as live dramatic
models of the universe or of the outer cosmic drama. The
Olympic games were direct enactments of the agon , or struggle
of the Sun god. The runners moved around a track adorned
with the zodiacal signs in imitation of the daily circuit of the
sun chariot. With games and plays that were dramatic
enactments of a cosmic struggle, the spectator role was plainly
religious. The participation in these rituals kept the cosmos on
the right track, as well as providing a booster shot for the tribe.
The tribe or the city was a dim replica of that cosmos, as much
as were the games, the dances, and the icons. How art became
a sort of civilized substitute for magical games and rituals is
the story of the detribalization which came with literacy. Art,
like games, became a mimetic echo of, and relief from, the old