The Semiotic-Semantic Analysis of the "Cheleh Havin" Ritual Ceremony with an Emphasis on Bakhtin's Carnivalesque

The ritual ceremony of Cheleh Havin has a historical background and is related to the Zardui village, one of the environs of Kermanshah Province. This ritual is held every year in Mordad (beginning in July and ending in August) and on the longest day of summer. The celebration of Cheleh Havin (Summer's 40th days on) is held for four days from the end of fourteenth day of the summer. This ceremony is being meaningful with the presence of activists. The ceremony always emphasizes and relies on a part of the past and creates the present presence of people according to the connection and disconnection with this past. The important part of this ceremony is made up of people and farmers and the purpose of holding it during the action to change the time of paying the annual tribute and giving thanks for the harvest is to create a mind-oriented process for the transition from a habitual body society to an unrested and idealistic system, also, it is an action against the rulers of the time and against everyday life and an attempt to produce a social and ideal-oriented process. In fact, activists display their awakening, and this awakening is a metaphor that takes them away from rationality and makes a mythical and idealistic process by passing through negative and positive functions and daily dos and don'ts. The official situation is the product of human experience and class history, and the carnival situation is the product of reaction to the official situation and at its opposite point. Ridicule and mockery in opposition to seriousness, giving importance to the individual in opposition to the domination of the church, etc., mocking the formality and its values, connecting death with life, giving importance to plurality and polyphony are among these oppositions. The age of celebrations is the same as the collective life of people, and the celebration is a cognate of the rituals and mythological beliefs of ancient times. Despite the fact that the identity and reason for the existence of carnival or celebrations, especially in the recent era, has undergone many changes, but the common spirit binds them together; which is on the one hand, the product of the desire for a collective and common life of humans, and on the other hand, it is the importance of the body-pleasure and the creation of happiness.
From Bakhtin's point of view, carnival gives more importance to life and its physical and material dimensions and to joy, relationship and pleasures, and although the participants in a celebration and carnival know each other in advance, in the text it is joy and happiness, which is more comfortable and unharmed. They are connected with each other. Bakhtin considers carnival to be the most obvious manifestation of popular culture and considers the most important achievement of carnival to cheer and not being taken seriously.
Although the background and main thought of this ceremony is in highlighting the concept of happiness and laughter and making fun of the existing situation, and on the other hand, from the utopian view-like the utopia that Plato also refers to- people are being placed next to each other in equality, freedom and same power, regardless of their social status, age, and gender difference.
But in that collective voices, the voice of inferior people can be heard as a single voice. This movement from "me" to "us" and from "body-habit" to "unrested body" and towards collective ideals, the actor always judges and evaluates himself based on the time he is in. Activists abandon their daily life and use the process of carnival and celebration in order to reach their goal through a kind of metamorphosis. This transformation takes place in three stages: 1- Being broke from everyday life and body habit system. 2- Appealing to the system of unrested and being another person. 3- Combination with music and foot stomping to create an ideal function. Which means, at the first step, the participants stop repeating their daily routines and body habits which can be called an inner chaos ceremony. A chaos that restores the presence of the activist in a metaphorical way and finally, by means of gestures, prosthetics, new clothing, scarecrows, movements and removing gender, social, age, class contrasts, etc. which leads to an ideal presence and manifests itself and which is different from the everyday body. In this article, we try to provide a semiotic-semantic analysis of this ceremony by emphasizing Bakhtin's carnival theory.
The atmosphere of the ritual ceremony has been opened by relying on the format of the discourse, and this conscious facet of the discourse has paved the way for the symbolic-semantic analysis of this ceremony. Discourse is a thoughtful, intentional and conscious action. Ritual ceremonies are examined from three aspects, which include: 1- Ritual ceremonies as fantasy and chaos. 2- Ritual ceremonies as external reality. 3- Ritual ceremonies as energy and power. The existence of social, gender and age contrasts in this ceremony, and this conscious aspect of the discourse has also paved the way for the symbolic-semantic analysis of this ceremony. On the other hand, according to the characteristics of the carnival, which include: laughter, utopianism, grotesque, coronation/dethroning we will raise the three questions of this research, which are:
a) What are the most important symbolic-semantic features of the Cheleh Havin ceremony? b) What characteristics of this ceremony can be adapted to Bakhtin's carnival theory? c) What are the ideal functions of this ceremony in the examination of its carnival? This semiotic-semantic research and analysis has been carried out using a descriptive-descriptive and case study method and the collection of data and images is based on library, field studies, interviews and the use of relevant image archives. The results of the investigation, emphasizing Bakhtin's carnival theory, show a sign-semantic process and the fact that in this ceremony, people making the use of masks and dolls, laughter and grotesque bodies, while moving from self-centeredness to collectivism and passing from a completely general and unstable situation to a stable and defined situation, they are confronted and challenged with beliefs, convictions and value standards, and they try to find their identity from informal discourses against official discourses while trying to find their own identities. Identity is always a shared and common phenomena. It is moving and has a dynamic and process cycle. Rather than being formed based on similarity or identically, identity is subject to difference and heterogeneity by breaking up the system of repetition and habitual body are in the pursuit of a kind of metamorphosis towards idealism and changing it towards the unrested system. Finally, the identity leads to an ideal presence. The ceremony is a process that is always moving from rationality to fantasy.