The heroic display ethos of a culture or subculture is that collective set
of behaviors, expected actions, and principles or codes of conduct that ide-
ally guide and are displayed by a hero, and are the subject of many tradi-
tional ballads or epics where seemingly superhuman heroes display bravery,
courage, and valor in the face of death. As Elias points out, for the Greeks,
Hector was as glorious in defeat as his conqueror, Achilles, since he too
fought as one must to be a hero, with all one’s “might until one was
maimed, wounded, or killed and could fight no longer.... What was inglo-
rious and shameful was to surrender victory without a sufficient show of
bravery and endurance” (1972, 100). The game-contests and dances pro-
vided opportunities for the performative display of the heroic ethos that was
a legacy of the Homeric epics.
The heroic display ethos of a culture, the oral and/or written mytholo-
gies and histories of martial exploits, and the specific martial techniques
per se collectively constitute a network of three symbiotically interrelated
phenomena, which combine to constitute a variety of genres of cultural
performance ranging from aesthetic, virtual displays choreographed in
highly stylized dance or dramatic forms (such as the Anapale), to game-
contests or mock combats arranged as part of a public festival (such as the
original Olympic contests), to duels or combats (the later gladiatorial com-
bats/contests of the Roman Empire), to external warfare itself. Public dis-
plays of power or arms, socially and legally sanctioned arenas where tests
of strength or duels occur, and mock combats or exhibitions of martial
skills have always served as discrete and important types of cultural per-
formance in which martial techniques have played an important role.
Through such public performances a particular (sub) culture’s warrior-hero
ethos itself is displayed to a wide public through use of actual techniques.
In the West there are many examples of historically significant heroic
literatures that embody a particular period’s display ethos; however, few
examples of performance forms exist in the modern West that are based on
martial forms or that embody the heroic or display ethos of a former era.
The forms that do exist in the West are often examples of what Schechner
has called “restored behavior,” today’s Renaissance Fairs, for example,
which employ actors dressed in period costumes reconstructing jousting
matches in which knights stage mock combats for the hands of fair ladies
of court, or stage combat techniques historically reconstructing the precise
use of historically accurate weaponry as part of a staged drama.
Unlike the West, in Asia and other parts of the world we find many
cases of living martial traditions whose techniques have formed the core of
many cultural performances that display the culture’s heroic ethos as well
as bring to life its mythic, epic, or historical heroic literatures. Such per-
formances include ritual and folk, as well as “classical,” genres. Indeed, it
Performing Arts 419