of complexity corresponds to simple imitation,which is more indirect
and implies a certain form of learning.The third step corresponds to
imitation-representation,delayed imitation in the absence of a model.
If one takes into account at the same time the connections among
music,language,and related forms of expression,as well as the impor-
tance of rhythmic and imitation behaviors,one is led to hypothesize that
a major step in the process of hominization was the creation of what we
could call,along with Merlin Donald (1991),mimetic culture.Starting
from the classic parallel between ontogeny and phylogeny,Henri Wallon
proposed an age of imitation,ritual,and naissant representation before
the age of language and bona fide representation (Wallon 1942:168–176).
Any detailed reconstruction of this would obviously be,given the current
state of our knowledge,without great interest.The main issue deals in
wondering how humanity was able to pass to the age of true represen-
tation.This is the major difficulty all theories of the origins of language
come up against.
Delayed imitation furnishes precisely such a route of passage in which
there is no representation in the abstract sense of the word—no system
of signs for carrying out representation in the form of an association
between a signified and a signifier—yet beings,objects,and scenes are
incarnated and played out in the very act of imitation.Mimetic culture
would correspond to a step in the evolution of culture in which (and here
we are obliged to give ourselves some leeway in imagining likely exam-
ples) a group of hominids would perform activities of collective imita-
tion without language but accompanied by vocalizations and organized
by rhythm:these would in fact be the first forms of the representation of
scenes,that is,of narratives,leading to rite and to myth.
One could note in this regard that someone recently attempted to
explain the syntactic and semantic structures of language in terms of
prior narrative structure (Turner 1996).In this context,imitation would
take place for the individual but above all for the collective,because imi-
tation is not only imitation ofsomething or someone but forsomeone.
It is the same thing for representation.It is impossible to produce a rep-
resentation of referents by signs from a pure state of nonrepresentation:
the only intermediary stage possible is imitation-representation played
out for other members of the group.Symbolic behaviors have a double
character:when I play,imitate,or speak,the symbol that I use recalls its
model but is not confused with it:it is the same yet it is not the same.
This double character is first acted out before being spoken and thought.
From this would emerge what one could call semiotic or symbolic func-
tion “which consists of being able to represent something (some ‘signi-
fied’ or other:an object,event,conceptual scheme,etc.) by means of a
differentiated ‘signifier’ only serving this representation”(Piaget and174 Jean Molino