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RITES OF PASSAGE
Public recognition
Training Handout
When a change of status needs to be acknowledged
A “rite” is a public ritual,
not to be confused with "right" or "write." Passage, here, means
recognition that a person (or something) has passed from one social status to
another.
Our whole
life, start to finish, we do not feel very different from
day to day.
Biologically,
also, we are about the same from one day to the next.
Yet we know that we all differ through
life, infant, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, mature adult, senior.
There is nothing biologically or in our experience which provides boundaries
between these stages of our lives, except birth, first menses
and death.
A rite of passage is a social event
which fills this gap. The important element to us in sociology is
that it is something which provides social recognition, or acknowledgement
from the members of our community, that we have changed in
social status.
Not all rites of passage need be
observed at a particular age. A wedding or a coronation are good
examples. A wedding recognizes the change of status from single to
married. A coronation recognizes a change to becoming a
king or queen.
In life, the first rite would be
recognition that a new person has entered society. In Akan society, this
is the outdooring ceremony, which must first wait to see if all seven of
the day spirits allow the child to live, after which the father has the
right to name to baby. In European societies, especially in the middle
ages, a child would be baptized shortly after birth, and although called
something else, this served to give notice to the community that a new
person has entered the world.
Historically, when it was very important
to have babies and perpetuate the community, the rite of passage that changed
a person from child to adult, was very important. More importantly
was that rite which recognised the change from girl to woman, and therefore
of age to marry and give birth. In the European middle ages, this
declined as an overt rite, and was absorbed into the ritual of first communion.
Today, with the decline in importance of organised Christianity, this has
now been replaced with the high school graduation ceremony.
Death is an important biological
transition. Rites of passage to recognise that it happened differ from
society to society. In
Akan societies, those remaining alive dress
in red (danger) or black (destiny) but not white (joy) while the corpse
is usually dressed in white. The funeral is a rite of passage that
marks the transition of elder to ancestor, who will be considered to maintain
involvement in the family, lineage and community after death. In
original Christian theology, the deceased will remain in stasis until the
apocalypse when the messiah will return to raise all from the dead and
send them each to heaven or hell. In secular society, there is no
overt theology, but a vague celebration of saying good bye
to the deceased.
Today we have photo identification,
which was absent in the past and in simple societies. Government
gives certain privileges and obligations according to age, and instead
of a public ceremony, the photo identity document is sufficient to determine
status.
Smaller rites are often spontaneous
and unstructured today. When a person’s age changes on a
birthday from legal child to legal adult, that person and a few friends
may go out to a bar or licensed restaurant to celebrate the right of that
person to buy alcoholic drinks.
On occasion friends may get together
to invent new, non universal rites of passage. One such is the divorce
ceremony. Another is the lease breaking party.
When a child leaves for school, kindergarten
or pre-school for the first time, the pangs of emotion experienced by the
mother or father substitute for a rite of passage. Similarly when
a grown up child leaves home for the first time to live away. There
may be no formal ritual, but the event is recognised as
a change in status.
Sometimes a rite serves a dual purpose.
A baby shower is held ostensibly to celebrate the arrival of a baby, but
if it is the first child, it also is a celebration of the mother changing
from childless woman to mother.
Initiation rites may or may not be
linked to rites of passage. They are often associated today with
entering a new training or educational institution, such as a military
college. In East Africa they are an elaborate set of tests and endurance
which are part of the circumcision of the boys, after which they are considered
to be men.
There is some debate about the difference
between boys' and girls' rites of passages to adults. Girls have
a biological marker, their first menstrual period, for which there is no
direct equivalent for boys. In some societies, boys to men rites
are more elaborate so as to counteract this difference, as in Bar Mitzvahs
in Jewish communities. In other societies, the girls to women rites
are more elaborate, because female fertility is more important than male
fertility, as in matrilineal Akan
communities.
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