Ritual: transition and transformation
Rituals are patterned, symbolic actions, and some of the most powerful mark changes in a person's life.
Rites of passage
Arnold van Gennep showed that rites of passage, such as initiations, weddings, and funerals, usually have three stages: separation from one's old status, a liminal stage in between, and incorporation into the new status. Graduation ceremonies follow the same pattern: students leave school life, pass through the ceremony, and re-enter society as graduates.
Liminality and communitas
Victor Turner focused on the liminal stage, when people are 'betwixt and between', no longer what they were and not yet what they will be. Ordinary rules are often suspended. People going through liminality together often feel communitas, an intense sense of equality and solidarity, such as that between recruits in basic training.
Magic and divination
Magic is the use of ritual to influence events. James Frazer described two principles: the law of similarity (like produces like, as when a figure stands for a person) and the law of contagion (things once in contact remain connected). Divination seeks hidden knowledge, such as reading signs to make decisions. Anthropologists note that many people in all societies use small rituals for luck.
Flashcard
A ritual marking a change in social status
Check your understanding
During initiation, a group of teenagers live apart from the village, wear identical clothing, and are neither children nor adults. They are in which stage?