Rituals Assignment

Kinds of Rituals

There are two basic kinds of rituals: religious rituals and status rituals. Religious

rituals are often dramatic versions of stories in the culture’s myth and are of two

varieties; veneration rituals, which celebrate or petition a deity and healing rituals which

relate to the well-being of the individual.

Status rituals, in comparison, serve to move a community member from one stage of life

to the next while reinforcing the culture’s mythology. Important moments such as birth,

maturity, marriage and death are the focus of status rituals. Both kinds of rituals may

become petrified when they lose their deeper symbolic meanings.

Religious Rituals

The Story of the Last Supper and the Communion Ritual of Christianity

Adherents to the religion of Christianity believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was

born to Mary, a mortal virgin. When he reached maturity and began his mission, his

teachings and miraculous healings so inflamed the unstable political leadership of

Judea that he was eventually arrested, tried and crucified, the standard method of

execution in the Roman Empire. His dead body was taken from the cross and placed in

a tomb. After three days, he rose from the dead. Following a post-resurrection blessing

of his followers Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. Christians believe that having

suffered for the sins of man and triumphed over death, Jesus Christ will someday return

to earth to judge the living and the dead.

The New Testament writers tell us that during the last supper, Jesus ate with His

disciples before he was arrested.

Mark 14: 12-26

And on the first day of the Unleavened Bread (Passover), when they sacrificed the passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the passover?” And he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him; and wherever he enters, say to the householder, „The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?‟ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” And the disciples set out and went to the city, and found it as he had told them; and they prepared the passover. And when it was evening he came with the twelve. And as they

were at the table eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be sorrowful, and say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread in the same dish with me. For the Son of man goes as it is written to him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. At this point, Judas points Jesus out to the authorities; Jesus is arrested and the whole process that leads to his death by crucifixion unfolds. This simple story captures the essence of the Christian faith in a

few lines. The ritual of Communion, which is based on this story, allows the participants to experience the story as it is being told by also consuming the blessed bread and wine. During the ritual, the leader of the service retells the last supper story and distributes the bread and wine to the participants who together partake of them as did Christ’s disciples. To an unbeliever, the ritual appears as nothing more than a reenactment of a story with a leading narrator, the vital props and the receptive, interactive audience. But we know that religious rituals reflect a deeper meaning, a more important belief. The bread and wine are used symbolically, just as they are in the story, to represent the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. What this means is that the individual is symbolically ingesting the flesh and blood of Jesus, believing that it is the source of eternal and everlasting life. In doing this ritual in communion with other believers, each member shares not only in the essence of Jesus Christ but each also shares in a spiritual union of the community of believers.

The Rituals of Dionysus

Rituals such as the

Christian Communion

celebrate simply but

profoundly eternal life

through the flesh and blood

of a divine figure via bread,

wine and group experience.

The Dionysian rituals,

however, celebrate the

essence of the deity very

differently, though using

some of the same elements.

Consider the following description of Dionysian rituals by Maria Leach in Funk and

Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. Dionysus was the

god of the vine as well as the god of fertility in Greek mythology.

The ecstatic female devotees of the cult of Dionysus, celebrated most anciently in the orgía; also, the nymphs in the Dionysian train. In ecstatic devotion to the god, troupes of mænads wandered in wild bands in the mountains, dismembering wild beasts and devouring them, in the fervent illusion that they were devouring the god and thus communing with him. Later, 5th century B.C., the Attic and Delphic mænads were trained in more disciplined expressions of these ecstatic trances. They are immortalized on vase paintings in these whirling dance moments. At times they are shown eluding the aroused male followers in the Dionysiac train-the Satyrs and Silenes. The cult deteriorated into the Roman Bacchanalia and Lupercalia, and to its lowest point in the modern Carnival celebrations of urban Europe and America. The theater of today attempts to emulate both the mystic trances of the mænads and the abandoned inebriation of the bacchantes.

Status Rituals

Status rituals serve to help a community member move from one stage of life to

another. These rituals involve some segment—if not all—of the community. Change of

status occurs a number of times in a person’s life, including:

Birth: the introduction of new life in the community

Maturity: the recognition of an individual as a mature person equal with other adults

Marriage: the joining of two (or more) individuals as a single family unit

Death: the departure from the community

While these events are common to all cultures and all people, the method of

expression, like the mythology in which it is based, varies

from culture to culture. Unlike religious rituals of veneration

and healing, these sociologically based rituals do not

usually have accompanying stories within a mythology.

Instead, status rituals serve to reinforce the beliefs and

morals of the community and bind its members together.

Birth

The arrival of a new life in the community has long been a

joyous occasion. In a newborn child a culture sees the

promise of its continued existence, a particularly important

concern in ages past when an entire community could

perish from the plague or be seriously decimated through

warfare or high infant mortality. In fact, early civilizations

placed heavy emphasis on fertility and childbirth, for without new life to replace the old

the culture would die. Bear in mind that the scientific vision of microscopic egg and

sperm had no meaning to people who did not have a microscope! Thus, each new life

was truly a wondrous gift from the gods. To commemorate this gift, birth rituals were

developed.

Birth ceremonies typically include parents and relatives. Sometimes they take vows

before the shaman, priest or similar leader/holy figure, to raise the child in accordance

with the standards and beliefs of the community or religion. In many cultures, however,

the naming of the child marks his or her initiation into the community and the first stage

of life. For example, in Native American Eastern Cherokee tribes, the child was officially

named four to seven days after birth. The father’s family (usually the father’s sister)

selected the name.

In Mayan culture, however, the process was more complex. The newborn was washed

as soon as it had exited the mother’s womb. Soon after the parents met with the priest,

who, through astrological readings, told the destiny of the offspring and the most

favorable day for naming the child. As with the Egyptians, names had magical

significance and the Maya believed names could become worn from use. Thus, had

both public and private names (among others). The former was used in social settings,

and the latter was reserved for the closest relatives. The private name indicates that

the naming ritual was probably attended solely by family members, perhaps only the

parents. Once the name was received, it was a “badge” of community membership for

the newborn, and from that time on the parents constantly reminded the children of

“their destiny, duties, morals and ethics.”

Whatever the basis of the ritual, its intent is to

welcome children to the community, recognize them

as legitimate members and thereby, through the

guidance of parents and elders, impress upon the

children their duty to the community and the

observance and maintenance of its myth and morals.

Once accomplished, the child enters the next phase of

life: adulthood.

Maturity

The passage from childhood to adulthood is usually a much clearer process for women

than for men. The start of a girl’s menstrual cycle is usually the indicator. Some

societies take no particular notice of this, nor do they emphasize this occasion, while

others have rituals from simple to elaborate to commemorate this event of female

fertility. The Fox Indians, for example, take a newly menstruating girl and throw her in

water (water is a symbol of purity and of renewal). Afterwards, she is segregated for 1O

days before she is considered to be a woman. Another tribe, the Chiricahua Apache,

has an elaborate four-day ceremony in which the entire community participates. This

fertility celebration is complete with food cooked by the extended family who also help

finance the feast and the acceptance of gifts from those who attend. The celebration

also serves as an “announcement” that the young woman is now suitable for marriage

and the production of offspring.

Male maturity rituals involve physical maturity in a different way. For example, young

men in several African tribes must pass through an initiation process to join a special

tribal society of male leadership called the Poro. As part of a grueling initiation ordeal,

the boys spend time alone in the forest with the older men who prepare them for an

encounter with namu, a beast which will devour the child but spew forth a young adult.

When the initiates return to the village, scars on their backs from the teeth of the beast

are evidence the process has occurred.

Sometimes both genders are initiated

together. A ceremony for Mayan boys and

girls took place around the age of puberty.

Children between the ages of 12 and 14 were

gathered together in front of the temple and

were placed inside a square created by four

men holding a cord. These four were dressed

as the four Chacs, the rain gods, of Mayan

myth. Within the square, the shaman (called the Chilam) purified the children with

incense from copal, a tree resin, and smoke from tobacco. The Chilam then spoke to

the children about their responsibilities and duties to the community. At the conclusion

of the speech, the priests donned robes and headdresses decorated with feathers and

anointed each child with “virgin water”. Boys were then able to remove a white bead

which at birth had been stuck to the top of their heads. Mothers removed the shell,

symbolizing purity, which covered their daughter’s pubic area, making the girls eligible

for marriage.

In some societies, such as the Kiowa-Apache, there was no formal ceremony marking

the change from child to young adult. In this culture, the children were actively involved

in the community from a young age and they learned much about their culture’s

mythology and customs from watching, listening and participating. Special recognition

was often given at a regular social gathering to an individual child when he or she had

successfully completed a task related to the adult responsibilities the child would bear.

For the boy, this was usually after he had made his first successful kill on a hunt, while

for the girl, when she had “tanned her first hide” or made her first pair of moccasins.

Though no formal ceremony was observed, the recognition of maturity still relied upon

the completion of tasks requiring skill and/or courage.

In the present scientific age, these rituals are neither clear cut nor universally practiced.

For many, graduation from high school or college-an exercise called commencement or

“beginning”—marks the transition. For some the attainment of a driver’s license marks

the passage to adulthood. The eighteenth birthday often is significant because in most

communities the person is now considered an adult. Presently a maturity ritual that has

caused concern and controversy in American cities has been a young person’s initiation

into street gangs, often composed of warring “tribes” of teenagers and young adults.

No matter the process of the ritual, the purpose is to recognize the child’s transition and

to be sure that the new adult recognizes the responsibilities of maintaining community

standards, contributing to the welfare of all, and perpetuating the membership by

procreation.

Marriage

Many know marriage as the joining of adults

to function as a single family unit within the

community. In the modern Western

community this activity is often accompanied

by romantic love, but in many cultures,

romantic love is of little or no concern.

Marriages are arranged by the family as is

still the case in many Eastern and Middle-Eastern communities

who believe that the purpose of marriage is to assure the survival of the community

through the welfare of the participants and by organized production of offspring.

Remember, the birth ritual was to initiate the newborn as a legitimate member of the

community. This “legitimacy” is based on the parent’s standing as married; that is a

union recognized and accepted as valid by the community. Thus, legitimacy breeds

legitimacy. Children not produced under these lawful proceedings would be branded as

“illegitimate” children, a source of shame to the people involved. Such an approach

would, in theory, prevent large numbers of illegitimate children from being born to single

mothers unable to provide for themselves or their offspring. A situation of this kind, left

unchecked could overwhelm a community not prepared to provide additional food,

clothing, shelter and above all, guidance to the scores of children lacking one or both of

the adults responsible for their creation.

In addition to producing offspring that have clear parentage, marriage provides a

manageable division of labor for those involved. One member is able to provide food

and protection for the family, while the other is able to nurture the infant through its long

period of dependency and begin to initiate the child into the culture. In this way, the

cohesion of the family units and the community they constitute is maintained. The

marriage ritual itself reinforces this cohesion within the context of the culture’s myth: by

approval from the gods before the community. While this much is fairly universal, the

rules and rituals of cohabitation come in a diversity that can only be hinted at here.

In Muslim communities, heavy emphasis is placed on the vitality of the family. The

marriage contract between the bride and groom was designed in accordance with the

laws of the Koran (the revelation from Allah to the prophet Muhammad), taking the need

of the husband, wife, family and community into account. With the family present, the

contract was signed at the mosque or within one of the participant’s homes. At that time,

the opening surah of the Koran, which praised Allah and asked for His divine guidance

was read. The day after the signing, a festival was held at the home of the groom’s

parents. There was food and drink for everyone and

gifts for the new couple. This is a general description

of the traditional form of Muslim marriage, but within

Islamic countries, there are wide variations on the

format of this ritual.

The same variance is true of modern Jewish

weddings. In the time of the Roman Empire before the

Diaspora, however, the Jewish wedding was more uniform. It usually took place in the

upper room of a private dwelling. A canopy was raised and the ceremony took place

under it. The components of the wedding were symbolic and some of them had direct

reference in the Torah. The crown, for example, was found in the Song of Solomon,

though it was used by many other cultures. The bride was veiled and bride and groom

wore crowns, which were exchanged. An elder or rabbi was present to bless the

married couple. He then presented them with a wine-filled “cup of blessing,” from which

the couple drank. The marriage contract was read and “attested by the drinking of a cup

of wine by each person present.” Friends of the couple walked around the canopy

chanting psalms and throwing rice. The elder then “invoked the seven blessings” and all

present drank from the loving cup. Once night had fallen, a procession of lamps

followed the couple to their home and a feast was held.

The symbols may not seem to be directly connected to the community or the religious

myth but if studied on a metaphoric level, the relationships become clear. The canopy,

for example, may be a reference to a passage from the romantic Song of Solomon that

“his (the groom’s) banner over me [the bride] is love.” The circular crown has always

represented achievement and nobility; it indicates a new and exalted position for the

wearers. The circle is used to represent closure, unity and eternity. Drinking from a

single cup illustrates the couple’s unity and allegiance to each other while the cup’s

contents, wine, being red like blood, symbolize fertility and vitality, as does being

showered with rice which is also a symbol of fertility.

Death

The end of life marks the passage of the individual from the community into the afterlife.

Death rituals are closely associated with the religious belief of the culture. Cultures that

strongly believe in a continuance of life after death create complex rituals for this

passage. Often the afterlife is believed to resemble a more pleasant version of what

was experienced in mortal life. This final ritual not only assures that the individual is

prepared for the next life, but also serves as the official farewell from the community. At

this time, family and friends of the deceased gather together to remember the

deceased, pay their respects and see the deceased to a final resting place. After this

ceremony, most people return to their routines within the community and carry on the

business of life. Burial rites range

from the simple to the elaborate to

the strange. Unlike other status

rituals, death rituals are more closely

allied with mythic stories as they

reflect the culture’s conception of the

afterlife.

Many of the oldest beliefs concerning

the afterlife are attested to by archaeological artifacts as well as literary documents.

When an archaeologist uncovers a tomb filled with furnishings-often valuable,

expensive items as well as offerings of food and drink-an insight into the beliefs of the

people is gained. Obviously, the objects in the tomb were expected to provide some

comfort for the deceased in another world.

As with many ancient peoples, we find in Egypt a belief that materials of this life will be

needed in the next one, even the body. Thus, the body was ceremoniously prepared for

survival beyond mortal life. Internal organs were removed, but the heart remained

behind in the body cavity as its owner needed it for the next life’s trials. If nothing else

the preservation was needed so ba part of the soul could find its way home at night.

The belief of physical objects needed beyond mortal life was also shared by the Vikings.

However, they cremated the body rather than preserved it. The Viking epic Beowulf tells

of the battles between the great warrior Beowulf and fierce dragons. Beowulf succeeded

in killing all of them, but during his battle with the last dragon each dealt the other a

mortal blow. The story describes the Viking funeral process in some detail. Beowulf was

placed on a large funeral pyre adorned with shields, helmets and other battle

equipment. The pyre was lit and began to burn. When the flames had died down, the

people built a monument, presumably over the pyre, since the text says they

“surrounded the remains of the fire with a wall” and “in the barrow they placed rings and

jewels.” Mourning for the loss of their

leader included singing dirges and telling

stories of the man’s heroic deeds.

Many of the activities in Beowulf have been

corroborated and extended by

archaeological finds from the Viking era.

Graves discovered have usually been in

the form of a ship pointing to the south,

which is the supposed direction of their

heaven, Valhalla. Some of the graves were

filled with weapons, jewelry and the like.

This sea-journey-for-the-soul farewell format is consistent with Viking mythological

beliefs. The goal of the Viking warrior was to die heroically and be taken by the gods to

Valhalla, where each day would be filled with battles and each night with feasting and

celebration. This belief accounts for the ship graves and much of their contents. A

sword, for example, would be needed for battles in the afterlife. In addition, immortality

for a Viking was largely reliant on the continuation of his name through stories telling of

his heroic actions in battle. Thus, the tales of remembrance the friends told, aside from

having an emotionally cleansing effect on the group, served to that end…and for

Beowulf it seems to have worked. His name is still remembered.