Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Chapter 11 - Religion and Rituals
Anthropologists of religion have paid particular attention to the role of ritual. They are
aware that religion is not so much talked about as it is performed in public displays,
rites, and rituals—not so much thought about as danced and sung. Rituals embody the
beliefs, passions, and sense of solidarity of a group of people. They make beliefs come
alive. When performed repeatedly over years and generations, rituals, as Durkheim
suggested, create a sense of continuity and belonging that de nes a group and
regenerates its sense of solidarity, history, purpose, and meaning. Rites of Passage.
French ethnographer and folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) rst theorized a
category of ritual called rites of passage that enacts a change of status from one life
stage to another, either for an individual or for a group (van Gennep 1908). Religious
rites of passage are life-transition rituals marking moments of intense change, such as
birth, coming of age, marriage, and death.
Audrey Richards (1899–1984), a pioneering British woman in early male- dominated
British anthropology, observed and recorded one such rite of passage in 1931 among
the Bemba people of Zambia, Central Africa. Their elaborate ritual, called the chisungu
—a coming-of-age ceremony for young teenage women after rst menstruation and in
preparation for marriage—was danced in eigh- teen separate ceremonies over one
month in a ritual hut and the surrounding bush. Over fty special chisungu songs and
forty di erent pottery emblems were involved. The chisungu, exclusively a women’s
ritual, was performed to pro- vide magical protection to the girl and her family from the
physical dangers of puberty and the magical dangers associated with the rst act of
intercourse in legal marriage. Within the rituals, older women also passed down the
songs, sacred stories, sacred teachings, and secret lore of the Bemba womanhood,
mark- ing a clear change of status within the tribe from girl to woman (Richards 1956).
Victor Turner (1920–1983) built on Richards’s pioneering work to explore why rituals
and rites of passage are so powerful across religions and cultures. Drawing on his own
research in Africa and on extensive comparison of cross- cultural data, Turner
theorized that the power of ritual comes from the drama contained within it, in which
the normal structure of social life is symbolically dissolved and reconstituted. He
identi ed three primary stages in all rites of passage.
First, the individual experiences separation—physically, psychologically, or symbolically
—from the normal, day-to-day activities of the group. This may involve going to a
1
fi ff fi fi fi fi
Chapter 11 - Religion and Rituals
Anthropologists of religion have paid particular attention to the role of ritual. They are
aware that religion is not so much talked about as it is performed in public displays,
rites, and rituals—not so much thought about as danced and sung. Rituals embody the
beliefs, passions, and sense of solidarity of a group of people. They make beliefs come
alive. When performed repeatedly over years and generations, rituals, as Durkheim
suggested, create a sense of continuity and belonging that de nes a group and
regenerates its sense of solidarity, history, purpose, and meaning. Rites of Passage.
French ethnographer and folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) rst theorized a
category of ritual called rites of passage that enacts a change of status from one life
stage to another, either for an individual or for a group (van Gennep 1908). Religious
rites of passage are life-transition rituals marking moments of intense change, such as
birth, coming of age, marriage, and death.
Audrey Richards (1899–1984), a pioneering British woman in early male- dominated
British anthropology, observed and recorded one such rite of passage in 1931 among
the Bemba people of Zambia, Central Africa. Their elaborate ritual, called the chisungu
—a coming-of-age ceremony for young teenage women after rst menstruation and in
preparation for marriage—was danced in eigh- teen separate ceremonies over one
month in a ritual hut and the surrounding bush. Over fty special chisungu songs and
forty di erent pottery emblems were involved. The chisungu, exclusively a women’s
ritual, was performed to pro- vide magical protection to the girl and her family from the
physical dangers of puberty and the magical dangers associated with the rst act of
intercourse in legal marriage. Within the rituals, older women also passed down the
songs, sacred stories, sacred teachings, and secret lore of the Bemba womanhood,
mark- ing a clear change of status within the tribe from girl to woman (Richards 1956).
Victor Turner (1920–1983) built on Richards’s pioneering work to explore why rituals
and rites of passage are so powerful across religions and cultures. Drawing on his own
research in Africa and on extensive comparison of cross- cultural data, Turner
theorized that the power of ritual comes from the drama contained within it, in which
the normal structure of social life is symbolically dissolved and reconstituted. He
identi ed three primary stages in all rites of passage.
First, the individual experiences separation—physically, psychologically, or symbolically
—from the normal, day-to-day activities of the group. This may involve going to a
1
fi ff fi fi fi fi
