Rites of Passage

The cycles of life as described in Lee Ann's Easter program (birth-growth-decline-death) are usually accompanied by rites of passage. Among life's passages universally marked and celebrated in ritual is the experience of adolescence - the morph of a child into an adult. In my presentation I will explore initiation rites and symbols documented throughout the world.

1st Reading - "Sulfur River", poem by Jerry Ellison, Gilmer poet

2nd Reading - Lee N. Smith III, Dallas painter:

Fifty yards behind us lay row after row of identical houses - the constraining half of our life in this new world, the edge of the suburbs of east Dallas. Our brand new block of sixteen brand new houses lay on the imaginary line of the city limits.... To avoid the world of expected behavior, we crossed this boundary and vanished into the hay fields ruled only by the rituals of our secret clubs. These were our lands - the Land of the Mole-men, Land of the Warriors.

"Trends", Spring 2000, The Journal of the Texas Art Education Association, page 17.

We are as we are because we have evolved to this state. We stand on top of our parents, their parents, the long line of our ancestors through the ages: information age, industrial age, iron age, bronze, Neo/Meso/Paleolithic. We carry their growth, accomplishments, and experience in our minds, bodies and spirit. Our cells biologically  remember them. As a re-memberance, we are the body parts of our ancestors, reassembled. An aunt might say, "Oh, your nose looks just like your grandmother's, but those big ears - those come from your mother's uncle Ned." It is through initiation, breaking from the reliance on mother/father, communing with the elders, experiencing the wound that jolts us out of the ordinary and kills the naive and complacent child that we begin to gain awareness of our biological history and our responsibility to evolve further, to prolong the continuity, to continue the race.

"Growing up" to become an adult involves more than the complex, physical struggle of metamorphosis from the larval body of an infant into a fully-haired, fertile, muscular and ambulatory, mammal adult. We must also acquire skills along the way, to successfully negotiate a place for ourselves socially, politically, and economically.

Among our most difficult and courageous, though necessary acts in this journey is to leave (give up) the comfort of the womb, the breast, the nest/den/lair, to "initiate" or start our independent search, to strike out alone in the world to make a life; to start our own story/family/tribe. What systems are provided by society that help us with this "initiation" - family, community, school, government, church?

Maybe the most important transformation we must undergo to become fully human is the spiritual negotiation with the world toward a connection with the sacred. The history of initiation rites throughout the world is a history of the search for connection with the special. Initiation is a process of beginning, an introduction, admittance into membership.¹ This admittance into the quest for something special, belonging to a special group, for connecting with a meaningful purpose is accomplished through rites, rituals and symbols that take us out of the ordinary, everyday activities and prepare us to receive something extraordinary.

Adolescence is the phase in our lives when we are most alert and sensitive, most impressionable (capable of being influenced). As our bodies begin to change in puberty, so does our awareness of the world around us and the model of reality which has been built for us. We begin to understand the structure of our social environment and to recognize the flaws, the contradictions the injustices. Truths and untruths begin to unfold as we develop our own capacities for reason and logic. We might feel resentment, anger, frustration toward those who have presented an overly simplistic story, trying to protect us - parents, teachers, authority in general. At this point in life, we need to start over, to seek a new model, new truth, new and meaningful ways to function.

Where does the adolescent turn for a new model? How does a child learn to be an adult? What information is available to them in the social environment to show them how to behave, how to think, how to feel, and to find sacred value in the world. Various models for adult life - events, images and stories are presented in various societies to initiate the children who are on the verge of the physical transformation of puberty into the social and sacred world of the tribe. These basic social constructs, these human initiatory rites can be observed in their most pure forms within communities which have evolved in isolation, with minimal integration of outside influences. Referred to as archaic, traditional, premodern², primitive or tribal, these communities are often small enough that each member is known by the others. (As "primitive" carries the negative bias of inferior, unfinished, stupid, I will use "tribal").

Usually lacking a written language, information is exchanged and documented orally through rituals of song, dance and drama augmented with symbolic objects and images of the visual arts. Among those most thoroughly documented by modern anthropology are isolated aboriginal tribes in Australia, Africa, and Oceania (islands in the South Pacific between Asia and Australia).  To fully recognize the significance of initiatory rites in tribal societies it is important to identify and empathize with the tribal concept of time.

In Australian aboriginal societies only two aspects of time exist: the time when the world reality was created, referred to as the "Dream Time", and the Now; nothing in between. During the Dream Time all events of life were first enacted by the divine, mythical heroes. In the Now, each individual re-experiences what has already happened in the Dream Time. History, as understood in the modern world - the passing of events in a linear progression, the evolution of change based on random influences, cause and effect - does not exist in tribal life.

In Rites and Symbols of Initiation, Mercea Eliade explains:

Among the various categories of initiation, the puberty initiation is particularly important for an understanding of premodern man. These 'transition rites' are obligatory for all the youth of the tribe. To gain the right to be admitted among adults, the adolescent has to pass through a series of initiatory ordeals: it is by virtue of these rites, and of the revelations that they entail, that he will be recognized as a responsible member of the society. Initiation introduces the candidate into the human community and into the world of spiritual and cultural values. He learns not only the behavior patterns, the techniques, and the institutions of adults but also the sacred myths and traditions of the tribe, the names of the gods and the history of their works; above all, he learns the mystical relations between the tribe and the Supernatural Beings as those relations were established at the beginning of Time.

(Rites...,page x)

Eliade stresses the spiritual aspects of initiation:

Initiation represents one of the most significant spiritual phenomena in the history of humanity....the puberty initiation represents above all the revelation of the sacred-and, for the primitive world, the sacred means not only everything that we now understand by religion, but also the whole body of the tribe's mythological and cultural traditions.... In a great many cases puberty rites in one way or another, imply the revelation of sexuality-but for the entire premodern world, sexuality too participates in the sacred.

(Rites... page 3)

Tribal societies throughout the world respond to this death and resurrection theme with either of two archetypal scenarios: being swallowed by a monster, digested and regurgitated into new life; or reverting to an embryonic state within an egg or the womb of the mother before the second passage through the birth canal. Both begin with a state parallel to the dark, cosmic, elemental chaos before the creation of the world by the Supreme Being.

The initiation of a novice requires two major events to abruptly bring an end to childhood and begin the process of indoctrination into the adult world: a forceful separation from the mother and a painful wounding, which serves to shock the child from a position of comfort and security. These initiatory ordeals are manifested from the primal necessity to experience the death of the naive and carefree person of childhood and be reborn as a new, responsible entity connected to the Divine Source. Through the collective body of the initiators, the rites are administered by the Divine Beings themselves from the Dream Time.

Girls

In both tribal and modern, literate societies, historical record of female initiation is more obscure than that of males. It is not practiced as widely as male initiation and where it does occur, it is usually presented by the older female relatives or clan women to the individual girl on the occasion of her first menstruation, an individual and private process rather than the group initiatory rites established for boys. This private and individual context has protected the specific information and nature of the rites from documentation by outsiders.

A young girl experiences the physiological break from childhood with the first menstruation, the sign of sexual maturity. She is often separated from her family, removed from the tribe by the older women mentors to the forest or a special cabin to begin her process of indoctrination and initiation.

According to Eliade, the darkness of the initiatory environment connects with the theme of transformation

-a symbolism which is at once that of the beyond, hence of death, and that of the darkness of gestation in the mother's womb....[In menstruation, girls] are isolated in a dark corner of the house, and among many peoples are forbidden to see the sun-a taboo whose explanation lies in the mystical connection between the moon and women.

(Rites..., 42).

The monthly cycle of a woman's period parallels the monthly cycles of the moon and naturally establishes the rhythm of birth and death in the female consciousness. The menstrual cramping and sudden appearance of blood is the natural indicator of an internal wounding which marks the girl's break from the familiarity and comforts of her past carefree childhood. The internal wound may be emphasized with a conspicuous eternal wounding in ritual scarring the skin of the back or tattooing. After a time of special dietary restrictions and instruction in the ways of women, the girl is ceremonially bathed, as if after birth (baptism), and reintroduced to the community amid much celebration. In some societies, the woman's initiation continues through the first pregnancy and concludes with the birth of her first child, a demonstration of her sacred connection to the Supreme Creator.

Boys

The biological indicators of puberty are less sudden and dramatic in boys, therefore male initiation is usually administered by older men of the community over groups of novices rather than singly. Some societies entrust the rites to designated experts, members of the secret shamanic fraternities who undergo frequent initiatory ordeals toward higher spiritual development.

Shamanism - A tribal shaman is often one who has endured and survived an intense physical ordeal, possibly an accident or injury sustained as a warrior in battle or hunter engaged in some daring and dangerous feat. The physical wounding and subsequent recovery which may include infection, fever and the intense self-awareness and delirium which can accompany fever, instills a wisdom and reverence for life in the survivor. The community extends a respect and honor to the survivor, having witnessed others who did not make it through similar ordeals. The shaman is a physical example of the adage "that which does not kill me makes me stronger". From a position of respect and honor, the shaman sensitized by the ordeal becomes a tribal advisor. From his spiritual communion with the divine, ancestral spirits during his ordeal, or in trance induced by meditation, ascetic deprivations and/or hallucinogenic drugs, the shaman often serves as the primary guide of initiation rites.

The anthropological literature concerning male initiation is more abundant and descriptive as these are more prevalent in tribal societies. The elements are consistent with the rites and goals of female initiations: separation from the mother, wounding, and communing with the sacred entities of the Dream Time. Although details vary, the typical process is represented by practices prevalent among Australian aborigines:

 The separation from the mother begins a retreat from all village life, as the older men come roaring into the village carrying clubs and spears to force the young men from their homes into the bush land or forest to the distant initiatory cabin. Here the boys experience the symbolic death of entering the dark belly of the beast, a cabin whose entrance is a fanged mouth and whose smaller exit is a tail. They are stripped naked and painted with white ashes, the color of ghosts, forced to lie in trenches dug into the cabin floor and covered with blankets, animal skins or branches. Here they will remain alone for several days limited to special food and water brought by the old men until their training begins. Each novice is given a new name, and a physical identifier to accompany the biological changes of puberty.

The physical identifier is often the result of the initiatory ordeals experienced during the indoctrination process. The most common of these involve a painful operation on the body administered in an environment of mystery, fear and intimidation - chanting, roaring and ecstatic dancing of the initiators: extraction of an incisor, circumcision, subincision, tearing out the hair, scarification and/or tattooing. Throughout the initiatory period which can last for several years, the boys receive instruction in the traditional myths and legends of the tribe, the powers of the shaman, and the stories of the Dream Time, the creation of all. From this point on, the novices share only in the life of the men, never again to live in the homes of their mothers.

As puberty is a period of sexual discovery, the rites for both boys and girls often include symbols of androgyny. The subincision wound on the boy's penis, a clean incision made from the meatus at the tip down about one inch along the urethra, simulates a female vulva and produces blood as in menstruation. In certain African initiations, novices participate while cross-dressing. These symbols represent the dual elements necessary for the adult status of fertility and the totality of the Supreme Creator in the Dream Time. The Importance of Blood: The first event of the female initiation is the discovery of blood. The male operations of circumcision and subincision echo this event. At the culmination of the death and rebirth ordeal in the belly of the beast or womb among African rites, the male mentors pass a bowl into which each spills blood from an opened vein of the arm. Once full, the bowl is given to the boys to drink.

Eliade recounts a female rite in which the mystery of blood is central.

Among the Dyaks... the pubescent girl is isolated for an entire week in a white cabin, is dressed in white, and eats white foods. At the end of her segregation, she sucks the blood from a young man's opened vein, through a bamboo tube. The meaning of this custom seems to be that during the period of segregation the girl is neither man nor woman; hence she is considered 'white', 'without blood'. Here we recognize the temporary androgynization and asexuality of novices.

(Rites...,44)

As the tribal elders prepare for the process of initiating the adolescents of each generation, the death and resurrection theme brought into consciousness by the rites and symbols and the renewed contact with the divine, ancestral and heroic beings of the Dream Time offer regeneration of the life of the tribe as a whole. It provides for regeneration of the stories, the world view, the community identity and the social order - a position and role for each member of the community.

END PART I - Tribal Rites

In contemporary , Western, information age society, how do we initiate our children?

Modern religious traditions and practices include flashes of the old initiation rites, but in forms and attitudes which have become sanitized, abbreviated, muted/softened so that we can make it home in time to watch TV or surf the internet. Baptism, confirmation, Bar Mitzva/Bat Mitzva... little if any blood is let - no wounding. Now, in the information age boys and girls often try to initiate themselves or experience the break vicariously, randomly, accidentally.

The elders now don't come into the village to steal the adolescents from their mothers and carry them into the forest. The children become drawn to the woods themselves, to build a tree fort, or hang out in the cul-de-sac, talking dirty, smoking cigarettes, trying to approximate adults. Boys watch the games on TV and buy their Michael Jordan/ Emmitt Smith/ Ken Griffey Junior jerseys at the mall. Girls tryout for drill team, dye their hair, pluck newly sprouted body hairs into proscribed shapes. Tattoos and body piercings serve as ceremonial wounding, a permanent sign of physical change to accompany the deepening voice or budding breasts. Initiates explore the cave of the Dead Poets Society, or join sanctioned groups like the Boy or Girl Scouts, the college fraternity or sorority, the Fraternal Order of the Masonic, Scottish or York Rite, the Mardi Gras Indians. Each of these alliances require common trust and group identity, alliance which is established through a shared initiatory adventure or ordeal. The more intense and difficult/severe the adventure, the stronger the bond and sense of belonging.

From The Boy Scout Handbook, (ed. 10, page 375):

During the years you are a scout, you are going through one of the most important growing periods of your life. You are getting taller. Your oice is becoming deeper. You are gaining strength and speed.

It is through initiation, breaking from the reliance on mother/father, communing with the elders, experiencing the wound that jolts us out of the ordinary and kills the naive and complacent child that we begin to gain awareness of our biological history and our responsibility to evolve further, to prolong the continuity, to continue the race.

 END Part II

Notes:

1. The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1983, Houghton and Mifflin: To initiate: to begin or originate; to introduce a person to a new field, interest, skill or activity; to admit into membership, as with ceremonies or ritual.

2. Mircea Eliade, the pioneer of comparative study of religions, defines premodern societies as "those that lasted in Western Europe to the end of the middle ages, and in the rest of the world to the first world war". (Rites and Symbols of Initiation, page ix - x)

Frank Herbert 2/4/00