Rite of passage

A rite of passage is a ritual that marks a change in a person's social or sexual status. Rites of passage are often ceremonies surrounding events such as childbirth, menarche or other milestones within puberty, coming of age, weddings, menopause, and death.

History of term

The term was popularised by the German ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957), in the early part of the twentieth century. Further theories were developed in the 1960s by Mary Douglas and Victor Turner. Joseph Campbell's 1949 text, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and his theory of the journey of the hero were also influenced by van Gennep.

According to van Gennep, rites of passage have three phases: separation, liminality, and incorporation. In the first phase, people withdraw from the group and begin moving from one place or status to another. In the third phase, they reenter society, having completed the rite. The liminal phase is the period between states, during which people have left one place or state but haven't yet entered or joined the next. It is a state of limbo.

Types and examples

Rites of passage are diverse, and are often not recognized as such in the culture in which they occur. According to Van Gennep a rite of passage would fulfill the tripartite structure he laid out. Many society rituals may look like rites of passage but miss some of the important structural and functional components. Typically the missing piece is the societal recognition and reincorporation phase. Adventure Education programs, such as Outward Bound, have often been described as potential rites of passage. Pamela Cushing researched the rites of passage impact upon adolescent youth at the Canadian Outward Bound School and found the rite of passage impact was lessened by the missing reincorporation phase (Cushing, 1998). Bell (2003) presented more evidence of this lacking third stage and described the "Contemporary Adventure Model of a Rites of Passage" as a modern and weaker version of the rites of passage typically used by outdoor adventure programs. Given these challenges, many examples of rites of passages are possible in contemporary society.

Some examples are given in the following subsections.

Coming of age rites

• Adolescent circumcision
• Debutante ball
• Dokimasia
• First haircut
• Gembuku among the samurai
• Graduation
• Poy Sang Long
• Prom
• Quinceañera
• Russ in Norway
• Schoolies week in Australia
• Scarification and various other physical endurances
• Starting to wear nail polish, lipstick or other make-up

In various tribal societies, entry into an age grade – generally gender-separated – (unlike an age set) is marked by an initiation rite, which may be the crowning of a long and complex preparation, sometimes in retreat.

Modern coming of age

The following would be a typical example of the "coming of age" lifetime moments for Modern societies, though the exact sequence may of course vary from person to person, or might not occur at all.

• Birth
• First steps
• First words spoken
• First day of school/kindergarten
• First learned to ride a bicycle
• First cigarette
• First girlfriend/boyfriend
  • First kiss
  • First time your heart was broken
• First obtained driver's license
• First job
• Senior prom/high school graduation
• Losing virginity
• Voting
• First experience of another's death
• First day of college/first day in dorm (on your own)
• First age to purchase and/or drink alcohol
• College graduation
• First time living on own/purchase own apartment or house
• Marriage
• First child
• Job promotion
• Retirement
• Last words
• Death

Religious initiation rites

• Baptism
• First Eucharist and First Confession (especially First Communion in Catholicism)
• Confirmation
• Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah
• Circumcision, mainly in Judaism (Bris) and Islam
• Upanayanam amongst some Hindu castes.
• Shinbyu in Theravada Buddhism
• Rumspringa among the Amish
• Vision quest in some Native American cultures

Other initiation rites

• Conscription, "making boys into men" (i.e. warriors) through military service is rather a life phase than a mere rite
• Walkabout
• Freemasonry rituals
• Batizados in Capoeira.

Armed forces rites

• U.S. Marine Crucible
• U.S. Navy: Battle Stations
• Naval (military and civilian) crossing the equator
• In the U.S. Navy, wetting-down is a ceremony in which a Naval officer is ceremonially thrown into the ocean upon receiving a promotion.
• U.S. Army Victory Forge
• In many military organizations, as in civilian groups, new conscripts are sometimes subjected by "veterans" to practical jokes, ranging from taking advantage of their naïveté to public humiliation and physical attacks; see Hazing.
• Soldiers and sailors may also be hazed again on obtaining a promotion.

Academic Groups

• hazing
• ragging
• fagging

Entrance into Medicine and Pharmacy (University) :

• White Coat Ceremony
• In Spanish universities of the Modern Age, like Universidad Complutense in Alcalá de Henares, upon completion of his studies, the student was submitted to a public questioning by the faculty, who could ask sympathetic questions that let him excel or tricky points. If the student passed he invited professors and mates to a party. If not, he was publicly processioned with donkey ears.

References

Bell,B. J. (2003). The rites of passage and outdoor education: Critical concerns for effective programming. The Journal of Experiential Education, 26, 1, pp.41-50.

Cushing, P.J. (1998). Competing the cycle of transformation: Lessons from the rites of passage model. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Experiential Education, 9,5,7-12.

See also

• Pilgrimage

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