Ritual Decalogue

husband’s pyre. What’s even more so, is the idea that a contemporary, democratic America could participate in an activity like the latter. In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, she exaggerates with the concept of how America could divulge in a sacrificial ritual, where its purpose has long since been forgotten. While her whole story is filled with symbolism, irony, and other literary device, perhaps one of the most key elements in explaining the…

This book’s basic claim of the ability to sort rituals and rites of passage into 3 categories which cross cultures is well supported by many examples. His work demonstrates important human universalities that remains useful in anthropology. Van Gennep thoroughly explains how the rites of passage are universally…

Swimming with the Sharks Weddings are one of the most important events in a person’s life. It is the day one will finally marry the person they truly love and spend the rest of their life with them, yet this thought alone sometimes is not enough to satisfy the excitement of the night, and people wish to make their weddings and honeymoons more interesting than the rest. Judy and Jason Lau, from Canada, decided on swimming with sharks for their honeymoon, but this unusual choice was not just for…

Sikhism is one of the more modern religions when compared to other world religions, and is full of rituals that can be classified as rites of passage. The rite of passage I witnessed in my ethnic group is known as Amrit Sanchar. Amrit Sanchar is an optional ceremony that can be undertaken by Sikhs that initiates them into the rank of Khalsa. Anyone that goes through this sacred ceremony is referred to as an Amritdhari. Amritdharis’s are baptized and are committed to the panth, which is another…

Comparing/ Contrasting Death in Different Cultures Death, is a part of life. It is something terrible everyone will face in life. The Asian and The Lakota Tribe have many similarities about how the handle death, they also have differences in the way they approach within their culture. There are many cultures in the world that have differences and similarities about death. Different cultures celebrate death differently. One main difference between the two cultures is, In Asia after a person…

“Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner is primarily for readers who do not know the “unusual aspects” of the Nacirema tribe (316). Miner does a very good job of showing the readers the “fundamental belief underlying the whole system” that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (317). We learn throughout this ethnography that the Nacirema go through great measures to put magic into their body from the medicine men picking out ingredients for…

Wilfred Smith in his book The Meaning and End of Religion traces the development of the concept of religion and demonstrates that it is a word attributed to the Western world used to describe traditions as mutually exclusive systems of belief. This process is known as reification, “mentally making religion into a thing, gradually coming to conceive it as an objective systematic entity” (Smith, 51). This has proved damaging because to say that religion is reified is to claim that something…

civilization is one of the most well-known empires in today’s history. The Inca had a strong belief system that centered on the worship of gods and sacred mountains. They practiced human sacrifice as a part of their religion. The most important of the rituals was the Capacocha ceremony. This ceremony typically took place in mountain locations, often at very high altitudes. The ceremony involved several priests, attendants, and the sacrificial children who were usually between the ages of 4-16…

able to become priestesses but were only selected if they were virgins or have reached beyond menopause, similarly to the Vestal Virgins of the Roman religion. Unlike the Greek religion, the Roman religion was a state religion which included more rituals and ceremonies. Greek and Roman gods had similar roles and duties but different names. For example, in the Greek religion the God of love is named Eros while in the Roman religion he is referred to as Cupid, but they both represent the god of…

Moksha, lives within three principles: God and the universe, karma codes, and ceremonies and ritual to be performed by those whom are dutiful…