Van Genneps' Rites of Passage and Durkheim and Turner's Theory of Communitas

Think of a monumental time in your life. Your monumental time in your life is probably different to an Apache girl, Dachina, and the main character, Martin, in a story the medicine bag. In Dachina’s rite of passage is doing by doing a four day tradition to become a women. During the four day she has to do stuff like, dance for ten hours straight. Then, in Martin’s rite of passage his grandpa comes to give him the medicine bag. During this, Grandpa is dying so he has to give Martin the medicine bag before he dies. In my essay I explain, the similarities and differences between the two rites of passage. I also explain, the advantages and disadvantages between video and text.

As I read Émile Durkheim’s classic piece, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, I experienced a whirlwind of thoughts, expressing agreement, disagreement, and complete puzzlement over the details of his logic and conclusions. As far as my essay goes, I will attempt to put these thoughts in a neat, coherent order like the one mentioned above.

The Rite of Passage is about young females who file their teeth down into points. This ritual is done to show their soul, and to beautify yourself. The teeth sharpening is done in Indonesia specifically to the Mentawai tribe, to serve everlasting life, and to purify your soul.

What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we a man or a woman, in today’s society it is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. Gender identity is how we feel about and express our gender and gender roles: clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It is a feeling that we have as early as age two or three. In the article, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,” the author, Aaron Devor, is trying to persuade his readers that gender shapes how we behave because of the expectation from us and relate to one another. He does this by using an educational approach, describing gender stereotypes, and making cultural references. He gets readers to reflect on how “Children’s developing concepts of themselves as individuals are necessarily bound up …to understand the expectations of the society which they are a part of” (389). Growing up, from being a child to an adult is where most of us try to find ourselves. We tend to struggle during this transition period, people around us tell us what to be and not to be, Jamaica Kincaidt in her short story, “Girl” tells just that, the setting is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly. The mother soberly

*. _____ involves a sense of one’s own gender, including knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of being male or female.

Across several different cultures, there are different ways in which people of a community recognize the emergence of a young girl into womanhood. In the United States the most common is the famous Sweet Sixteen which as in the name states: relates to being sixteen years old, getting a car, and having some sort of celebration to commemorate the birthday. Among others include the Quinceanera which is usually equated with Mexico and Bat Mitzvahs which is a Jewish girl’s rite of passage. Another rite of passage, called Kinaalda, is a puberty ceremony that holds the same importance and significance among the Navajo tribe as their creation story. Unlike American society, during the people’s lifetime there is not a time between child and adult. In the Navajo culture it seems that it is more plausible to say that the time between being a child and adult or as stated by Leighton and Kluckhohn (1947), “physical maturity and social maturity are more nearly coincidental.” Meaning unlike the American culture where the gap between childhood and adulthood is filled with an adolescence, and in the Navajo tribe this gap is not prolonged and instead this transition is commemorated by a four-night ceremony. This process begins at the Navajo girl’s first menstruation and is a way to announce to the whole community that she has become a woman. In earlier marriage customs, a year or so after the ceremony the girl would be considered ready for marriage; as a result, some felt that “a girl’s

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”, the author explains the transition from being a tomboy girl to becoming a woman. The protagonist is

Originally developed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in the early 20th century in his book Rites de Passage, the term liminality refers to the concept in which participants are in the threshold stage of disorientation and suspension from the previous social norm that they were used to. When an individual goes through a rite of passage—also coined by van Gennep—he is cut off from his “old life” and is born again into a new person. However, before he can fully become a new person and finish his rite of passage, he is suspended in a liminal stage that bridges the old self with the newly acknowledged self. In other words, he is in a stage of disorientation and amorphous identity. Found throughout all

A recent rite of passage I went through was graduating from nursing school and becoming a RN. To complete this rite of passage I had to complete all the pre-requisites for nursing school which took me 4 years. Then I did the nursing program which was 2 years. To celebrate finishing the nursing program I attended a pinning ceremony which is a ritual where the nursing graduates get a pin that represents the completion of the education required to sit for the nursing boards. This pinning ceremony was more important than walking at graduation. The majority of my classes did not attend the graduation ceremony but all attended the pinning. Once I took the nursing license test I got a card that says registered nurse. I was finally able to call myself

The chapter explains the fear men have for anything that can be categorized as feminine or girly. She uses examples of barrettes, flowers, the holding of the purse, diamond rings, and the unimaginable task of men having to pick up a box of tampons. Furthermore, she introduces the idea of refusing a man sex until they are able to go into public with an article of clothing, frilly shoes, or any accessory that is deemed feminine by society.

Perhaps the most important rite of passage in my life was my high school graduation. This moment in my life, like many other rites of passage, can be separated into Van Gennep’s three different stages: separation, liminal, and incorporation.

Ever since I was a little kid I’ve been going to my grandparents the day after Christmas day. My family would go there and meet up with all the other Woodruffs that would come. It was mostly three or four families if we got lucky. But when we would get together it would be a great time. My grandma isn’t exactly “traditional” as she doesn’t bake cookies or knit sweaters or generic stuff that other grandmas do. But she was still very loving and welcoming.

Around the world, different cultures have different ceremonial events and rituals that are unique and one-of-a-kind to their culture. These events are more commonly known as Rites of Passage. For example, in Jewish cultures, an important rite of passage is the Bar Mitzvah for boys, and a Bat Mitzvah for girls (Bar is a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic word that means son, and Bat means girl). In these celebrations, girls of the age 12, and boys of the age 13, become responsible for fulfilling the Ten Commandments. Birth, marriage, and death are also an important rite of passage in most cultures. Becoming a man is VERY important in most tribal cultures too. Although, located deep in the Amazon, the people of the Sateré-Mawé tribe have a strange initiation for becoming a man.

According to her "it's recognizing and celebrating the uniqueness of being female. It's also being responsible rather than being dependent."

The female body is always growing and changing as a woman ages. From the time she is born to her reproductive system evolving, getting her first menstrual cycle and having to worry about getting sexually related dieses. A woman’s body is constantly adjusting and adapting as it grows. Through all the years of science most of the female body and how it works is still unknown today. The female body is a beautiful mystery.