Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3 stages
1. Separation
2. Transition (liminal phase):space of death/chaos/rebirth
3. (Re) incorporation
Knowledge
Humility
Nakedness Disguise
Infancy
Death
Intoxication
Bisexuality
BAMBARA KORE MALE
INITIATION RITE
Separation
Boys taken to sacred grove (microcosm)
Stripped of identity
Transition
Initiates tortured by elders, return to infancy,
meditate in the womb
Taught knowledge (secret meanings, names)
Re-incorporation
Returned to the village
ANALYSIS OF BAMBARA
KORE INITIATION
Cosmic Dimension
Sacred Grove as microcosm with axis mundi at center
Initiate identified with the center of the cosmos and
returned to the primordial womb of creation
Initiate is taught cosmological knowledge: enlightened
in the processes of the universe
ANALYSIS OF BAMBARA
KORE MALE INITIATION
Social Dimension
1. Male role prescribed
2. Male role invested with meaning
3. Initiate is re-born into a role of authority
4. Male hierarchies supported and yet temporarily
suspended (communitas)
VISION QUEST
1. Consecration/Invocation
2. Immolation
3. Communion/Purification
REASONS FOR
1. SACRIFICE
Exchanges and Thanksgiving: technological
2. Substitutions/ Atonement: therapeutic/(earthly) salvation
.Performed to heal illness, at marriages, during mortuary rites
NUER (SUDAN, AFRICA)
SACRIFICE
Consecration: area is charged with sacredness,
ashes rubbed on the back of the ox, identification
between sacrificer and victim
Invocation: God (Kwoth) and other spirits
invoked, intention and issues relevant to the
sacrifice are announced
Immolation: ox killed with spear
Communion: ox is consumed by participants and
Kwoth
Purification: area is returned to normalcy
NUER (SUDAN, AFRICA)
SACRIFICE
Social Dimension
1. Promotes group solidarity
2. Creates a space for reconciliation (atonement
sacrifice)
Cosmic Dimension
3. Sinful behavior is purged (atonement sacrifice)
THERAPEUTIC RITUALS: DINE
(NAVAHO) CHANTWAYS AND
SANDPAINTINGS
Navaho Sand Painting
Mediums for inviting the Holy Persons to aid
in restoring hozho
Paintings are combined with corresponding
chantways
Painting design is rooted in corresponding
myth Suffering Hero theme
Religious specialists, hataahtlis, animate the
paintings
Objective: restore ill persons inner hozho by
identifying person with the balance of the