Reflection 6

Rites of passages are important because they signify important changes in someone’s life. Just the same way that most of us celebrate someone’s birthday, different cultures celebrate any change that occurs in life such as: marriage, death, transition from child to adult, etc. although I used a birthday celebration as an example, rites of passages are far more important for some people. This is based on certain cultures and beliefs. It is a ritual that you must go through in order to accept the certain transition that is occurring.
In the Sitting Quietly story, the young boys were in the process of becoming men and they couldn’t see their mothers or sisters for four years. They had to endure great obstacles to prove that they can become men. Everyone else would celebrate and have to wait for the outcome. This ritual is how they carry out their rites of passage.
The Sambia, on the other hand, describes the way that men get ready to become adults, which entails them to be prepared for sexual intercourse. There is a process in which the male experiences homosexuality and heterosexuality before his maturing wife goes through her first menstruation. From this point on, the male is ready to have sexual intercourse with his wife and no one else. This ritual signifies that the male is now considered a man.
In Facing Mt Kenya the boys and girls go through their rite of passage by an operation known as circumcision (for boys) and clitoridectomy (for girls). Before this takes place, the boys and the girls take part in a race. The winner of this race is known as the special one and is the one that others dream of marrying. When the operation is finally performed, these children are now thought to be adults.
These stories were all very interesting because the rituals that certain cultures are accustomed to are completely different than anything my culture is used to. It’s astonishing to find that there are certain activities that we do on a daily basis that other cultures find to be sacred and perform them during specific days. Learning about other cultures and their beliefs could in fact be quite interesting. There is so much out there that we are unaware of and that we take for granted when other people are basing their lives on such things.