rituals

Subject: rituals
From: natasha
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 04:49 PM

HI, It may seem a but weird but I'm researcing indian, african and/or any other traditional rituals anyone may know of. It's my first ever time here so be gentle I'm what you could call a mudcat virgin, my mother mrs duck introduced me to mudcat so I hope your as nice as you sound

Subject: RE: rituals
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 05:17 PM

Welcome to teh Mudcat, natasha. You're not that 4 year old kid she introduced, are ya?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: rituals
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 05:22 PM

There are some Native American ceremonies I could talk about at some point. Maybe PM me (private message) on that.

I feel that the main value in rituals is that they help to strongly focus attention and emotion on matters of concern. They provide a useful structure to work with. All rituals are made valid by valid and sincere intention.

The danger with rituals is that people sometimes end up turning the ritual itself into an idol, instead of simply using it as a tool. If so, they also tend to deny the rituals of other traditions, and that is quite a wrongful thing to do.

Subject: RE: rituals
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 05:32 PM

Don't ignore the rituals of whatever society you are living in.

But you've got an enormous subject there. Depending how you define it, most social human activity can be expressed as being some kind of ritual.

To structure what you're lookinmg for it might be best to structure it - either the various ceremonial rituals in a particular society, or comparing how a few different societies organise the rituals round some significant event like birth or death or becoming an adult.

Subject: RE: rituals
From: Susan from California
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:11 PM

Natasha,

Are you looking for rituals from India, or are you interested in rituals of Native Americans?

Subject: RE: rituals
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:32 AM

Natasha, here is your first thread. I agree that you need to narrow your requst down a little. Just what kind of rituals are you looking for? I presume you are not interested in my Daily Regimen--that is, get up, drink coffee, check the Cat.....etc.

Subject: RE: rituals
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:42 AM

Well generally, I scratch myself when I first wake up. Frankly, I think most males scratch themselves when they first wake up. Women WOULD scratch themselves when they first get up if they had any nuts to scratch.

Does this count?

Spaw

Subject: RE: rituals
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:50 AM

Here's a pretty unusual one for you:  The Mari Lwyd -a Welsh ritual, but there are very similar ones in England and Ireland, and indeed all over the world, though of course they don't all involve horses' skulls...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: rituals
From: paddymac
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 01:49 PM

Well spoken Little Hawk. There's a marvelous book by Ruth Underhill, called "Red Man's Religion", in which she respectfully synposizes and brings together in academic fashion observations by many earlier writers in different fields. The work is an evolutionary approach, inwhich she carefully distinguishes among people fulfilling different heirarchical roles in native american religions. Apropos to this thread, she defines priests as "persons trained in [performance of] rituals", but not guided by or necessarily even in contact with the spirit world. They are seen to emerge in larger, settled communities, early in the development of agricultural societies and reflect the fact that most members of a community were content to let a "professional" worry about correct performance of propitiation ceremonies. The ceremonies themselves are seen to have evolved from "needs" reported by other "professionals" considered to be in direct contact with spirits - the shamans, who were thought to be possesed by spirits in their trance states, and the seers who were directed by visions presumptively brought to them by spirits. With a bit of healthy cynicism, its not hard to imagine the the power struggle that eventually occurred when the priestly class assumed dominance and ritual transitioned from a "mere" propitiation ceremony to becoming an "idol" in its own right. Sort of a "form over function" argument.