Rite of passage
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A rite of passage is a ritual that marks a change in a person's social or sexual status. The term was popularised by the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957), in the early part of the twentieth century. Further theories were developed in the 1960s by Mary Douglas and Victor Turner.
Rites of passage are often ceremonies surrounding events such as childbirth, menarche or other milestones within puberty, weddings, menopause, and death.
Other rites include:
- Circumcision
- Coming of age
- Gembuku (元服) among the samurai
- Prom/Graduation
- Pederasty
- Rumspringa among the Amish
- Russ in Norway
- Vision quest in some Native American cultures
- Initiation rites
- Baptism
- First Communion and First Confession (especially in Catholicism)
- Confirmation
- Bar mitzvah
- Walkabout
- Freemasonry rituals
- hazing
- Armed forces rites:
- U.S. Marine Crucible
- U.S. Army Victory Forge
- In the Spanish military service, new conscripts would be subjected by "veterans" to practical jokes, ranging from taking advantage of their naivety to public humiliation and physical attacks.
- University
- Entrance into Medicine and Pharmacy:
- In Spanish universities of the Modern Age, like Universidad Complutense in Alcalá de Henares, upon completion of his studies, the student was submitted to a public questioning by the faculty, who could ask sympathetic questions that let him excel or tricky points. If the student passed he invited professors and mates to a party. If not, he was publicly processioned with donkey ears.
External link
- A list of rites of passage and similar rituals (http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/waymac/Sociology/A%20Term%201/2.%20Culture/Rituals.htm)pt:Ritos de passagem