DEATH: A RITE OF PASSAGE

Read the article :  Death Ritual: Anthropological Perspectives by Milton Cohen

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Outline
•What is a rite?
•Critical Periods
  • oBirth
  • oInitiation
  • oMarriage
  • oDeath
•Ritualized Activities
•Stages of a Rite
  • 1.Separation
  • 2.Transition-   limen, limbo
  • 3.Incorporation
•Function of a Rite
•Positive consequences for both individuals and their communities.
What is a rite?
  • •Planned
  • •Organized
  • •Patterns of Behavior
  • •Strategies for Coping with Life’s Crises that are learned from the previous generation
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•What are the different types of rites?
  • •Rites of Intensification
  • •Rites of Passage
•

What are the Rites of Passage?

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•

They occur at critical periods marking passages that are part of life’s crises.

•

What are life’s crises?

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Critical Periods that constitute a passage from one status or state of being within the group to another status or state of being marked as important by the group.

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What are the Critical Periods ?

  • •Birth
  • •Initiation
  • •Marriage
  • •Death
•Stages of a Rite
  • 1.Separation
  • 2.Transition--- limen, limbo
  • 3.Incorporation
•Stages of a Rite:  –as applied to the body
–
  • –Separation
  • –Transition
  • –Incorporation
•Stages of a Rite: –as applied to the spirit or soul
–
  • –Separation
  • –Transition
  • –Incorporation
•Stages of a Rite:–as applied to the survivors or mourners
–
  • –Separation
  • –Transition
  • –Incorporation
•FUNCTIONS OF DEATH RITUALS :

Positive consequences for both individuals and their communities

  • –provides communal recognition for a significant event
  • –facilitates transition
  • –provides a new inner sense of identity
  • –enhances social cooperation
  • –promotes social solidarity
  • –breaks the monotony of quotidian life   provides for ritual drama and entertainment
  • –raises humans above other animals- assists to establish our humanity
  • –serves to acknowledge that death will not defeat the living - that life always has the upper hand
  • –reaffirms the social character of human existence
  • –provides for a fitting ending to a person’s life - a minimal tribute for a human being
  • –encourages the survivors to continue with their lives
  • –helps people to cope with a critical period
  • –prepares the living for their own deaths
  • –provides regeneration for the culture all societies and cultures suffer from a fatigue

  Click here for a PowerPoint presentation of this material.  L