Ritual Studies I
group reports on...
Grimes, Deeply Into the Bone, pp. 116-131.
November 21, 2000
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1.

Our group saw the Improved Order of Red Men to be nothing more than a working class drinking group.According to Grimes, he saw this Order of Red Men as a way to be reborn with a complete sense of masculinity. Later, this improved order of Red Men was recreated with a script. This script was best described in Ben Bourgue's writing were it stated, " The tenor is that of a poorly written and performed Xmas pageant ". Grimes says in his writings that "borrowing" anybody's rites is wrong. Some of our group members didn't see this as borrowing, but as stealing other peoples rites. We believe that this Order of Red Men made a mockery of the native rites, almost demeaning to them. Our group also didn't think to highly of the script/rite, we didn't find them particulary compelling. We did however, think that this manly group was very understandably unique, we think that this unique characteristic of the group is what had drawn most of its male members into it. The initiation into the group is very important best it creates a wide sense of fellowship and belonging. An example we came up with regarding this is the movie fight club. Whereby people joined a manly group in order to add life to their already boring lives. It gave them a sense of belonging.

Mark R, Nick O e-mailer, Lindsey G, Erin G notetaker

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2.

During our discussion, we felt that rites of passage didn't really mean anything to those involved, especially those who are in the western culture.

We discussed how Americans really don't seem to have any active rites of passage for special events, such as a certain day that is believed to enter young people into the "adult world". We basicaly (even as Canadians) are left to figure out our own entry into adulthood. We have no one around to tell us that at a certain age, we are now adults.

We didn't really understand what the soul purpose of the "Order of Red Men" was. We felt that it lacked purpose or reason, and also that it held no real meaning.

We all agreed, as a group, that rites of passage in a certain culture means very much to those involved because that is what the children have been taught, however, it seems somewhat impossible for there to be any meaningful rites of passage in our culture in the western cultures because there are so many different cultures and because we weren't brought up to keep events like that important in our minds. We feel that this is caused by modernization of North America, and those cultures that have been less influenced by western culture, seem to have more important rites of passage (they are more focused on them).

we also dicussed how the rites that take place and that involve community in smaller villages over seas would be hard to maintain in bigger communities in Canada or the U.S. because we do not take the time to get to know our communities.

Theresa Honley (note-taker), Amy King (e-mailer), J.D. Touchie, Melissa Davidson.

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3.

After looking over the various reflections, it seemed to us there was a lack of understanding concerning the correlation between menstruation and cruelty issues regarding the coming of age story - ie. shaving, whipping, and scarification.

We felt that Shannon brought up an interesting point, "Don't individuals realize that if women don't "bleed" then there will be no procreation." With no procreation there will be no "men."

Jennifer suggested that the symbol remains the same but the meaning is different. From marital availability to transition from childhood into adulthood, we can compare this with the notion of baptism...the symbol remains the same.

Finally, we had one question we wanted to ask: if the participant does not experience what the rite intends, is it valid or is it now what Turner would call "ceremony"?

Pam (note-taker) Mark Dwyer (e-mailer) Victoria Jennifer

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4.

All of the articles that our group read focused on the section in the Grimes text called, "Debt Payments, Whippings, and Washings". Many of the articles that we read, focused on or commented on the extreme nature of the rite described. Most of the authors of these articles also stated that perhaps they were influenced by their own western bias and that we may not be able to judge the value of this rite because of this. This sparked a discussion amongst our group regarding where to draw the line between ritual and abuse. For example: do we have the right to interfere with, or condemn a rite that we feel is abusive? The example we discussed was female genital mutilation. We couldn't come to a conclusion on this, perhaps the class might have some ideas.

The idea was proposed that perhaps the reason the girl's onset of menses was marked by such an abusive rite is that the the society is patriarchal, and the men have created this rite to imply that the women are flawed in some way.

One of the reports that we read mentioned that not only is the girl considered to be "polluted" but her entire family is as well which we found to be unusual. One part of this section was not very well explained and we weren't sure what it meant. It describes the ending of the cleansing process: "Tambwi dives through the legs of her father, who is standing in a river. She seizes ginger root with her teeth from between his feet. Then she bakes fish to distribute to children." (page 127) We thought that perhaps the ginger root is a phallic symbol and the cooking had maternal implications but no effort seems to be made by Grimes to explain this particular portion of the rite.

Ben Bourque, Sarah, Melissa C, Mike W.

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5.

Our discussion focused mainly on the mistreatment of women. Danielle believes that Grimes talks about the shame that women are felt to possess. We all agreed with her analysis. We found that women are perceived to be dirty, and as having something to be ashamed of.

Mark's report mentioned, and this group agreed, that western society is too focused on it's finances, jobs, etc. and that they pay very little attention to religious traditional practices, whereas in developing countries in places such as Africa, there is much focus on religious rites.

Danielle pointed towards technology as an excuse not to believe. It was once thought that if you were sick, it was a punishment from your deity. Now that we know more about the origins of disease, we tend not to blame them on deities. As Danielle put it, "screw God, we don't need God, we have germs." The group found this comment humorous.

We're all a little thrown off by the act of ritually scaring a woman's breasts and belly. We see it as being pretty useless nowadays, but figure it was probably relevant a long time ago. Before we had germs.

Amy Cormier Amanda Martin Danielle Donovan Shannon Westerby Mike Romard

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6.

The majority of our time was spent discussing our disillusionment wiht the Grimes text. This came as no surprise as I have encountered this before whilst discussing the readings with other classmates (or colleagues, huh?). The main beef seems to be that Grimes has been slowly changing his views since the beginning of the book. Originally, he seemed vehemently opposed to cross-cultural reinvention or reimagination of rituals; what he accuses the new-age movement of doing. He seemed to feel that borrowing ideas from other traditions and cultures was wrong, but now, many people in the group, myself included, were confused as to whether Grimes disagreed with mixing disparate rituals or borrowing from other rituals in the first place. That is, does Grimes feel that taking part in a ritual of another culture (ie., a Jewish Passover celebration) work if you are not of that culture (say, a Zen Buddhist monk)? Our group wondered what Grimes' actual stance is on the issue, but felt that, personally, we would agree with using another culture's ritual, if we were to find meaning within it. We also discussed the idea of a ritual community. The discussion was mostly regarding the actual rites of passage. Someone had wondered why it was that we could not take part in a rite of passage if it were to take place outside of a community setting. In the end, I believe, most, if not all, of the group agreed that passages can take place independantly of a community, but that rites of that passage are often designed in such a way that to seperate them, from a community would be to take away all of their meaning. That is, their meaning is often found in an acceptance of the person taking part into a new community of people, whether it be a club, an age group, or a society.

Rebecca Mowry, Colleen Garrett, Jessica McDaniel, Erin Coburn (notes), Chris Long (email)

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