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Discover a wonderful world of celebrations from around the world. Featuring the world's main religions as well as some little-known ceremonies and festivals, this book takes an intriguing and colourful look at how growing up and coming of age are celebrated in many different places.

Neredeyse tüm bilimsel kariyerini masal incelemelerine adayan Sovyet bilim insanı, halkbilimci Vla-dimir Yakovleviç Propp’un geniş çevrelerce bilinen “Masalın Biçimbilimi” eseri birçok dile kazandırılması-na rağmen, “Olağanüstü Masalların Tarihsel Kökenleri” SSCB’deki siyasi iklim nedeniyle, yazıldığı tarih üzerinden neredeyse yüz yıla yakın bir zaman geçmesine rağmen Türkçe de dâhil olmak üzere önde gelen yabancı dillere henüz çevrilmemiştir. Bu makalede dünya folkloru için önemli bir yere sahip olan olağanüs-tü masalların tarihsel kökenlerinin ele alındığı eserin hem tanıtılması hem de kaynakta yer alan erginleme töreninin masallardaki izlerinin Propp’un teorisi üzerinden incelemesi amaçlanmaktadır. Propp masalları mitten türeyen ürünler olarak görmekle birlikte masalın erginleme töreninin bir uzantısı olduğunu varsay-maktadır. Yetişkinliğe geçiş töreni olan erginleme, töreni başarı ile geçenlere daha yüksek bir sosyal statü veren, genci topluma dâhil ederek evlenme hakkı sunan, çeşitli sınavlara dayalı sert ve disiplin içindeki bir eğitim metodunu kapsar. Erginleme töreni öncesinde çocuklar ormana götürülür. Toplumun tam ve daimi üyeleri olabilmeleri için gerekli tüm bilgiler öğretilir. Ardından gençlerin ölümü ve yeniden dirilişinin can-landırıldığı tören gerçekleştirilir. Masallar da genellikle küçük bir çocuk olarak masal kahramanının evin-den bir nedenle uzaklaşması ile başlar, çeşitli maceralar yaşaması ve evlenip veya daha zengin biri olup eve dönmesi ile de sona erer. Erginleme töreninde gencin öldüğü ve yetişkinliğe ermiş, yeni bir kişi olarak dirildiği düşünülür. Geçici ölüm olarak adlandırılan bu eylem masallarda çocuğun sembolik olarak yakılma-sı, kaynatılması veya parçalara ayrılması olarak yer eder. Erginleme töreninin aşamaları masallarda bunun gibi birçok farklı motif olarak karşımıza çıkar. Erginleme töreni aynı zamanda öteki dünyaya yolculuk olarak görüldüğünden, öteki dünya motifi masalın ikinci önemli unsurunu oluşturur. Propp araştırmalarında masal kahramanının gittiği büyülü dünyanın ölüler diyarı; masaldaki ormanların iki dünya arasındaki sınır, Baba Yaga’nın ise onun koruyucusu olduğunu gösterir. Rus masallarında Baba Yaga ile incelenen erginle-me töreninin izlerini yansıtan masal motiflerinin Anadolu’da geçen Türk masallarındaki Dev Anası karakte-rinin yer aldığı anlatılarla benzerlik gösterdikleri saptanmıştır. Buradan hareketle farklı kültürlere ait masal kahramanlarının, benzer prototiplerin yansıması oldukları ortaya konmaya çalışılmıştır. İddiamız Baba Yaga’nın Dev Anası olduğu noktasında olmayıp Baba Yaga ile Dev Anası’nın fonksiyon itibariyle birbirine benzerlik gösterdiğidir. Böylelikle erginleme töreninin izlerini yansıtan evden ayrılma, zorlu sınavları geç-me, parçalara ayırma, öteki dünyaya yolculuk gibi motiflerin adı geçen Rus ve Türk masal karakterleri üzerinden incelenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Rus masal kahramanı Baba Yaga’nın masallarda temelinde oynadığı rol ve özellikleri, Propp’un teorisi temelinde derinlemesine tanıtılmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu özelliklerin anlaşıla-bilir olması ve de erginleme töreni ile ilintili masal motiflerinin diğer masallardaki yansımalarını ortaya koyabilmek adına Baba Yaga, Dev Anası karakteriyle masallardan derlenen örneklerle karşılaştırmalı olarak sunulmuştur.

This 1992 study of the cattle-horned initiation masks of southern Senegal and Gambia weaves together art history, history and cultural anthropology to give a detailed view of Casamance cultures, as they have interacted and changed over the past two centuries.

For more than three hundred years the practice of Masonic rituals of initiation has been part of Western culture, spreading far beyond the boundaries of traditional Freemasonry. Henrik Bogdan explores the historical development of these rituals and their relationship with Western esotericism. Beginning with the Craft degrees of Freemasonry—the blueprints, as it were, of all later Masonic rituals of initiation—Bogdan examines the development of the Masonic High Degrees, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—the most influential of all nineteenth-century occultist initiatory societies—and Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft movement of the 1950s, one of the first large-scale Western esoteric New Religions Movements.

Rituals have always been a focus of ethnographies of Melanesia, providing a ground for important theorizing in anthropology. This is especially true of the male initiation rituals that until recently were held in Papua New Guinea. For the most part, these rituals have been understood as all-male institutions, intended to maintain and legitimate male domination. Women's exclusion from the forest space where men conducted most such rites has been taken as a sign of their exclusion from the entire ritual process.Women as Unseen Charactersis the first book to examine the role of females in Papua New Guinea male rituals, and the first systematic treatment of this issue for any part of the world. In this volume, leading Melanesian scholars build on recent ethnographies that show how female kin had roles in male rituals that had previously gone unseen. Female seclusion and the enforcement of taboos were crucial elements of the ritual process: forms of presence in their own right. Contributors here provide detailed accounts of the different kinds of female presence in various Papua New Guinea male rituals. When these are restored to the picture, the rituals can no longer be interpreted merely as an institution for reproducing male domination but must also be understood as a moment when the whole system of relations binding a male person to his kin is reorganized. By dealing with the participation of women, a totally neglected dimension of male rituals is added to our understanding.

In the web of cultural processes of late antiquity ablution rites and initiation rites were performed in different forms and in different contexts. Such rites existed in Early Judaism and Greco-Roman cults and were also applied in early Christianity under the label \"baptism\", however, not as one fixed rite uniformly performed and interpreted. Baptismal rites developed diversely corresponding to the diversity among Christian groups of which some later came to be perceived as heretical. Remains of art, architecture and texts from these contexts were discussed in two conferences gathering scholars who are excellent within their respective fields: text studies, studies of rites, archaeology, architecture, history of art, and cultural anthropology. These different fields of research have in recent years generated new knowledge that is relevant for the discussion of ablution and initiation rites and their function in late antiquity. At the same time interests of research have altered in favour of a growing cooperation across discipline borders. The present volumes are the outcome of two conferences in Rome 2008 and at Metochi (Lesbos) 2009.

The ancient Mysteries have long attracted the interest of scholars, an interest that goes back at least to the time of the Reformation. After a period of interest around the turn of the twentieth century, recent decades have seen an important study of Walter Burkert (1987). Yet his thematic approach makes it hard to see how the actual initiation into the Mysteries took place. To do precisely that is the aim of this book. It gives a ‘thick description’ of the major Mysteries, not only of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, but also those located at the interface of Greece and Anatolia: the Mysteries of Samothrace, Imbros and Lemnos as well as those of the Corybants. It then proceeds to look at the Orphic-Bacchic Mysteries, which have become increasingly better understood due to the many discoveries of new texts in the recent times. Having looked at classical Greece we move on to the Roman Empire, where we study not only the lesser Mysteries, which we know especially from Pausanias, but also the new ones of Isis and Mithras. We conclude our book with a discussion of the possible influence of the Mysteries on emerging Christianity. Its detailed references and up-to-date bibliography will make this book indispensable for any scholar interested in the Mysteries and ancient religion, but also for those scholars who work on initiation or esoteric rituals, which were often inspired by the ancient Mysteries.

Since 1988, well over one million individuals in the United States have been initiated into the Roman Catholic Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Studying the RCIA today promises to enrich understanding of contemporary rites of initiation for both basic and applied researchers. To this end, this article asks and answers two key questions: Do individuals who participate in the RCIA process in the Catholic Church experience an increase in ecclesial involvement and spiritual practice? If so, is the extent of that growth explained by aspects of the RCIA process itself? To answer these questions, I employ a quasi-experimental (noequivalent group, pre-test/post-test) design—collecting data on individuals at the beginning of their involvement in the RCIA process and after their initiation (N = 159)—to identify the extent of change in different domains of religiosity over the course of the RCIA process. I then use organizational-level data on characteristics of the RCIA process in 32 different parishes to explain differences in the extent of individual change. I find those who were initiated in parishes in which the RCIA process was more fully implemented were not only more actively engaged with their parishes (ecclesial involvement) but also grew in their level of spiritual practice. Substantive and methodological contributions of this research are discussed.

Gilbert Herdt is Director of the Program in Human Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University, where he is also Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology.