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Rituals ConstantinLoredana
The Masai tribe When men of the Masai tribe they marry dedicate a cow. When a son wants to show his father that became a mature man gives a cow. Even when a friend is hardship or lost loved ones in order to show support or sympathy from the Masai tribe calls all the cows. So in that spirit of grape gave archaic in any situation, the elders of a village in southwestern Kenya, offered four years ago but an American people to ease the suffering caused by the attacks of September 11. Gift no more and no less than 14 steers and heifers. In four years after the gift of the Masai tribe has amazed and excited after a lot of Americans simplicity, yet not know what will happen with the herd gift for Americans not had taken his gift. Which aroused discontent of the Masai tribe, to which cattle are the most valuable asset and wealth symbol. The problem was solved but the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya. He gave back the tribe Masai herd received the meantime become much more numerous. Men and women came in large numbers to welcome him to the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger. Welcome ceremony, Masai style, has been removed in a village in southwestern Kenya – wearing the vestment and traditional ornaments. Their village is so unusual gift which the ambassador spoke in front of a poster with the U.S. flag and twin towers destroyed by the attacks of September 11. "Of all the acts of solidarity and generosity, who went to the heart of the American people as any other was the generosity of Masai elders. Their gift was really one of an absolute kindness," said the ambassador.
The Masai community dedication of a cow is a gesture of great price - is an act laden with symbolism, almost • as important as having a baby. The idea of such a gesture meant to soothe the pain the American people in dire moments after September 11, • 2001, the village belonged to a son, Wilson Naiyomah, who was in that year student at Stanford University and • was by chance in New York even day attacks. "We came back home only after six months. I just wanted to be a cow dedication. I wanted to do fellowship and the elders that I have grown, give their blessings and be a sacred act, the consolation and comfort of a nation that took care of me and gave me an education and a place to live. " "I would have simply not taken into account in their pain," says Wilson Naiyomah. Mzee Ole TetiOlepembaSeneyoyi are among those with whom Wilson was advised and was also agreed to donate cows. But that was four years ago. Now the number of cattle increased from 14 to 27. Masai community, such cattle are sacred and can not be killed. I am keeping as a way to remind future generations of the gesture made. For recipients of the gift, the U.S. government, but came a dilemma - where to go these cows. The fact that the United States have not got the gift for four years has upset at some point some Masai, who considered that they are given a kind of flick. But that feeling disappeared and affectionate gesture that made him give himself off. Impressed by the compassion shown by the Masai, Americans began to give assistance to several projects in the community - a way of saying thanks. "I am very proud and happy," said Ambassador Renneberger "to announce that we want to make a gift of the Masai people Enoosaen. The gift consists in scholarships to 14 needy Maasai youth. We believe that this modest donation will increase in coming years." People say very strongly that the village was a gesture of kindness and not looked at anything in return. And the ceremony ended in cow bell ringing and dancing Masai women dancing you usually in time of drought. It was again an unusual demonstration of friendship and kindness - Masai style.
According to their own oral history, the Masai originated from the lower Nile valley north of Lake Turkana (North-West Kenya) and began migrating south around the fifteenth century, arriving in a long trunk of land stretching from northern Kenya to central Tanzania between the seventeenth and late eighteenth century. Other ethnic groups were forcibly displaced as they settled there. [2] The Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-nineteenth century, and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south.[6] At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger group they were part of, raided cattle as far east as the Tanga coast in Tanzania. Raiders used spears and shields, but were most feared for throwing clubs (orinka) which could be accurately thrown from up to 70 paces (appx. 100 metres). In 1852 there was a report of a concentration of 800 Masai warriors on the move in Kenya. In 1857, after having depopulated the “Wakuafi wilderness” in southeastern Kenya, Masai warriors threatened Mombasa on the coast of Kenya. • Each in his clan Life table also totoror traditional societies, is subject to very precise rules. Until the age of 6 years, children of both sexes increase under the protection of mothers. Then join the boys section (clan) men and the girls remain under the supervision of women. At this time of separation, both boys and girls are given gifts. The boys get in but sheep, goats and even calves once the hallmark of pastors who will become - what will stick or rod with cattle hand. Teach adults how to keep and take care of them. And girls learn how to sewing and to exploit, to draw water from wells or to help their mothers in gathering brushwood. As the age of the first ornaments, they will give their bracelets and necklaces of pearls, showing them the how to paint with ocher to be as attractive. Moreover, concern for clothing and appearance is common to both sexes.
In the village warriors After the execution of circumcision, an operation that most people bear with courage, young men can be considered, because immediately thereafter granted access to the village warriors to become, in turn, warriors. The ceremony involves up to several hundreds of prospective fighters from around the region. The festivities take place within a particular village, made of stacked circular housing. They were built even by their mothers, clay, twigs and cow dung, because in this case the warriors will live together for several years, away from the rest of the community, but first may, from time to time, visit girls . When girls reach adulthood, they will be married, usually with a male around 30 years, which will found a home. At the age of freedom After the years of initiation into the art of war, young Masai, the true warriors now, life will return to "civilian", or pasturing animals, because for them the war was a long spear buried. Back then, the fight against hostile tribes, especially against those who stole their cattle, were quite common, so their main occupation, then, was why the community to ensure the security of goods (goods consisting of sheep and goat herds, which we provide milk, meat, fat, but skin that made clothes, sandals or mattress), the attacks of wild beasts whenever possible (lei, for example), but also those from other tribes. When not dealing with pasturing cattle, to keep fit, give themselves up to fight warriors simulated, all under the guidance of the elderly. Now it turns its feet with various shades of ocher and caring for their locks, which they lengthen with of braided cotton or wool yarn. Obviously, such a decorated, they hope to favor beautiful girls, who did not leave them inferior. Ridges of lei and wearing ostrich feathers It is time for the old warriors, called "seniors" to join the elderly category. Traditionally, aged warrior stretched from 10 to 15 years. But today, when their role became rather economical (for the defense of community property), warriors spend less than five years in Class combatants. Naturally, the new change of status is also marked by a ceremony called eunoto, lasting four days and attended by all fighters. The first day is devoted to reviewing family and conduct parades. Warriors do not now bear the shield, spear and sword traditional, but a long stick, the symbol of their future condition of heads of family and pastors. The invitations to (some coming from very far away to found the ceremony) and their families, warriors scroll in a certain order, the most courageous of them, who killed a lion, proudly bearing its head crest and others - a relief made of peacock feathers. All, without exception, are wearing the finest clothes and wearing necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
Ritual often marks a transition between physiological stages of life (such as puberty or death) and a change in social status (as from child to adult). Rites of passage are natural occasions for initiation, a process of socialization and education that enables the novice to assume the new social role. Initiation also involves the gradual cultivation of knowledge about the nature and use of sacred power. The Sandesecret society of the Mande-speaking peoples is an important example, because its religious vision and political power extend across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea. The Sande initiate girls by teaching them domestic skills and sexual etiquette, as well as the religious significance of female power and womanhood. The society’s sacred mask of the spirit Sowo is an iconographic depiction of the association of women and water spirits and attests to the creative power of both. (Masks are an important part of ritual in many African religions; they often represent ancestors, culture heroes, gods, and cosmic dynamics or the cosmic order.) Among the mask’s most striking features are the coils of flesh at the neck, representing concentric rings of water from which women, initially water spirits themselves, first emerged. The neck coils function like the halo in Western art, signifying the wearer as human in form but divine in essence.
Myths and rituals Diviners are ritual specialists who have mastered a technique for reading signs that communicate the will of the divinities. Thought to possess the gift of clairvoyance, diviners are believed to share in the power of insight usually reservedto the spirits. Divinatory ritual is the centrepiece of African religions, because it opens to all a channel of mediation with the gods. According to the Yoruba, 401 orisha “line the road to heaven,” and diviners identify among them the personal orisha to which an individual should appeal for guidance, protection, and blessing. Witches are humans who are thought to possess intermediating power; they are called the “owners of the world” because their power to intercede surpasses that of the ancestors or the divinities. Their power is ambiguous and therefore dangerous, however, and must be controlled. The Gelede ritual masquerades of the Yoruba are one way to control witches. The rituals are lavish spectacles designed to represent and honour witches, the Great Mothers, who can bring wealth and fertility or disaster in the form of disease, famine, and barrenness. Throughout Africa misfortune is ultimately explained as the work of witchcraft, and witches are often seen as forces of evil, even if they are unaware of the ill they do. To combat the misfortunes brought about by witches, witch doctors and diviners are sought to provide protective medicines and amulets and to counteract the work of witches through exorcism and other rites. In African oral cultures, myths embody philosophical reflections, express values, and identify moral standards. Unlike Western mythology, African myths are not recounted as a single narrative story, nor is there any established corpus of myth. Instead, myths are embedded and transmitted in ritual practice.
African mythology commonly depicts the cosmos anthropomorphically. The human body is a microcosm that incorporates the same primordial elements and essential forces that make up the universe. Twinship is a predominant theme in much West African myth and ritual, because the human body is conceived as the twin of the cosmic body. According to the cosmogony shared by the Dogon, Bambara, and Malinke peoples of Mali, the primordial beings were twins, and twins therefore represent the ideal. Every individual shares in the structure of twinship. Following a birth, the placenta, which is believed to be the locus of one’s destiny and the soul’s twin, is buried in the family compound and watered for the first week of the child’s life. Among the Asante of Ghana, twins are assigned a status akin to that of living shrines; a sign of abundant fertility, they are deemed repositories of sacredness. For the Ndembu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by contrast, twins represent an excess of fertility more characteristic of the animal world than the human, and rituals are undertaken to protect the community from this anomalous condition. • The trickster is a prevalent type of mythic character in African mythology. Tricksters overturn convention and are notorious for pursuing their insatiable appetites and shameless lusts, even at the price of disaster. Although the trickster introduces disorder and confusion into the divine plan, he also paves the way for a new, more dynamic order. To the Fon of Benin, Legba is such a trickster. He is a troublemaker who disrupts harmony and sows turmoil, but he is revered as a transformer and not viewed as evil. Like other tricksters, Legba presides over divination. Called the “linguist,” he translates for humans the otherwise cryptic messages of Mawu, the Supreme Being. Tricksters thus communicate an important paradox: the cosmos, though grounded in a divinely ordained order, is characterized by constan • There are many different death rituals in Africa that are observed. • There is one commonality though; most people believe that only • a correct burial will bring a dead person peace. • Body Removal • A correct funeral in Africa begins with the removal of the body from the home. • Previous to a person dying, a hole is made in the side of the home. When it is • time to remove the body from the home, it is taken out of the house through the hole instead of a door, feet first. This is to keep the spirit from finding an easy way back into the home. As the body is being transported to the place of burial, thorns and sticks are placed along the way and a zigzag pattern is used to confuse the spirit. These precautions are taken so that the spirit does not bother the living.
Death Rituals in Africa for the Home • Preparing a home after the death of a loved one is an important funeral rite. The windows are smeared with ashes, pictures are turned to face the wall and any reflective object such as a television or mirror is covered. In the deceased person’s bedroom, the bed is removed and the women of the family sit on the floor upon a mattress or cushion. For the next week or two, people in the community visit these women to offer their respect and condolences. • Family members, with the exception of children and unmarried individuals, are expected to attend the burial. The family stands on one side of the gravesite and everyone else on the other side. The family is not allowed to speak during the burial. Personal items are buried with the person to help them in their journey to their ancestors. • After the burial, mourners may return to the family’s home. At the gate of the home they are expected to wipe the graveyard dust from their feet and some mourners may place pieces of the aloe plant in water to remove bad luck. Christians may also sprinkle the mourners with holy water to purify them. • Some families follow a strict mourning ritual. Men may shave all of their hair from their head and face, symbolizing death and new life. Family members may wear black clothing or black cloths on their backs for weeks or even as long as a year. Widows are expected to mourn for a year and children who have suffered the loss of a parent are expected to mourn for three months. • It is believed that anyone who has come into contact with a corpse is unclean. In addition, anything the dead person has touched is also unclean. This includes tables, chairs, utensils, blankets and clothing. All of these items must be washed and not used until the mourning period is over. A dead person’s clothing may either be tied up with string for one year then distributed to family members or they may be burned. • The death rituals in Africa are changing as Christianity and Islam are being introduced. Many elements of the Christian faith can be seen in the evolution of the rituals. Ritual slaying of animals and talking with the dead are being seen less frequently in modern times. Many communities are hanging onto their traditions as a way to preserve their culture. Churches are seen as a player, not as an overseer, in the funeral rite..
Tribal Life of Orissa - a world of its own Major population in Orissa is tribal. Major population in Orissa is tribal. The number of Tribes that reside in Orissa is the highest anywhere in India. Number of tribes residing in Orissa is the largest anywhere in India. All the districts of Orissa have a tribal population in it. All districts of Orissa has a tribal population in it. While some regions have huge presence of tribals, some have only a handful of tribals. While some regions have huge presence tribals, some have only a handful of tribals. Koraput, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Malkangiri has Naurangpur and few districts where more than half of the population is tribal. Koraput, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Malkangiri and Naurangpur are some districts where more than half the population is tribal. In Orissa, few Tribes has a better economic position and are well mixed up in the society, whereas there are many that lead to completely secluded life. In Orissa, a few tribes are in a better economic position and are well mixed up in society, while there are many who lead an isolated life. They are also the most backward in the economic ladder of Orissa. Different Tribes have different culture, traditions, language and Rituals. Different tribes have different cultures, traditions, language and rituals. This enables the tourist to get an insight into many different cultures at the same time. This allows a tourist to gain insight into many different cultures at the same time. The Tribes that are living in developed areas sometimes get influenced by the western styles of lifestyle and alter their traditions and Rituals. Tribes who live in developed areas sometimes get influenced by western styles to change their lifestyle and traditions and rituals. However Tribes to completely cut off areas still preserve their age old customs. However, they still preserved in tribal areas of their age.