17.

Rites of transition (rites de

passage)
I have already remarked that most ritual occasions are concerned with
movement across social boundaries from one social status to another,
living man to dead ancestor, maiden to wife, sick and contaminated to
healthy and clean, etc. The ceremonies concerned have the double
function of proclaiming the change of status and of magically bringing
it about (see Sections 7 and 11). From another point of view they are
the interval markers in the progression of social time.
In a very broad sense all transition rites have a certain three-phase
similarity of structure.
The initiate who is undergoing a change of status must first be
separated from his (her) initial role. This separation may be repre-
sented in a variety of ways all of which may appear as part of the same
ritual proceedings, e.g.
(a) the initiate may move in procession from position A to position B
(b) the initiate may take off his (her) original clothing
(c) sacrificial animals may be killed so that the life is separated from
the carcase or sacrificial objects may be split in half
(d) surface 'dirt* of the initiate may be removed by ritual washing,
shaving, etc.
In general these initial rites of separation have the effect of removing
the initiate from normal existence; he (she) becomes temporarily an
abnormal person existing in abnormal time.
Following the 'rite of separation* there follows an interval of social
timelessness (see p. 34) which, as reckoned by the clock, may have a
duration of a few moments or extend for months. Examples of the
latter, more prolonged, kind of marginal state are the honeymoon of a
Dride and the mourning of a widow. The general characteristic of
such rites of marginality (rites de marge) is that the initiate is kept
physically apart from ordinary people, either by being sent away
from the normal home surroundings altogether or by being temporarily
housed in an enclosed space from which ordinary people are excluded.
The social separation is further emphasised by subjecting the initiate
to all lands of special prescriptions and proscriptions regarding food,
clothing, and movement generally.
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 So far as ordinary people are concerned the initiate is at this
stage'contaminated with holiness'; being in a sacred state, he (she) is
also dangerous and therefore 'dirty*. Consistent with this ideology, the
rituals which bring the initiate back into normal life again nearly
always include procedures, such as ritual washing, designed to remove
the contamination.
Finally, in the third phase, the initiate is brought back into normal
society and aggregated to his (her) new role. The actual proceedings
in a rite of aggregation are often very similar to those of the initial rite
of separation but in reverse, i.e. processions move in the reverse direc-
tion from B to A, the special costume worn during the 'marginal state*
is removed and a new normal costume appropriate to the new normal
social status is put on, sacrifices are repeated, food restrictions removed,
shaven heads grow their hair again, etc.
But role reversal may be expressed in a variety of ways e.g. by such
contrasts as fasting/feasting; exaggerated formality in which every
individual is in a 'correct* explicit uniform/exaggerated informality in
which costumes are dishevelled and transvestism is prominent; revers-
ing a sequence of events. The 'logic' of what is happening is seldom
obvious.
The general three-phase scheme outlined above is illustrated by
Fig. 7. The extent to which any particular sequence of ritual activity
Abnormal condition.
Initiate without
status, outside
society, outside
time
{Rite de marge:
marginal state)
Initial Final
4
normaP normal'
condition condition
Initiate in Initiate in
status Ay status By
time phase Tx time phase T2

Rite of Rite of
separation aggregation
Fig. 7

can be seen to fit will depend to some extent upon the ingenuity and
imagination of the anthropologist who is making the analysis, but I
personally find such diagrams helpful.
In this context one further generalisation has fairly widespread
application.
Since every discontinuity in social time is the end of one period and
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 the beginning of another, and since birth/death is a self-evident
'natural' representation of beginning/end, death and rebirth symbolism
is appropriate to all rites of transition and is palpably manifest in a
wide variety of cases.
In the case of mortuary ritual it is often a matter of dogma that
death is only a gateway to future life. Conversely the rituals of circum-
cision, head shaving, knocking out teeth, and other bodily mutilations
which so commonly mark the initiate's first entry into adult society, are
metaphors not only of purification (see p. 62) but also of death.
The child must die before the adult can be born.
In some cases mythology makes this quite explicit. In Genesis (chs.
17, 21, 22) the Jewish rite of circumcision is a 'token' of Abraham's
acceptance of the covenant by which, provided Abraham shows his
obedience to God, God guarantees Abraham countless descendants.
But before Isaac can fulfil his role of becoming the founder ancestor of
the Israelite nation, he must first be circumcised and then 'almost'
be sacrificed by his father.

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