I'm currently watching documentary footage about Tribal initiation ceremonies on Youtube. There are so many practices that seem brutal to me. For example, there is one National Geographic documentary about one tribe that are performing an annual ritual on teenage boys that turns them into men in the eyes of the rest of their society. The boys enter the "manhouse", then shamans from the tribe cut a thousands cuts on their back with knives. Each cut draws blood. The cuts create a pattern in scars. To a western person watching, this practice seems brutal. And it is brutal, but it has to be traumatic to those going through it in order to become significant. The idea is that the boys go through a traumatic event and as a result are changed by it and it becomes a significant event in their lives. The traumatic events stick inside the memory and psychology of the individuals but holds positive rather than negative connotations. They can look back on their lives and mark the event as the ceremony that brought them into manhood. The initiation is optional. The males who do not go through with it are seen as less attractive and weak by female members and certain privileges are not provided. Most men go through with it. There is no television here for them to distract themselves from life !
I think there is value in this ritual and if I was a man in that particular tribe I know that I would personally go through with it so I could mark the event as a significant happening in the timeline of my life. The western world lacks authentic rituals such as this. Despite not being as horrified and dismissive as many of the English public would be, as a westerner, with my prejudices, education, and ways of thinking, I still obviously have certain criticisms regarding the ritual !! I hold the conviction that it would be barbaric to, for example, force autistic, or illness prone members of the tribe to go through with the ritual. I would tweak the attitude of the tribe (if this were possible) to make them realize that whether males went through with the ritual or not is not necessarily an indication of our strength because everyone has strengths in different areas.
For boys who are engaging in it it must be a massive relief once the initiation is over and they can enter into manhood. it means that they never have to engage in the ritual ever again. This would be an even greater relief than passing GCSE Maths and knowing you never have to do another maths exercise again in life ! It would be a massive source of pride to know that you have passed through the trials and became a man. Nothing in the world could take that away from you, because the event will have actually happened.
There are many hundreds of similar initiation rituals. Indians living in the Amazon desert hold an event several times a year, were boys as young as twelve must put their hands into a special made type of glove which contains a swarm of angry ants with stings about thirteen times worse than normal bee sting. Even to catch the ants themselves before the ritual means the boys risk stinging themselves. The boys must wear these gloves for ten minuets while the angry ants writhe about inside. After the ants have bit the skin, toxic chemicals attack and aggravate human nerve cells, a pain which lasts days before fully disappearing The chiefs believe this is a perfect test for manhood as it demonstrates loyalty to the tribe and its customs, bravery, and willingness to deal with extreme pain of the natural world if necessary.
Joesph Campbell is an author worth reading extensively (forget J.K Rowling for a minuet!!) and has helped aid to my understanding of rituals,myths and what function symbols have to the psychology of human beings. He has alot to say about initiation rituals. There's a youtube video of him talking about this called "On becoming an adult" and he's talking about a tribe in New Guinea were kids are brought up to be fearful of these men that wear masks. They think that these masked men are Gods ! There comes a time when the Kids are teenagers when they are made to think that the Gods have come to kill them and they must fight the Gods as part of the ritual! The men in the masks put up a good fight and cause a bit of damage to the kids (mentally as well as physically) but they let the boys win and then put the masks onto them. The symbol is that the teenage boys, who in their society's eyes, are children, become Gods themselves and enter into manhood. They think they are going to die, and it must be such a relief and rush of pride to find themselves not only still alive but also capable men of their society. They realize that the masked men were only symbols and that now they have passed the ritual, they are mature enough to understand the symbolism and to look back on themselves and know that they were brave enough to fight these "Gods" despite their ignorance of the reality. There is a common theme in these initiation rituals of overcoming pain and fear to reach a sense of relief, pride, direction and maturity.
