Symbolic ceremonies

Usage examples of rites.

And we find the same thought expressed in the final instructions delivered to the departed in the Ainu rites of burial.

Modern scholarship, systematically comparing the myths and rites of mankind, has found just about everywhere legends of virgins giving birth to heroes who die and are resurrected.

In every one of the mythological systems that in the long course of history and prehistory have been propagated in the various zones and quarters of this earth, these two fundamental realizations -- of the inevitability of individual death and the endurance of the social order -- have been combined symbolically and constitute the nuclear structuring force of the rites and, thereby, the society.

For we find the symbolism of the serpent, tree, and garden of immortality already in the earliest cuneiform texts, depicted on Old Sumerian cylinder seals, and represented even in the arts and rites of primitive village folk throughout the world.

By absorbing the myths of his social group and participating in its rites, the youngster is structured to accord with his social as well as natural environment, and turned from an amorphous nature product, prematurely born, into a defined and competent member of some specific, efficiently functioning social order.

Accordingly, one of the first functions of the puberty rites of primitive societies, and indeed of education everywhere, has been always that of switching the response systems of adolescents from dependency to responsibility -- which is no easy transformation to achieve.

And the first function of the rites of puberty, accordingly, must be to establish in the individual a system of sentiments that will be appropriate to the society in which he is to live, and on which that society itself must depend for its existence.

For, as in all societies, so among these, there are distinguishing costumes, rites of initiation, required beliefs, and the rest.

But there ran also through my mind, as I watched those burial rites unfold, certain extra thoughts of somewhat broader reference, in relation particularly to the symbolism of the gun carriage bearing the flag-draped coffin, drawn by seven clattering gray steeds with blackened hoofs, another horse prancing slowly at their side bearing an empty saddle with stirrups reversed, also with blackened hoofs and conducted by a military groom.

To my mind there came, still further, as I watched those rites resounding with antique as well as with contemporary themes, considerations of the open nature of the human mind, which can find the models for its consolation in such mystery games as this of imitating the passage of the soul from earth through the ranges of the seven spheres.

The tribesmen assumed the names of beasts and in their rites wore animal masks.

And so now, in conclusion, let me conjure into final focus the prospect of unfathomed wonder to which all myths and rites -- in the way of great poetry and art -- introduce and unite us, by quoting the eloquent lines of a brief poem that deeply inspired me when I first read it some forty years ago, and which has steadied me in my thinking ever since.

They have been left to speak for themselves -- as rites, as works of art -- through the eyes to the listening heart.

And that, I would say, is what we, in our own religious rites, had best be doing too.

The rites and mythologies of such tribesmen are based generally on the idea that there is actually no such thing as death.