INTRODUCTION.
Ritual is a well-defined sequence of
words and actions designed to focus attention, establish significance, and
achieve a beneficial result. Although some people think we have lost our sense
of ritual, modern society makes use of many rituals to mark the beginning of
significant events (baby showers, grand openings, ship launchings); the ending
of life, or ways of life (funerals, bachelor parties, happy hours); the
completion of important tasks or performances (graduation ceremonies, toasting
successful negotiations, applause); the transition of one state or time period
to another (birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, religious ceremonies
like baptism/bar /confirmation) and the making of connections (marriage
ceremonies, and church services.
Ritual is behavior; it is "religion in action" (Wallace:
102).
It is personal and private behavior, as it is social. A Ritual may
involve sacred or secular symbols. It is "stereotyped communication which
reduces anxiety, prepares the organism to act, and (in social rituals)
coordinates the preparation for action among several organisms (Wallace: 236).
Behavior is ritualistic if it is habitual, socially sanctioned, and symbolic
and without any practical consideration. Gluckman emphasizes the social
attributes of ritual and the importance of supernatural sanction in enforcing
conformity (Lessa 1971).
Definition of the key
terms.
Rituals are a ceremonial act, or a series
of such acts. It can also be defined as a detailed method of procedure
constantly followed by an individual or group of individuals. Rituals can also
refer to the ceremonies held by a fraternal organization, and also to a state
or condition characterized by the presence of established routine (http://www.answers.ask.com/society/religion
-and-spirit).
Rituals
are cultural or religious ceremonies that celebrate or commemorate specific
events that have religious significance and are vital to maintaining a
close-knit community, according to Exploring Africa (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ritual ).
Generally, Rituals
refers to the pattern or traditional behaviour of the individual or a group of
religion that they regularly practice and followed.
The following are rituals of
fertility in east Africa
In East Africa When a child is born, it is more
of traditional ritual than the religious ritual. Even if some of the Christians
offer Christian rituals for the born baby, like taking the child to the church
to be blessed by the priest, they will still have the traditions rituals at
their homes and this depends with each tribe.
Rituals of fertility in Kenya
Shortly after having given birth, the
mother announces the child by screaming, four times if the child is a girl, and
five times if it is a boy. The numbers are no coincidence, for they total nine,
which is the sacred number of the Kikuyu, and they appear again in the
preparations made immediately after birth, when the father of the child cuts
four sugar canes if the child is a girl or five if it is a boy. The juice from
these sugar-canes is given to the mother and child, and the waste scraps from
the sugar-cane are placed on the right-hand side of the house if the child is a
boy, or left-hand side if it is a girl. Right is the symbol of man, and left of
woman. After the
birth, the child is then washed and oiled.
If the birth has been difficult, the
father sacrifices a goat and a medicine-man is called to purify the house. The
mother and child are kept in seclusion for four days if the child is a girl, or
five days if it is a boy. During seclusion only close women relatives and
attendants may visit the house, and for the duration of seclusion no member of
the family is allowed to wash himself in the river, no house is swept, and no
fire may be fetched from one house to another.
The naming ritual
intimately involves the father, whose status is enhanced by proper naming of
the child. The father would place a small wristlet made of goatskin on the
child's arm, which symbolized the bond between the child and the entire nation.
The wristlet is a link in the long chain of life, linking the child with both
the living and the departed (http://www.bluegecko.org/kenya/tribes/kikuyu/society.htm).
Rituals of fertility in Tanzania
Most
of women who had delivered reported that their husband prepared some stuffs for
childbirth such as money, sarong, nappies, baby clothes, rope, ginger, herbal
medicine, boiled water, and wood and bamboo bed. Some women mentioned that the
mothers prepared these stuffs for them. The herbs and magic water (Nam Mon)
were used to relieve pain during labor, treating abnormal discharges, and to
make a good expulsive force to push during labor.
The placenta was buried deep
down in the earth by husbands at underground floor of the house because it was
dirty if they throw away, in addition, they also made some fire around that
place in order to prevent spirit and animals can reach placenta. If any of them
touches the placenta, it is believed that it may cause drying up of lochia,
inflicting diarrhea to the child or even neonatal death. The good example this
is done in Nyakyusa and Ndali (Sychareun,2006).
Rituals of fertility in
Uganda
The majority of present-day Uganda is Christian,
about evenly divided between Catholic and Protestant. Approximately 15 percent
are Muslim (followers of Islam). In the latter half of the nineteenth century,
most Ugandans were practicing an indigenous (native) religion known as the Balubaale
cult. This cult consisted of gods
who had temples identified with them. These gods were each concerned with
specific problems. For example, in Baganda whenever a woman was pregnant, she would use herb called
nalongo in order that her public regions should widen.
If the woman had ever
given birth, she would begin to use the herb at the seventh month of pregnancy.
If she was conceiving for the first time, she would begin using it at the sixth
month of pregnancy. Giving
birth, the kigoma (afterbirth) was buried near the doorway. The essence
of burying it was to remove it from the reach of those who might employ evil
purposes such as killing the child or rendering the mother barren. The mother
would spend three days in confinement after birth but the period tended to
depend on when the umbilical cord got dry.
After about two weeks, the husband
would play sex with the wife for the first time after she had given birth. This
was a ritual function connected with the health of the child, and on that day,
the child would be named. Thereafter the woman would stay celibate for some
time before resuming sexual intercourse with the husband. If the woman gives
birth to twins, she will go to dance with some people as one of the rituals of
inviting the twins into the community.
In this celebration there is fabricated an abalongo ring (which means twins). In this ring, the umbilical cord will be embedded and shall protect the twins and their parent in the future against any harm. The mother of twins is the Nnaalongo and father of twins is Ssaalongo. When twins are born, this will be seen as a special omen issued by the higher sky god. In this way, the community will praise the parents by means of a number of songs during their initiation rites. This song invokes the gods to come to the people. The community has to open the doors for them to come in (http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Tajikistan-to-Zimbabwe/Baganda.html).
Rituals of death in Kenya.
Kenya has 42 tribes,
each with its own culture and language. These tribes are divided into three
classifications; the Bantus, the Cushites and the Nilotes. The Luo tribe falls
under the Nilotes category. They live in the shores of Lake Victoria in the
Western part of Kenya. The rituals performed
when a Luo family man dies, the first thing is that the death is normally
announced and this is usually accompanied by the sound of drums and the wails
and cries of women. The announcement is either done very early in the morning
or in the evening. Close relatives must remain in the deceased’s compound
throughout the entire process.
That is, until the deceased is buried. Inside
the home of the deceased, a lamp must be lit and all relatives must gather
together in the home. Songs are sung throughout the night, this can either be
Christian songs, war songs or lamentations. Crying and wailing will also
continue for most of the night. Collectively this goes on from the day
following the death until the burial day. Relatives
normally prepare for the funeral service by
building a shade, preparing the coffin and the clothing for the deceased. Since
visitors frequent every day the relatives have to prepare meals to feed a
sizeable number of people.
The mourning period goes on for hours in a day and
all relatives must remain within the compound of the deceased during the entire
time, after which, they are free to leave. The grave is normally dug at night this
is because during the day the sun is too hot and it is exhausting to dig in
such hot weather. Relatives also join in the digging of the grave. Once
everything has been prepared and burial day arrives, normally the deceased
adult male’s burial ritual begins in the afternoon. Commonly, the brother or
father of the deceased will preside over the ritual process.
Usually, speeches
and donations are made and then the burial follows. This ritual is
performed only for a man, and participants are also basically men. Men and boys
who include neighbours and relatives of the deceased take their own cattle and
goats to the former battlefield located along the boundary between the clans.
The cattle of the deceased are also taken there by the relatives.
They kill a cock
without using a knife, and divide and eat pieces of the meat. Sometimes a hen
is substituted for the cock. Then, they return to the home of the deceased. Men
and cattle form a cheerful procession. Men blow horns of buffaloes and Luo
people perform a total of about fourteen rituals for one deceased. All rituals are
performed only when elderly men died, and a certain number of rituals are
omitted depending upon age, sex, and marital status of the deceased (http://smartprincess.hubpages.com/hub/
).
Rituals of death in Uganda
The Banyankole did not believe that death was a natural phenomenon.
According to them, death was attributed to sorcery, misfortune and the spite of
the neighbors. They even had a saying: Tihariho mufu atarogyirwe. Meaning;
“there is no body that dies without being bewitched”. They found it hard to
believe that a man could die if it was not due to witchcraft and wickedness of
other persons. Accordingly, after every death, the persons affected would
consult a witch doctor to detect whoever was responsible for causing the death.
A dead body would normally stay in the house for as long as it would take all
the important relatives to gather.
The Baganda people feared death very much.
They did not believe in such paradigms as life after death. Whenever someone
died, they would weep and wail round the corpse. Weeping was important because
one who would not weep and wail could easily be suspected of causing the
deceased’s death. The Baganda people did not believe that death was a natural
consequence. All deaths were attributed to wizards, sorcerers and supernatural
spirits. Therefore, after almost every death, a witch doctor would be
consulted. Burial was usually after five days.
The body had to wait for that
long in belief that it might still contain the element of life and might
perhaps come back to life. Some people especially the women would go as far as
pinching the corpse to ascertain if it cooked feel the pain. Women were
believed to rot faster than men and they were thus normally buried earlier than
men. After burial, there would follow a month of mourning, ten days after
mourning would be funeral rites known as okwabya olumbe.
Okwabya olumbe among the Baganda people was a
great ceremonial feast where by all the clan elders would be invited and many
people would attend. It involves a lot of eating, drinking, dancing and
unrestrained sexual intercourse among the members present. Near the door
dressed in ceremonial bark cloth and armed with a spear and a stick. The
children of the deceased would be covered with bark cloth and told to go crying
to the plantation in order that the ghost of the deceased should come out of
the home (uganda-visit-and-travel-guide.com › Uganda
Culture ).
Rituals of death in Tanzania
In Tanzania the rituals of death differ from one tribe to
another. In Chagga traditional beliefs are still held by some in rural areas,
though the intensity of the beliefs and the excesses of many of the rituals
have largely disappeared. The traditional faith was based around belief in a
god called Ruwa. Ruwa had little to do
with mankind so the Chagga instead worshipped their ancestors, whom they
believed could influence events on Earth.
For Chagga funeral would be the most
likely outcome. As with most Chagga ceremonies, this would vary slightly from
place to place and from tribe to tribe, and also depended on the status of the
deceased. Only married people with children, for example, would be buried: dead
youths and girls would be wrapped in banana leaves and left in a banana grove,
while babies were merely covered in cow dung and left out for jackals and hyaenas.
(It is said that this practice was stopped after a jackal dropped the severed
head of a small baby at the feet of a local chief.)
For married adults, the
corpse would be stripped and bent double, with the head and legs tied together.
Animal sacrifices would take place on the day of the burial, with the hide of a
sacrificed bull used to cover the grave. A lot of beer-drinking was also
involved. Sacrifices would continue for the next nine days until, it was
believed, the soul had finally crossed the harsh desert separating the earthly
world from the spirit world. The afterlife, incidentally, was said to be very
like our temporal world, only not as good, with food less tasty and the scenery
less majestic.
CONCLUSION.
Ritual behavior
is obviously a means of nonverbal communication and meaning. This aspect of
ritual is often overlooked in the stress on the relation of ritual to myth.
Thus, the meaning of ritual is often looked for in the verbal, spoken, or
belief system that is taken as its semantic correlate. The spoken elements in a
ritual setting do often reveal the meaning of a ritual by reference to a belief
system or mythology, but not always. Such a connection has led to an
overemphasis on the importance of the belief system or myth over ritual. The future study of ritual may disclose that
this behavior, found throughout history and cultures, is as unique to man as
his capacity for speaking a language and that change in ritual behavior is
parallel with change in language.
References
C. N. Shankarrao, (2006), Principles of sociology with an introduction to social thought, (6th edition,) India.
H. Macbeth and P. Collins, (2002), Human population dynamics, (editors), (5th edition), Cambridge university press, United Kingdom.
K.
J. Neubeck, M.A. Neubeck and D. S. Glasberg, (2007), Social problems a critical approach, (editors), (5th
edition), Mcgraw-hill company, New York.
Retrieved
on March 30th 2014 from http://www.answers.com/topic/african-traditional-religion-1#ixzz2xp2sPjuK.
Retrieved on April 3rd April
2014 from http://www.answers.ask.com/society/religion
-and-spirit.
Written By AUSI CHIWAMBO (2014)-Teofilo Kisanji University
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