Rituals part 2

We completed our ritual presentations on Tuesday. Here they are:
Justin: Indian baby dropping (?). They take a 1-2 year-old child and drop it from the top of a 50 foot building onto sheets that are being held there by other people. This is supposed to bring prosperity. It's now illegal in India.

Abby: An Australian manhood rite. The women leave, and the young men are blindfolded, then the older men scare them and threaten harm to the women. Then the young men are either circumcsiced or have their hair/teeth pulled.

Megan: Buddhist purification rite. I didn't get this one down very clearly. I have written that the stupas or relics of the Buddha, and depict scenes from his life. The rituals are done at night with lanterns and the burning of insence.

Zach: The Karamundi Rainmaking Ceremony. See last post.

Jeremy: Modern American fall festival. Carve a face into a pumkin and give candy to strange creatures who come to your door and say "trick-or-treat".

Juniper: Ests death ritual. A man would die and his friends would separate his money from his treasure. With the money they would buy beer and party with the body until the money was gone. Then they would take the treasure and divide it up by placing a large amount well away from town, another pile closer, and on down the line until there wasn't any more. As you got closer to town the piles got smaller. They would hold horse races to see who would get the most treasure. Then they burn the body with whatever remains over. This could go on for months.

After that we had a great discussion about Halloween. Halloween being the American-ized version of All Hallow's Eve (as we heard it from the Scots). This is related to the rites of kenosis (kenosis meaning an emptying out). This is like Totetag in Germany, or the Feast of Fools which is mentioned in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was reminded of the Swiss carnival festival which is called Fasnacht. People dress up in costume, and there is much music and dancing as everyone pretty much goes crazy. This is to purge the town of demons, similar to the original idea of Halloween, which as actually a celebration.
Then we covered the Nacirema tribe. They seem quite obsessed with what we call the bathroom, and I think would be quite offended if they knew how much we know about what goes on in there.
My notes kind of go haywire right about here. Where we picked up the Eleussinian Mysteries again. Since we spoke of them elsewhere I'm not going to cover all of it again. The early Christians found the Mysteries as an attack on their own rituals. Initiation is meant to take you from one thing, and turn you into another thing. You won't look different (like Georg in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis), but you will be different. There will be unconditional joy from having gone through this initiation.