Part I
According to Tsuji (2011), death is seen as the final rite of passage in both the Japanese and the American culture; nonetheless, the American culture sheds little light on the matter compared to the Japanese culture. There are a series of birthday parties that are held culturally to show the proceedings to old age, which later on will terminate with death (Rites of Passage Journeys, 2016). The Japanese perceives that the mortuary rituals act as a connection between the living and the dead. In that respect, they often place half-page ads for graves on newspapers (Tsuji, 2011). Additionally, the Japanese usually pay sumptuous amounts of money for a petty cemetery plot or rather a tombstone.
Some people may prefer to worship eternally graves or burials beneath trees, while others may opt to scatter their bones in the milieu. The most common thing that keeps on persisting in their culture despite the many changes that are occurring in their culture is the importance of the mortuary rituals (Tsuji, 2011). The Japanese still hold strongly on this ritual. The ritual is used to equip the elders with their roles in the family. Notably, elderly women were taken to be the ancestors’ caretakers. Elderly men were not necessarily participated in day-to-day ancestral rituals; nonetheless, they were the principal mourners during the main memorial rituals (Tsuji, 2011). In fact, this ritual is practiced professionally and commercially to maintain its stability in spite of the ever-changing social environment (Tsuji, 2011).
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Tsuji, Y. (2011). “Rites of Passage to Death and Afterlife in Japan.” Generations. Journal of the American Society on Ageing. 35(3):28-33.
Part II
According to Crapo (2001), the status of individuals in the society varies with the social organization from time to time. The changes that are faced by members of a particular society are what constitute their lifecycle. Notably, the transitions within the lifecycle yield a change of events as well as a change in the status of an individual. Therefore, rituals known as rites of passage or rather life crisis rites marked the formal proclamation of a new status of an individual in the society (FAQ, 2016). As a result of a change in status within the lifecycle of an individual in the society, ceremonious events such as marriages, funerals, christenings as well as puberty rituals were conducted (Crapo, 2001). These ceremonies are what were considered as rites of passage. Crapo (2001) notes that these ceremonies symbolically demonstrated how vital statutory changes were in the society and their role in maintaining stability and order in the society while making significant cultural changes in individuals' lives.
Crapo, R. H. (2001). Cultural Anthropology: Understanding Ourselves and Others (5 th edition). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-238152-3
Worksheet
A rite of passage refers to a ceremony that defines a process of change in life from one phase to another. Despite the fact that in most cases it is used to refer to the change from adolescence to adulthood, a rite of passage can imply to any form of life’s transition (Crapo, 2001). This can be birth/beginning, initiation, marriages, and deaths/endings (Rites of Passage Journeys, 2016). Consciously, there are different forms of passages that we can personally celebrate in our daily lives. Importantly, this journey focuses on the initiatory rites of passage.
Initiation in this regards refers to a ceremonious event in which a youth is formally invested with the powers to become an adult (Crapo, 2001). This definition can be extended to include the ceremonies plus rituals that aid adults to undergo a transition in their roles relative to adulthood coupled with their mandates as elders (Tsuji, 2011). The activities involved during the rite of passage incidences aim at ensuring that the initiates gunner the necessary experience plus an empowering story, which will make them become more responsible for their actions in the near future (Rites of Passage Journeys, 2016). Essentially, the initiates will be in a position to tell who they are and what kind of life they want to foster based on their personal values. In addition, the rite of passage ceremonies provides the initiates with a story that establishes a bond between them and the community (Tsuji, 2011).
Through such self-exploitation initiatives, the initiates will come out when they have a vivid sense of what personal responsibility entails in their daily personal lives as well as the world around them. In so doing, both the community and the initiate will benefit equally from the rite of passage ceremonies. The rite of passage that is intentional provides the community with a chance to pass its value and equip the initiates with essential responsibilities that are particular to their stage in life (Tsuji, 2011). Therefore, this will ensure that a community’s culture is passed from one generation to the other.
Self-Reflective Journal
(Assignment #4)
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Self-Reflective Journal
Generally speaking, the rite of passage required individuals to be acquainted with their new roles following the transitions that have taken place in the social structures (Tsuji, 2011). These ceremonies were meant to trigger changes that would be psychologically important to people who were assuming new duties, which they never practiced in their past status. Additionally, the rites of passage spelt to the community members on how they need to relate to the member who social status has changed (Crapo, 2001). In a nutshell, rituals were a common event in the world which signified a change in human status. The puberty rituals, for instance, implied a change from childhood to adulthood and it authorized the initiates to engage in sexual, economic and parenthood activities (Rites of Passage Journeys, 2016).
Personally, I perceive that a dead is a bygone and there is no need t waste resources to stage expensive events in their commemorating. The Japanese for instance, spend a lot of money in advertisement and conducting funeral services. In addition, their culture seems to burden the woman. For instance according to the Japanese culture, the elderly women were supposed to engage in a daily mourning of the ancestors while the elderly men participated in major mourning events as chiefs mourners (Tsuji, 2011). The mourning rituals in the Japanese culture at the graveyard were meant at informing women with their roles s grave mourners whenever such a misfortune befalls their family.
Understanding the culture of other people may be quite difficult since different families have at least some form of unique cultures that they deem private and secret. Such information is only shared with close relatives especially children during their initiation times. In such scenarios, the natives will not cooperate with anyone who might be attempting to understand their culture. The other scary thing is that some families have cultures that involve medicine men. It is apparent that the families that employ services of medicine men to perform healing rituals would at all cost bar an anthropologist from accessing such information.
References
Crapo, R. H. (2001). Cultural Anthropology: Understanding Ourselves and Others (5 th edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-238152-3
Rites of Passage Journeys. (2016). What is Rite of Passage? Why is it Important? Rites of Passage Journeys. Retrieved from http://riteofpassagejourneysw.org/about/faqs/what-is-rite-of-passage-why-is-itimportant
Tsuji, Y. (2011). Rites of Passage to Death and Afterlife in Japan: Generations. Journal of the American Society on Ageing , 35(3): 28-33.
