In many religious traditions, the emphasis is not on belief, but rather it is on participation in ceremonies. Ceremonies are often about community, about bringing people together and reinforcing the heritage that binds them together.
The most common ceremony is the rite of passage which marks an individual’s change in social status, such as adulthood, marriage, and death. Rites of passage, while nearly universal in all cultures, are not necessarily religious and many are purely secular. According to H. H. Turney-High, in his book Man and System: Foundations for the Study of Human Relations:
“These rites symbolize and emblemize the passage of a person from one status to another, from one transactional pattern to another. They objectify the already established fact that the person will never be the same again.”
In her book Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi, Dr. Betty Bastien writes:
“Traditionally, rites of passage provide initiations into tribal responsibilities; they distinguish the phases of human development by marking transitions from one stage of life to another. In traditional Indigenous cultures, these transitions are made visible in ceremonies, such as puberty rites, vision quests, war success, and marriages, as well as in initiations into social and sacred societies.”
In many religious traditions, the sequence of the rites of passage begins close to birth when the newborn child or infant is ceremonially introduced to the community. In many of today’s Christian traditions, this ceremony takes the form of baptism. Among the Chiricahua Apache Indians in the American Southwest, the Cradle Ceremony is conducted four days after birth. The ceremony involves marking the child with pollen, presenting the cradleboard to the four directions, and then placing the child in the cradleboard.
Later in life, in some religious traditions, teenagers may go through a ceremony which marks their transition into adulthood. Among the Navajo Indians in the American Southwest, for example, girls go through a puberty ceremony known as kinaalda which is held over four nights. During the ceremony, the girl’s body is molded – symbolically pressed into a woman’s shape – so that she will be beautiful. The ceremony also involves ritual corn grinding, corn pollen offerings, ritual haircombing, blessing the hogan, running races, and painting the girl with white clay. The ceremony culminates with the making of a large cornmeal cake which is baked in the ground overnight. While this cake is cooking, songs are sung to ensure the girl’s health and prosperity.
Among the Native Americans in the Columbia Plateau Culture Area in North America, it was (and often still is) felt that having a special guardian spirit was essential for success in life. An important part of the spiritual life of the tribes focused on obtaining the help of guardian spirits. Among many of the tribes a young person was not considered to be an adult until the help of guardian spirits had been obtained. The vision quest is a ritual intended to aid in attracting a guardian spirit. Archaeologist James Keyser, in his book Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau, writes:
“In this ritual, a man or woman sought to obtain a guardian spirit by retreating to a secluded, sacred place to fast and pray.”
In most of the Plateau cultures, a guardian spirit could be obtained only before puberty. Therefore, children—both boys and girls—received a lot of training oriented toward obtaining a guardian spirit. To obtain a guardian spirit, a child would be left alone and fasting. The child would abstain from both sleep and water and would wear only a minimum of clothing. It is through this physical deprivation that the guardian spirit would appear to the individual and bestow upon them two gifts: general good fortune and then a special talent. The guardian spirit would usually appear first in human form and then after giving the supplicant the special talent, the spirit would then reveal its animal form or other entity.
While the wedding ceremony is a common religious rite of passage in today’s Western cultures, in many cultures marriage does not involve any religious ritual. In modern American society the concept of marriage usually conjures up images of some type of ceremony—usually religious. However, in many of the world’s cultures, there was/is no marriage ceremony. While some religious traditions are concerned about marriage, there are other traditions in which marriage is not viewed as a religious matter.
Among the rites of passage, the most common and perhaps the most ancient is the funeral which marks the passage from the world of the living to some other realm. With regard to funerals, Richard Warms, James Garber, and Jon McGee, in their book Sacred Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief, and Society, write:
“Death is a cultural event that is acted out in mortuary rituals. Many such rituals help usher the deceased into a new status and location. They also typically reflect the values and beliefs of the society.”