Shared Ordeal and Induction to Work

All societies use ritual to mark turning-points in a man’s life; even modern societies, despite their ceremonial austerity, ritualize birth, marriage, and death. ¹ Some rites of passage described by anthropologists, however, appear exotic, and none more so than preliterate puberty rites. Such ceremonies, in addition to dramatizing the child’s movement to adulthood, test him ruthlessly for qualities prized in his society. Excruciating ordeals test his capacity to withstand pain or endure privation or see visions. Such ordeals are usually arranged for a group of young persons who undergo them simultaneously, and, in some societies, the common timing of a group’s passage constrains the relationships of members for the rest of their lives. Shared and ritual ordeals serve both structural and psychological functions, for they place persons in a society’s classificatory system and underscore the assumption of new identities.