Copper Age: Ritual Practices

 

Timeline 


  • First Hominins Period:  The earliest, dating 7-6 million years ago.
  •  
  • Early Hominins Period: From 2.7 - 1.5 million years ago.
  • Paleolithic Period: Roughly from 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 B.C.
  • Neolithic Period: From around 4300 BC down to 2000 BC

Indigenous Caribbean 1492 AD (Spider web idea)

Syncretic Caribbean  2022 AD (Spider web idea)

  •  Copper or Chalcolithic Age: 3500 to 2300 BCE.

 

 

I

Unit:

Theme: Ritual Practices


Introduction

  The analysis of ritual behavior and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes. Concepts such as rite of passage and liminality elements of the ritual process.

 

II

Learning Objectives

 

  •  Understand the importance of recovering ritual practices in modern times
  •  Explain the function of rituals
  • Gather an awareness of terms such as rite of passage and liminality
  • Experience the structuring of a ritual by adding the rite of passage and the liminal component to the previous ritual performed in class.

 

III

Main Lesson

 

 1

Modern Rituals

 

 

Question 1

After watching this video, answer the following question:

Why is it important to recover the practice of rituals in modern times?

2

 


Question 2

 What do rituals do?

------------------

 

3

 

The Ritual Process


LINK

Rite of Passage / Victor Turner 

(Page 94)


Question 3

Define the following terms:

Rite of passage

Liminality


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IV

A Note to Remember 

Victor Witter Turner was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.

 

V

Case Study

 This video covers the work of anthropologist Victor Turner, and his concept of rites of passage. This series was created Feb - June 2014.

 


 

VI

Activity

Re- structure the ritual your group performed last class by adding the rite of passage and the liminal component to the previous ritual performed in class.

 


VII

Journaling

 

VIII

Glossary

threshold: the dividing line, the limen

ritual: an event that has three stages: separation, transition, aggregation

communitas: Within liminality, the bonding experience or sense of community developed during the transition.

 

IX

Sources



X

Students' Work 
 
Takeaways
 
Team 1
 
Ashley Truffer, Erin Hufer, Victoria Howell, Sophia Tripodi

    You cant create something unless you grow yourself. Going through personal transformations expands consciousness. It allows us to grow, learn, and comfortably demonstrate new behavior. It is a ritual in itself. We discussed the analogy of animals and insects. Animals, insects and humans are in a constant state of development. Like a plant, if your not growing you are dying. 


Team 2

 Boxiang Song, Anna Sutton, Grace Rivero, Franchesca Ruiz, Gabriela Silva - Pines., Ava Caruso, Sheamus Yuwen

    Ritual process bonds the community and helps you go through important events. The progression of dance enhances our memories to learn by going over the rituals. The importance of ritual is that the community improves its unity and gains collective benefits from learning the dance. 

 

Team 3

Sarah Ziegler, Natalie Van Winkle, Georgia Burtt, Alyssa Arroyo

    Rituals can be evaluations especially when it comes to dance/music. You need to pass something in order to move on to the next part. everyone starts at the same level and is evaluated based upon the same skills. Communitas is working and practicing and preparing together. A sense of community working for a united purpose although it is a individual thing. Everyone is on a same/similar path and working towards the same thing. In the music school, the ritual is the barrier jury which you take half way through school in order to see if you continue on. Also in some upper level schooling you have to write a capstone or thesis about one topic using all the knowledge you've gained from your schooling to get your degree.

 

 Team 4

Carolina Mojena, Alexandra Lofgren, Ana Raquel Chacin, Lana Alfadi, Drake Yormark
 
As a class when we performed the individual "Animal Ritual" it was made up of different movements. For some of the rituals it gave life to the dance and allowed them to "bloom". It also shared the life cycle AKA known as the 3 stages of ritual. To be specific it shared the separation of it turning into a butterfly, the transition from a cocoon to a butterfly, and then the aggregation of actually being a butterfly.

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