Ritual Rebirth

I am spinning these theories form some ideas presented in Joseph Campbell's “Masks of God”.

The basis for what follows is primarily the Freudian theory of castration anxiety – that young boys suffer from a natural jealousy of the status their fathers enjoy with their mothers (oedipal complex), and also fear that their fathers will somehow separate them from their mothers, and will castrate them (castration anxiety) as an eventual punishment. In a sense, the father is seen as the first enemy – a provider, but also a villain – fear of castration is considered by many to be instinctive to man, probably a fear founded in the natural instinct to preserve oneself for the purpose of reproduction. It would be logical to assume therefore, that next to fear of death, threat of castration would be one's greatest fear.

According to this theory, all anxieties can be traced back to the fundamental fear of separation from mother, and ultimately of castration. Now in many tribal societies (JC quotes a central Australian tribe, and draws parallels from others), a lot of importance is given to the “coming of age ritual” which often coincides with puberty. In the tribe in question, there is myth parents tell their kids, that little boys will one day be taken away to the woods and given away to a spirit that lives in the woods – the little boy will be killed and eaten by this spirit, and after a few days, in place of the boy, a man will emerge. This is an unchallenged belief of sorts.

When a boy reaches an appropriate age (pre-/early-teens ?), he is pounced upon one evening without warning, by the men of his village - primarily his father, older brothers and uncles- and carried off into the woods in a great show of aggression and screaming, while the female relatives stay back in the village, wailing in fear and anguish. Over the following few days, elaborate rituals are held in the woods, most of which the terrified boy is not permitted to see, being placed in seclusion in a brake of bushes. All he hears are the terrifying roars that he knows to associate with the spirit that will eventually eat him – he has heard the story from his mother and elders, and has heard the spirit's screams from the woods on similar occasions when his brothers and other older village boys were taken away in a similar fashion. Basically, for the entire period of the rituals, he experiences terrible fear.

At the culminating event, he is grabbed by men wearing paint and masks, and while being held down by other men, is circumcised in a ritual in which his father is among the main “perpetrators”. There is no warning about the circumcision, the boy would have had no idea that such a ritual was to take place – in a few moments, the unthinkable has happened – his castration fears have been realized. But when the ritual is over, the boy realizes that he has survived, and his father and other male relatives treat him with extreme camaraderie unusual to the boy who is usually dismissed as a child, and it is revealed to him that the screams that he has often heard during “coming of age” rituals of others in the woods are generated not by a spirit, but by a bull roarer – a wooden contraption. The boy is sworn into secrecy, and is never to reveal the proceedings in woods, the details of the rituals, the circumcision and the secret of the screaming bull-roarer to anybody at all, not to younger children, not to women, ever. It is a sort of a man's secret, upon disclosing which terrible ills will follow. Following which, there is, one can assume, some amount of manly merrymaking where the boy is included and treated for the first time as a man and as an equal.

Thus, some of the worst lingering fears of the man child are heightened, realized, and finally dispelled. In his unannounced circumcision, his castration fear is practically realized; in finding out that the screaming spirit is in reality just a bull-roarer, his last childish spooks are dispelled – he returns, therefore, truly a man, having met the villain he always suspected in his dad, “dying” at his hands, and being “reborn” as a man liberated from childish fears and anxieties, accepted and treated by the father as an equal. Thus the boy experiences “death” and 'ritual rebirth” at his father's hands.


Back at the village, the enormous transformation in the boy's countenance and behavior is proof to the women that their little boy indeed has been taken away by the spirit, and instead, a man has been sent. Thus, the myth of “child reborn as man”' is realized.

Every society, if you notice, has some sort of a coming of age ritual for children of both sexes – these might vary in intensity and purpose, depending upon the circumstances and chief occupation of the tribe in question. Think about first confirmation among catholics, circumcision among muslim boys etc., or the “upanayanam” among the brahmins where a great deal of attention is showered over the young boy who thus far was mostly “ignored” as a mere child. The ceremony is considered a ritual “rebirth” of the child as a scholar, as a celibate man. Puberty feasts for for the girl child take a similar note, where she has a ritual bath and is in a sense reborn as a woman.

Whatever the social meaning of these rituals, one of the effects seems to be that of marking a milestone in the child's mind – making a big deal out of their puberty by grown ups who usually ignore them makes it an important and meaningful event for them – it draws a clear line of change – they see it in full seriousness as the day when they are to shed their childlike ways and assume the role of an adult. The mere suddenness and seriousness of the event serves as a sort of rude shock – pleasant or unpleasant – that forces them to move into a new sphere of life, and make a clean break with childhood.

This now makes me wonder about certain issues of we face today – particularly the angst that many of us seem to suffer from starting at remarkably early on... Most of us will agree that roles and responsibilities do not sit on our shoulders as easily as they did on those of our parents, who undoubtedly lived in direr circumstances than we do today. We seems to carry anxieties in us that somehow didn't seem to bother our parents, even though such anxieties are real and not imagined. Irrespective of our age, our identity as an adult / child seems blurred, as is sometimes seen in our decisions and behavior. In similar situations, our parents would have reacted in what would be considered a far more adult fashion, even if they ended up doing something unintelligent or illogical – they would have done what adults were supposed to do. (read that as “giving up your desire to marry someone / take a certain job for the sake of family / society is the mature/sensible/grown-up thing to do.” Not necessarily the logical/intelligent thing of course, but it is a decision that to them is obvious and dignified.)

Now, I wonder if the constant and unresolved anxieties and blurred identities that plague our generation are at least in part because of the lack of strong coming of age ceremonies that would have serve to sear into our minds lines demarcating phases in our lives – We have not had 'rude awakenings” into adulthood, and therefore linger in a sort of “half awake” state where we are never clear if we are to react as an adult (I must) or as a child (I want) to a given situation. Our childhood castration anxieties and separation fears seem to continue, we continue to look upon the parent as a necessary provider / potential threat – this last a sentiment rarely if ever seen among our own parents, and they look far more fondly, I think, towards their own parents that we really do, even though they were likely treated to harsher disciplining that we ever were, and enjoyed lesser familiarity and closeness with their own parents than we do today.

NOTE : Like always, I am not taking any sides. I am not on trying to start religious revival movements. I am not suggesting that rites of anysort be reistilled / fortified. I am not for parents chasing after kids with castration devices. I am still zealously left liberal and I shall defend unto death anyone's right to existential angst. So please dont start hammering me with How-dare-you's.

That being said, huge caveat on all this. These are just musings. I am widely accused, and not always without cause, of not knowing what I am talking about.

Share your thoughts.