Issue207 ToHeart互改组

dinddind2003UID: 196353

TOPIC：ISSUE 207 - "Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are."
WORDS：420          TIME：0:33:20          DATE：2006-1-24


It is true that, one purpose of rituals and ceremonies is to help identify one culture from another, however, this is not the original purpose, nor are rituals and ceremonies the only means to identify a culture.

Admittedly, usually we can tell one culture from another through the rituals of people. Culture is a process of history deposition—through a long time a nation has developed its own form of behaviors including rituals. So, different cultures may have different rituals. Nowadays, many tribes still have a ritual in which people celebrate around a fire after a difficult cooperative hunting.  Chinese are used to sacrifice their ancestor on Spring Festival through which we can identify their culture from another. And Christians usually hold their wedding in a church to show their belief.

However, the original purpose of rituals is to express their superstition and spiritual belief rather than identify their culture from another. When the primitive people develop these rituals they can not think of creating a unique form to identify themselves from other tribes. For example, after some tribes succeeded in a difficult cooperative hunting, they song and danced around a fire, expressing their happiness and entreated their God to provide them the same good luck next time. It was impossible that they created this ritual because they decide to create a different celebrative way to show that they are different. When the early Chinese sacrifice their ancestor in the Spring Festival, they wish that their ancestor can bless them peaceful in the coming year and when Christians get married in the church, they believe that no matter what difficulties will come up, they will spend their life together.

Furthermore, rituals and ceremonies are not the only means to identify a culture. People can keep the sense of who they are through many other ways such as dress and words. Developing for thousands of years, one culture has many behaviors different from other ones. For example, Muslin women demonstrate their culture’s distinctiveness by having their face under a veil in front of strange men; Africa-Americans distinguish their culture by their manner of speech and gesture). Thus, we can tell these cultures away from each other not only by their unique rituals but also by their dress and speech.  

In sum, although rituals and ceremonies can help identify one culture from another, but it is not their original purpose, and people can tell each culture apart through other means.