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Sacred Correspondences
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Birth and the newborn

This page groups rituals by the point in a person's life they mark. Wikipedia defines a rite of passage as "a ritual event that marks a person's transition from one status to another, including adoption, baptism, coming of age, graduation, inauguration, engagement, and marriage." Browsing this way lets a visitor find every ritual tied to one particular life stage, across many traditions at once.

Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This Is
The category is van Gennep's: Les rites de passage (1909) proposed that such rites everywhere follow a three-stage pattern of separation, liminality and incorporation, and Victor Turner's 1969 work on liminality made the middle stage the centre of the frame. It is a scholars' scheme, not a traditions' one. 2
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
Rites marking a passage in an individual life - birth and naming, coming of age, marriage, ordination, death. Nearly every tradition marks some of these, but not the same set, and which passages are marked by religious rite rather than by civil custom differs by tradition and by period. 2
Directory
Category
Rituals 1
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard analytic category in the study of religion 2
Learn More
The lifecycle rituals

This group gathers lifecycle rituals, the rites that mark the great transitions of a human life: birth and naming, coming of age, marriage, and other passages by which a person moves from one status to the next. Such rites of passage are found in every religious tradition and are among the most universal features of religious life.

The browser will find lifecycle rituals from across the world's traditions. The entries describe each rite's form, meaning and setting, noting the tradition to which it belongs and the transition it marks.

Birth and the newborn
Filter Results8 entries

Apotropaic Birth Rites Against Lamashtu

Birth and the newborn

Aqeeqah

Birth and the newborn

Aqiqah

Birth and the newborn

Birth Blessing

Birth and the newborn

Brit Milah (Bris)

Birth and the newborn

Churching of Women

Birth and the newborn

Couvade

Birth and the newborn

Pidyon Haben

Birth and the newborn
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions
Catherine Bell, Oxford University Press, 1997Basic Genres of Ritual ActionView the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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