rites of passage and formal education

Rites of passage and formal education

Rites of passage is important for many different reasons, these reasons vary from culture to culture, even subcultures such as tribes. These rites of passages can include physical or emotional depending on the tribe or culture. These are knowledge that are being passed down from one previous generation to current generation, this is done because most non-literate cultures do not have the necessary knowledge or ability to write down their cultures, these people would have to rely on the passing of these historical knowledge, usually the elders are the keepers of these stories and traditions. Once a child has completed their rites of passage they are now welcomed into adulthood and are now able to marry, own properties, get married and have children. Without completing these tasks these young adolescent will remain as a child or be removed from the tribe for failing where they might be seen as weak and unworthy of being in the tribe, their family maybe shamed as well.
Facing Mount Kenya was a story written by Jomo Kenyatta, this story was a very descriptive account on the rite of passage of a tribe in Kenya, where both the boys and girls are circumcised. Although it may sound bad but, it’s a way of life for them, this is their transition from boy or girl in to men or womanhood. The irua practice is a done after a two weeks celebration, where the child has responsibilities and as well as the parents of the child. If the procedure were not performed to the young lady, she would be austrocised by the tribe and looked upon as a whore, in order to prevent this from happening the parents would forced their child to undergo this painful procedure.
The story of Sitting Quietly was about two young Kpelle twins, that were about to take on their rites of passage into manhood. The task was for them to be taken away and live inside of a shack with several other young men and for several nights they would undergo different task by the supposed forest thing, which was a beast they had to kill with the spear they carved themselves. If they survived they week they were called individually to the forest to fight the forest thing. There were no such beast but the children never knew that, and some were so afraid that they died and the ones that survived were welcomed into adulthood and bestowed honor on their families, those that died were considered weak.
The Sambians rites of passage is the most horrific of all, children would have to perform regular follatio in order to become a man, because it was compared to a mother’s milk. This is to me so disturbing I guess it’s because we grew up in a society where something like this would land someone in jail, because this would’ve been seen as child molestation.
The only difference I can see between rites of passage and formal education, is that rites of passage is practiced amongst non literate cultures where theres no schools to teach history, reading and writing.