Initiation and coming of age: practices that mark them

Initiation and coming of age are the rites by which a person enters a priesthood, a society, a religion or adulthood. They include the Hindu upanayana, the Jewish bar and bat mitzvah, Christian confirmation, Vodou kanzo, Santeria's making of a saint, Aboriginal and African age-grade ceremonies, Sande and Poro societies in West Africa, shamanic calling, and the degrees of ceremonial orders. This page asks what is entered, who decides, and what is kept secret.

Entering a role

Initiation changes status. A Hindu boy of a twice-born caste receives the sacred thread, a young Jew is called to the Torah, a Santeria initiate spends days in seclusion and emerges as a new person in a lineage. Many such rites involve seclusion, new clothing, a new name, instruction and a return to the community with changed standing. The age at which it happens varies, and the experience may be public and joyful or private and hard.

Secrecy and closed knowledge

Initiation often carries secrecy. In the Sande society for women in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and in Poro for men, learning is protected from outsiders. Many Aboriginal Australian and Native American ceremonies are restricted by gender, age and kinship. This guide describes only what a community shares and will not publish restricted detail. Some orders, secret societies and sects also protect themselves by oaths, which are meant to bind members but have been used to silence victims of abuse.

Harm in the name of tradition

Some initiation practices are harmful. Female genital cutting, hazing, sexual abuse by leaders and coercive recruitment into groups have been documented, and international bodies and local activists campaign against them. Others are being reformed or replaced with alternative rites that keep the ceremony and drop the cutting. Consent and age matter. Initiations in the Pacific, in Australia and in parts of Africa have also been disrupted by missionary and state action, and some are now being recorded or revived under community control.

Scholars and the individual

Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner described initiation as a threshold that moves a person from one state to another. Psychologists see value in marking transitions and warn about coercion. Today, rites are adapted for the diaspora, and people choose to join traditions as adults, as in Wicca, Vodou, Buddhist ordination and modern orders. Many initiations give a new name, and with it a new set of duties, which may be a heavy responsibility for the person concerned.