Rites

87 rites, charms and ceremonies, each told in outline as a custom: a ring of what goes into it, coloured by role, and a drawn frame for every step. Cleanse, gather, circle, speak, light, offer, bind, bury, cast, read, rest, close.

Presented by ClearTrust Customs described as customs, free to read.

RegionAll South Asia Southeast Asia East Asia Central Asia and the Caucasus Middle East North Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Europe North America Latin America and the Caribbean Oceania

Protective rites

Rites that ward a person, house or journey: thresholds, salt, red thread, blessings against the evil eye.

🇪🇹 🇪🇷 Protective ritesDebtera amulet scrollsEthiopian Orthodox lay specialists who write protective prayers on parchment scrolls for clients.

Rites of divination

Set ways of asking and reading the answer: casting, drawing, scrying, and the sessions of diviners.

🇳🇬 🇧🇯 🇹🇬 Rites of divinationIfa divinationThe Yoruba system in which a babalawo reads a sacred verse from a cast of palm nuts or an opele chain.

Offerings and feeding the unseen

Food, drink and gifts set out for ancestors, spirits, gods and the land.

🇬🇭 🇹🇬 🇳🇬 Offerings and feeding the unseenLibation to the ancestorsPouring drink to the ancestors and gods, opening ceremonies from funerals to state occasions in Ghana.🇲🇬 Offerings and feeding the unseenFamadihana, the turning of the bonesMalagasy ceremony in which family tombs are opened, the dead are rewrapped in fresh shrouds, and the family dances with them.🇧🇯 🇹🇬 🇬🇭 Offerings and feeding the unseenVodun ceremony in BeninOfferings and dance for the vodun in southern Benin, where Vodun is an official religion with its own national holiday.

Initiation and passage

Rites by which a person enters a priesthood, a society or a new stage of life.

🇿🇦 🇱🇸 🇸🇿 Initiation and passageSangoma calling and bone-throwingThe Zulu and Xhosa path by which a person called by the ancestors trains as a sangoma, who also reads thrown bones.

Seasonal rites

Fire, water and first-fruits customs kept at fixed points of the year.

🇿🇦 🇿🇼 Seasonal ritesRainmaking and the Rain QueenThe Balobedu Rain Queen, Modjadji, is held to bring rain, and her reign is tied to the cycad forests of Limpopo.

Spirit work

Mediumship, possession, trance and journeying: rites for meeting the unseen.

🇳🇬 🇧🇯 Spirit workEgungun masqueradeYoruba festival in which cloth-covered dancers embody the ancestors and speak to the living.🇨🇩 🇨🇬 🇦🇴 Spirit workNkisi nkondi power figuresKongo carved figures, charged by a nganga, that people held to enforce oaths and settle disputes.🇳🇬 🇬🇭 🇹🇬 Spirit workMami Wata devotionShrine rites for the water spirit Mami Wata, shown as a woman with a snake, who is said to bring wealth and ask for fidelity.🇳🇪 🇳🇬 Spirit workBori possessionHausa spirit-possession cult, with named spirits, music and a priesthood, that survives beside Islam.