Ritual from Your Own Life

According to Sims and Stephens, ritual is a habitual act of members of a group which serves as an expression of the traditions, beliefs, values, and identity of that group which can be made visible to nonmembers. Taking part in these rituals serves as a means of defining the function of the group, but also it allows for a sort of separation between those who are and are not directly linked with the faction. Rituals can take the form of any kind of highly contextualized, habitual act which is performed by all members of the group in order to reinforce the values and meanings of the group (Sims and Stephens, 94-96). A notable, yet low-context ritual from my own life is a rather humorous means of saying goodbye to visiting relatives which occurs quite frequently between members of my father’s side of my family. This ritual consisted of the members of the family who had been visited to stand on the front porch of the house and pull a white handkerchief from their pocket and to wave it to the visiting relatives as a means of waving goodbye. This was done by the host family as the departing relatives were pulling out of the driveway. My paternal grandfather was the person who carried on this tradition from his grandparents, who he recalled having done this whenever his family was departing after a visit. A few years ago, I asked him if he knew why they had always done this when he was young and also of the general origins of this family ritual. He revealed that it was believed to date back quite a few generations before his grandparents. In fact, it was reported that this ritual dates back at least to my ancestors who lived in Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century. This sendoff presumably was started by one of my ancestors waving a cloth of some sort, which may have simply been a piece handkerchief that was readily available or may have actually been used as part of the trade of the individual, at departing guests. It is also possible that this way of waving goodbye may have actually been a local tradition practiced in a particular community in a part of Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. If this is so, then a normal practice of communication from centuries ago has been preserved and ritualized within the context of the interaction of descendants. This means that an ordinary activity of the past has become a ritual which is used within the context of family interaction in order to express a sense of group based on a shared family history.

This blog entry is my response to the Chapter Four Reflection Question