Turners view on representation of monsters, is that they are not used to terrorise neophytes but instead making them aware of objects persons relationships and environment that they may otherwise have taken for granted. The masks and costumes often emphasise cultural features a head, nose, phallus or bow are much larger or smaller in comparison with other features, this makes the focused feature a subject for reflection – multilayered with attached components. Neophytes are structurally invisible, ritually polluting and commonly secluded partially or completely from the realm of culturally defined … Where they are not moved to a place of concealment they are often disguised in masks or grotesque costumes or striped with clay and the like. From this standpoint we can certainly consider liminal passengers as polluting to those who have not been” innoculated” against them … Ie gone through the same ritual processes. ĭr Mary Douglas book purity of danger 1966 interesting and illuminating view that the concept of pollution ” is a reaction to protect cherished principles and categories from contradiction ” she holds that, in effect, what is unclear and socially contradictory is ritually unclean. Not classified symbols gestation and parturition so both living and dead.

The metaphor of dissolution often applied to neophytes they are allowed to go filthy and identified with the earth, the generalised matter into which every specific individual is rendered down. Structural invisibility of liminal personae has classified negative biological symbols death, menustration decomposition. Symbolism attached to liminality processes give a visible form to a conceptual internal process.

As a result a comparative sociology of African kinship needs to be understood in relation to comparative sociological studies of friendship in East Africa, particularly associated with the sociology of education.Transition as a process, is likened to water coming to boil pupa changing from grub to moth. It argues that the study of kinship dominated the developments of a comparative sociology during colonial times and that the post-colonial influences of war, the market and globalization have increased the role of the individual. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.įrom Age-Sets to Friendship Networks in Comparative Sociology: The continuity of soda among the Boorana of East Africaĭevelop Sociological Models and Methods, Foster Interdisciplinary, Promote Analytical Research and Inquiry in Socio-Cultural Aspects, Sociological Inquiry and ResearchĪBSTRACT: This paper re-assesses a comparative sociology of kinship and friendship in East Africa with a particular focus on the Boorana Oromo of Kenya. The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual.

Victor turner the forest of symbols