Female Figures in Ritual

Cookies, badges, bridges, troops, uniforms, pins, pledges, gestures, handbooks: the Girl Scouts of the USA is a ritually dense, proto-religious organization that provides a remarkable case study for the challenges of ritual change and evolution, particularly as attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion has brought new attention to the idea of ritual inclusivity. This paper explores a tension at the core of Girl Scout identity and its impact on ritual change and evolution: specifically, the self-professed description of the Girl Scouts as a “Movement” dedicated to evolution and change, alongside its commitment to historicity and continuity. The struggle for ritual change will be examined in three core aspects of Girl Scout identity: (1) cookies; (2) the pledge; and (3) gender. 

The Five Planets meditation/actualization ritual recorded in one of the original Shangqing Daoist scriptures, Perfected Scripture of the Eight Immaculate, ascribes supreme power to the female deity instead of the male deities in a tripartite celestial hierarchy. This deviates from traditional power structure of an older but comparable actualization method that involves ingestion of qi of the Five Directions in the Array of Five Talismans of the Lingbao. This paper will examine the points by which the former departs from the latter and demonstrate, through Catherine Bell’s theory on “the ritualized body,” how the “ritualization” of absorption of astral glint, which signifies feminine power, has helped emerging Shangqing Daoism to differentiate and privilege its new scheme the old ones. The reordering of power was so influential that later Daoist scriptures felt obligated to address the issue of central power of divine feminine spirits, despite their varying degrees of agreement.

In this paper, I revisit a provocative suggestion made by anthropologist Vincent Crapanzano in his 1981 article “Rite of Return: Circumcision in Morocco”—his suggestion that, at least in some cases, rites of passage would be better classified as rites of return. I develop this idea on the basis of fieldwork I have conducted on male initiation rites in northern Mozambique. Specifically, I compare two different regional male initiation rites, one called nipantta and the other called jando. In the historical eclipsing of the former by the latter, one sees a decreasing emphasis on the maternal and the feminine, and an increasing emphasis on linear, unidirectional change (i.e., the “passage” from sexually amorphous children to pure, independent, and unambiguous men). In recovering the wisdom of nipantta I present an ethnographic resource for rethinking classic theories of male rites “of passage”—in ways that are less androcentric and less linear.

The India-based Adhiparasakthi Hindu tradition focuses on achieving both spiritual and humanitarian aims including positive social change. This contemporary guru-led Goddess tradition under the leadership of Indian Guru, Bangaru Adigalar represents a contemporary movement within modern Hinduism. Central to this tradition is the Guru’s directive which has implemented an innovative structure of ritual authority instantiating women's leadership in ritual, and an egalitarian nondiscrimination discourse. This innovative structure of ritual authority demonstrates a marked difference from traditional Hindu orthodox practices which maintain a male Brahman priesthood delimited by caste and gender restrictions. Prioritizing female ritual authority has served to expand the purview of women’s religious expression and agency within the tradition. This paper examines the ways in which a consideration for humanitarian equity promoted within the Adhiparasakthi organization and its North American diaspora communities has both modified and challenged traditional views of gender and ritual authority from within a religious framework.