By snoadmin
African music flowed from the Multicultural Center on Feb. 14 for the “Rites of Passage” event that was hosted by the Black Studies Student Association (BSSA).
The directed conversation on the traditional African rites of passage discussed the difficult transformations from “girl and boyhood to woman and manhood,” said Tessema Garedew, president of BSSA and a senior black studies major.
After introductions and media presentations, main speaker Nantasha Bunting, who is married to associate professor Ikaweba Bunting of the black studies department, spoke about the fundamental rites of passage that Africans would do as a culture.
“The rite of passage of Africa is becoming endangered with the westernization,” Bunting said regarding European influence on African culture.
She went on to define the rites of passage with five key stages of life.
The first key stage of life is at birth, when a naming ceremony is given for the baby. Many factors can have an effect on the name of a child, such as family names, days of the week and even the weather.
“The naming ceremony has been taken over by baptism with the onset of Christianity,” Bunting said.
The second stage of life comes with puberty. In this stage the young women and men leave their families for a season and learn what it means to become a responsible citizen of society, Bunting said. It also provides an opportunity for young men and women to come together, meet and fall in love – this stage is where most students are in life, said Bunting.
The marriage ceremony defines the third stage of life. After the marriage ceremony, men and women go to different camps for training. One of the training lessons that Bunting mentioned was “what it means to be a husband or wife.”
Eldership is the fourth stage of life, which happens around “mid-life,” according to Bunting. The fifth and final stage is death.
“The cycle ends with you dying. After the spirit dies it goes into the ancestral world,” said Bunting.
Each of the stages teaches life lessons, Bunting said. However, because the steps are not being implemented anymore, there are a lot of problems within the African society, she said.
After Bunting described the five stages involved with the rites of passage, she told listeners that because Africans have fallen out with their traditional “way of life,” it causes problems.
Bunting divided everyone into male and female discussion groups. Each group had 10 minutes to identify problems group members faced during dating, figure out the root of the problem, find three key solutions to the issues brought up, and then discuss them with both groups.
The groups addressed gender roles and challenges that each gender faces in relationships. Some of the issues discussed were trust, respect and the definition of beauty.
“It has enlightened me on the situations and problems we have in society as a whole and how we can deal with the problems and find solutions to them. And I think tonight was a step in finding the solutions to those problems,” said Rodney Hawkins, a junior black studies major.
Bunting said that the rites of passage can guide one through healthy transformation from adolescence to adulthood, and its lessons can apply to people of any culture.
