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Rites of Passage
Do you have any rites of passage in your created culture?
Are there different rites of passage for different genders or subcultures or social statuses? Are there elaborate ceremonies that lots of people are invited to or very personal ones, like a quest where no one else is allowed to attend?
Are there multiple rites of passage, besides coming of age? Is there a rite of passage for entering a profession or for leaving one? Are there religious only rites of passage or educational ones? Any others I didn't mention or think of?
I've been thinking about it and thought I'd toss this one out for the comm. :)




In the merrow, there are a lot of informal rites of passage, but no formal ceremonies or traditions (at least, not yet I don't think). Some of the events that are celebrated as milestones in life:
In one of my other worlds that I haven't worked on much recently, tattoos are a really big deal in their culture, and they use them to mark just about everything, so they are intricately tied with rites of passage and also a rite of passage in and of themselves.
They get their first tattoos when they're about 5 years old, when they get marked with signifiers of their social status/class and family, and that's a big celebratory event. As they go through life, they accumulate more—education levels, occupations and expertise level within those (apprentice, master, etc.). Often each occupation has a recognizable symbol or location of their tattoo, and the tattoos are more basic the lower you are and become more intricate or larger the higher up you are, and so each time you add to the tattoo is a tangible marker that you've improved and a rite of passage. Criminals are branded with tattoos to warn others of what kind of person they are. And other tattoos are often added that have significance only within a particular group that aren't as widely known—for example, secret societies, family traditions, etc. Often for tattoos that are connected to an organization, there are tattoo ceremonies that happen on a regular basis (most commonly yearly), where everyone within that group who has moved forward gets their new tattoos and is recognized in front of everyone else (think like karate belt ceremonies where usually all the different levels perform and get their new colored belts).
Other tattoos are meant to mark significant events throughout life—for example, marriage involves matching tattoos on the right wrist (signifying the union is permanent, and placing it where it will be frequently seen). With marriage, getting the tattoo IS the marriage ceremony—there is nothing more binding than that. (And if a spouse dies, you completely ink out the marriage tattoo into just a black band.) Binding promises or contracts and especially things like treaties, etc., but that is the very highest form of contract. Often contracts are just marked with language regarding tattoos to symbolize that they are as important as a tattoo.
This is fascinating! I love the ideas here and the way it's integrated into everything. It's funny because I didn't love tattoos until I read Divergent by Veronica Roth (don't judge me :) ), but I do now. I like the idea of using it with marriage and contracts and the tattoo ceremonies! I would so read a story in this world.
Haha! For the record, I created this world BEFORE I read Divergent, haha. And it's funny, because I'm actually not a fan of tattoos myself. I first thought of them just in the context of marriage ceremonies, but then as I thought about it more, I wondered why marriages would be the only thing marked by tattoos, and then suddenly there were tattoos everywhere!
I like this world quite a bit—I think of it as an X-Men story crossed with Cinderella, in a medievalish setting with all my own worldbuilding twists. I got stalled on a few plot points about a year ago and happened to also get really fascinated with a different story idea around that same time, so I never bothered working through those plot issue to keep things going. This makes me kind of want to revisit it though.
I hope you do. Fairy tales and superhumans are my jam. I'm all for it.
Safir rites of passage are closesly guarded secrets; all that is known is that they involve a girl of 15 or 16 (or as late as 20 in some cultures) receiving her adult name, receiving her first — if only — haircut, and “becoming a woman in deed as well as in name” (what this refers to is yet unknown).
Whether males are possessed of any rites of passage, and what they might entail, remains a mystery.
For the Ashikah / Tagani, "(People) of Wind and Fire" / the Clans, there are really only two rites of passage that spring to mind: blooding and ranking. They are a desert people living in a loose confederation of clans and frequently deal with war and harsh survival conditions.
Adults are called "blooded." In the case of women, their first menstruation is sufficient and considered sufficient ordeal. Men fight their year-peers and are ranked in their ability as warriors. Both genders take blooded names when they come of age that are appropriate to who they have proved themselves to be and do not contain the diminutives common to child names.
Ranking is when a new clan Ashreh (leader) must be chosen. All the clans gather when the old Ashreh dies. First, all the blooded men still of warrior age in the clan needing a new Ashreh fight and are ranked, so the new Ashreh will be the one most able to protect his people. Then he is ranked against the other clan leaders and all the clans are ranked anew with the highest ranked clan becoming the High Clan and its Ashreh the leader of all the Ashikah.
It's a bit of a bloody cultural mindset but they have good cause and it's kept them alive.
Vardin:
So in this world, I actually wrote a story about two of their rites of passage, or at least part of them.
"Gifts", i.e. superpowers, manifest at around 7 years old, and a newly manifested child exits the social sphere outside of the family and enters intense training in the use of their gift. The seventh birthday is for this reason quite special and often marked with special stories, teachings, and/or gifts.
Sometime between twelve and sixteen is the usual range for gifted children to be deemed masters of their abilities. When they have sufficiently mastered their abilities, the next opening of court when all the gifted Households repledge themselves as guardians to their nation and queen, these ones undergo the binding ceremony were they take a bound name and pledge themselves for the first time. At this point, they are considered functioning adults for political and professional purposes.
The legal age of adulthood is sixteen years with marriage only permitted at sixteen years and three months. This used to involved an armband ceremony at the annual Festival of Fire and still does optionally. An armband would be designed by someone skilled in matching a person's natural "beat", then it would be burned on to their upper arm with chemicals traditionally used for the purpose. These chemicals interact with the internal systems that allow them to form soulbonds, which are not universal, but it's important because of the partnering ceremony.
Marriage can be made in several ways. A permanent rothnen soulbond being formed, which is physically irrevocable and rooted in biology and so there's no divorce. Only rothnen, those who have the right physiology, can bond in this way. Partnering, which has the exact same legal rules and predates rothnen bonds. This is done by burning your partner's armband on the outside of your own, and it leads to "beats" blending, which is a little complicated to explain, but basically, if the beats don't blend, the usual side effect is arrhythmia. And then there's legal marriage, which involves neither and allows divorce but has much stricter inheritance rules about which child belongs to which Household and has which set of responsibilities. For this reason, the decision to bond or to marry usually comes down to an evaluation of the legal ramifications and logistics rather than any romantic sensibilities. Weddings have traditional dances and songs and a bonding ceremony if called for.
Hunters have the rite of passage when they are able to open and close the Barrier between their world and this one independently or else successfully accomplish their first mission outside without assistance from any other member of their hunt. (Hunters are basically foreign operatives and freelancers to earn funds for their Households rather than hunting animals of any kind.) There is no special celebration but one's status, options, and treatment change once this happens.