The classic boy's coming of age ritual consists of a forcible separation from boyhood and his mother by divine beings, usually the ancestors, who test him, teach him, and accept him. The ancestors can be either of two types, the biological or the mythological. The meaning in either case is that these are the ones who have done these things before and have made them sacred. These are men, and they are the ones who can make the boy a man. They are the fathers, whose approval is necessary if the boy is to grow up.
A boy's coming of age of necessity involves more of an ordeal than a girl's. The boy does not have the major body signals to convince him that he has indeed become a man. He must feel tested and he must feel that he has passed that test. Anything else will leave him in doubt of his manhood. There must be no doubt; that is the whole point of having this ritual in the first place.
The adolescent boy must be accepted by the world of the fathers. If the separation from the mother is not done he will do it himself, with adolescent rebellion with all its dangers. (Perhaps the dangers are its appeal. He seeks an ordeal.) If he is not ritually accepted by the fathers, he will spend his life trying to prove his adulthood, with all the dangers for society (and himself) that this entails.
This is why there must be fathers to be accepted by in the ritual. It is most important for the boy's own father to be there. If that is absolutely impossible, the father's part must be take by an adult male whom the boy respects and to whom he is close. If there is no one who fills this role, the ritual will not work. A boy needs a male role model to grow up. If he has none, growing up will last into adult life and may never be done at all.
In Celtic myth there is a tradition of youths being given their adult names and their weapons by their mothers. This reflects nicely the Pagan belief that power has its source in the Goddess.
But among the Sioux, young men took their names from something important they had done or that came to them in their vision quests. The point here is that manhood is something which must be seized; it is not something given.
The Sioux way reflects well the experience of becoming a man in America. Boys feel they must earn the right to manhood and would not accept it if offered freely. Whether this is good or bad I will not debate here. But that this is the way it is can be demonstrated in the lives of almost all men. If you wish to change this, a puberty rite is too late. (I doubt whether it can be changed at all; the pressures of society are very strong.) A puberty rite must work, and it must work with what it has. Choose your symbols carefully to create the effect you want.
Ritual:
It is best to perform this rite at a Pagan gathering. This provides an appropriate place, a group of interested adults, and some time before the ritual in a sacred environment. If this is not possible, perform it during some sort of vacation, a camping trip perhaps. This will serve to mark the time and place as special, as outside of the ordinary routine.
As soon as possible after arriving at the gathering hold a sweatlodge. This is intended to purify the boy and to impress on him the seriousness of the coming ritual. If it is not possible to build a sweatlodge, or if no one present is sufficiently experienced to run one, perform some other purification ritual, preferably involving water. A sauna makes a good substitute for a sweatlodge, provided it is held in a ritual manner. Part of the purification rite is a removal of his name:
Your name has been eaten.
You are in-between:
Nameless, unborn, unfinished.
From this point until the naming in the ritual he is addressed by everyone as "boy."
After the purification rite or sweatlodge, give the boy something to mark that he is a candidate for initiation. This could be a special article of clothing, or a piece of jewelry, or especially a mark such as a white streak across his face. Restrict his diet. If he is an omnivore, he might be forbidden to eat meat. If he is a vegetarian, he might be required to eat meat. Other possibilities include androgynous clothing, undyed clothing, eating only with his fingers, restrictions on speaking, and eating mainly dairy products. Each of these has its own meaning. In androgynous clothing he is marked as neither male nor female, the original state in the womb before differentiation. Undyed clothing is a sign of the untransformed person. Eating with fingers is the mark of the unacculturated. Babies and the unborn do not speak. Milk is the food of infants. In these ways he is marked as someone who is about to be reborn and is separated from those who aren't (as well as from those who are).
At some point during the gathering, without warning or the boy's knowledge of the exact time, he is kidnapped by the initiating men. This is done at sunset. If it can be contrived for the boy to be watching the sunset with his mother and younger siblings, so much the better. At the least he should be with his mother.
A blanket is thrown over his head from behind and he is brought, perhaps carried, perhaps dragged, to the initiatory cabin. This can be any structure, a cabin, tent, or house, as long as it is big enough. It must be set off in some way, in the wilds apart from other buildings.
When the initiate is inside, the blanket is removed. Around him are the men who have brought him there. They are all masked. They represent the ancestors. In front of him is a man, preferably his father. He must be a man whom the boy regards as a role model. He wears a God mask. This could be a God mask, complete with antlers, or a Kachina mask, or a Green Man mask, or any kind that fits with the tradition of the family. If the ancestors are represented in the family shrine by full size masks, the male ancestor mask is a good choice. What is important is that it completely disguise its wearer and that it be instantly recognizable by the boy as the mask of a male sacred being. This man says:
You have been brought here
into the dark
to where the ancestors wait,
all the men who have gone this way before you;
to where the God waits,
He who began this way and who is its guardian.
You have been brought to your testing place.
Do you wish the test?
He replies in the affirmative. The man continues:
You have been brought here
into the dark
where demons lurk
where the unknown lives
where dangers hide in the shadows.
You have been brought to your testing place.
Do you wish the test?
He again replies. The man continues:
You have been brought here
into the dark
the dark of the womb
which gives birth
the dark of the earth
which receives you at death
the dark of grave and cave
which hold mysteries dark and deep.
You have been brought to your testing place.
Do you wish the test?
He again replies. The man continues:
You have been brought here against your will.
No one asked you if you wanted to come to this point in your life.
But you have decided to undergo the testing.
There was no choice but to be presented with the test
To undergo it was your own choice.
Hear me, ancestors.
Hear me, men.
I give him over to you to be tested.
The ancestors strip the boy and make him white with ashes or powdered chalk. They say:
The boy has died.
He has gone into the dark.
There is no way out but through.
They may say this once or repeat it over and over as they paint him. When they are done he is led into the wild. There he spends the night alone. Before they leave the ancestors wrap him in a blanket. Although this serves the practical purpose of making the ordeal less severe, it also has the symbolic value of standing for the amniotic sac, or caul. Among some people, to be born still in this sac is a sign of special power. During this ordeal, unless you are in a very safe place, it is best if one of the men stays within earshot or in a place from which he can observe the boy, to make sure the boy will be OK. We are trying to make a man, not a corpse.
He spends the night alone in vision quest. He must stay awake all night and see what comes to him. If against all his efforts he falls asleep he must remember his dreams.
In the morning, during false dawn, he is brought to a place from which the rising sun can be seen. The men once again have their ancestor masks on. The man in the God mask is not there. The boy is brought blindfolded and in silence. It is best if the last stretch is up a hill. (It is in the high places that the God of Sky and Sun is encountered.) At the end of the walk he is faced east and the blindfold is removed so that he sees the rising sun. When the sun has risen all the way, what is left of the white is wiped off. The blanket is put back on for a second and then removed. In this way his final birth is enacted. He is then turned to face west (thereby standing in the direction of birth, facing towards his death, having been reborn like the sun). The God figure from before is there now. He says:
You have returned from the night.
What vision have you brought us?
The boy then tells what happened on his quest. From the vision(s) the man in the mask derives a name. He says:
The man has had a vision
The man has found a name
You are [name]
You are a man.
The boy then goes from man to man. Each removes his mask and hugs the initiate, saying:
Welcome, [old name].
Welcome, [new name].
Welcome to manhood.
After he has been welcomed by all the other men he is brought by them to the man in the God mask. The man in the mask calls him by his new name. When the initiate answers, the man says:
You have been called.
You have answered.
You have done what needed to be done.
You have gone through.
You have endured within.
You have come out.
And here you stand on the other side.
A man.
Welcome, [new name].
Welcome.
He takes off the mask and give it to the initiate, who puts it on. The new man faces each of the other men, who salute him in turn. He finally faces the sun for a second and then takes the mask off and hands it back to his father.
After the new man has been dressed in new clothes, there is a procession, with much noise -- drums, bells, bullroarers -- to where the women and children wait. The new man is greeted by the women and a party is held with presents and dancing. At the party the new man is blessed by his parents in the same way a new woman would be.
After the party, the men gather again in the cabin or tent where the ritual started. The new man is of course there. They drum and dance and talk, teaching the new man what it is to be a man. Subjects can include sex, jobs, the proper treatment of women, fatherhood, homosexuality, the nature of masculinity, and even those topics stereotypically associated with men -- sports, finance, etc. The meeting goes on for as long as is necessary, and both begins and ends in drumming.
In the days after the ritual the new man makes a mask of his own. He must take part in the next coming of age, this time as one of the initiators. In this way he begins to take on the sacred responsibilities of being a man, and acknowledges that the way a student repays his debt to his teachers is by passing the teaching on.
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