Ritual passage, sacred journey: the process and organization of religious movement

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Book

Title:	Ritual passage, sacred journey: the process and organization of religious movement
Author:	Werbner, Richard P.
Year:	1989
Language:	English
Series:	Smithsonian series in ethnographic inquiry
City of publisher:	Washington, DC
Publisher:	Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN:	087474976X; 071901929X
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	Islam pilgrimages African religions religious rituals rites of passage
Abstract:	This book is about religious movement as a ritual passage and a sacred journey. The ritual passage, the main subject in the first half of the book, is a process of symbolic action focused upon the body. The second half of the book is devoted to the kind of sacred journey that has both a special focus and a distinct basis of its own. It is the sacred journey focused upon a sacred centre, to and from which the journey takes place, and based upon sacred exchange across community and other boundaries. The ethnography comes primarily from southern and western Africa and the Lowlands of New Guinea, but also from Sri Lanka, North Africa and South America. Special attention is given to the Northern Tswapong of Botswana and the Kalanga of Botswana and Zimbabwe, where the author carried out fieldwork repeatedly since 1960.