The Ritual Process Summary

About the Author:
Victor Witter Turner (May 28,1920-December 18,1983) was a British cultural anthropologist. He is well known for his works on rituals, symbols and rites of passage. He was born in Glasgow,
Scotland, to Norman and Violet Turner. After serving in WW 2, he got interested in studying anthropology. Later he worked as research officer for the Rhodes Livingstone Institute for
Sociological which was founded in 1938 by a group of researcher from Victoria University of
Manchester to study the ways in which permanent and satisfactory relationships can be established between natives and non-natives of South Africa.
Understanding the Society and the Symbols of the Ndembus
Introduction:
Ndembu tribe of Zambia was V.W. Turner 's lifelong

In the book, we can find the author 's detailed study of Ndembu rituals, their interpretations and sometimes their comparisons, author 's extensive study on liminality and communitas. As one reads Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process, one will find that the book is divided into two sections. The first half, i.e. the chapters one and two, deals mainly with the rituals and the role of symbolism in Ndembu rituals and these chapters give very specific details about representations the binary contradictions through Ndembu rituals. On the other hand the rest of the book deals with the main argument of the book that is based on the relationship between the concepts of liminality and communitas that arise from his analysis of rituals and also their inter dependence with the concept of structure in Ndembu society. The book comprises of five chapters Planes of
Classification in a Ritual of Life and Death, Paradoxes of Twinship in Ndembu Ritual, Liminality and Communitas, Communitas: Model and Process, Humility and Hierarchy: The Liminality of
Status Elevation and Reversal respectively.
Ndembus are the kind of people in whose lives ritual occupies a prominent place. Turner, though initially was not a person whose study was focused on rituals, became attached to the study

Here the author tries to confine himself to study the empirical aspects of religion and tries to elicit some of the properties of African rituals. The Bantu speaking Ndembus, together with their northern and western neighbors, the Lunda of the
Katanga, the Luvale, Chokwe, and the Luchazi, attach great importance to ritual. But their eastern neighbors, the Kaonde and the Ila, although they practice much ritual, appear to have had fewer distinct kinds of rites, a somewhat less consisting of symbolisms. Ndembu people believe in a High God, in ancestral spirits and of different kind of rites.
Extracting the Hidden Symbols:
Turner criticizes many of the social scientists for either ignoring religious rituals entirely in their analysis or engaging in inadequate analysis of the rituals. Social scientists studying Central
Africa have altogether ignored the central importance of rituals in understanding tribal societies.
Even those who studied religion and recognize its importance in social life, explain