Rites of passage
In business organizations, a new employee while having undergone orientation and training in order to be a functioning member of the group will find that he still does not really belong until he is accepted by the rest of the group. Not included in the company manual are the group norms that he must adhere to and practices that he must engage in or be part of in order to become one with them. Such entry conditions could range from joining regular social affairs (sometimes drinking bouts where one’s ability to hold his drinks is tested), sharing of one’s good fortune (blowouts on winnings and commissions), be part of a mutual aid mechanism (paluwagan) to a commonality in clothes and behavior.
This practice in business enterprise groups is actually one that exists in all historically known societies marking the passage from one social or religious status to another. The ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his book “The Rites of Passage” introduced the term which is now fully adopted into anthropology as well as into the literature and popular cultures of many modern languages. In the first chapter of his book, van Gennep states, “Each larger society contains within it several distinctly separate groupings … In addition; all these groups break down into still smaller societies in subgroups.” One undergoes passage when an individual leaves one group to enter another (from unemployed to being employed; from one company to a new company; from one unit to another.
Van Gennep identifies three phases of this passage – preliminal (separation), liminal (threshold) and postliminal (incorporation). In the first stage, a person withdraws from his current status and prepares to move from one phase to another. He begins a detachment form his previous group as happens when one leaves a company (farewells and less communication with former associates). The transitional stage is when one has left the first group but has still not entered the next because he is still undergoing “initiation” rites. The final stage means the initiate has completed the rites and has assumed a “new” identity, re-enters society with one’s new status, proclaimed by a company insignia (subgroups within an enterprise could have their one symbols) or a calling card.
Fortunately for employees, they do not have to undergo “crazy rituals” as listed by Brian Pegg in his blog and seen in list25.com. with the following examples. The Vanuatu tribe uses land diving similar to bungee jumping but using vines instead of elastic chords. The jumper’s goal is to brush his head on the ground; if he survives he’s a man. Mr. Pegg notes, “a very lucky, lucky man”. The Maasai people of Tanzania and Kenya replace their warrior class every 6-10 years. The potential replacements are circumcised, placed into a warrior camp and are considered warriors only after they have killed a lion with only a spear. Regretfully, when I visited Dar-el-Salam in Tanzania, I was not aware of this practice; otherwise I would have sought it out.
Called the “Vision Quest,” many Native American tribes would send their young men off into the wild for several days during a period of intense fasting in order to find direction for their lives and become adults. The boys of the Matis tribe in Brazil go through a more dangerous and painful rites of passage. To go on the hunt, they have a bitter poison dumped into their eyes in order to “improve” their vision; beaten and whipped and finally endure the excruciating conclusion to the trial in which they inject themselves with the poison of the Giant Leaf Frog using wooden needles.
No wonder in the Philippines some have referred to the rites of passage in fraternities as “barbaric” as the practices of the ancient tribes may have been copied by those who live in a concrete jungle. Having undergone the rites of passage as a frat man, it is my belief that the best initiation is one that follows strictly the rituals, have members who are steeped in the fraternity’s traditions and purposes of the rituals, and know that the end of the exercise is to have brothers who will carry on the noble traditions. Certainly not to have a dead initiate. Just like in business, one wants and needs a useful and passionate employee working for the company’s goals and society’s success.
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