Analysis of Feminine Votive Charity based on Rites de Passage Theory

Abstract

Rites are a collection of actions and speeches held in a culture and community and believe that existence of the effective presence of supernatural beings can influence them in particular ways. A number of them are collective rituals, which votive charities are from this group. A significant portion of them are performed only by women and only in the presence of women. In this article, we have attempted to answer the question of how can the votive charities in Iran be regarded as a rites de passage? According to the results of the survey, these small communities, though not defined by Arnold Van Gennep, are not fully indicative of rites de passage stages; but with the more developed Turner's perspective, the components of these rituals can show Turner's stages. The present research is based on recognition of a part of Iranian women rituals that have been so far less scientifically explored, and are usually only referred to as folk customs. Therefore, a number of votive charity in five regions, have been studied by qualitative method using rites de passage theory based on the analysis of ritual components according to the nature of the passage stages. It can be said that there have been examples of communities and liminality, as well as the forms of the sacrament transmission.

Keywords

• rites de passage
• communities
• votive charity
• arnold van gennep
• victor turner