Roni Langley

LBST 2102-338
Tina Katsanos
Of Water and the Spirit
1.
Bakhyes funeral ritual is an ideological one. The beginning of the ritual starting with his
separation of his soul and body. It is believed in his culture that while his body is dead, his
spirit is living and in those moments, he is neither completely in the physical world or
completely in the spirit world. For the transitional period, it is critical that the community is
grieving whether that be through crying, chanting, or dancing. The ritual is equally for the
community as it is for the dead and open emotion is encouraged so that the community can
be brought together in their grief. This shared mourning unites all the people to the deads
spirit so that in the final stage of re-incorporation Bakhyes spirit is spread among his people
and given back to his community so that his ancestral spirit remains bound to his people. The
liminal symbols included his bow and staff representing to his community his strength both
in the physical world as a warrior/hunter and provider but also as his spiritual strength as he
lead the community as a medicine man and his connection to his history.
Funerals in western culture are very different in nature. Though we also come together in
mourning, it is usually less as a community all people as one mourning and more of a support
effort for the immediate family. We gather and instead of being open in our emotions, find it
awkward if people are crying openly and we ourselves try to mask emotion to put up fronts
of strength. We dont think of the person as going back into their community or family but
instead as being gone. The natives rituals and funerals allow for the spirit and the person to
live on in their people and so each story and life continues after its physical existence ends
but western funerals mark a distinct ending and finality of spriit.
2.
The education within his own culture would be revolving around learning about your
ancestry, the spiritual world, the way of the community, and your place within the village life.
One main focus of the natives teachings is learning to bind your soul and body to become a
whole person. They dont believe that you are born a whole person like we do in western
culture, they believe that you must learn to bind your ancestral spirit to your physical body.

This process not only connects you to your culture but it also ushers you into adulthood, it is
a rite of passage that is taught through learning about yourself, your spirit, your history, and
your community.
Some is put through a terrible experience at the seminary school, he is whipped to forget
his own language and then forced to learn French. He receives a general education that would
help him in the western world but denied an education that would advance him in his own
culture. The differences are stark, standing apart one education revolving around the spirit
and the community and the other revolving around getting ahead in the social world and
looking out for the self.
My own education had definitely been more centered around the seminary style of
learning. I feel like the wester way of education is to teach people how to get ahead in the
world and how to achieve over others, trying to separate us as competing individuals instead
of one people. My other education came from my parents who taught me the importance of
blood relatives and of those who we pick as our family. At a young age they taught me to
love the earth and appreciate the world around me as well as see all people as equal but still
different according to their strengths and passions. I feel like that education was more similar
to the native education because it made me learn a lot about myself and about being in
community with others.
3.
Malidoma Some must undergo life initiation because he has been divided, body and soul,
disconnected from his culture and language, and forced to embrace a new culture instead. His
elders are concerned that the influence of the outside world will have a negative effect on the
community and on his ability to function as a part of that community, they believe that his
ancestral spirit is apart from his body. In their culture one cannot be a man or have anything
important to their life or spirit happen until his spirit and body are one. He is so
unaccustomed to the village life that he must relearn how to work in the village and even
how to eat in his community.
The initiation that he goes through is a rite of passage ritual for each boy to find his
center and make the transition into manhood, Somes ritual is to bind his spirit to his body.
This journey not only challenges him spiritually as he tries to recreate his connection with his
ancestry and his people but it also challenges him physically. Through his journey he is

embraced by a spiritual green lady, bravely walks on the back of alligators and joins the
flames in union. His movement into the animals body as his womb is a symbol that shows
him leaving his past self behind in death as it is also his tomb as his is reborn a new man.
This process was a part of the three stages. He had to be separated and set apart from his
people so that he could focus on his spiritual journey, he was transitioned through the fire and
the spirit world, and then re-incorporated into his culture a new man.
4.
Naming and Destiny are connected in Somes culture. His name means To be friends
with the stranger/enemy and because of his kidnapping and the outside environment that he
was brought up in, he got an education that allowed him to communicate with the outside
worlds. I very much believe that Some met his destiny on several occasions, first being at the
seminary. The people who took him were strangers to his culture and enemies to himself,
they wronged him on all accounts but it was his destiny to be there.
Later in life, using the knowledge that he gained from his experiences there he is sent on
a mission from his elders out into the world. His strange upbringing, torn between the culture
he had to fight for and the one he had forced upon him, enabled him to see more of the world
than he would have ever been able to otherwise and connect to more cultures than just his
own. The elders and leaders in his community know that in the changing world they cannot
be stones against a river so they tell him he is the way that the goat and the hyena can walk
together, meaning that he can be the bridge between western culture and his own.
Even though his first encounters with the strangers and enemies of his culture were
forced on him, he later chose to go back out into the world and befriend the other cultures
around him and bring that knowledge to his home. This action of being in community to his
own culture and home but also befriending the stranger of the outside world represents his
name.