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B095506

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Anthropology 1A

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Why is violence a typical

feature of initiation rituals?

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1620

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The Pain of Personhood: Why Violence is a Typical Feature of Initiation Rituals

Initiation, as we see it in both pre-modern societies as well as modern military and gang
culture, demonstrates a tendency to include violence in whatever ritual or process involved in the
initiation. The violence performed during initiation rituals pulls together social groups, triggering
chemical shifts in the victim's brains and an isolation that leads to a longing for attachment (Van
der Kolk, 1989). More than this purely biological effect, violence incorporated into the initiation
acts as a proving ground for the potential members of the social group who are seeking entrance
(Vigil, 1996). Between the psychological effects of initiates proving their worthiness to their

potential society and the endocrinological effects of violence on the initiates, the role and
usefulness of violence within initiation is luminous.
The purely biological effects and psychological reasoning for this violence is best put by
Van der Kolk, who explained,
People seeked increased attachment in the face of danger. Adults, as well as
children, may develop strong emotional ties with people who intermittently harass, beat,
and threaten them. The persistence of these attachment bonds leads to confusion of pain
and love. Assaults lead to hyperarousal states for which the memory can be statedependent or dissociated, and this memory only returns fully during renewed terror. This
interferes with good judgement about these relationships and allows longing for
attachment to overcome realistic fears (Van der Kolk, 1989, p. 15).
This biological and psychological view of violence and its effects on its victims lends a
new light to the role and prevalence of violence in initiation rituals. The burst of violence and
terror described among the Orokaiv would be extremely traumatizing to the children involved,
and these young children seeking admission to the adult society would be prime examples of
people who seek a greater attachment to their new community in the face of their collective
trauma (Whitehouse, 1996). The redefinition of their previous role as mere animals and their
admittance to society as an ascent to personhood heightens this trauma as it emphasizes their past
helplessness and probationary status. By pushing home to the initiates their past nature as mere
animals or pigs, and reversing the process by making the initiates butcher and distribute the pigs
to the larger adult society, the violence of the initiation succeeds in alienating the initiates and
pulling them back to adult society by forcing them to confront their past natures as animals
(Bloch, 1992).

Seen as a whole, the violence of Orokaiv initiation rituals is twofold. The physical
violence of butchering and distributing the pigs, as well as the emotional violence of the ritual
murder of the children as pigs with the parallel butcher of the pigs as an emphasis of their past
inhumanity. Both the physical violence of the initiation and the emotional violence of exclusion
leads to a greater level of attachment between the Orokaiv initiates and their new adult
community. The greater level of bonding springing from this violence validates and explains the
inclusion of violence in Orokaiv initiation rituals. Whitehouse himself describes the
reverberations of the initiation rites. Saying, The vividness and detail of people's memories of
initiation rites are related in part to the surprising and unexpected nature of revelation and in part
to the high level of emotional arousal (Whitehouse, 1996, p. 711). Drawing from Whitehouses
description there seems to be a direct correlation between the violence inherent to the rites of the
Orokaiv and the emotional impact these rites had on the people involved.
We also see this social bonding in the gang initiations of Chicano barrios. Vigil describes
this process,
Social cohesiveness and solidarity is strengthened by the initiation. Each time a
new member is "jumped-in," all the witnesses re-experience their own baptism to connect
with the newcomer. Thus, the event acts as a reaffirmation to solidify the group
psychology of the gang. This mental leap entails that the individual surrenders his
identity and allegiance to the barrio gang (Vigil, 1996).
Vigils account parallels the initiation rites of premodern societies, linking the memories
of pain and degradation with the social cohesion of the group. This shared trauma naturally leads
to an easy transition for initiates into the gang, similar to how a shared traumatic experience, or

physical mutilation, among the Orokaiv (or other premodern cultures) binds the young initiates
to their new adult society (Van Gennep, 1960, p. 150) .
Compounding the biological and psychological benefits of violence in initiation rituals
are the culturally ingrained and social benefits. We see the cultural imperatives for violent
initiations in gangland barrio culture. As Vigil vividly describes,
An initiation is commonly viewed and accepted as an ordeal that entails a
physical beating by several other gang members. Gang entrance ceremonies are most
commonly prescribed for peripheral and temporary members, less often for regular gang
members whose early experiences have tended to lock them into the gang subculture
The beating must also be endured without complaint (although this does not preclude
fighting back); the slightest whimper or other expressed sign of pain could result in
rejection of membership. The initiation thus acts as a prerequisite to weed out the weak
and uncommitted. Successful endurance of the ordeal also reinforces the attraction of
gang membership. Even those informants who admit to substantial trepidation prior to
initiation assert that it enhances their desire to belong to the gang. In fact, the desire to
belong, prove oneself, gain respect, and show loyalty are all intertwined with the
appropriate (by gang standards) role behaviors expected of the initiate (Vigil, 1996, p.
151).
From this we see that violence during the initiation process is less about bonding with the
potential recruit and directly about determining the nature of the initiate. In this context, violence
is a testing ground for potential members of the larger group. It acts as an ultimate test of the
measure of potential initiates, and forces them to display the characteristics necessary to join
their preferred group. More than this though, this tolerance towards pain and violence is seen as

inherently masculine and desirable (Vigil, 1996). Seen from this view, violence is used as a tool
to engrain into, and screen for, stereotypically male characteristics in initiates. In the context of
the barrio the term machismo is used as a definition of the characteristics desired in the potential
gang members (Vigil, 1996). This aggressive embrace of male gender norms, and its inherent
placement of stereotypical male traits as the epitome of desirable characteristics naturally pushes
women down. This is further shown by Virgils lack of details on female gang members and their
role within the barrio society.
The sexist nature of violent initiation is further revealed in the hazing rituals of the
Australian navy. Pearlman describes one horrific example: The commission heard that a 30year-old instructor had a sexual relationship with Eleanore Tibble, a 15-year-old cadet, who was
then threatened with a dishonourable discharge for fraternisation. She took her own life in
2000 at age 16 (Pearlman, 2016). In this situation, violence is used both to instill the desired
stereotypical male characteristics of strength and stoic indifference to pain, as well as a method
of directing preying on a vulnerable woman. This institutionalized misogyny represents the
patriarchal culture that led to and that, at least for a time, lent the initiation rites its tacit
agreement to bully a young woman after brutalizing her. This modern rite then seems to be
directed towards creating stereotypical dominant military men, while pushing women towards a
subservient and secondary role.
Looking at both of these sources we can see that violence is used as an tool of oppression,
aimed specifically towards women. Violence is used either as a method of ingraining desired
stereotypically male characteristics, or as a direct method of oppressing and harming women. It's
easy to understand why a patriarchal society would use violence in its initiation rites when it can

be used as a method of cementing the social status of men within the society and solidifying the
gender role of men within that specific social group.
The reason for the inclusion of violence in initiation rites is twofold. The first is the social
and biologically based attachment that violence leads to, based on the increased desire for
attachment that an emotionally isolated initiate seeks out when confronted by violence. The
second is the use of violence as a weapon of oppression and social cultivation targeting women
and men respectively. Taken together, the use of violence in initiation rituals indicates a broad
desire in the communities to encourage the assimilation of young men into the overarching
patriarchal culture and, in some cases, to brutalize women in a reinforcement of this established
set of norms. The examples, when taken collectively, make it clear that the use of violence in
initiation rituals is a typical feature because it reinforces male behavior, encourages the adoption
of a larger, established patriarchal mindset, and offers an opportunity to demonstrate misogyny
within a socially accepted framework.

Bibliography

1) Bloch, M. (1992) Prey into Hunter, Chap. 2 Initiation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 8-23. Shelfmark: BL570 Blo.
2) Virgil, James (1996) Street Baptism: Chicano Gang Initiation. Human Organization: Summer
1996, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 149-153.
3) Pearlman, Johnathan. Australian navy recruits 'forced to rape each other' during initiation
rituals, edited by Chris Evans, The Telegraph, June 2016,

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/21/australian-navy-recruits-forced-to-rape-each-otherduring-initia/. Accessed 31 Oct. 2016.

4) Van Gennep, A. (1960) The Rites of Passage, Chap. 6, Initiation Rites. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, pp. 65-115. Shelfmark: GN473 Gen.
5) Van der Kolk, Bessel A. "The compulsion to repeat the trauma." Psychiatric Clinics of North
America 12.2 (1989): 389-411.
6) Whitehouse, H. (1996) Rites of Terror: Emotion, Metaphor and Memory in Melanesian
Initiation Cults. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 703-715.