Heat, physiology, and cosmogony: rites de passage among the Thonga

Heusch, Luc de

essay

Heat, physiology, and cosmogony: rites de passage among the Thonga

explorations in african systems of thought • Bloomington • Published In 1980 • Pages: 27-43

By: Heusch, Luc de.

Abstract
This document discusses rites de passage of young children in Thonga society. Focusing on the yandla rite, the document offers a privileged reading of the semantic web, spun by both the succession of gestures and the manipulation of objects. It concludes with a theoretical argument proposing that 'the ritual acts, far from abolishing thought, belong to implicit or explicit codes, that action and thought form one and the same system.'

Puberty and initiation

Cultural identity and pride

Ceremonial during infancy and childhood

Purification and atonement

Disasters

Difficult and unusual births

Ethnometeorology