Additionally, there is more to a puberty ceremony than just changing into an adult, because there is much that goes on in the four day ceremony. It is in our tradition that the meaning of this ceremony is similar to the change from adolescence to an adult. I interview Gj Gordy from the Good Shepard Mission in Fort Defiance, Arizona. She stated that, “Yes. There is a lot that goes in the kinaalda, there is no time to rest or be lazy. You always have to do something or prepare things for the next event because for the four days it is all about you so, if you mess up then you mess up your ceremony. That is why we have to get everything perfect and right so in life we won’t mess up and we’ll get it right the first time around” (Gordy. Interview). Many ceremonies events are all different for each girl. Some families have different evens that they want their child to do but, mostly all follow the same even. For example the first day the girl will get her hair combed, dress in nice clothing and jewelry, be molded if it’s her second ceremony, run in the morning and evening, start to grind corn and start to prepare for her alkaad (ceremony cake). The second day consist of running, corn grinding and continue her preparations. The third …show more content…
day she runs, corn grinds for the last time, she begins to dig her pit, make mush and make her cake, then it will be cooked all night until the next day and stays up all night until morning . The fourth day she runs, makes her offerings, she can lift the children or help the sick, gets her hair retired and finally passes out her cake. This is all done the first time when a girl gets her menstrual cycle then again when she gets her second. Most times the families will only do it once when she first gets it and that is still ok. The Navajo puberty ceremony celebrates the maturity of the girl hood (Dec. 2010. Web). First, the girl usually bathes and dresses in her finest clothes (Dec. 2010. Web). She also has to have her hair in a certain way. If her hair is in her face, she cannot move her hair behind her ear or from her face because it is said she will lose her hair. Later, there is her ideal role model that is chosen to stretch her, facing downward on a blanket just outside the Hogan, with her head towards the door (Dec. 2010. Web). Then in the mornings of every ceremony, she must run toward the east, running for about one quarter of a mile then back, but she can also go as long as she wants too (Dec. 2010. Web). She would do this every morning and evening until the puberty ceremony is over (Dec. 2010. Web). She also has to run before the sun comes up, so when the sky is still at dawn and the light hasn’t touch the sky and the earth hasn’t received its rays from the sun. By doing this every morning and evening it gives her strength, lithe and activeness throughout her womanhood (Dec. 2010. Web). There are certain rules that the girl has to follow during the ceremony. One, she must not eat any food containing salt or sugar because it will invite laziness and ugly at an early age (Dec. 2010. Web). Two, she must refrain from scratching herself for they will make ugly scars on her body (Dec. 2010. Web). Third, she is not allowed to play with children or be around them, if she does that will create her still being a child in her life. She must refrain from socializing with them throughout her whole ceremony until it is done. Fourth, she is not to eat anything else but mush and bread until the ceremony is done only then she can eat what she desires. She has to always wake up early before the sun does and have to keep helping out with the ceremony. She has to put as much effort into this as a woman would. In a ceremony there is always lots of work to do, sometimes you do the same thing every day. For instance, from the first to the third day of the ceremony, the girl must start to grind corn for the alkaad or Navajo cake (Dec. 2010. Web). Then usually on the fourth day, the medicine man gives the girl clay so that she can used it to put on the cheeks, chin, hands, and forehead of the guests and families. She also has to stretch them for their blessing. She has to hold them by the neck and push up to stretch them. This can symbolize respect and future blessings. There are certain ways that many people make their alkaad or ceremony cake. The alkaad should only be made when there is a kinaalda going on because, when you make the alkaad, you use children’s saliva which represents the people who eat it to be young and the children’s spit already have the nutrients and sweetness it has to the cake. Other times most people substitute these with brown sugar, raisins and germinated wheat (Jimmy. July. Web). When you make your alkaad there are certain tools that you must use that you can’t find anywhere else except Mother Nature. These tools include: stirrings sticks, which is made from greasewood branches and they are put together by string of cloth, and grinding stones. Other tools that are used to help make the cake are mixing bowls, parchment paper, boiling water, corn husk, aluminum foil, and corn meal which is usually grinded by the girl during the ceremony (Jimmy. July. Web). When you make a cake it is fun because everyone gets involved. After the girl is done making her cake she must cut it a certain way starting from the east. She has to first cut in a circular motion and that is given to the members, then the middle is given to the grandmother and the medicine man (Mislav. 12. Web). This would be the first ceremony that would take place as the girl goes through two ceremonies sometimes and during these ceremonies the girl has the power to heal, she can lift small children and help the sick (Mislav. 12. Web). Every girl that is part or full Navajo must go through this tradition. It is said that if one does not get her ceremony done she will be lazy and have misfortune come her way. The socialization that forms during the whole cake process creates a bond between the individuals and those who assist, there for a person will never be alone (Jimmy.
2013. Web). Once the girl has finished all her activities she then can distribute her cake to all that helped. She can’t have her own Navajo cake that she has made due to taboo. The Navajo cake is usually cooked underground. The circle hole in the ground has to have corn husk on it in order for the sand not to get into the cake. Then there needs to be an extra layer of corn husk on the top of the alkaad. This is usually done on the last night of the ceremony. Then they can put the cake underground and it can cook for a certain amount of time. The cake has to be cooked
overnight. I asked Gj more about her kinaalda she responded with “Mine was fun. I had a lot of responsibility and a lot of work to do. It was nice seeing family from all over coming together to help me with my special day. I’d have to admit it that it was a little embarrassing to let everyone know what happened, but I got over my shame and took my ceremony with pride a kinaalda is a lot of hard work but, it is also your day” (Gordy. Interview).
There are a number of activities that take place during the ceremony and each part has its own purpose and significance. As a whole, the procession takes place over a course of four days and within a decent amount of time of the first menstruation. However, in the event of the child being away at boarding school they will go home immediately or if this is not an option then the ceremony must be postponed. The ordering of events take place over the course of the four days directly relate to the myth of the origins of Kinaalda. For instance, in Marie Shirley’s Kinaalda the order and the events that take place resemble closely the events that took place during the mythical origin story. For Shirley’s own ceremony the events that take place include: hair-combing, dressing, molding, race one and race two, nighttime activities, and several others. To prepare for the events that will take place, the people involved do things such as shelling corn and cleaning the hogan. On the first day of the ceremony the girls involved have their hair combed to make the girl resemble Changing Woman and are dressed in their ceremonial clothing, which include adornments of silver and turquoise. When wearing the jewelry some feel that this is a testament of her future. If she wears large amounts of jewels then this will mean she will have a rich life full of success. Usually after the dressing is the lifting of the people. This is something that Changing Woman did during her own ceremony, as a way to thank the people for their gifts (Wheelwright, 1942). They are then to lay on their stomach to begin the process of the molding; this relates to the first girl’s kinaalda myth in which “she was molded and pressed so she would have a good figure” (T...
The marriage practices for the Navajo Indians are very unique. The bride must be bought with horses, sheep, or other valuable items. What many Navajo Indians used to use in the 40’s were love potions. These love potions include many plants and herbs in them, and were used to make someone fall in love with someone else. In many traditions for Navajo weddings they used a lot of plants and herbs. After the wedding ceremony they would have a big feast. The main food at the feast was always corn.
The setting of a novel aids in the portrayal of the central theme of the work. Without a specific place and social environment, the characters are just there, with no reason behind any of their actions. The Age of Influence centers around the Old New York society during the 1870’s. Most of the characters are wealthy upper class citizens with a strict code to follow. The protagonist, Newland Archer, lives in a constant state of fear of being excluded from society for his actions. Archer’s character is affected by standard New York conventions as well as the pressure to uphold his place in society, both of which add to Wharton’s theme of dissatisfaction.
Other tribes are reported to extend the ceremony over eight days. This dance, like other Indian rituals and ceremonies is not rehearsed. There are many provisions that need to take place in order to prepare for the ceremony. In the week prior to the dance, the Sun Dance chief arrives early to set up his campsite and oversee the raising of the ceremonial tipi that the dancers dress and prepare in (McGaa 85). The Sun Dance chief is said to be the most respected holy man with in the tribe.
For all teens, the transition into adulthood is generally seen as a challenging and scary process. For teens diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as well as their caregivers, this transition is often more complicated. The period of transition for individuals with ASD into adulthood is intensely more challenging due to their “unique characteristics, the lack of services that address the special needs of such individuals in adulthood, and the expectations of society for a typical path to adulthood in the face of atypical problems” (Geller and Greenberg, 2009, pg. 93). Without the necessary resources to transition, teens with ASD find themselves unprepared for life at work, in college, or community living. Through this paper, the reader will obtain knowledge in regards to what ASD is, the barriers it yields concerning the transition into adulthood, and the effects it has on the individual as well
Throughout our research, we have discovered that circumcision plays a big role in the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. After coming across this article, it became clear that the benefits of circumcision are not widely known, even in doctors and nurses who play a role in performing the neonatal male circumcisions. This article is important to our project because it shows that even though circumcision is effective in the prevention against sexually transmitted infections, along with promoting proper hygiene, 62% of health care workers did not think that neonatal circumcision would help in the prevention of HIV.
Colleges and schools where both females and males are educated together are termed to be “coeducational.” Long previous to our modern day society, segregating male and female in education systems was considered the “norm.” During these traditionally dominant ancient times, coeducation was prevalent in Europe and the idea of integrating such unique groups became such a phenomenon. This widespread of coeducation was eventually developed in American countries and has grown to be a universally accepted mode of education. Not only was this idea “new” and “innovative,” but it also crossed the line of our ancestor’s valued practice of tradition. Although this system went against what tradition honored, this new system of education generated comradery between individuals of the opposite sex and has knowledged them of skills one was unable to exercise in a single-sex educational environment. Coeducation, being the more modern system of education, has caused single-sex systems to become more outdated and inconvenient to society’s evolving standards. Exposure to the opposite sex introduces students life skills vital to a professional workfield thus, it shows males and females the importance of maintaining a symbiotic relationship and how they benefit from one another. Schools worldwide should consider the practice of educating students of both sexes in the same educational institution to allow for opportunity for one to build character in accordance to our evolving society and acquire flexibility in social skills.
Gender differences are influences on gender behavior in the way that one must fit through the assumptions and inevitable confusion to distinguish the reality of the assumption. Men and women are obviously different inherently, but not in what they can and cannot do. Men and women are different and have different roles because this is society presented them to the world. Women have the most difficulty getting through these complicated times. There should be equality among all men and women of all races and ethnicity. This is a never-ending issue. We as a society should always know and act on the importance of gender roles, gender equality, and challenges with education in developed and developing countries.
When separating men and women according to gender, most people would do it based on physical appearance. Would you have ever thought that you can tell whether someone is man or woman according to psyche? Psychological gender differences have had a long history dating back for more than a century. The use psychological research on women began in 1879 which also marks the beginning of formal psychology. Any research done during these years was mostly used to the notion that the white male was supreme over everyone else. This belief is a gender stereotype and children develop their gender based beliefs on such things. I believe children should develop their gender based beliefs from studies that are unbiased and doesn’t favor one gender over another.
The Reproductive System allows for two individuals of the opposite sex to create a new being of their own. In humans we have two different types of reproductive systems, Male and Female. The female reproductive system’s goal is to produce and care for an egg till it is ready to be born. The male reproductive system’s goal is to produce semen to fertilize the egg. When this egg grows for about 9 months, it is born into the world. Without one or the other, a baby cannot be made.
The dictionary defines rites of passage as ceremonies that mark important transitional periods in a person’s life. It usually involves rituals and teachings that help shed their old roles and prepares them for their new roles. Although all boys and girls will go through a rite of passage to be considered an adult, the path they will take will differ greatly. The common point I have found them all to have is the age range at which this usually occurs, which is between 13 and 16. Some will have to endure task while some participate in celebrations. Some are extremely dangerous in nature while others are less formal and less challenging. All of them require preparations and learning rituals, languages, or dance. I will focus on the puberty phase and how different cultures mark this transition.
There’s a common notion that sex in your 40s becomes dull and not as exciting as when you were younger. But the truth is that sex can even more satisfying during the crucial age, especially for women, because with all the years they’ve had they’ve gotten to know themselves better and what it really takes to please them.
When little girls are in the process of growing into women, there are certain changes that take place. The first major change that will take place is puberty. Puberty is a stage in life when girls will begin to mature both mentally and physically. The physical aspect of maturation will be changes of your body, such as, growing breast, growing body hair, widening of hips, weight and height gain. Puberty takes place at different times for different people, and takes longer for some than it does for others. Puberty is often a hard time, emotionally, especially with female, because of uncertainty and the drastic changes of the body.
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.
The prevalence of sexology literature and scholarship was and remains to be a topic of discourse when questions to the origins of a ‘homosexual’ identity arise. In today’s society, one usually points to the New York City Stonewall Riots in 1969 as the beginning for the recognition of homosexual love and identity. Indeed, this event remains to be an important marker in queer* history, but there are many scholars in various interdisciplinary fields who would instead argue that emergence of homosexuality as an identity stemmed from medical and psychiatric research carried out by German psychiatrists and doctors.