Liminality- Meghan Herrity

When explaining spiritual journey and pilgrimage Turner tells that it is because of being in the liminal state that the spiritual experiences are so heightened. Liminality or the liminal state is a term used by researchers and anthropologists to refer to one of the three stages of right of passage. A right of passage could be anything from academic such as; the levels of schooling and graduating from one to move on to the next, to cultural right of passage; including the jewish right of passage and the right of passage in indigenous tribes. A great example of the three stages of right of passage is the Ticuna tribe’s right of passage. The Ticuna is a indigenous tribe in Peru and Columbia, and in this tribe they celebrate the right of passage of girls of the tribe transforming from girls into women. The process begins with the first stage, known as the separation stage, shortly after a girls first menstrual cycle, she is placed in a room of isolation. So in this way she is no longer a child she is separated from that identity. The next stage is the liminal stage, or betwixt or between. At this time the girls are nothing, neither a child or a women, they are kept in this room of isolation for months, only being visited by elders who give instruction on how to be an adult in the tribe and the new responsibilities that they will take on as well as tell stories and legends of the tribe. Once the girls are ready to leave, they begin as Turner would say the aggregation stage, or process of reintroduction to the social order with a new standing. When the girls leave isolation, they are made to wear traditional tribal headpieces and masks and perform a series of ceremonial rituals and dances. In the end of the ceremony the girls are placed into the water with an infant, to symbolically mark their entering into womanhood. It is through liminality that people have spiritual experience and is often the reason that people go on these pilgrimages.

-12/03/10