Word: ritual
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...discussing his many problems with Rajasthan's chief provincial minister, a cop interrupted their talk to whisper an urgent message in his ear. Hastily excusing himself, Surana raced with his cops to the nearby village of Lahardi, arriving just in time to halt another and even grislier religious ritual. Instead of attending a government-sponsored rally in honor of the dignity of manual labor, as they were supposed to, the peasants of Lahardi had flocked en masse to a hillock to watch a holy man being buried alive...
...Corliss Lament's macabre ritual [TIME, Nov. 22] is fine for a dead dog but hardly befits a human being who has an immortal soul. If even atheists "have a hankering for music and a few well chosen words," it is not unthinkable that in the terrible moment of suspension between life and death, they might also have a hankering for a Reality that is wider than music and higher than Santayana's quiet despair. It would be an injustice . . . to force upon them the inhumanity of "A Humanist Funeral Service." They will get a much more sympathetic...
...Pilar turns the harbor mouth, Hemingway takes the controls. Ceremonially, Gregorio the mate hands up to him what remains of the tequila and a fresh-cut half of lime. Hemingway does not actually drink the tequila, and the whole thing bears the appearance of a ritual, as if to ward off sea serpents. Only at the dock does he pass around the bottle. "We went out and had a good day and caught plenty fish and got pooped," he says. "Now we can relax for a while and talk and go to sleep." With a tired smile on his tired...
...British rulers banned it more than a century ago, educated Hindus deplore it, and law forbids it. But suttee, a widow's ritual suicide upon her husband's funeral pyre, still takes place occasionally in modern India, for the final test of wifely purity sends a shiver of admiration through the devout...
...path of truth and righteousness. His farmer father once gave him a hiding in church with his broad leather belt for fidgeting during the sermon. The day beer was taken off Prohibition, Billy's father went to town and bought a case. Then, in an awesome atmosphere of ritual sacrifice, he forced Billy and one of his sisters to guzzle bottle after bottle until they were sick. "It was awful," recalls Billy. He has never touched it since...