Word: rituals
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...ritual as regular as the seasons. On one day every spring and autumn, railway stations across the Soviet Union are festooned with patriotic banners, bands blare stirring martial rhythms, and local dignitaries make speeches praising soldierly virtues. Then, as crowds of tearful friends and relatives wave farewell, anxious young men climb aboard the waiting train: they are the current crop of 18-year-old Soviet draftees?about 1 million a year?heading off to begin their military service. After basic training and indoctrination at the camps, invariably hundreds of miles from their birthplaces, they will take a solemn oath...
...after months of inquiry, he discovered that when someone died, the Fore buried the corpse, then, as a way of preserving his spirit, his relations dug him up and ate selected portions. Nothing might happen for years, but eventually the women, who were the main participants in this unsavory ritual, started the fatal giggles...
...Roman Catholic Church has reasserted longstanding rules for the Mass. Its decree also attacks "abuses" that have grown more or less widespread, especially in Western Europe and the U.S., since the liturgical changes of Vatican II. The Pope is clearly concerned about practices that may weaken the sacredness and ritual strength of the ancient Mass, or blur the distinction between clergy and laity. The new Vatican statement, though, is sure to stir some resistance...
Today, some 25,000 will pack Harvard's hallowed Yard to march, to gawk, or to enter the "company of educated men and women." The ritual has long since hardened into a sturdy tradition. As Samuel Eliot Morison writes in his history of Harvard, Thomas Aquinas migh recognize today a lineal descent from the Commencement ceremonies he often attended in the 12th century--even then, they were marked by caps and gowns, Latin orations and general confusion...
...Jews and Christians as "People of the Book" (in their case the Bible). Beyond that, the nation's new Islamic constitution guarantees freedom for both religions and for Zoroastrianism as well, provided they are practiced "within the law." (That means, for example, they cannot use wine in ritual because alcohol is banned in Iran.) Others are guaranteed no freedom of worship...