Seclusion

Significance

Seclusion symbolizes a number of activities: cosmic journey, death and rebirth, cleansing and renewal, chaos and order, renunciation and transformation, power and authority, secrecy and knowledge, and identity and relationship.

Seclusion provides a medium for the acquisition of critical knowledge and movement into the realm of power and responsibility so defined by the community. It redefines and seals the definition of a person or group of persons involved. The practice, sometimes requiring partial or total fasting and self-denials, involves a detachment and aggregation of the initiate(s) from the general to isolation, and back to general, thus becoming a new person of another status.

The process of seclusion not only defines the initiate(s) as sacred, but also identifies certain spaces or places, times or periods, and actions as divine through ritual performances. Seclusion provides the initiate an avenue to engage in the culture of the society and the new status that he or she is to assume. It is here that cultural values are reenacted and cultural lore injected and instilled in the initiate(s). The state of seclusion evokes in the initiate(s) self-doubt and reflection. This transitory state, which has been described by some scholars as a state of between and betwixt, defines the ascribed and socioculturally hierarchically constructed positions of the community. In situations when seclusion involves a group of participants, seclusion produces a feeling of a spirit of “communitas,” a feeling of group warmth, solidarity, and unity, although it is fraught with a deeper feeling of awe and momentary rejection. In any case, it is fraught with anxiety and uncertainty for the participants. The practice of seclusion varies among the different peoples of Africa in terms of human responsibility, social and political structures, and gender and power relations.

Body, Ritual, and Transformation

The moment of seclusion provides a symbolic system of understanding the potential relations among the biological, cultural, and spiritual through the body, the locus where transformation occurs. The body is the vehicle that conveys the individual on a cosmic journey where full and true realization of his or her beingness in the community is reached. The movement in ritual process proclaims the reality of human growth, cultural expectation, and adaptation, and it conveys social responsibility within the universe that is conceived as spiritually populated and charged. The journey of the body requires certain discipline that may be physical and psychological, training in the mind, and most times a reflection of the movement from one state of being to another state of being, making the earlier a state of indignity. Thus, in the seclusion rites dealing with the cycle of life (birth, marriage, puberty, and death) and rituals of initiation into cults and traditional political statuses (as in kingship and chieftaincy), the movement engages the body in a new form of existence. In the process of the journey to the new life, there is a flow of power of generational significance, which is believed only to be made available to the privileged ones. Seclusion features most prominently in the following groups of events, which are also common to African peoples: rites of passage, renewal of hegemony, and initiation into priesthood.

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