Contemporary Rituals Research Articles

The Sociology of Death

AbstractThe understanding of death, dying and bereavement in relation to society is indebted to a number of disciplines – anthropology, history, psychology and sociology are surveyed. Theories and methods used by sociologists of death, dying and bereavement are briefly outlined, followed by a number of key debates and challenges: denial, taboo and sequestration; death and the media; how to integrate scholarship in collective memory and Holocaust studies; theorising contemporary rites of passage; the lack of comparative research; and the need to focus on the meaning and organisation of death for those who encounter it most directly; namely, the poor, displaced and elderly. A brief discussion of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is followed by the conclusion that any promise of a general sociology conducted in the light of mortality has been eclipsed by yet another specialism, the sociology of death.

Cambios de Identidad asociados a la vivencia de una transición ritualizada: aprobar una oposición

ResumenEste artículo muestra las principales categorías obtenidas a partir de una metodología cualitativa de carácter inductivo realizado por medio de un análisis de contenido de 8 entrevistas usando el programa N*Vivo. La muestra consistía en 8 hombres (con edades comprendidas entre 26 y 45 años) que habían aprobado una oposición. Se discute si este suceso vital y la transición que lo rodea es un ejemplo actual de un rito de paso. Nos centramos en aquellos cambios experimentados por los sujetos una vez que concluyó la transición evolutiva de la oposición. Estos cambios, entre otros, se relacionan con la adquisición de una nueva identidad social. También se presentan y discuten los procesos psicológicos y socioestructurales más relevantes para obtener dichos cambios.

Creating Contemporary Ritual: The Choreography of Lin Lee-Chen and Anna Halprin

A study and comparison of works by two creators of ritual performance—Anna Halprin and Lin Lee-Chen—provide insight into Richard Schechner's efficacy-entertainment continuum as well as how ritual manifests in contemporary performance. Through a close reading of the structure and performance quality of Lin'sMiroirs de Vie (Jiao)and Halprin'sCircle the Earth “Dancing with Life on the Line,”I look at both artist's efforts and results in creating ritual performance and illustrate what I believe to be their distinctive features. Contextualization of the work and the artists' intentions shed light on the possibility or scope of change effected by their creations. While Lin's highly stylized large-scale dance-dramas in many senses cannot be compared to Halprin's nature-oriented participatory community rituals, commonalities in these two works show a strong emphasis on bodily experience, indicating embodiment as fundamental in creating transformative performance.

Hunting for History in Potam Pueblo: A Yoeme (Yaqui) Indian Deer Dancing Epistemology

Based on fieldwork with the Yoeme (Yaqui) Indians of northwest Mexico, this article traces the ties between contemporary deer dances and pre-colonial deer-hunting rituals. The author claims that indigenous performances provide documentary evidence not only of intercultural dynamics but also of how native people think historically about those dynamics. The essay details how, in Yoeme deer dancing, community members demonstrate collective identity as well as ontological and epistemological sensibilities. Additionally, it re-assesses the ethnohistoric utility of the term “conversion” when writing about colonial and missionary contact zones. As a research model, this project demonstrates the central role of performance studies within the field of folklore.

Spontaneous Memorials: Forums for Dialog and Discourse

Through the contemporary mourning ritual of spontaneous memorialization, Americans are developing a new forum for civic discourse. As sites where individuals congregate for communal consolation and remembrance in response to local and national crises, spontaneous memorials foster multicultural and intergenerational interactions. In direct peer-to-peer conversations, by indirect messaging through letters, poetry, songs and prayers, and via representational objects and artworks, citizens express and collectively exhibit the moral and civic values held by their communities. Though in-depth evaluation is needed, museums might consider using the framework of spontaneous memorialization to foster dialog and discourse within their communities. This article focuses on memorials created in Oklahoma City following the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, those across Manhattan after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, and related museum activities that ensued.

Newly Betwixt and Between: Revising Liminality in the Context of a Teacher Preparation Program

Through an analysis of a contemporary rite of passage‐the final stage of teacher preparation‐I develop a new theory of liminality that both builds on and extends Victor Turner's enduring insights. The analysis focuses on how preservice teachers in an undergraduate education program engage in a process of identity formation within an asynchronous, nondimensional, liminal space made possible and shaped by e‐mail and with the support of experienced mentor teachers.

The Gendered Rhetoric of Sukkah Observance

Much feminist work has been done in exploring the exemption of women from positive ritual commandments governed by time as outlined in mKidd 1.7.1 The history of scholarship on this mishnah runs in two familiar directions. Some scholars redeem the rabbis and interpret mKidd 1.7 as offering women religious sanction to value familial duties as foremost.2 On the other end of the spectrum are those who condemn the rabbis for being exclusionary.3 Women, they claim, are being demeaned; [End Page 309] an exemption turns them into second-class citizens. However, scholars have not capitalized on the fact that this mishnah, and the talmudic discussions that comment upon it, also expose us to the way the rabbis think about the rites themselves. Ritual exemptions, offered as they are within the confines of a religion that is defined by the performance of commandments, allow us to read for the gaps in rabbinic ideology with respect to ritual observance. When certain members of the Jewish community are exempt from a requirement and, in this regard, have the option of inclusion or exclusion from it, this choice upsets conclusions drawn by contemporary ritual theorists that ritual produces social cohesion, that its practice factors out variability, and that ritual acts order daily life.4 Exemptions prevent rites from achieving a sense of definitiveness. For example, in the case of the exemption of women from the sukkah, the character of the sukkah transforms depending upon whether women are present within its walls or not, as we will see below. An analysis of talmudic material about this exemption offers us great insight into what a ritual exemption tells us about the rabbis' understanding of this rite and heightens the importance of moving beyond what these texts say about the image of women themselves. The Problem with the Sukkah In an analysis of the writings of the Confucian ritual thinker Xunzi, Robert Campany observes that when ritual is seen as problematic, ritual thinkers step outside of the arena of the ritual of concern in order to think from a (presumably)5 "more secure" or more familiar foundation.6 He [End Page 310] argues that theoretical thinking about ritual "entails giving an account of ritual from a point of view outside ritual, using a language and a framework of understanding that are not derived from the ritual world but in terms of which that world is nevertheless described." Paralleling his observations, the Bavli employs the socially constructed image of the husband/wife relationship in order to stabilize the exemption of women from the sukkah. In other words, in the wake of strong attempts to require women to perform this commandment, the rabbis prevent the exemption from being overturned by considering the relationship between husbands and their wives. Reference made to this relationship marks the rabbis' shift beyond the framework of the sukkah-rite itself and enables them to grapple with what is problematic about sukkah observance, that is, its relationship to the act of "dwelling" as conveyed in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23.42-43, which represents the latest biblical conceptualization of the festival of Sukkot, suggests that the commandment of sukkah commemorates desert dwelling in booths following the Exodus from Egypt. While other biblical source material correlates the celebration of Sukkot with the end of the harvest season, this holiday is ultimately transformed into a domestic reenactment of the sojourn of the Israelites in the desert. Jeffrey Rubenstein argues that "this historical explanation is somewhat strange in that the Pentateuchal narratives of the Exodus trek never place Israel in booths; . . . [this is] an historical event unknown to the rest of the Bible."7 However, the notion culled from Lev 23, that the Israelites dwelled in booths, greatly influences the early rabbinic (tannaitic) conceptualization of the sukkah. The sukkah is transformed into one's home during the seven-day holiday, as the following source found in bSuk 28b iterates: Mishnah: All of the seven days [of Sukkot] a person makes his sukkah...

Contemporary grief rituals for Christians in North America

With increasing urbanisation and declining church affiliation, bereavement support is changing. Traditionally, the church community assists the bereaved through a variety of rituals including a funeral or memorial service, prayers, visitation, and caring for the family. Within the Christian tradition, funeral rites vary between Catholics and Protestants. For the dying, rituals such as absolution, sacrament of the sick, anointing with oil, and prayers affirm the presence of a loving God. The central focus of a Christian funeral is the belief in the resurrection of the body and the hope that life does not end with the physical mortality. The assurance of a clergyperson/priest and an empathie counsellor who appreciates the importance of ritual and the role of hope can assist the bereaved through their grief process, exemplified here with a case study.

Introductory Essay: The Anthropology of Religion after Socialism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In addition to the papers published here, the Chicago panel included presentations by Sascha Goluboff (a co-organizer) on Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan, by Galina Lindquist on religion and charismatic healing in Moscow, and by Douglas Rogers on Old Belief in the Urals. Catherine Wanner chaired the panel and William Kelleher and Eriberto Lozada served as discussants. For the purposes of this introductory essay, I adopt a fairly narrow definition of anthropology: scholarship produced by researchers who are affiliated with anthropology programmes or who have published in anthropological journals. I take it for granted that all of this work is impressively interdisciplinary. However, adequately addressing the full range of perspectives that have shaped the field would simply be unwieldy in the present context. My thanks to Sonja Luehrmann and Philip Walters for suggestions that improved this essay. Among anthropologists of the region, it is customary to refer to the states in question as ‘socialist’ rather than ‘communist’. ‘Socialism’ picks up on the self-description of these states themselves (none of which actually declared success in reaching the historical stage of communism) and also points to a range of commonalities across the region, including single-party rule and centrally-planned economies. Our panel addressed only the socialist and postsocialist states of the former Soviet bloc. See also Lockwood, 1975 Lockwood W 1975 European Moslems: Economy and Ethnicity in Western Bosnia (New York, Academic Press) [Google Scholar], for an early approach to religion and ethnicity in the region. Piers Vitebsky takes this claim as the point of departure for a study of postsoviet shamanism in Siberia, asking whether the postsoviet situation has made things any easier (2002, p. 191). See also Kideckel, 1983 Kideckel, D. 1983. Secular ritual and social change: a Romanian example. Anthropological Quarterly, 56, 2: pp. 69 – 75 [Google Scholar], and Sadomskaya, 1990 Sadomskaya, N. 1990. Soviet anthropology and contemporary rituals. Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 31, 2 – 3: pp. 245 – 54 [Google Scholar]. Hann is also the director of a large project investigating religion after socialism at the Max Plank Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. The project promises to produce a large and collaborative body of work, both on the topics I outline here and others. See the description at www.eth.de/research/postsocialist-eurasia/religion/civil-religion.html. In a separate study, Verdery (1999 Verdery K 1999 The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change (New York, Columbia University Press) [Google Scholar]) worked from conflicts among religious elites over the remains of an eighteenth-century Romanian archbishop to illustrate her claims about the ways in which attention to ‘the political lives of dead bodies’ can illuminate a broad spectrum of postsocialist transformations. Lindquist's recent work has also focused on religious practice, healing and transformations of the self (see especially 2000b). The literature on missions in historical anthropology is large and growing, and Peter van der Veer is not alone in pursuing this line of argument. Comaroff and Comaroff (1991 Comaroff J Comaroff J 1991 Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa vol. 1 (Chicago, IL, Chicago University Press) [Google Scholar]), for instance, explore at length the Protestant ethics inculcated in British nonconformist missionaries who set off to convert Southern Africa in the nineteenth century. Taking place in parallel with the expansion of capitalism, the route by which many South African Tswana came to identify themselves as Christian is also one of the primary ways in which modern European modes of understanding took root in the consciousness and personhood of non-Europeans. See also Keane, 2002 Keane, W. 2002. Sincerity, “modernity”, and the Protestants. Cultural Anthropology, 17, 1: pp. 65 – 92 [Google Scholar], on Protestant missions to the Indonesian island of Sumba. This is not, of course, to say that these elements have been or should be excluded from anthropological analysis. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, for instance, effectively incorporate anti-abortion laws enacted with the support of religious conservatives into their analysis of shifting gender regimes after socialism (2000, p. 15 – 36; see also Zielinska, 2000 Zielinska E 2000 Between ideology, politics, and common sense: the discourse of reproductive rights in Poland in S. Gal and G. Kligman (eds), Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism, (Princeton, Princeton University Press) [Google Scholar]).

The Appropriation of New Customs

This article examines the origins of Valentine's Day and traces the history of its evolution from ancient times to the present day. It offers a comparison of the various customs associated with this day in different parts of Europe and the world. Describing in detail the process through which the contemporary rituals surrounding Valentine's Day were imported into Hungary, the article raises questions concerning the practice of transplanting customs from one culture to another.

Caveat Emptor: On Time, Death and History in Late Modernity

This article focuses on ‘revivalism’ and ‘resurrectionism’. While the former is a sociological label for contemporary rituals of dying and death, the latter is a label for contemporary practices of historiographical representation. By exploring the formal and substantive similarities between ‘revivalism’ and ‘resurrectionism’, this study offers a speculative reflection on the relationship between time, death and history in late modernity.

Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture

Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture. By Joseph K. Adjaye. Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger Publishers, 2004. Pp. viii, 195. $80.00. Joseph K. Adjaye, well-known historian of Asante diplomacy, has set a new standard for studies of African ritual and performance in this important monograph. Blending theoretical approaches from performance studies, history, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology, Adjaye analyzes six rituals from southern Ghana. While his research on such ceremonies as Krobo initiation rites are useful in themselves, his major contribution is his exploration of how individuals-in concert and in conflict-create culture through rituals. Adjaye urges his readers to question whether rituals, cherished for their ability to transmit culture across generations, are enactments of fixed beliefs or an emergent, creative process having diverse meanings for different participants based on different contexts and how actors perceive and internalize their life and death experiences (p. 143). He argues rituals should be understood as of far more antihomogenizing views than previously recognized, arenas in which actors articulate plural selves and anticonsensual motivations (p. 2). Adjaye summarizes his argument thus: while the essential acts within rituals may seem static, unique ways in which they are enacted, appropriation of symbolic objects, and their experiential engagement present sites that are not closed but rather open to new significations and interpretations (p. 11). Here is a refreshing corrective to tendency towards crude summarization of African thought and cultural practice that has persisted since earliest colonial ethnographies were written. Adjaye brings us closer to that happy future when phrases like the Akan believe ... will provoke same disapproving scowl among scholars that word tribe does today. Following his introduction, author offers reader six case studies of contemporary rituals: Akan libations, naming ceremonies, and funerals; Krobo girls' initiation rites; and two festivals, one in Elmina and other in Takyiman region of Brong Ahafo. The work is organized to meet needs of scholars as well as college teachers and their students. Each chapter presents a concise summary and critique of major theoretical approaches to understanding type of ritual (rite of passage or carnival, etc.), a rich eyewitness description of ritual and Adjaye's analysis of it. …

The Transgressing Character of the Sacred in the Double Ritual of Anastenaria

Individuals and crowds face a new challenge in postmodern era. In contrast to modernity, postmodernity is characterised by an extreme division of the subject (fragmentation) and by a complete illusion of means and aims , as propagated through alienating mediated messages (simulation). A third feature named “latency” has the sense of inconsistency of goals and the flexibility of strategies. Both in the West and the Rest (to use Wallerstein’s distinction), people conceive the sacred under new influences coming mainly from the media and computer intervention in everyday life. Falsification of pictorial information in parallel with its uncontrolled inflation are responsible for spacio-temporal alienation. The result is the inversion of the classical scheme sacred/profane (conceived as the transgression of the former by the latter). One can speak today, rather , of the transgression of our everyday profanity by new forms of the sacred as developed and manifested under actual post modern conditions. Focus here is on this recent development of the sacred as manifested in contemporary rituals such as Anastenaria comprising ceremonial bull sacrifice and ecstatic fire-walking.

The rams horn in western history

The shofar or rams horn—one of the most ancient of surviving aerophones—may have originated with early Neolithic herders. The shofar is mentioned frequently and importantly in the Hebrew bible and in later biblical and post-biblical literature. Despite its long history, contemporary ritual uses, and profound symbolic significance to western religion, no documentation of shofar acoustical properties was found. Since ancient times, shepherds of many cultures have fashioned sound instruments from the horns of herd animals for practical and musical uses. Shepherd horns of other cultures exhibit an evolution of form and technology (e.g., the inclusion of finger holes). The shofar is unique in having retained its primitive form. It is suggested that after centuries of practical use, the shofar became emblematic of the shepherd culture. Ritual use then developed, which froze its form. A modern ritual rams horn played by an experienced blower was examined. This rather short horn was determined to have a source strength of 92 dB (A) at 1 m, a fundamental frequency near 420 Hz, and maximum power output between 1.2 and 1.8 kHz. Sample sounds and detection range estimates are provided.

Cultural themes in rites of passage: Voices of young African American males

In recent years, our society has begun to take a closer look at the plight of urban adolescent African American males. This population has come under close scrutiny because of the seemingly pervasive negativity they face on a daily basis. Hill (1992) candidly punctuated the negative forces that are taking their toll on young African American males in cities across the country. Black males, particularly adolescents in urban areas, have been a vulnerable group in relation to such destructive activities as substance abuse and gang involvement (Wright & Anderson, 1998; Hill, 1992). Families in crisis add more gloom to this picture as many of these adolescent males are in various out-of-home placements. Frustration and confusion abound for these youth as they grapple with low self-esteem and a bruised sense of ethnic identity. The increase in substance abuse and violent behavior among today 's adolescents could be l inked to society 's underutilization of Rites of Passage (Blumenkrantz & Gavazzi, 1993; Campbell & Moyers 1988). Informal indicators of adulthood such as drinking, promiscuous sexual behavior, and gang involvement serve as socially proscribed transit ional markers (Quinn, Newfield, & Protinsky, 1985; Hill, 1992). Contemporary Rites of Passage (RITES) that are culturally specific in design denounce such self-defeating behaviors and promote pro-social and pro-familial lifestyles. Such programming

Propaganda or marks of grace? the impact of the reported ordeals of sarah wight in revolutionary london, 1647–52

The Exceeding Riches of Grace Advanced … In an Empty Nothing Creaturepublished by the Independent pastor, Henry Jessey, charts the eleven-week fast of Sarah Wight, a young girl tormented by sin and attempted suicide. Described in the sufferer's own words, the account relates her spiritual conversion and unexpected survival of her ordeals, and portrays her transformed status as a spiritual guide and comforter to those who consult her. This article examines features identifyingExceeding Richesas a significant spiritual text: the subject's consciousness of early sin and desire for death even at the cost of going to hell; also, her refusal of food and the comatose states in which she claims to commune with God. Elements of Protestantars moriendirituals are intriguingly juxtaposed with elements of contemporary birth rituals. Additionally, however, these other-worldly aspects are shown to have been closely interwoven into the politicalmilieu of the time. As Wight's story became celebrated, major figures of many levels and persuasions flocked to her bedside. The evidence seems irrefutable that Jessey, himself a leading negotiator, hoped that some major breakthrough in the efforts to achieve unity between government, Parliament, and church leaders might be associated with these very unusual events.

Susa-no-o: a culture hero from Korea

The Izumo area of Shimane Prefecture possesses one of the principal shrines of Shinto, the Izumo taisha, and a distinctive mythological tradition and ritual practice which is focused on Susa-no-o, brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu O-mikami, and which is different from the standard traditions concerning Susa-no-o contained in the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki . The mythic traditions of Shimane associated with Susa-no-o and references to him in ancient texts indicate that this great spirit is a culture hero who brought to Japan Korean metallurgic techniques and methods of afforestation.There are numerous shrines in the northern part of Shimane which are dedicated to this spirit. However, in the central part of the prefecture there is another complete mythic cycle about Susa-no-o and his son Isotake, which has left its imprint on the toponyms of the area as well as being remembered in contemporary annual rituals. Centred in the area of the city of Oda, this second Susa-no-o cycle is independent of the mythic cycle in the Izumo area and is not attested to in any ancient documents. Comparing ancient Korean documents with evidence from various Japanese materials, it is clear that the Shimane area of western Japan had sustained contact in antiquity with the south-western part of the Korean peninsula.

“Who Gives This Woman to Be Married to This Man?” Implications of a Question

Abstract In recent years the part of the marriage ceremony where the bride was to promise to “obey” her future husband has been removed. However, the part of the ceremony referred to as “the giving away of the bride” remains. This question implies that a transfer of property in the form of the bride is occurring from the bride's parents to the groom. The question is demeaning and implies patriarchy-the subordination and subjection of women to men. This article examines this question in the light of patriarchy historically and currently and suggests alternatives to this part of the contemporary marriage rite.

Reviewing Twinship in Africa

This article serves as an introduction to the existing literature on twinship in African contexts, as well as an introduction to the articles in this special issue of Ethnology. The authors note that the paradoxical nature of twinship for social structure has been a staple of the literature on Africa since the work of Isaac Schapera in the 1920s, but was made more central to the discipline by Evans-Pritchard (1956) and by Turner (1969). The articles in this issue revitalize and resituate the debate about multiple births, bringing to it a social-historical consciousness as well as an understanding of contemporary ritual. This is particularly important since cultural analyses of multiple births now languish in anthropology while multiple births themselves, through new reproductive technologies and media coverage, have become increasingly prominent. (Twinship, literature review, Africa, ritual practice) The unusual event of twin births has called for explanations and inspired stories in many times and places. For example, in the Old Testament story of Esau and Jacob, twins represented the possibility of social divisiveness: peoples ... [who] shall be divided. By portraying the junior twin's divinely predicted but socially anomalous ascendance (cf. Southall 1972:83) as the inheritor of his father's blessing, twinship here provides a venue for reflection on the meaning of primogeniture. Similarly, in the well-known essay on twins in The Ritual Process, Turner (1969) argues that distinctive interpretations of twinship in Africa reflect the structurally disruptive position of two born out of a single body into the social position of one (cf. Schapera 1927). These two may therefore be treated as one ritually or may literally be made into one by more drastic means. Other interpretations and stories about twins relate to other visions of the world and the problems that arise for those who hold such visions. For example, in the thirteenth century, during the time of Thomas Aquinas, concerns about proper social groupings of people based on religious belief and practices were played out in debates about baptism and whether twin-born children had two souls or one (Schwartz 1996:50; cf. Evans-Pritchard 1956:156 for a Nuer opinion on this question). In a more recent example, Schwartz (1996:21) argued that many Europeans and North Americans are, due to the proliferation of facsimiles reproduced in Western society, preoccupied with duplication and authenticity. This preoccupation, along with anxiety over the perceived loss of strong family ties, has contributed to an obsessive searching for past twins in singleton births. Such explanations for twin births and the treatment of twins (present or vanished) are not only socioculturally specific but are transformative over time. The essays that follow all consider how contextual specificities have been changing in four contemporary African societies in Cameroon (Kedjom), Niger (Mawri Hausa), and Nigeria (northern Igbo, Ekiti Yoruba). TWINSHIP STUDIES While anthropological and art historical studies of twinship in Africa have enjoyed several periods of intensive study, particularly in the 1920s (Carey 1925; Hall 1928; Schapera 1927; Thomas 1921), the late 1960s, and early '70s (Abraham 1972; Brain 1969; Chappel 1974; Granzberg 1973; Houlberg 1973; Imperato 1975; Kilson 1973; Mobolade 1971; Segy 1970; Sirota 1967; Southall 1972; Thompson 1971; Turner 1969), little has been published more recently (cf. Diduk 1993; Gufler 1996; Pison 1992) on African twinship in either discipline.(1) Medical studies of twins in Africa also cluster around certain dates, notably the 1960s (Bulmer 1960; Hollingsworth and Duncan 1966; Knox and Morley 1960; Nylander 1969; Nylander and Corney 1969), although intermittent publications span a broader period (Creinin and Keith 1989; Jaffar et al. 1997; Nylander 1969, 1970; Ouaidou and van de Walle 1987). How can we understand the apparent dearth of anthropological and art historical studies in the 1990s? …

Learned Reading, Vernacular Seeing: Jacques Daret's Presentation in the Temple

Jacques Daret's Presentation in the Temple spoke to early fifteenth-century audiences of differing analytical abilities and backgrounds. Drawing on sources ranging from Latinate theology to vernacular texts and local customs, imagery in the panel concerns issues pertinent to both theologians and literate and illiterate lay citizenry. While its references to the Immaculate Conception and witty manipulation of a Latin inscription engaged only the learned, allusions to Arras's famous thaumaturgical relic, the Sainte Chandelle, reached a broader audience. Further, its staging of Mary's purification as a churching, the contemporary ritual following childbirth, held special appeal for Arras's female community.