Fieldwork #2

http://www.tangowaltzcavort.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html

Classifications of Rituals

          The marriage rituals within Spine-Chilling Village consist of praying to Dr. Frankenstein for an approval for their marriage. This is an important part of the ritual in order to ensure that the couples have a successful foundation and their couple spirit is unified with the community. All couples go to the creation station which is the center of the marriage practices. This controls the behavior and sets the mood for the marriage ceremony. Performing these marriage practices helps maintain the normal function of the community. This ritual is defined as an ideological ritual based on controlling behavior, moods and keeping values within the Monstarian community.

Screeching is the religious ritual within the Spine-Chilling Village. The villagers seek out Dr. Frankenstein’s death location at Acceptant River where the new followers will be bathed in the water and go through a process called recreation, as the Monstarians call it. This allows Dr. Frankenstein into their inner monster to heal and guide them spiritually down the path of life. Monsters will occasionally when needed go to Acceptant River to reflect and ask for additional guidance by praying to Dr. Frankenstein during times of need. These rituals of Creaturism can be classified as a rite of exchange and communication.

The rituals practiced to influence nature are classified as technological rituals. In the village the Monstarians perform an environmental ritual called Freak Week. During this week they self reflect and focus on their environment. Each day is dedicated to a different ritual in order to remind them of their commitment to nature and the village. The purpose of these rituals is so that they can keep their environment clean, help the animals and self reflect. They believe that doing this will increase the fruitfulness of the environment as a whole. Since there are many monsters which rely on the environment for survival these rituals are very important to the village.

          Education is an important ritual performed within the village. Every monster must be educated in order to be accepted into the society. When a child becomes 8 years old the village comes together to help prepare them for their educational journey. During this process they must learn the past ways of the school along with the current practices within it. Learning the history helps tie the young monsters to their cultural ancestors.  Rites of intensification are rituals structured to reinforce values and norms of a community and to strengthen group identity. These are all vital qualities in the educational process of all Monstarian within Spine-Chilling Village.

Ritual Process

In the institutions within Spine-Chilling Village there are several rituals performed. One of these rituals would be marriage practices. When the decision comes for a monster couple to become married they must inform the village and pray to their creator, Dr. Frankenstein, for acceptance of their marriage. Following acceptance, everyone in the village does their part to plan for the wedding or participate in some type of wedding activity. The Creation Station is located in the center of the village. This is where the first monster was created, therefore it is considered a sacred place and all weddings and births are performed here. During the ceremony the bride and groom both wear green, showing that they have an environmentally pure state of mind. Becoming a married monster couple is important within the village because it bonds both the couple and the village together as one, by reminding them they have to work together and support one another to move along in life.

          Caring for their environment is important for the Monstarians. Every other month the Monstarians enter into an environmental week, called Freak Week. During this week they pray and care for the environment in order to keep themselves in a better frame of mind. Each day is assigned for a specific ritual activity. Day 1: spiritual reflection to remind themselves what the environment does for them. Day 2: Plant and tend to trees and bushes. Day 3: Water cleanup/purification. Day 4: Praying for guidance. Day 5: Care for wildlife, including tending to injured animals, feeding, and creating/tending to homes. Day 6: Tend to and pick crops or livestock to prepare for celebration on day 7. Day 7: Environmental celebration. On this 7^th day the village comes together and feasts on the crops they have planted for the hexacyle (2 month cycle=6 per year).  They celebrate the achievements they have completed during this 2 month cycle.

Screeching is a ritual performed within the village’s religion, Creaturism. This ritual allows children and newcomers to the village to become accepted into Creaturism. The children must be 10 years or older and go through specific levels of education. Newcomers to the village must be accepted into Creaturism before they are able to participate in the village environmental and educational events. During this process the villagers lead them to Dr. Frankenstein’s death location, Acceptant River, at the edge of the village. The initiator emerges itself into the water and begins to bathe in it. Bathing in the sacred water shows your internal purity to the village and environment. Depending on your level of purity will depend on whether Dr. Frankenstein feels the need to accept you or not. This ritual brings new people into the religion and shows how much they have to contribute to the village. Once you have been accepted you must contribute to the village as much as another Monstarian does.

Every Monstarian must be educated in order to become accepted into the village. Education begins at age 8 so they have time to learn their cultural ways before setting out into society. Upon the entrance of Monster High the children participate in an orientation ceremony. This ceremony consists of a celebration for the beginning of their life bath. The ceremony begins 2 days before the 8^th birthday of the child. The reason for this is so the child will be prepared before attending school for challenges which may arise. The children enter the school with their parents. From there, the students are separated and assigned to an upperclassman who will care for them for the next 2 days during their educational preparation. The children are required to pray and ask for guidance through their educational journey. The village brings the children gifts and gives advice which will help them succeed. The children also must learn the history of the school, current school traditions and the significance of it before attending. This history education gives the young monsters an opportunity to see what type of impact their education has had on their village, by looking at how previous monsters have succeeded.

To be accepted into Monstarian society you must be educated. This rite of passage is an important part in a Monstarians life. There are three phases to this process. The first phase is before their 8^th birthday. During the first 8 years of their life, children are considered “the unknown”. They are known by as the prefix of their parent’s names. Once they enter into the liminal stage of education they are seen as children and given a character name. During the liminal stage they go though school and are educated on their particular gender roles and how to perform them. They also learn skills for their profession in which they choose to go into. Throughout all educational training they are also taught the correct ways in which to protect and care for their environment and one another. Upon completion of their education they will now participate in the Monstarian rite of passage ceremony which transitions them into full Monstarianism. The ceremony takes place on the first Friday after graduation and all of the villagers are required to attend. The ceremony begins with the recent graduates dressed in traditional Monstarian garments allowing them to reflect of the first monsters that participated in this ceremony. Upon the completion of the ceremony they shed the garments as a symbol of their readiness to participate into society. Now that they are accepted members of society they have the option to continue further education or to enter into their career path in which they were educated.  

Fieldwork

http://livingcelestial.blogspot.com 

Symbol Theory

In Spine-Chilling Village the Monstarians have a symbol for the environment which is a ghost-oak tree. This tree represents condensation because it has multiple meaning for the one symbol, similar to that of the United States flag. The tree represents the importance that the Monstarians have on the environment and their belief that they are one with nature and in tuned to the needs of the environment. All of their energy is believed to be borrowed from mother earth or the “tree of life”. It also represents a seed. Like trees, they always start from a beginning within the Monstarian society. One could be believe that the seed of the tree is like a newborn monster and it is their job that the new monster is well educated and in tuned with the environment that they live in. This education goes to all the surrounding Spine-Chilling Village members and how they contribute to the upbringing of all new monsters.

The Monstarians have a religion called Creaturism. With this belief they look towards deities and a higher being called Dr. Frankenstein, for their advice and social order. The polarization of meaning in the symbol of Creaturism is the unity cross represented by four outward pointing arrows. The monsters are physiologically tied to this cross by living right with their god, community and earth. The Monstarians tie this unity cross to the beliefs that they will be severely punished if they go astray from their cultural views. By being out of tune with the religious beliefs then they are also out of tune with the environment and all of the symbols they hold sacred. The ideological aspect of the polarization is that by conforming to Creaturism the village becomes more unified and works as a team to protect their resources. In becoming this unified society the environment improves and they become a stronger spiritual community.

The symbol of the Monster High education is a symbolic concept of unification of disparate significata. The Monstarians symbol of education is a shield with a monster held up by a chain. The symbolism being that education is the link to the society and all Monstarians must partake in their education. The shield represents the strength that comes from the education monsters receive in not only book form but in social and environmental forms. The monster on the shield represents the past monsters that have laid the foundation to prosperity by education. These three symbols together give Monstarian the strength to follow ones dreams through education. Their education not only allows them to fall into their specific rolls in Spine-Chilling Village society but also allows them to find specific jobs where their strengths are utilized not only by them but for the betterment of the village. Education also gives the Monstarian the chance to grow as a society and move in a positive direction while keeping their core values the same.

Spine-Chilling Village

The Monstirans live in Spine-Chilling Village home of the well known Monster High School. Spine-Chilling Village has a dark and gloomy appearance but it is a cheerful and exciting place. This town is comprised of many different types of creatures descended from well known monsters throughout time. These monsters are things such as vampires, sea monsters, werewolves, Egyptians, fly traps, scientists and scientifically created creatures. They beleive that they were created by mutation. These mutations were caused from nuclear waste deposted in the earth by humans. It is said that these mutations existed because the higher being "Freinkenstien" wanted a different and better species to protect this sacred earth.

Agriculture and hunting are the prime sources of necessity in reference to food and employment within the village. The ability for them to live in different environments such as woods, water, caves and houses allows them to be diverse in their living conditions. This diversity allows the village to be balanced out and not clustered in one area.

Creaturism is the localized religion within Spine-Chilling Village. This belief states that everyone is created equal and no one being powers over another. Peace is very important within this culture. They believe that sustaining peace will avoid conflict and steer them clear of not evolving into angry, carless people like the humans did. Legends say that if one begins to veer from their culture that they will be annihilated and cursed by the spirits. If this behavior continues then Dr. Frankenstein will return to the earth and terminate your existence. Being part of an ecological unit is vital and required in this culture. There are many different types of monsters within the village relying on natural sources such as land and water. Caring for the environment is crucial to the survival of everyone because it is their source of internal energy. They believe that all energy is borrowed and will later have to return to the earth; therefore taking care of the earth is part of their life commitments. It is their main priority to protect these resources by recycling and using only natural things for survival.

Religion (Creaturism)

Unity Cross

Everyone was created equal from the center of creation

Environment

The caring for the earth is what the village

life is focused around

Education is essential within Spine-Chilling Village. Every child must attend school in order to be accepted as a member of their society. This stage of growing is important because they must learn how to function in society and to be educated on the roles that they will play within it. The most important of these key roles is the gender role. Women are the rulers of the household. They care for the family, cooking, home and they make the decisions for the family. Men on the other hand are required to bring home the food needed for the household. Both males and females are allowed to work and support their family financially. The role of the children rather male or female is to care for the village environment and help with needed chores. The children attend school and directly following they are required to begin their chores of cleaning, collecting recyclables throughout the village and rid the land area and gloom beach of trash and other items needed.

Education

Education is important to be accepted into the society

Gender

The differences in the gender roles play a large part

in how the society functions

Spine-Chilling Village is a peacefully gloomy town with many fun activities and a large diversity of monsters. When visiting the village you will experience the life of a monster and learn the different lifestyles of them. The well known Monster High School and their activities are a perfect place to find friendship and unity of the village in a team like manner. Spine-Chilling Village is a wonderful place to live… if you’re a monster...