articipate and on what occasions. Ritual performance also is social in that it must follow proscribed patterns, including bodily movements, words, the use of colors, singing, prayer, and so forth. While changes in ritual do occur, there is a general consideration that the structure of ritual is fixed. Also, where ritual is performed, it is considered morally and socially necessary that it must take place Ritual performances, or rites, are directed toward achieving some result. It may be general, such as peace and tranquility, or specific, such as the healing of a sick child. The relation between ends and means in ritual is usually described by contrasting it with what has been called rational or technical action The first phase is characterized by the stripping away of the initial state, a kind of separation of the person from the ordinary social environment. It may involve rites to purify the body, seclusion, cutting hair, or acting as if dead. This phase often recognizes a natural event such as death or puberty. It may create a peer group and define a geographic space, such as the moran village among Samburu young men. This phase also often involves an exchange of clothing and the assignment of a new identity as with a name Then comes a stage of marginality, the transitional or liminal("threshold)stage during which he person is outside of normal social life. The liminal person may have to observe certain taboos, or be isolated, or be subjected to beatings and insults, or be elevated to temporary high statu 1. Radical transformation: (in manhood rituals in New Guinea, the young initiate is beaten by older boys; he comes out of the ritual with a new social and psychological identity) 2. Rebellion: (during liminality initiates experience a time of"anti-status "or"anti-structure"in which the normal distinctions of society are turned on their head, sometimes mocked and ridiculed, and even threatened to be destroyed. Outside of ritual this is witnessed in such events as Halloween or Carnival.) 3. Communitas: (liminality is a period in which all initiates have all things in common-a sort of shared existence. It is said that they are "betwixt and between"the normal rungs and statuses of society. Outside of ritual communitas is experienced in the Islamic Haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. During this time of pilgrimage, Sunnis and Shi Muslims-otherwise unable to sit in the same cafe together without quarreling or fighting-and men and women(otherwise highly stratified) are found parading together, wearing the same clothing and circling the great Ka'ba A third phase, aggregation or integration, ends the ritual. It represents the reintegration of the person back into social life. A girl may have become a woman, or a boy a man; a candidate is now a king the loose soul of a dead man takes up its place in heaven Ritual removes the person from everyday life and provides time for people to define the event and its consequences; to transform the person in body, mind, and status, and then to define the new state- as fertile woman, or a soul proceeding to the world of the dead. moreover, in the