FIGURE 2.8
Rituals
Universities and colleges around the world hold a commencement ceremony—a ritual that marks the beginning of the graduate’s entrance into the “real world.” Like many rituals, commencement ceremonies vary in distinctive ways from one institution to another. At the University of Kansas, for example, graduates walk through the doors of a large bell tower and down a big hill to the stadium where the formal ceremony takes place. At the University of Hawaii at M͞anoa, graduates are ushered into the ceremony by selected male and female students, each carrying a ko’o, or ceremonial wand, that symbolizes complementary male and female energies.