Ritual and classification: A study of the Booran Oromo terminal sacred grade rites of passage (An ethnographic study of Kenyan ritual systems and social practices)

This essay provides a detailed description and analysis of the terminal sac red grade ("gadaammojjii") rites of passage which were performed by one of the Booran Oromo communities in northern Kenya in 1995. It examines the rit es within the context of the Oromo ritual system as a whole. It suggests th at these rites belong to a cycle within a cycle of time and form the social counterpart of the "gadaa" political process. The study contributes ethnog raphic evidence for Bourdieu's (1977) assertion that rituals, like other so cial practices, are the product of underlying generative principles that cl assify all phenomena in a particular culture.