SECLUSION
Seclusion is the separation of a person from a larger
community to ritually celebrate the transition or
passage from one stage to another. In some ways,
seclusion is synonymous with the first phase of the
three major phases (separation, transition, and
incorporation) in the concept of “rites of passage,”
that is, the rites associated with the human life cycle
(naming, puberty, marriage, and death). In some
other ways, seclusion marks the beginning of the ini-
tiation into cult, priesthood, or traditional political
status. The practice also comes up with the renewal
of the community’s beginning or during critical
moments of personal or communal crisis. Seclusion
is highly significant in terms of its cultural, social,
spiritual, and political structure and contents.
SignificanceSeclusion symbolizes a number of activities: cos-
mic journey, death and rebirth, cleansing and
renewal, chaos and order, renunciation and trans-
formation, power and authority, secrecy and
knowledge, and identity and relationship.
Seclusion provides a medium for the acquisi-
tion of critical knowledge and movement into
the realm of power and responsibility so defined
by the community. It redefines and seals the def-
inition of a person or group of persons involved.
The practice, sometimes requiring partial or
total fasting and self-denials, involves a detach-
ment and aggregation of the initiate(s) from the
general to isolation, and back to general, thus
becoming a new person of another status.
The process of seclusion not only defines the
initiate(s) as sacred, but also identifies certain
spaces or places, times or periods, and actions
as divine through ritual performances. Seclusion
provides the initiate an avenue to engage in the
culture of the society and the new status that
he or she is to assume. It is here that cultural values
are reenacted and cultural lore injected and
instilled in the initiate(s). The state of seclusion
evokes in the initiate(s) self-doubt and reflection.
This transitory state, which has been described by
some scholars as a state of between and betwixt,
defines the ascribed and socioculturally hierarchi-
cally constructed positions of the community. In
situations when seclusion involves a group of par-
ticipants, seclusion produces a feeling of a spirit of
“communitas,” a feeling of group warmth, solidar-
ity, and unity, although it is fraught with a deeper
feeling of awe and momentary rejection. In any
case, it is fraught with anxiety and uncertainty for
the participants. The practice of seclusion varies
among the different peoples of Africa in terms of
human responsibility, social and political struc-
tures, and gender and power relations.Body, Ritual, and Transformation
The moment of seclusion provides a symbolic sys-
tem of understanding the potential relations
among the biological, cultural, and spiritual
through the body, the locus where transformation
occurs. The body is the vehicle that conveys the
individual on a cosmic journey where full and
true realization of his or her beingness in the
community is reached. The movement in ritual
process proclaims the reality of human growth,
cultural expectation, and adaptation, and it con-
veys social responsibility within the universe that
is conceived as spiritually populated and charged.
The journey of the body requires certain disci-
pline that may be physical and psychological,
training in the mind, and most times a reflection
of the movement from one state of being to
another state of being, making the earlier a state
of indignity. Thus, in the seclusion rites dealing
with the cycle of life (birth, marriage, puberty,
and death) and rituals of initiation into cults and
traditional political statuses (as in kingship and
chieftaincy), the movement engages the body in a
new form of existence. In the process of the jour-
ney to the new life, there is a flow of power of
generational significance, which is believed only
to be made available to the privileged ones.
Seclusion features most prominently in the fol-
lowing groups of events, which are also common
to African peoples: rites of passage, renewal of
hegemony, and initiation into priesthood.Life Cycle Rituals
Birth and Death
Seclusion imposes on a woman a complex
situation of responsibility of pollution and purity,Seclusion 597