Anthropology of Religion: Video

In 1998, anthropologist Barbara Hoffman worked with a team of Maasai junior elders in Kisamis, a community in the Rift Valley of southern Kenya. All members of the team stressed the importance of the stages of the life cycle and the resulting changes to their status as they progress from children to adult Maasai elders. A male's transition from one step to another is celebrated as his masculine character is molded, honed and refined. Some of these stages are marked by ritual or ceremony, including shaving the hair, circumcision, and marriage. Shows an actual circumcision ceremony.

Explores the themes of trance and dance in the rituals and religion of Bali through a form of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance drama in which the struggle between the witch and the dragon is played out to the accompaniment of comic interludes and violent trance seizures.

An ethnographic documentary on the Turkana of northern Kenya. Examines the views of the Turkana, especially Turkana women, on marriage. The conversation also serves as a repository of spoken Turkana language.

Anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposes the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices, and goes on to show how much modern agriculture has to learn from Balinese rice production.