Rituals give content and meaning to religious life. Life crisis and developmental rituals are transformative and stabilizing. Life cycle rituals such as funerals honor the dead and prepare them for transition into ancestors; ceremonies honoring dead chiefs take on cosmic proportions. The Wimbum people often suspend farm work for the duration of the celebrations. Rituals of affliction are performed to rebuff a spirit that causes illness, misfortune, failure, and barrenness.
Certain afflictions may be a call for the afflicted to become a healer or assume an important ritual office. In such a case, the afflicted receives ritual treatment from a specialist and is initiated into the practice. Rituals of rebellion offer opportunities for transformation and the creation of alternative social alliances. Religious rituals also involve propitiation of the ancestors and of gods who have the power to remove afflictions.
