Tóth Ferenc szerk.: Fiatal Néprajzkutatók Országos Konferenciája. Makó, 1991. augusztus 26-28. A Makói Múzeum Füzetei 75. (Makó, 1993)

KUTATÁSI BESZÁMOLÓK - OLÁH GYULA: Rituslánc séquence cérémonielle' - és szokáselemzés

ABSTRACT A RITE-SERIES - "SÉQUENCE CÉRÉMONIELLE" - AND CUSTOM-ANALYSIS Gyula Oláh Possibly everybody can distinguish certain periods in his life in which his relations to his environment changed - and vice versa. As primary school pupils we were more grown-up than our little brothers or sisters in the day nursery ("traditional" order) - we took responsibility for them in certain situations. Today we smile remembering those proudly - or desperately - tolerated "rites of passage" when, in the course of our sport-career, we got into a team of an older age-group or when we were taken to school-dorms. And, of course, there are the experiences encountered in the framework of compulsary military service which are not always too pleasant to remember. There still exist certain analogue rites in Hungary whose analysis may lead us to a more precise understanding of a given community or to the solution of social disorders and deviance originating from the lack of these rites. With the example of a secondary school tradition in Hungary called "szalagavató", I wish to discuss some methodological conclusions, drawn on the process of growing up, which were achieved with the means of modern cultural anthropology. On the other hand, I wish to make use of this example to illustrate the potentials of ethnography as an applied social science as well. 135