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The Four Hills of Life The Arapaho
believed that humans were endowed by the Creator with the ability
to think, and that thought itself could cause things to happen. All
Arapaho traveled thru four stages, or "hills of life", childhood,
youth, adulthood and old age. The duties, responsibilities, and privileges
changed at each stage. The Arapaho equated the life stages with the
movement of the sun, the four cardinal directions and the progress
of the seasons.
The shape, quality, and phasing of life were constituted through ritual practices that activated social relations and interconnected meanings on different levels. This section will outline the life movement of the arapaho - from birth to death. ROLE OF MEN Social and Political Functions
ROLE OF WOMEN Women's personhood and associated social functions were less precisely phased through age grading but nonetheless evolved with life movement along paths parallel to those of the men. Throughout a women's life, her roles, as expressed in ritual, stressed childbearing and child rearing, life transitions within kinship relations, the transformation of raw materials into cultural forms, the provision of items for exchange and cooperative work for the men's age grades and other lodges. THE FOUR HILLS All the elements that make up a man and a women's life are brought together in a synthesis which is known as the four hills model. The Four Hills and Men's and Women's Rituals
For both genders and all ages, the ceremonies were not clear and distinct in elements and meanings. Ritualized life movement combined both continuities and transitions. Each ceremony expressed values, relations, and types of activities appropriate to its particular stage, but also repeated some others from previous stages and included others that were transitional or that anticipated subsequent stages.
University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
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