Now that I've focus my topic, I am starting to look at rituals with this question in my mind. Even when not specifically stated that something is a Christian influence, I tried to find similarities to Christianity. For example, in my book about Western African religion that is mostly a narrative about the rituals in Western Africa, I saw that many practices were similar, if not taken, from Christian practices. For example, when a child hits puberty, they are welcomed into the community as an adult. This reminded me not only of Christian religion, but of Jewish religion as well with bat and bar mitzvahs. In my church, at 5th grade you take your first communion and as an 8th grader you are confirmed (officially recognized as an adult member of the church). First community is about the beginning of puberty and conformation is hopefully when most of your middle school angst hormones are dying out. In voodoo religion, there are many ceremonies to welcome children into the community. For one, they are dressed in fine clothing and have wine poured on them (coincidence with the wine? I think not).
Another interesting fact I found was about marriage. After the bride and groom are married, the groom washed his bride's feet and carries her into their home. The first practice is similar to when Mary washed Jesus' feet the night of the Last Supper. The second is like the age old tradition of the groom carrying his bride into their honeymoon sweet.
Maybe I'm reaching and trying to make these connections work when they really are distant. But this is also made me wonder how different the core of religions are. The main events, birth, puberty, marriage and death have very similar traditions and practices in many culture. Maybe religion is really the same, yet we choose to change the specifics.
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