A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.
Ceremonial occasions
A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:
- birth (birthday)
- initiation (college orientation week)
- puberty
- social adulthood (Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah)
- graduation
- awarding
- marriage
- retirement
- death (Day of the Dead)
- burial (funeral)
- spiritual (baptism, communion)
Government ceremonies
Sometimes, a ceremony may only be performed by a person with certain authority. For example, the opening of the United Kingdom Parliament is presided over by the Sovereign (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II). A captain or a higher-ranked naval officer usually supervises the naming and launching of a warship. A wedding is performed by a priest or a Civil Celebrant, as in Australia. The President of the United States is customarily sworn in by the Chief Justice of the United States, and the British sovereign is always crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Celebration of events
Other, society-wide ceremonies may mark annual or seasonal or recurrent events such as:
- vernal equinox, winter solstice and other annual astronomical positions
- weekly Sabbath day
- inauguration of an elected office-holder
- occasions in a liturgical year or "feasts" in a calendar of saints
Other ceremonies underscore the importance of non-regular special occasions, such as:
- coronation of a monarch
- victory in battle
In some Asian cultures, ceremonies also play an important social role, for example the tea ceremony.
Process
Ceremonies may have a physical display or theatrical component: dance, a procession, the laying on of hands. A declaratory verbal pronouncement may explain or cap the occasion, for instance:
- I now pronounce you husband and wife.
- I swear to serve and defend the nation ...
- I declare open the games of ...
- I/We dedicate this ... ... to ...
Both physical and verbal components of a ceremony may become part of a liturgy.
I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.
— Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)