Cultural Practices:

Many mulitative practices are culturally sanctioned and are associated with healing, spirituality, and or social status of individuals within that culture.

For example, consider the case of a shaman. Before an individual becomes a shaman, he must undergo severe suffering and mutilation to gain the special capacities for healing himself and others.

A second example involves adolescent initiation in which adolescents undergo painful body modifications as a rite of passage into the adult world. Australian aborigines use stones to slice open their penises along the length of the urethra during adolescent initiation rites. Do these examples qualify as self-mutilation?

Although these rituals and cultural activities fall within the definition of self-mutilation, many anthropologists choose not to use this term because of its negative social implications. Instead anthropologists refer to these rituals and practices as body modification.

In contrast to self-mutilation, body modification not only affects the individual, but also has greater consequences for the entire society. Body modification rituals often serve the purpose of correcting or preventing conditions that threaten the stability of the society: disease or angry gods. Furthermore, some rituals such as adolescent initiation help maintain order within the society. Adolescents undergo suffering and pain to gain acceptance into adult communal life.

Although culturally sanctioned rituals and practices may meet the criteria for self-mutilation, they do not qualify as deviant or pathological self-mutilation. The difference lies in the motivating factors and the greater effect on the community.