title: Minor White: Rites & Passages
author:  Minor White 
description: His photographs accompanied by excerpts from his diaries and letters. Biographical essay by James Baker Hall.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  PRELUDE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The crowd in front of the White House talked, shouted, and laughed. Women
  shrilled; men boomed. The high-pitched cut of children's voices was missing.
  They were home and being cared for by their older but pre-pubescent brothers
  and sisters or cousins. It was not fitting that children should see what would
  happen tonight. They would not understand the rites, one of the most holy in
  honor of the Great White Mother.
  
  
  It also would not be safe for the children to be present. Centuries before the
  present date (2860 Old Style), when the rites were first held, children had
  been allowed to attend. Many had been killed, literally ripped apart, during
  the frenzies.
  
  
  Tonight was dangerous enough for the adults. Always, a number of women were
  badly mauled or killed. Always, a number of men were overpowered by long-
  nailed, sharp-toothed women who ripped off by the roots that which made men
  men and who ran screaming down the streets with the trophies held high in the
  air or 