Fertility rites are religious rituals that reenact, either actually or symbolically, sexual acts and/or reproductive processes. As with the sacrifices of humans which many scholars think that ancient peoples made to ensure good fortune (be that as to harvests or hunting or warfare or other endeavors), and which are echoed in the Christian mythos of the Eucharist, fertility rites are a variety of sympathetic magic in which the forces of nature are to be influenced by the example acted out in the ritual.
Fertility is the basis of life, the foundation of the health and wealth of a community.
The fertility and health of all life, whether cultivated or wild, animal, human or plant are integral and equally important to the harmonious and sustained well-being of the whole web of life.
Since fertilizing rain is paramount to ensuring the fruitfulness of the earth, fertility festivals centered on trees were usually held in the spring or prior to the rainy season.
The rites, expressed through dances, prayers, incantations, and sacred dramas, seek to control the otherwise unpredictable forces of nature.
This myth, symbolizing the birth, death, and reappearance of vegetation, when acted out in a sacred drama, was the fertilityrite par excellence.
Other rites concerned with productivity include acts of sympathetic magic, such as kindling of fires (symbolizing the sun) and scattering the reproductive organs of animals on the fields, displays of phallic symbols, and ritual prostitution.
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