The paper explores the social and cultural processes in the schooling rituals of graduate students in anthropology. Four areas of concern are noted. The first area concerns rites of passage and professional competence. The author explains that the period of graduate professional schooling represents the second stage of a rite of passage after one has been separated from the crowd (admitted to graduate study) and before the time of incorporation into the new social identity of an anthropologist. The problems inherent in this area are that the models of ritual initiation and institutionalized ordeals (testing and evaluation procedures) do not simulate or stimulate the competencies needed by a creative professional. The second area involves socialization to bureaucratic dependency. Presently, the goal of most anthropology departments is to turn out initiates who will succeed in the fierce competition for prestigious university appointments; applied jobs are for those who don't capture an academic slot. The third area is the contradiction between deductive teaching methods and the need for the anthropologist to conduct inductive research. The recruitment of inexperenced graduate students reinforces the tendency to teach didactically. The author suggests recruiting people with previous cross-cultural experience and with some history of an ability to survive on their own. The final area concerns the need for playfulness as a strategy for the initiation and continuing education of the anthropologist. The conclusion is that playfulness can be a productive intellectual tool. (Author/KC)