Cultural analogies are frequently studied in symbolic anthropology but formal models of cultural analogy are rarely used. Formal models can provide clarification of the informal use of analogy. I use Lorrain's formal theory of analogy to construct models of the Zaude 'rites of passage' that I observed in the field. The ritual process for a bereaved mourner is analogous to that of a baby. Rituals effect transitions from one stage of the passage to the next stage. In the models I represent stage of passage as objects and transitions as relations. I identify analogous transitions through exegesis, through ritual actions of empowerment and through similar transformations of conceptual structures. The analogies identified this way are used as a set of generators for a larger system that satisfies Lorrain's axioms. The resulting model contains nontrivial analogies that might (or might not) have resulted from an informal approach, but they have an explicit derivation by means of the theory, making explicit an otherwise tacit logic.