The Secret of the Men: A Fiction of Chagga Initiation and its Relation to the Logic of Chagga Symbolism

Abstract

Opening ParagraphIn the 19th century, there were Chagga chiefdoms which initiated their young men into adulthood by putting them through an elaborate series of rituals and ordeals. The first was circumcision. No sooner had the young men fully recovered from their circumcision wounds than they had another trial to undergo. They were sent to the forest for a period of seclusion and instruction. Children and young women were told that during this time in the Kilimanjaro forests the newly circumcized youths were subjected to another operation, this one to plug and stitch closed their anuses (Gutmann, Recht: 321–338; HRAF trans.: 289–304).