The Turkana Age Organization

Abstract

operation of their age organization, as my earlier account of this was incomplete and inadequate.' Because of the continued interest in and comparative discussion of age-groups, and also because current field research will almost complete the coverage of the Nilo-Hamitic peoples and their immediate Bantu neighbors in East Africa among whom age-group systems are notably important, it is thought useful to make available the data for the Turkana on which an adequate comparative study may draw. Therefore, the object here is description and initial analysis only. I do not wish to intrude theoretical or comparative considerations, which are to be left for a later and wider treatment than would be possible here. In any case, there have been two recent broader studies to which the reader should refer (Eisenstadt 1956; Prins 1953). Initiation. Turkana youths are initiated into full formal adulthood at an average age of eighteen; the age limits vary in practice between about fourteen and twenty years. Initiation occurs by the youth spearing a male, castrated animal-ox, camel, goat, or sheep-at a communal ceremony which may last for several consecutive days or which may be renewed for a day or so at a time over a longer period. On each day a number of youths (up to as many as fifteen) present themselves, each with his animal provided by his father. After all the initiates on one day have speared their animals, the carcasses are opened and the head and body of each youth is smeared with the undigested contents of the stomach of his own beast and with the elders' spittle by the seniormost elders of the area. This is a normal Turkana method of ritual purification and strengthening employed on any occasion when an animal is ceremonially slaughtered. The important feature here is that the act is necessarily performed by the seniormost men in the age-group system, who are thought to be able to receive the initiates into that system and to pass on to them the attributes of strong manhood and the idealized qualities of age-group membership. After this act the slaughtered animals are cut up and the meat is cooked over open fires and eaten by all males at the initiation grove. No females are allowed to participate in any part of the affair, but uninitiated boys may be present and may eat the inferior pieces of meat. At the end of the day each initiate separately goes off with a man of approximately his father's generation. The initiate goes to his patron's homestead and remains there for five days; he is expected to act as if he were