Once, I was a boy and my dad used to tell me that one day I would be a Kikuyu man and walk in his footsteps. Raise a family and assume manhood responsibilities. To provide for, protect, and guide my family the way he did, because that’s what a Kikuyu man, a Kikuyu warrior is supposed to do (History, H, 2018). He always told me to enjoy boyhood as much as I could because it passes by as fast as fading smoke. I never used to pay attention to his remarks because my boyish and childish mind couldn’t comprehend the importance of all of that. Now that I’m an adult and have become the man, my dad, once told me I would, the right of passage to become this man was a painful, joyful, and exciting tribal experience that I went through to earn the right to be called a man and no longer a boy.
In my meager years, I was told that I used to be a very playful kid who used to play “The Man” of the House with my little kid friends as we played “mom and Dad.” As I grew older, I used to lead the other boys when we went to graze the cows and goats that belonged to our parents. I would run around ordering them on what to do and when to go round up the herd. My childhood and or boyhood was filled with many a time that I played the man's man as my older siblings used to tell me, and on the other hand, my dad always talked about when I would become a man. These prompt remarks from my dad somewhat made me want to become a man so badly that I ended up trying to act like a man by bossing my childhood friends around and calling them around, which made me feel as if I were a man in my little world.
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This eagerness to one day become a man pushed me to ask a lot of questions to anyone I considered a man and most of them used to tell me I was just a boy until I went through the right of passage to become a man. One sunny and hot Saturday afternoon, my dad and big brother were sitting under the ‘mugumo’ tree that sprawled its leafy branches across the compound to provide a nice shed. They were drinking the traditionally brewed corn beer that I was never allowed to even taste because I was only a boy and it was meant for men. I remember that day I went and stood in front of them and asked if I could join them under the shed and drink with them. My dad and brother started laughing so hard with their half-drunk waves of laughter and my brother said these words which I remember until this day, 'You can not join us because you are just a boy and we are men.' To my surprise, I expected my dad to at least protect me from the harsh remarks from my brother but instead, he asked me to sit down on the ground and not on the chairs beside theirs if I wanted to be in their company, and not to say a word. I sat there watching these two “men” drink their “busaa” that was in a big brown pot and get as drunk as they could get and listen to the stammer illogical stories.
Years passed by and I became sixteen. I was ready to be circumcised and pass from boyhood to manhood where my penile foreskin was going to be cut (Kodhiambo, 2019). Specifically, In my Kenyan Kikuyu tribe, one becomes a man after the age of sixteen and after he has to pass through the three grueling weeks of mental, physical, and emotional trials that are marked by a painful and no anesthesia bloody circumcision in the waking cold and before sunrise morning hours by the ‘Chalabi' river. Stripped naked and covered with wet river mad all over the body except for the pelvic area, the eyes, and the nose. This is done on a secluded hill far away from the village, and this hill happens to be in the middle of a forest that nobody knew, only the ‘mushes' the circumcisers, and the people who take you to and from the forest blindfolded, at the back of a vehicle. They wore traditional masks that depicted the gods of circumcision, the ‘Ngai' ‘Mumbi' and the ‘Agikuyu’ when I first saw them beside the river when I was getting ready to get circumcised and become a man.
The D-day was coming faster than I anticipated, my uncles came to visit and gave me insights on what I should do to successfully pass the right of passage to become a man. My mother used to cry many times in the kitchen by herself and whenever I found her, she used to tell me she feared for me and all the pain and torture that I would undergo through the right of passage. This made me fear the experience but more eager to finish it and become a man and earn the respect of all men in my village including my father and older brother. A day before the ‘mushes’ came for me, my dad took me outside and promised me it would be okay that he loved me and that they would make a man out of the boy I was. He gave me a blanket and that night I slept outside at the gate waiting to be taken in the middle of the night by the ‘mukhebis.’ It was like a dream, they ripped the blanket off my body dragged my half-asleep head to the back of a truck blindfolded me, and drove first for hours. When I arrived, the first week I was inside a hut all by myself and was not allowed to see the sun or go outside. My hut was dark inside and I remember all the windows were covered so that the sun did not penetrate its rays inside. Men that I never knew used to bring me food and hit my ankle with a stick gave me insights into how to become a man. I was escorted to the toiles only at night and if I had to go during the day, I was blindfolded so I didn’t see the sun.
The second week I was introduced to the other sixteen-year-old peers who were also brought to the right of passage. We were all put in a big grass thatched roof and mud house and allowed to talk to each other, still, the routine of bringing us food and teaching us to be men continued, and hitting our ankles with sticks continued, not forgetting getting escorted to go use the toilet. The only major addition was every night, we were sent out to the forest to collect any animal’s head by killing it and beheading it and bringing the head back to the compound where we lived to be evaluated by the musubis. We were each given a spear and a machete. In my five nights, I killed a baby antelope, a rabbit, a baby hyena, a snake, and a fully grown and mature warthog. Each time I had to behead them and bring their respective heads back.
The third and last week was the most grueling and most painful and what we did was different rituals that made us men. The first ritual on a Monday morning was to run 3 miles naked and jump in the river Khalaba roll in the mud pluck a specific rare type of grass and run back 3 miles to our hut and show the grass to the mukhebi. This had to all be before sunrise. The second day which was a Tuesday night we had to wrestle each other for hours without stopping until we were too tired to wrestle anymore. The third night they tied a rope around our waist with a piece of meat hanging on the rope on the back side and released a hungry laughing hyena to chess us. The rule was to never remove one’s piece of meat and run to the finish line and they would stop the hyena themselves and feed it. I remember I ran so first than I have ever run in my entire life. The fourth night was preparation for the fifth and last day of the three weeks. We danced traditional Kikuyu dances around a fire and worshipped our man-god as the Kikuyu tradition recommends on the night before the circumcision (Finke, 2019). We were then sent to sleep only to be woken up by the mukhebis who stripped us naked and took us to the river. They pushed us one after the other into the cold river water that was rather stagnant. My turn came and a masked man who asked me if I was ready to become a man pushed me into the river, and I said yes. He pushed me into the water and after I came back, three other masked men started throwing mud all over my wet body, they did it so hard that it was painful until I was fully covered except for my eyes, pelvic area, and nose. I was given a long spear to hold on top of my shoulders and the masked mukhebi came in front of me and asked me to stand still, spread my legs apart and not move a muscle not even blink (1, K. C., 2014). Before I knew it, he had already pulled my foreskin and cut so fast and splashed all my pelvic area with warm sand that was meant to stop my bleeding. I didn’t feel the pain instantly because it was happening so fast, but after a few seconds; I started feeling a throbbing pain all over my pelvic area. The mukhebi who circumcised me stood in front of me and shouted, “Let’s see how long you can take the pain.” In my circumcision culture, one cow rewards every passing second you stand there after you have been circumcised (CitizenTV, 2008). The mukhebi was the one suppose to count the seconds and was counting mine as I stood there. Most of the other boys had already sat down because the pain was too much. It was only myself and a few others who were still standing. Within a few seconds, I realized I was the only one still standing up and all I could think about was all the people who didn't give me respect because I was only a boy. I wanted to prove to them that I was a man than all of them and I would stand there until I drip out all the blood in me and get a full herd of cows. After all, was said and done, I was told I stood there for thirty-four seconds, the longest they have ever witnessed, most boys never go beyond fifteen seconds and the average number of cows they get is ten or fewer. I managed to get thirty-four seconds and therefore thirty-four cows. I made my family super proud and the whole village respected me so much as the man who broke a record nobody had hit before.
The above is an ordeal that I had to undergo because my great grandfathers went through it, my grandfather went through it and my father and older brother went through it too to become men. Today, even if you are a man and you have a wife and kids and you didn’t undergo this right of passage, you went to the hospital to get circumcised after the age of sixteen. You will always be considered a boy in my tribe. This is a tradition that my Kikuyu tribe has held on to for centuries as they say and if a boy does not go through it he is considered an outcast among men in my tribal society. Today, I’m very respected whenever I go back home to my village where I grew up and some consider me a warrior because until this day no boy has ever reached thirty-four seconds of pain. As much as this is a right of passage, and it gives one the manly respect among kinsmen and a herd of cows and women chasing after you, and not forgetting the fact that it marked a whole clan proud of you, it’s something that I will never let my son’s pass through. In my own opinion, it ripped the fun out of my childhood and all I wanted was to be a man. I never took the time to fully embrace and enjoy my childhood and the pressure to become a man was put on my shoulders by my father who never fully interacted with me because I was only a boy and he spent too much time with my older brother who had gone through the ritual. Yes, he became closer to me after I became a man and we hung out a lot, but what about those lonely years when I needed him and he turned his back on me because I was only a boy? My analysis of this ritual is that I think it's first of all traumatizing for a sixteen-year-old for the sake of becoming a 'man.' Now that I immigrated to the United States and traveled in many countries around the world, I have become a global citizen and have gained insights that make me re-examine this 'right of passage' three-week ritual that is so idolized by my tribe. I have come to detest the practice because of all the negative things it comes with, I feel like there was no positive because as bad as I wanted to become a man which I did according to my tribe's standards, I did not find any fulfillment in the new ways people were looking at me, with respect and admiration. I feel like I should be treated with respect and admiration by my kinsmen, family, and the whole society at large even without passing through this ordeal.
Finally, my stand is that there is more bad than good in this right-of-passage ritual (Herzog, 1973) that I underwent and I will never allow my sons (when I have them) to go through such a traumatizing experience, an experience that is meaningless and does more psychological harm than good to a child (Mbito & Malia, 2009). I'm so glad that I will raise them in America where none of those traditions matter. I will only teach them our Kikuyu language and all the good side of our traditions minus the circumcision part. Just like in the class text when the authors asserted that some people chose to totally separate or partially separate from their original culture and or cultural practices (Martin & Nakayama, 2018).
References
- Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2018). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
- Mbito, M. N., & Malia, J. A. (2009). Transfer of the Kenyan Kikuyu male circumcision ritual to future generations living in the United States. Journal of Adolescence, 32(1), 39-53. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.12.004
- Kodhiambo, A. K. (2019). Male Circumcision. Complications in Male Circumcision, 11-15. doi:10.1016/b978-0-323-68127-8.00002-8
- Finke, J. (n.d.). Kikuyu circumcision - Traditional Music & Cultures of Kenya. Retrieved from http://www.bluegecko.org/kenya/tribes/kikuyu/circumcision.htm
- History, H. (2018, November 07). Retrieved July 03, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bagekO3mwDc
- 1, K. C. (2014, August 12). Retrieved July 03, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZU24xdP9Bc
- Herzog, J. D. (1973). Initiation and High School in the Development of Kikuyu Youths Self-Concept. Ethos, 1(4), 478-489. doi:10.1525/eth.1973.1.4.02a00090
- CitizenTV, K. (2008, August 17). Retrieved July 03, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Z59bpLMU0
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