Reflection 7

There are many cultures in the world today. Though they are different in many aspects; they share a common ground, a rite of passage. Reading the three stories, I was in shock to see how, for example, in facing Mt. Kenya, girls and boys become part of a tribe. In my culture a girl goes through a quinceanera. This is a coming out party for a 15 year old girl. This welcomes the girl into society as a young woman. But in facing Mt. Kenya, it wasn’t so sweet. The girls are basically mutilated. Even though it might bee seen as an atrocity to me, in this story it seemed like an honor. In the Gikuyu tribe, this is the way they establish there womanhood or manhood. The ceremony brings the tribe together and almost everyone is involved in it. They have special rituals and dances in order to celebrate the coming of a new person into the tribe. On the other hand, in sitting quietly, a boy talks about his experience becoming a man. They would have to enter the forest and hunt the forest thing, only then would they be deemed a man. The ones who were going through initiation would have to sleep in one house together. They would gather around and listen to the sounds of the forest at night. There was no room of crying or sadness, they had to show the elders they were men. They would cross the threshold of a woven fence and were faces with the forest thing. Only those strong enough to defeat him were allowed to stay. Once they were accepted, they would live on the other side of the wall for four years. They called it the world of men. The Sambia from New Guinea were interesting as well. They were simple farmers who were sometimes nomadic. The sambia believed that male semen is the source of life. In order to get the semen to work properly, they must go through a sort of initiation process. They live in the men house for 10 years and learn the secrets of the men. They teach them to have fellatio with other men, telling them they must swallow the boys semen in order to strengthen there own. I was very disturbed when reading this passage. I am all for the respect of everyone’s culture and individual rites of passage. I thought this was rather grotesque and saw little connection to education. one thing they do have in common is the way the elders teacher the younger ones to pass on the tradition.