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No escape from the knife!!

Saturday, 19 July 2008

By Elizabeth Equbay The distance from one’s village or the status someone has is not a big deal. Wherever you go and whoever you are, you should have to fulfill what your culture demands of you. Kampala cannot hide you from the things you want to escape. It is as simple as taking sheep from the market.    Stephen Mujooroto, an elderly man, was recently arrested in Kampala by his tribesmen and forcibly circumcised. His captors, who included his son, accused him of having dodged circumcision, a rite of passage to manhood. Among the Bagisu, a tribe in eastern Uganda, a man is obliged to undergo the ritual of circumcision before the age of twenty-two. However, the origin of the practice of circumcision is shrouded with mystery among the Bagisu. Some people claim that the ritual originated from the demand by the Barwa (Kalenjin of Kenya) when he wanted to marry a woman from the tribe.   Some other tales claim that the first person to be circumcised had complications with his sexual organ so that circumcision started as a surgical operation to save his life.  According to another story, the first person to be circumcised was being punished for seducing other people’s wives. It was, therefore, decided that he be partially castrated by the circumciser. When he resumed his former habit and the rumor had gone around that he had excelled at it, other men decided to undergo circumcision. Like in some Ethiopia cultures, circumcision has seasons and it is performed en masse. It is also impossible to touch water immediately after the ritual - it is allowed after days. It is similar with the people in southern Omo, who refused to leave their place when the area was flooded. In Bagisu, the circumcision festivity occurs bi-annually during leap years. An uncircumcised person is called Musinde, while the circumcised one is named Musani. Those who run away from the ritual must be hunted down and forcefully circumcised. Circumcision candidates decorate their face with yeast paste.   They are also given a root locally called luli which they chew and whose juice they swallow , to be possessed, energized and stimulated to face the knife.  After the circumcision is held, the foreskin is buried under a small stone that had been set before for each candidate. For three days after the circumcision, they are not allowed to eat with their hands because it is believed that they are not fully initiated to manhood. The foreskin is securely stored at home to prevent wizards from using it to bewitch the circumcised. After another three days, the circumciser is invited to perform the ritual of washing hands (on the day they eat with their hands they declare that they have attained manhood) and disposes of the foreskin. It has to be washed, wrapped in a banana leaf and thrown in a pit latrine. After two months, another ritual is going to be held to signify the importance of the ceremony. It is an important occasion that is attended by all the villagers. During the ritual, the elders tell the new MAN to look for a girl to marry, to avoid going to his mother’s bedroom and not to ask for food from her. Therefore, according to the dictate of culture, Stephen Mujooroto had no chance to escape this ritual. A muscular youth, believed to be Mujooroto’s son, held him by the trousers when he was talking to colleagues. Sensing danger the rest of the group fled, thinking the Kampala City law enforcers were arresting criminals. But the youth explained why they were there and Mujoroto’s colleagues allowed them to take him to sort out the “tribal affair.” After the event, many people said that the man should sue his tribesmen for forcing him to accomplish the cultural ritual but, Stephen Mujoroto, who was forcefully circumcised in Kampala, said he will not sue the militant youth who ambushed him and forced the cultural ritual on him and that they are poor and don’t have any money to pay him. According to letters sent to New Vision newspaper concerning the issue, some said that the action was criminal, inhuman and awkward, there were also people who said that he deserves it and asked how Mujooroto can have children without facing the knife? They said only cowards allow such embarrassments to befall their families and that he brought a curse to his family and because of it he deserved what he got. Finally, his son argued that problems had afflicted their family, which he blamed on their father’s refusal to be circumcised. Moreover, he added that they had sent several emissaries, including his elder sisters, to persuade him to be circumcised to no avail.

 

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