JOSANEY- culture/customs

A couple of the villages near Salliya just finished their futampaf, the celebration of the boys circumcisions. The celebration was held in the village nearest mine.

PRE-FUTAMPAF:

 Women in the host village and most of the surrounding villages spent the weeks leading up to the futampaf pounding millet and grasses to make a drink (bunkap) that is always served at these occasions. It was likened to fermented tea by a few volunteers that came to visit. You could probably have filled a swimming pool with the amount of bunkap that they made.
There were so many guests from out of the area coming that every compound built extra housing for visitors. They were just palm frond huts but they at least doubled the living space in the village.

DAY 1

On the first day, the boys got ready to go to the bush. In the afternoon, the boys gathered to kill chickens. Each boy and his mother came to the gathering place with 2 chickens. The mothers gave the son two skirts, one to wear as a skirt, one to serve as a shirt. Each pair sat down on the ground and the mother killed the chickens. This is a big deal because here, women don't really do any animal killing. They let the chickens run around like, well, a chicken with its head cut off, and then once it dies, they check something inside of the chicken (maybe the kidneys?). If the chicken acts normally when it dies and if its kidneys look normal, the boy will be fine in the bush. If something is wrong with the chicken, the boy is going to be sick or die in the bush unless something is done about it. All of the chickens were fine so i didn't really get to see what happens if one is not, but when I asked, I got 2 different accounts. One said that if something is wrong, it is the father's fault and the father and the mother have to fight. The other said that the mother had to do a dance to ward off the bad spirits. 
After killing the chickens, the boys were all taken to a communal tent to stay together for the night. For dinner, the boys get to eat the chickens. Two chickens per boy! These guys for sure never have and never will again get to eat that much chicken at one time.

DAY 2

In the morning, the boys were all kept inside their communal tent. They had to stay in there unless someone specifically invited an individual out for a conversation. Supposedly it was pretty cramped and hot in there.  Outside the tent, there was a butesop. (I finally figured out the meaning of that for those of you that remember it a few posts back.) Butesop- n. an event characterized by people wearing protective jujus who try to cut, stab, shoot, or maim in some other way their bodies but cannot because the power of the juju protects them. In the afternoon, EVERYONE walked out into the bush. The crowd was huge. We walked out and danced and watched butesop in a big clearing in the bush. They set off explosives to ward off evil and witches, and they had a kankurang to chase away women and children once it became time for all but the men and initiates to leave the bush. At night they had dances at almost every compound in the village.  It was a lot of fun because every party was a little different and we could go to one until we were bored or we drew too much of a crowd or just decided to switch types of music.

DAY 3

The music didn't stop at all between the afternoon of day 2 and the morning of day 4. Virtually every compound had rented a sound system and played it non-stop for at least 36 hours. I'd say in the entirity of the futampaf week, there was probably just about 12 hours that there was not music blaring from that village. I don't understand how anyone got any sleep.  At some of the parties, people would be sleeping on mats 10 feet away from a 4 foot tall speaker blaring music!

DAY 4

Yet another day of eating and dancing. I had visitors most of the week. My number of visitors ranged from one day when I had 0 to one day when I had 6. This particular day, I had 2 visitors. Visitors mean an invitation to eat lunch at a compound in the futampaf host village!  The food for the futampaf was amazing. They killed a lot of cows, made sauces that they hardly ever cook; there was even salad!!! That never, never happens. Granted, the meals are at odd times- for instance, we ate the salad at about 2 in the morning, and lunch most days was around 5pm, but it was always worth the wait.

DAY 5

Nothing too much happened today.  No visitors, so I ate normal food for lunch and then went to the futampaffing village to help the women cook dinner. After we cooked, it was getting pretty dark and a group of us from Salliya decided to walk home. In the distance though we could hear drums coming. The women told me it was tradition for all the boys to come out of the bush after dark on this night and beat the young girls. I got to see the flood of boys marching into the village in the distance, but we went home before the boys came anywhere close. Being unmarried but past prime marrying age here makes me a confusing girl/woman and I wan't too interested in sticking around to see if they'd beat me. I don't think they actually beat anyone because everyone seemed fine the next day. Maybe it was just a ceremonial tap on the head for each girl or something.

DAY 6

Day before the last, the boys got to take a bath. Traditionally they don't bathe at all for the time they are in the bush. This morning, all of the boys, escorted by a kankurang, walked to the river wearing white shawls covering their faces so no one could tell who they were. There, they all finally washed off, then trekked back to the bush. Later in the afternoon, the boys trek out of the bush again, but this time un-protected by a kankurang. In the futampaf host village there was a big field with a pole planted in it (kind of like a totem pole).  Everyone in the area came out to stand on one side of the pole and the initiates came and stood on the far side of the field still wearing the white shawls from the morning. They did some kind of call and response clapping game with the men on our side of the field and on a certain clap, all the boys took off running toward the pole. Once they reached the pole, the boys dove face down on the ground, each holding a small green branch over their heads. The boys' parents could pay the men in charge to show them which one was their son, and then the son could wave his branch over his head to say "Hey, mom. I'm okay."  After a few minutes of that, the kankurang came out of the bush on the far side of the clearing, so all the women and children had to run back to the village.

DAY 7

The boys came out of the bush to very little fanfare. I assumed after all the big parties we'd had while they were in the bush, there would be a blowout when the boys finally came home, but no. I thought, 'certainly, I'll know when the boys are coming, There'll be a big stir. People will tell me.'  I didn't know anything until the boy from my compound who had gone into the bush came in wearing new clothes and shaking hands in a weird new way.