CIRCUMCISION AMONG SAVAGE TRIBES.
E. Casalis,[16] who, in the capacity of missionary, for a very long time
resided among the Bassoutos, tells us that among that nation the
operation is performed at the age of from thirteen to fifteen years. The
ceremony is gone through once in three or four years. So important an
event is it considered by the Bassoutos that they date events from one
of these observances, as the Romans dated events from a certain
consulship, or the Greeks from an Olympiade. At the time fixed, all the
candidates go through a sham rebellion and escape to the woods; the
warriors arm and give chase, and, after a sham battle, capture the
insurgents, whom they bring back as prisoners, amidst dancing and great
rejoicings, which are the preludes to the feast. The next day the huts
of mystery (_mapato_) are erected, where, after the circumcision, the
young men are to reside for some eight months, under the tutorship of
experienced teachers, who drill them in the use of the spear, sword, and
shield, teaching them to endure hunger, thirst, blows, and all manner of
hardships; prolonged fasts and cruel flagellations being regarded as
pastimes between the exercises. The severity of the regulations may be
judged from the fact that the instructors have a right to put to death
any one who may try to escape from these ordeals. The women are
rigorously excluded from these camps, but the men are allowed to visit
them, when they have the privilege of assisting the teachers by adding
additional blows and precepts to the backs of the unlucky candidates.
After eight months of such training, the young men are oiled from head
to foot and dressed in a garment, and are now given the name which they
are to bear for the rest of their lives. The _mapato_, or mystery hut,
is now burned to the ground and the young men return to the village. The
maternal uncle of the youth here presents him with a javelin for his
defense, and a cow that is to furnish him with nourishment. Until the
time of his marriage, the newly circumcised dwell together; their duties
being of a menial character, such as gathering wood and attending to the
flocks and droves.
M. Paul Lafargue looks upon circumcision among the negro races as being
a rite commemorating their advent to manhood; Livingstone, who has also
observed the above, related incidents in relation to the performance of
_boguera_, or circumcision, among the Bassoutos, believes that with them
the rite has a purely civil significance, being in no way connected with
religion.
Among many of the African tribes the young maids have an ordeal
approaching to circumcision that they must pass when near the age of
thirteen, this rite bearing precisely the same relation regarding their
entrance into the state of womanhood that male circumcision denotes the
entrance into manhood on the part of the males among the Bassoutos. At
the appointed time the maids are gathered together and conducted to the
riverbank; they are placed under the care of expert matrons. They here
reside, after having undergone a kind of baptism; they are maltreated,
punished, and abused by the old women, with a view of making them hardy
and insensible to pain; they are also schooled in the science and art of
African household duties. Among the Gallinas of Sierra Leone, in
addition to the other observances, the clitoris of the young maid is
excised at midnight, while the moon is at its full, after which they
receive their name by which they are to be known through life. The
initiation of each sex into these mysteries is exclusively for the sex
engaged, and it would be as fatal for a man to steal into the camp of
the women during the performance of these ceremonies as it would be
fatal for a woman to enter a _mapato_ where the young men are undergoing
their ordeal. After their initiation into womanhood, the maids live by
themselves, similarly to the young men, until they marry.
Lafargue relates that among the Australians circumcision is held in such
importance that tribes at war will suspend all hostilities and meet in
peace during the observance or performance of the rite. Here, again, we
have a repetition, with a slight variation, of the practices of the
Bassoutos,--something which gives some countenance to the hero-warrior
idea of the origin of circumcision advanced by Bergmann. The Australian
warriors go through a mimic battle, and, after a series of combats,
finally capture the boys aged about from thirteen to fourteen years,
whom they bear away amidst the cries and lamentations of the mothers and
other female relatives, who, in their excess of grief, mutilate
themselves by cutting gashes into their thighs, so that they bleed
profusely. The boys are, in the meantime, carried to some out-of-the-way
place, where an old man, perched on a tree or some rising ground,
through the means of a musical instrument made of a deal-board and human
hair, announced that the rite is in process of performance, so that
neither women nor children might approach. Tufts of moss are placed in
the axilla and on the pubis, to represent puberty, and among some tribes
the skin of the penis is divided to the scrotum with a stone knife,
while others content themselves with simply making a circular incision,
which removes the prepuce, after the Jewish manner, the excised portion
being placed as a ring on the median finger of the left hand. The
circumcised then takes himself to the hills or woods, and there remains
until healed, carefully guarding himself against the approach of any
female. After this the third part of the ceremonies takes place: the
godfather of the youth opens a vein in his own arm, the circumcised
youth is placed on all-fours, and an incision is made from the neck down
as far as the lumbar region, and the blood of the godfather is made to
flow and mingle with that of the godchild; this being in reality a
bloody baptism, and a near relation to the blood-compacts of the Arabs.
The Malays, as well as the men of Borneo, are circumcised. The Battos
likewise perform the rite. Among the Islanders they sometimes ligate the
prepuce so that it drops off. Among the Battos the same object is
reached by small bamboo sticks, between which the prepuce is fastened.
In New Caledonia and Tidshi the boys are circumcised in their seventh
year. The Tonga Islanders split the prepuce on the dorsum with a piece
of bamboo or of shell. In the Marquesas and Sandwich Islands the
operation is superintended by the priests.[17]