Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

Author:Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton [Lekuton, Joseph Lemasolai]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780792272977
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Published: 2005-10-11T05:00:00+00:00


FINALLY THE DAY CAME. As I said, there were about 200 boys and young men in my group, all ready to be circumcised in one day. A special village—called an alorora—was created for the ceremony. Only the families of the boys being initiated were allowed to set up their huts in that village. The rest of the villagers were far away. Early in the morning, about six o’clock, the circumcision started. The best-known, most prominent family always goes first, then the second best-known and so on, down to the least known. My family, the Lekuton family, always goes first because it is huge and because many of my forefathers were leaders. Within the family it goes by seniority, so they started with my father’s older brothers’ children. My father was one of the youngest of the big Lekuton family, and I was the youngest of the boys in my father’s family, so they had to work all the way through my cousins and brothers before it was my turn. I had heard about this ceremony all my life, and then I watched my cousins and brothers, so I knew exactly what to expect. And then it was my turn.

The hard thing is, while the ceremony is going on you’re not allowed to move your body an inch. You can’t twitch your finger or move your mouth. Even your eyelashes have to stay absolutely still. There were three people there to support me. I sat on a skin on the ground with my legs spread out, and one man held my back up strong. The other two men gently held my legs steady.

Not everything was gentle, though. My other mother was there with a club. My other mother loved me to pieces, but she stood ready to clobber me if I moved. That was her job, to make sure I wasn’t a coward. My mom was there, too, but she’s not as tough as my other mother. And the rest of my family was all around me, to show solidarity and to make sure I didn’t embarrass them.

Then came the man with the knife. He danced in front of me, spitting and waving his knife in the air to scare me. This is one of the rituals. My family poured water mixed with milk—considered a blessing—in my face, and some bubbles settled right on my eyelashes. If those bubbles dropped, it would show that I’d twitched my eye. No blinking! For seven, eight, or ten minutes, or however long it takes, no blinking, no movement, my eyes open but as still as a rock. He took the knife, made the first cut, and it felt like my head was split down the middle. The pain was nowhere else, it was right in the middle of my head.

It’s believed that if you survive the first three cuts, it will change your life. And there were my brothers, already circumcised, saying, “Don’t blink. Don’t move. Don’t bring embarrassment to our family. We’ve never been embarrassed before.



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