In today’s society, we have to be careful about how we view and portray cultural practices as due to our own ignorance and conditioning as inhabitants of the West, which are heavy influenced by Eurocentric theories, we are prone to condemn things that are unfamiliar to us or might deem them to be “barbaric.”
Such is the case of the practice of masculinisation as it is conducted by the Sambia Tribe in Papua New Guinea. This ritual, which is a symbol of a young boy’s rite of passage to manhood, starts when a boy is between the ages of 6 to 10 and comprises of 6 stages.
Imperative to the processes and teaching of the initial ceremony is the notion that women can be dangerous to men. To become a man, and in essence a “warrior,” these young men are taught how to detach themselves from their mothers and the women around them as a means of showing that they can live without them and prove their masculinity.
The six stage process of affirming one’s manhood can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years until these young men give birth to a child. Much of the initiation and training is characterizes by what some have deemed to be highly eroticized and s*xual.
In the first stages, a sharp stick of cane is inserted deeply into the young boy’s nostrils until he bleeds profusely. The young boys are also introduced to older warriors who are told that bachelors are going to “copulate” with them to make them grow. Throughout much of the 6 stages, the act of having the stick of cane inserted into the nostrils and the performance of “fallatio” are integral to the process of becoming a man.
While the former practice is often derided by many as “inhumane” and the latter is often referred to as “homos*xual” behaviour, the Sambia’s understanding and purpose behind these two processes differs from our conventional understanding.
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