Circumcision is one of the most important rights of passage in many Kenyan tribes including the Maasai, Kikuyu, Kamba and Baluyia. It is through its painful portals that a male child is ushered into adulthood. The operation is ordinarily carried out on teenagers and no male in the tribe, no matter how old will be considered anything more than a boy unless he has undergone circumcision. The consequences are that despite being taunted mercilessly and being called demeaning names, he will not be welcome in any gathering of men. Among all the Kenyan tribes that customarily practice circumcision, the Bukusu community carries out one of the most elaborate ceremonies. Bukusu is one of the seventeen sub-tribes of the Baluyia tribe from Western Kenya.

Isaiah Ole Kutatoi my Maasai storyteller has a counterpart called Patrick Wafula. Patrick is from the Bukusu community and today, he narrated for us how the circumcision ceremony is carried out among his people. This significant event is held once every 2 years in the month of August. For all the boys who have come of age in that year, preparations start weeks before the actual day. Around the month of June, each of the boys prepares a special musical instrument that he will subsequently use to announce his presence wherever he goes. The instrument is improvised using an old aerosol can that is tapped continuously against a metal band worn around the wrist to produce a cowbell sound. Each of the boys has to wear this bell on each hand and play them in synchrony. The awkward maneuver required to achieve this effect take days of practice before it can be mastered.

One of the occasions where the bells are used is when the boy pays a visit to various relatives to alert them of the upcoming event. In each of these visits to far-flung relations, a gang of boys and girls from the village accompanies the initiate. The group arrives at the homestead in a trot as they sing, among the “clank! clank! clank! clank!” from the old aerosol cans and intermittent blows from a shrill whistle. The inhabitants of the homestead welcome the troupe with song and the two groups will converge in the courtyard in a wild stampede of happy dancing. The boy’s group takes this opportunity to receive food treats, which they put in a bag that they carry from one home to another for just this purpose.

One day prior to the circumcision day, the boy visits his maternal uncle who gladly slaughters a bull in his honor. As soon as the bull is slaughtered, a section of its meat is made into a necklace that is hung on the boy’s neck. This section of meat includes the bull’s heavy ballocks, which are proudly displayed down the boy’s topless chest. That evening, the boy travels back home with the meat that his uncle slaughtered for him.

That night, there is great celebration. Armed with his bells on each hand and adorned with a ring of beef around the neck, the boy dances all night. On this night, naughty and vulgar songs are belted gleefully as the carnival mood shimmers with the energy created by the calculated gyrations of men’s hips dancing close to the agile midsections of young women. Food is in plenty and traditional alcoholic beverages are consumed with gusto. Custom allows for anyone to humiliate the initiate in order to ‘help’ him bid farewell to his ‘unmanly’ state. So, among these festivities, the boy will be slapped, kicked and whipped even as the beef necklace bounces on his chest and his synchronous bells go, “clank! clank! clank! clank!” Even under the most excruciating pain, he would dare not break the rhythm.

At around 5 am the following morning, the initiate is taken to the riverside where he is smeared with white clay all over his body. Thus decorated, the teenager will be escorted back to the homestead, naked. By then, a huge crowd consisting of men, women and children of all ages will have congregated to witness the event. Once there, he will stand to attention with head up and chest out to wait for the knife. The only thing that he wears now is the beef necklace. As the circumciser kneels in front of the boy, everyone in the crowd eagerly cranes his or her neck to see the face of the initiate during the moment of truth. As the old man skillfully extracts the foreskin from the penis, all the watching faces are flushed with anticipation. If the initiate as much as flinches during the cut, then that is a big disgrace to himself, family and fellow initiates. A stone-faced expression during the cut is followed by loud cheering from the men and wild ululation from the womenfolk. The initiate has just turned from a boy into a man.

After the circumcision, the dazed initiate is draped in a sheet and seated on a low chair where he is showered with money by the ecstatic relatives and villagers. The aunt cleans off the clay from his exhausted body and the beef necklace is handed over to his grandmother, as custom requires. The eating, drinking and partying continues as the new man retreat into a special hut. In the seclusion of this hut, he will be fed, nursed and given instructions on issued to do with manhood and adulthood in the Bukusu community. When the man emerges weeks later, everyone looks at him with new respect accorded only to adults.