Initiation Rites

Exhausted from travelling, Adrienne and I arrived home to Murrupula Sunday afternoon, looking forward to an afternoon of relaxing and trying to escape the heat watching movies in front of the fan.  During our screening of The Emperor’s New Groove, we continuously heard drumming and singing from the house behind ours and became very curious about what was happening over there: a wedding? a new baby?  Despite being tired, I think in the back of both of our minds were thoughts about the short amount of time we have left here and it wouldn’t hurt to go pass by and find the answer to our curiosity…

So we mustered up the energy and timidly opened the gate door to the neighbor’s house.  Peeking our heads in to see if we were welcomed, we found a group of almost 100 women dancing and graciously welcoming us inside.  We asked a few women what the celebration was for and learned it was the initiation rites ceremony for a young girl of the house.

During these past two years, I had heard people allude to the initiation rites ceremony, explaining vaguely that it is an educational ceremony for adolescent boys and girls, initiating them in to manhood and womanhood, but I never truly understood what took place during such a ceremony.  It had always been somewhat of a far off dream to experience one in person and what an awesome opportunity to just stumble across it and be so welcomed to participate!

Very quickly, the women had us kicking off our sandals, tied capulanas around our waists and pushed us in to the center of the dance circle, showing us how to shake our hips while clapping, laughing, and cheering us on.  They made sure we had the perfect positions to watch and learn the dances and then would grab us by the arm to do it with them.  Aside from the general booty shakin’, criss crossin’ dancing, they had several partner dances and circle dances too.  In one, partners joined hands and alternated passing through another pairs’ arms.  In another, partners crossed one leg in the air and hopped forward and backwards.  In a circle, we did a “hip-bump pass” dance - with the woman on your left, you bump hips to the side then the front and then turn and pass it on to the woman on your right.  All the while, during the dancing, the honoree sat on the floor, her eyes pointed downward, her face expressionless.  I must admit I was very flattered when women were coming up to me after saying how well I knew how to dance, and I even caught the young girl trying to hide a smile every now and then.  See Mom, those years of dance classes really did pay off!

After about an hour of dancing, we were told to make a pathway and women came in carrying branches of leaves, singing a melancholy song, leading the way for another woman draped in a green mesh covering.  The girl next to me explained that it was the honoree’s mother.  Then the mother collapsed at the girl’s feet, feigning death.  Naturally, the girl began to cry.  Adrienne and I turned to each other, not entirely sure if we were correctly understanding what was happening, but seeing the surrounding women smiling and laughing to themselves as the girl continued to cry.  I clarified things with the girl next to me and she confirmed that this was in fact a joke played on the girl that her mom had died.  After maybe about 10 minutes of the mother laying there, another woman sat down to talk with the girl and then the mother got up and began to dance for a bit before heading inside the house.  As Americans, this is probably the worst joke you could play on someone, that someone close to them has died, but neither I nor Adrienne found it surprising from what we have learned about the culture during our time here.  I do not mean to incline that Mozambicans are heartless, but more so, that they have a very different view of death.  Death is much more attributed to fate and when one is surrounded by it as much as they are here, you almost have to learn how to deal with it in a different way.  But I digress…

Now, the ceremony took a more educational tone.  They brought out some traditional household items such as the wooden pole they use to pound corn and peanuts, doing several dances and jumps over it.  Then two at a time, women began rolling around in the dirt to the drum beat, demonstrating how to properly have sex, one woman playing the husband and the other the girl.  They took liberties with their roles, some miming smoking a cigarette and others playing the cocky male.  It was all pretty amusing, but also somewhat sad as it very much promoted the idea of women as there to serve their husbands.  After several demonstrations, the girl’s older sister did one final demo and then the girl herself laid down on the straw mat to have her turn.

Following the sex education portion, they then used the older sister to model how to fashion a Mozambican pad.  The sister stripped down and they used torn strips of fabric, one tied around her waist and the other passing between her legs, demonstrating how to properly secure it in place.  They then presented the girl with her own capulana for this purpose and continued with more dancing and blessings.  The ceremony was led by a local curandeiro, a traditional healer in the community.  All of what she said was in Mecua, so I couldn’t understand much of anything, but interpreted most of it as blessings for the girl’s future.

After about two hours, we were told that everyone was now going home and would return later that night to continue dancing.  Adrienne and I were so happy we had gone over to see what the drumming was about, extremely gracious at how welcoming the women had been in letting us participate in one of their most intimate traditions, but we were also exhausted and probably wouldn’t return that night.

As I got in to bed around my normal 8:30pm bedtime, I found it strangely quiet outside and wondered if they had decided not to continue with the evening’s activities.  Then I woke up around 10pm to the sounds of drums and singing again.  Incredibly, these women kept at it until almost 4am and then switched over to radio music.  Even the next morning and all afternoon, they still had music going! 

Nonetheless, I didn’t get much sleep that night, but it was still an incredible experience to witness and gets placed near the top of my most memorable moments.  It was a rare opportunity through which I learned so much about the culture.  I think it came at the perfect point in my service, a point where I feel I can actually appreciate and understand what was going on, whereas if I had experienced it earlier, it probably would have all been totally overwhelming.  I mean, when a woman strips down in front of you, it can definitely catch you off guard!  But now, I feel I have come to a new appreciation of this culture, witnessing the importance and use of dance in expressing everything, interpreting symbolism in some of the events, and seeing the role of the female and how incredibly strong the women are, definitely not women I can keep up with, dancing through all hours of the night!