At least 30 boys may be recovering from bungled circumcisions in the just conluded mass exercise by the Bukusu in Western Kenya. Although medics have not released the figures, a spot check by the Star reveals many boys were admitted and discharged from hospital after the traditional rite of passage this month.
In one case, a teenager in Lutaso village, Webuye, is still nursing injuries after his manhood was chopped off. The 13-year-old boy’s parents believe the incident was a mere accident because the initiator had performed the cut on many other boys on different occasions.
This is the dark side of the rite that comes with pomp and pride once every leap year. This year, it took place in Bungoma, Kakamega, Trans Nzoia and parts of Busia counties, targeting more than 7,000 boys aged between 13 and 18 years.
It is a closely guarded secret that not all circumcisions are successful. Several traditional circumcisers have been taken to court and charged with inflicting damage on young boys while circumcising them.
Sixty-year-old Jared Wafula from Ndivisi was recently charged with badly performing the cut on the 13-year-old boy. He pleaded not guilty and told the court this was just bad luck because he has been cutting boys for eight years.
Elders argue that the traditional cut is not performed by quacks, but by strictly chosen elders who have been “spiritually called” to do the task. They must belong to a family of initiators and have undergone the cut themselves. Aside from being required to have a head full of hair, they are banned from having sex during the circumcision season.
Elders blame the accidents on ‘musambwa’, which implies that something might go wrong if the circumciser met an evil person on the way to the ceremony. They say more than 7,000 boys were circumcised last month, and only a few of those were “botched”.
Webuye County Hospital medical superintendent Patrick Mutoro blames quack doctors. “We have boys here whose manhoods have been ruined by some people who have just been idling in the village but now claim to be doctors who go round homes, performing the cut and injuring young boys. We want parents to bring their children to hospital and be cut properly,” he said.
In another case, a 70-year-old man and his 40-year-old daughter were lynched because villagers suspected they had bewitched a 15-year-old boy from Sirisa, who died after a botched cut.
The two were lynched at their home. The man’s wife escaped and called the police. She says her family has no witches. Death during circumcision may come if families bring out long-standing disputes during the exercise, she said.
In another case, a 27-year-old man was stabbed to death at Chetambe village in Webuye East, when a fight broke out during the night songs by the boys in Khuminya.
Among the Bukusu and the Tachoni subtribes of the Luhya in western Kenya and the Abamasaba in Uganda, one has to be circumcised the traditional way before they are 18 years old, to be recognised as “man enough”.
The initiates are now allowed to marry and be leaders in the community.
Bishop Pius Wafula of the Catholic Church in Kimatuni parish prefers that children go to the hospital and be cut by professionals to prevent the spread of diseases.
“We think with the coming of education and modernisation, parents should take their children to hospitals,” he says.
However, some Bukusu and Tachoni traditional circumcises from Bungoma county have threatened to forcibly stop doctors from going to homesteads to “interfere” with their work.
They says these medics simply circumcise boys and do not teach them proper Bukusu morals that accompany the traditional cut.
“When we circumcise these boys in the traditional way, we impart on them many teachings of the Bukusu that were taught since the old days; how they ought to live with their wives and carry themselves as respected members of the society,” says Walinywa Mukhamule, an elder from Bumula constituency.
He says it’s disturbing that even women and uncircumcised medics are allowed nowadays to perform the cut on boys in hospitals. This is a taboo among the Bukusus, he says. “We want our boys to know exactly who they are and where they came from and stop being brainwashed to think their culture is primitive or full of witchcraft.”
Walinywa claims some of the medics even go away with the boys’ foreskins and end up ‘spoiling’ their future.
But not all is gloomy. The Bukusu ceremony has made booming business this year, says Simon Wekesa, a livestock vendor who sells cows, sheep and goats at the Kimilili market. He says a lot of people buy animals to be slaughtered in the ceremony.
“We are making a killing this season as most of those who are taking their children for the cut want animals to slaughter during the events and to give to their children after the cut,” he says.
Before a boy is cut, two cows are slaughtered, one at the parents’ home and the other at the uncle’s homestead. Some parts of the cows’ meat are worn on the boy’s body and special rituals are performed.
When a boy is cut, he stands on a special prepared ground called ‘etyangi’. Family members are usually keen when preparing it and no one is allowed to touch it because that might be a bad omen.
During the cut, every drop of blood shed is keenly monitored so that no witches and wizards can tamper with it.
It said that during that period, witches and wizards may come out and try to spoil children’s futures while they are facing the cut.