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RITES OF BIRTH AND INITIATION 263
outside the village club-house, with their backs to the door,
facing away from it, and are given stern injunctions that on no
account are they to look round. The dubut now come up from
behind carrying sticks and bunches of leaves from the nettle~
tree, and each of them in turn belabours all the boys with his
stick and rubs the leaves up and down the back of each. The
pain which the poor lads have to bear is intense, and often a
man will have on his back scars resulting from this ordeal. After
this trial of endurance the boys are allowed to go, and the men
occupy themselves for the remainder of the day in preparing the
“ medicine â€ù which is to be used on the morrow for treating the
novices after their operation.
The following morning, before the boys enter the ghamal
bagho, they are taken down to the river or sea and circumcised
all at the same time. One man holds the boy from behind, clasping
him with his hands across the chest, while another operates. A
piece of wood is inserted under the foreskin, and a dorsal slit made
with a bamboo knife ; then the foreskin is cut round on either
side to the ligature below, the fragment thus detached being
thrown away into the water} The fruit of the wild orange is
now roasted and the hitter fumes allowed to pass over the wound
to stop the flow of blood, after which it is dressed with the
medicine prepared the previous day and bound round with a
grass called 1b'1.-ml.
As soon as this operation is over, the novices are led away
to the ghnmal bagho, where they are to be secluded for the next
thirty days. During the ï¬Årst seven days of this period they have
to observe oertain food tabus ; they may eat only roasted yams,
and -may drink only a very little water. It is said that were they
to do otherwise sores would develop on their penises. Through-
out the whole time, too, they may only eat yams supplied to
them by their guardians; should the father of any boy bring
yams to his son, the latter could not eat them. Further, during
the ï¬Årst seven days and nights, the mugh vzl are not allowed to
sleep, and to ensure that they shall not do so, a dance called
nilit is performed continuously, or some terrifying "hoax",
1 Although the Big Nambas are aware that among their neighbours there
exist forms of deat.l1—rnagic which are worked over such things as nail and hair
gznngs, they themselves do not practise any such magic, and for this REASON
ve no Xear that the piece of foreskin thus thrown away may be used for
malevolent purposes by a. s0rcerer.—-A. B. D.