Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton Read online

  A LOT OF KIDS didn’t stay in school. Some ran away; some just didn’t return from vacation. People in the village knew they could slowly take their kids out, and no one would follow up. The government had other things to do. Officials wouldn’t be asking every year if their kids were in school. But I was allowed to stay on.

  When I came home, my brothers would make fun of me. They’d say, “What do you think you’re getting in that school?”

  When I first started school, my father was always saying to my mother, “Why do you want him to go to school? We want him here. We should take him out.”

  But my mom would say, “No, no, we can’t. No way. We can’t have him stay here.” She could see I wanted to go. And every time I came home I’d tell stories. I’d bring candy for my brothers, too.

  I think the toughest part—tougher than the school, than the food, than walking home—was that gradually I was coming home to people who were not the same as I was anymore. When I got home I could see myself a little bit differently. I’d be taking care of the cattle or talking to my family about different things, and I’d be able to explain how my name was written—I’d show my brothers, and they would try to copy it. Or I could teach them some English, or some math. It’s so hard to explain the way it felt to be a little kid with a culture that was mine and another culture that I was learning. But I remember that from the beginning I wanted my culture to be number one and school to be number two—I would learn them both at the same time if I could. The missionaries really did tell me, “Remove those clothes! The beads you’re wearing! It’s not right!” And at school, that’s what I did. But when I got home, I wore my traditional clothes and lived the way my family lives. And I still do.

  Chapter 6

  Herdsman

  Let’s praise the brave

  And castigate the cowards.

  WHEN I WAS ABOUT NINE YEARS OLD, there was a bad drought in our region. It hadn’t rained in almost two years. Water holes had dried up, and the grass had died. With so little water available, the nomads had scattered. My brother Ngoliong had taken our cattle a long way from the village, to an area called the Kaisut desert. He was alone there, and since I was home from school on vacation, I was sent to help him. I got there, and the sun was scorching—the soil was too hot to walk on. Everything was dry. The only green things were the acacia trees, which have long roots that grow deep into the ground.

  Because of the dry conditions, there was very little milk. The cattle just weren’t producing very much. So most of the time, we went hungry. When there was milk, we bled a cow, mixed the blood with the milk, and drank it. But when there was no milk, we went hungry.

  Within a few days, I realized that things were going to be very tough for me. I was hungry, and I was thirsty. I complained to my brother, but there was nothing he could do. We were both dehydrated, but water was a day’s walk away. I felt I might die. I was weak, and I could barely talk. Finally my brother realized that I was in serious trouble.

  He told me, “Look at the cattle. Look at the noses of the cows. Do you see liquid there?” He told me that it was water, and that I should lick it. So I carefully chose the good cows, the ones that we thought were friendly, and I licked the sweat off their noses. Right away I began to feel better. I licked the cows’ noses every day. I don’t know if it was the water, or if it was that my brother had made me believe we could survive out there, but I was okay after that.

  SOON I WAS OLD ENOUGH to take the cows out by myself. I was told, “Take the cows to this place, be brave, don’t be a child.” And I didn’t ask any questions. I just got up and went. I left at six or seven in the morning and returned at eight or nine in the evening, depending on the distance to water and grass. I didn’t take water or food. If we had food, I ate before I left, drank some tea, and that was it until I came home in the evening. I had my nanga and my spear, nothing else. That’s just how it is. It gets hot sometimes, and you don’t have any water. It rains, and you stand in the rain. It’s cold, and you sit through it. Sometimes you have no shoes, so your feet become strong. They develop shoes of their own.

  When I was with the cows, they were my responsibility. I had to protect them. If I didn’t, I’d get punished. If an animal killed one of the cows, I’d be in trouble. So I’d find a hill or tall tree and climb it. The cows could graze at the bottom, and I could keep a lookout for thieves or wild animals.

  Most of the problems I had were with animals—elephants, buffalo, hyenas. The elephant is dangerous: If it charges, it can kill you. Elephants are fast, really fast. They don’t look it, but when you see one running, you can see that their steps are really fast. Long steps, too. And they’re so big—a human being is nothing compared with one. But often the elephant just shows off. It charges, it stops, it flaps its ears—tries to scare you.

  The hyena is greedy. Once, when Lmatarion was about 14, he fell asleep under a tree. He woke to the sound of one of the smaller cows in the herd being attacked by a hyena. So he took his spear and went after the hyena—followed it, chased it down, and when he got close enough, speared it right in the stomach. Now the hyena had a bad wound, but it kept running, and as it ran, some of its insides fell out. When the hyena turned around, it saw its guts on the ground and thought: Food. It didn’t know that it was its own flesh. It just started eating. That’s how greedy the hyena is.

  I HAD PLENTY OF FRIENDS in the village, and like me, they spent their days grazing the cattle. Normally my family would tell me, “Take these cows to graze tomorrow in this place,” and I’d say, “Okay, Dad, okay, Mom, I’ll do that.” But sometimes the night before I would talk to my friends, and we’d agree to meet somewhere and play. We’d take our cows out, but at midday we’d gather at the meeting point we’d arranged. We’d all break the rules, but no one knew. We did that many times, but there’s an expression in my culture that says, “The day of the thief is the 40th; the 41st day, you get caught.” And of course the 41st day did come.

  That day we played for too long—climbing trees and seeing who could throw his stick or his spear the farthest. While we were playing, my cows wandered. I didn’t notice until we were finished. Then I looked, and I didn’t see them. All the other boys’ cows were there. I was the only one who was missing his cows. I started tracking them, and pretty soon I found the herd. But five of the cows were still missing. Now I knew I was in big trouble. First of all, I’d lost the cows. Second, when my family asked me, “Where did you lose the cows?” I’d have to give them the true location, and they’d know I did not take them where I was supposed to take them. And now it was getting late.

  So I brought all my remaining cows to my friends and asked them to take them home for me. I decided I wasn’t going home that night. I knew I’d be punished, and it was embarrassing. I went looking for the lost cows but couldn’t find them, so when it got dark I found a very big tree, climbed up, and slept there. All night I could hear people walking by looking for the cows—and looking for me. My mom was totally scared, and eventually the whole village was running around asking, “Have you seen him? Have you seen him?” No one knew what was going on. At about three o’clock in the morning the cows came home by themselves, but I didn’t know that. I thought they were lost for good, so when it got light, I was still scared. I spent two nights hiding.

  Early on the third day I went to a cattle camp that was not far from our village. One of the older people there had heard that I was missing and sent word to the village. Now I had to face my biggest brother. My father had died when I was about eight years old, and Paraikon, my much older brother from my other mother, was now the head of the family. We all called him Father because that was his place in the family now. I knew he loved me, and he was kind, but he was just as strict as my own father had been.

  I decided I’d better not wait for him to find me; I’d go and find him. I’d been hiding long enough, I guess. And I decided I’d be ready to speak for myself. I waited for him where I knew he’d bring the cattle. Eventually
, I saw him coming. He was carrying a whip made from a thin tree branch and chewing his knuckles, spitting. I could see his long ears, could see him looking at all the cows.

  I went up to him and said, “Father, I have something to show you.” I was carrying a sheet of paper. He didn’t care. He was looking the other way. But I brought the paper to him and said, “I’m asking for forgiveness, and this is what I learned in school.” He took the piece of paper and looked.

  “So what does this say?”

  “It says, ‘I’m sorry for losing the cattle.’”

  He looked at me and said, “You know, Son, I’ve been proud of you for what you’ve done in school, even though I don’t agree with it. And that mistake—you’ve paid for it by hiding in the woods for two days. You’re lucky you didn’t get eaten by a lion. So take the cows out today, and take them to that place I told you.”

  I could see my friends hiding behind a small rock, looking to see what was going to happen to me. They knew that morning was the time the grown-ups usually get you. If they punish you in the morning, they know you’ll be taking care of those cows very well for the day. And I said, “Yes, sir, I know where it is. I’ll take them there today and make sure that they graze well and that nothing happens to them.”

  “We’ll talk in the evening when you come home.”

  At that point I didn’t want to see my friends at all, didn’t want to have anything to do with them. I just wanted to be on my own. I took the cows, and I grazed them. And when I brought them home their bellies were full.

  Father told me, “Come.” He took me to the cows, looked them over, and said, “This is Sile. She has got three calves—that one, that one, that one. They’re yours.” And I tell you, I could not believe it. A gift of cows shows great respect.

  It showed that my biggest brother loved me. And it was smart. Because from then on, every time I took the cows out to graze I made sure to take them where there was a lot of grass, because some of them were mine.

  Chapter 7

  Initiation

  Our clan has no cowards.

  They know no limits.

  Our cows ceased to be scared when I was a baby.

  THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT of my whole life was my circumcision. In many parts of the world and in many traditions, boys have the foreskin cut back or removed from the glans of the penis. Some cultures feel that a circumcised penis is healthier, some that it is holier. In Maa culture, the circumcision ceremony is the initiation that makes a boy a man.

  In the Maa world, a man who is not circumcised is considered a small boy. He cannot make decisions, and anyone can tell him what to do. It doesn’t matter how smart he is or how old he is or what he does. He can be a professor. He can be a hunter. He can be a journalist, a cook, he can be anything, but people will not take him seriously if he’s not circumcised.

  I was circumcised when I was about 13. Ngoliong and Lmatarion, who are 5 and 8 years older than I am, were circumcised at the same time. That’s because the circumcisions don’t take place every year. They’re generally held several years apart—whole generations are circumcised together.

  When you’re circumcised with a group of people, you always identify yourself as part of that group. So if people ask me what age group I belong to, I say I’m Ilkiroro. If I see somebody of my circumcision group, I think, “I know that guy.” He’s not necessarily my age—there could be 10 years or more between us—but it’s still a sign we’re the same generation. There were maybe 200 in my group, from my village and several surrounding villages, ages 12 to 22.

  THE FIRST STEP for any group of young men is to ask for circumcision from the elders in the community. The way you ask is to sing songs. The village gathers, and the young men sing songs they’ve made up themselves—songs praising the elders or their families or the cattle. “Blessed Be the Mother of This Beautiful Daughter.” “May God Give You Long and Beautiful Life.” Then you say: “We need a time for circumcision.”

  This can be a thing that takes several months and many songs. Many elders just cry to hear your songs. They remember what it felt like when they were young, and they remember their own initiations. They let you sing and sing and sing. They want you to understand that manhood doesn’t come easily. But eventually they say yes. They need warriors to defend the village.

  The next two steps are called ilbaa and naingure. Everyone who is going to be initiated has to go cut arrows. These arrows are supposed to be straight and from a specific tree called a siteti. Then we have to collect gum from another tree, called a silalei. This gum tree grows on a hill in the lowlands. At the right time of the year, when the tree produces its gum, the young men go there to spend the night and collect it. The gum is like chewing gum. It smells great, and a lot of people burn it like incense to make their houses smell good. But if you put it on the tip of an arrow and leave it, it gets hard. It becomes like a rock.

  After the circumcision, when their wounds are still fresh, warriors are required to practice their life skills using these arrows. But the arrow is not supposed to really pierce the animal: It is just supposed to knock the prey down. We don’t believe in shedding blood at that time.

  Also, there’s a particular kind of rope used to bind the arrows. It’s white and very soft, made from the bark of a specific tree. A warrior’s mother collects this material, makes the rope, and ties the arrows in a bundle.

  Finally, your mother has to kill two or three goats to make a leather coat for you, because for a month before you’re circumcised, you have to wear leather. These goats have to be pure white or pure black—no markings. It’s very difficult to get goats like that, so people look for months to find them. All these preparations are not easy, but they are very important. Someone who is not ready will have to wait for the next group to be initiated, which could take 10 or 15 more years.

  Now, as the time of my circumcision approached, I was away at school. So I had to do a lot of the preparation there. I spent three or four months making up and learning songs for the elders, then I sang them when I was home for vacation. My brothers and my mother were able to make some of the other preparations for me—collecting sticks and gum for the arrows, collecting the rope to bind them with. That’s allowed. All the time I was preparing for my final exams that year, I was preoccupied with what was to come, with being ready.

  FINALLY THE DAY CAME. As I said, there were about 200 boys and young men in my group, all ready to be circumcised in one day. A special village—called an alorora—was created for the ceremony. Only the families of the boys being initiated were allowed to set up their huts in that village. The rest of the villagers were far away. Early in the morning, about six o’clock, the circumcision started. The best-known, most prominent family always goes first, then the second best-known and so on, down to the least known. My family, the Lekuton family, always goes first because it is huge and because many of my forefathers were leaders. Within the family it goes by seniority, so they started with my father’s older brothers’ children. My father was one of the youngest of the big Lekuton family, and I was the youngest of the boys in my father’s family, so they had to work all the way through my cousins and brothers before it was my turn. I had heard about this ceremony all my life, and then I watched my cousins and brothers, so I knew exactly what to expect. And then it was my turn.

  The hard thing is, while the ceremony is going on you’re not allowed to move your body an inch. You can’t twitch your finger or move your mouth. Even your eyelashes have to stay absolutely still. There were three people there to support me. I sat on a skin on the ground with my legs spread out, and one man held my back up strong. The other two men gently held my legs steady.

  Not everything was gentle, though. My other mother was there with a club. My other mother loved me to pieces, but she stood ready to clobber me if I moved. That was her job, to make sure I wasn’t a coward. My mom was there, too, but she’s not as tough as my other mother. And the rest of my family was all around me, to show solida
rity and to make sure I didn’t embarrass them.

  Then came the man with the knife. He danced in front of me, spitting and waving his knife in the air to scare me. This is one of the rituals. My family poured water mixed with milk—considered a blessing—in my face, and some bubbles settled right on my eyelashes. If those bubbles dropped, it would show that I’d twitched my eye. No blinking! For seven, eight, or ten minutes, or however long it takes, no blinking, no movement, my eyes open but as still as a rock. He took the knife, made the first cut, and it felt like my head was split down the middle. The pain was nowhere else, it was right in the middle of my head.

  It’s believed that if you survive the first three cuts, it will change your life. And there were my brothers, already circumcised, saying, “Don’t blink. Don’t move. Don’t bring embarrassment to our family. We’ve never been embarrassed before.” Meanwhile, the operation continued. Eight, nine minutes. It’s a complicated process, so how long it takes depends on how good the circumciser is. If he’s not so good, too bad for you, you have to go for ten minutes or more. If he makes a mistake, you have to wait for him to fix it—you have no choice, you cannot leave. As the initiation was going on, I could hear songs coming from every part of the village. Songs of bravery and brotherhood, songs of the clan.

  Finally, after probably seven or eight cuts, I heard my mother let out a loud breath—a sigh of relief. I could hear the other boys singing for me: “He’s done it. He is part of us now. He went through it.” My other mother put down her club.

  Then the circumciser hit me on the thigh with the flat side of the knife. He said, “Wake up. You’re a man now. You’re a man.” You have to hear that. From that time on, your world has changed forever. At that time, it felt like heaven had opened and everything was clear, except the pain was getting worse by the minute.