To be a man back then, one had to meet a man known only as "Omukhebi". The skilled circumciser. Always a man, never a woman. With a knife sharper than a scorned wife’s tongue.
The first time I attended a circumcision ritual was in late August, 2000-and-something. It was hot as all August tends to be. Everyone was saying if it was this hot in August, what was it going to be in January? The sky was cloudless, and I could feel the undiluted sun beating straight down on top of my head. I was in Standard Seven or Six then, I had not even sprouted my first pubic hair, or had my first dirty dream, but I knew the Omukhebi would open that portal for me, as everyone who went through his hands could command their mother. Well, they couldn’t, but you get what I mean. They were men. I wanted so bad to be a man, to have my own isimba where I could cut out pictures of pretty young things from The Insyder Magazine or song lyrics of Nameless, Nonini, and Prezzo and paste them on my walls. My own little place where I could come and go as I please, isn’t that what manhood was about? Coming, then going? At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
I remember asking my father, When am I going to get circumcised? When you are 13, and everyone around you is circumcised, some younger than you, that’s all you can think about. I felt exposed in my burgundy jeans shorts, as if my lack of circumcision were made manifest by the sharpness of my leg elbows, otherwise known as knees. I had a sensation that I was being watched by someone somewhere.
That particular day, my cousin Juma was getting circumcised. At 13, he already had a man’s body—shoulders, chest, and ninii. There would be no sleeping that night. The village Isikhuti drums would beat the whole night, cheap alcohol would flow, rivalling that famous wedding at Cana of Galilee. Night would be day and day would be day, and the village would receive new men, freshly mint from the glint of the Omukhebi’s knife. We didn’t care about HIV/Aids then. We should have, but we didn’t. The ritual had survived for ages. Rituals come to us to show us how to survive our other routines.
I’ll spare you the details, but know this: We danced. Ah, we danced. Like we were possessed. Like Nyasaye himself had promised next week to everyone but ourselves. We danced today like we did yesterday, for who knew about tomorrow? The songs and dances encourage the son undergoing the ritual to be strong, for isn’t strength synonymous with manhood? Thus, facing the cut is the ultimate banner of great strength and manhood. With one swoosh! Juma’s foreskin was done, and like Saul on the road to Damascus, Juma was transformed. Boy to man. He was now my elder. This was before the who’s who told us what we already know—before the World Health Organisation or the UN or the Care Internationals told us about “compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of acquired HIV infection in men—by approximately 60 per cent.” Later, they would call it a primitive, crude, and outdated practice, before asking for millions of dollars for sensitivity awareness and educating the masses on new and modern ways to “preserve our cultural heritage.” Ethical voyeurism. Like Christopher Columbus “discovering” America—where indigenous people were already living—they too discovered water at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
I digress. Now, to be a man, all you need is a podcast, a poorly constructed thought, and an ego to match a government employee who just discovered the word “incentive.” We live in a world where anything can mean anything and “experts” mushroom from everywhere telling you how to be you: What to wear, eat, how to talk, who to talk to, when to take a good dump, and how to take a good dump. Do this and you are assured to be the ultimate male icon. When I took this column, I sought the counsel of the paterfamilias, Oyunga Pala. I wanted to know, he was the man’s man, the kind of guy who rode a big boy bike and had no TV, he was all bulging male hormones in a time when everyone found the whiff of testosterone increasingly pungent—did he know what it was to be a man? He laughed and told me, “The trick is not being an expert.” Words I have tattooed on my mind and cauterised in my heart.
There is a certain nirvana embedded in the masculinity ethics of today. I did not want my position to ever be unduly guided by what others might think, be they friends or fiends, strangers or lovers, activists or feminists, religious organisations or institutional powers. Because the lure of affirmation can just be as potent as the fear of attack. I never sought out the acclamations, though I welcomed them, nor did I fear the attacks, on my forehead or otherwise. My editors were gracious enough to let me do me, “Do you, Eddy!” they said (which is also what someone’s daughter says when I forget to reply her (very many texts). I did not want to perform masculinity, but rather to live my life in the best way possible, true to my ideals and respectful in general. The goal is not to be an idol, but your own man, because far too easily honour delves into human worship. Who can judge whether a life is worth living except the person who has lived it?
He who hath ears to hear, let him hear. More than ever before, men need to be wary of their pitfalls, of grandiosity and ego, but also of responsibility and being accountable for their life. But this is even made harder by the cosmetic masculinity gospel that preaches all you have to do to be an “Alpha male” is to open a business, go to the gym, and start a podcast—contemporary mass-cultural canon through which large numbers of men try to think through masculinity. This is only a placebo that cannot chain the chasm in your heart that having this or that, getting this and that, sleeping with this and maybe that somewhat compensates for the relational deficiency of the caricature of manliness and the posturing that has become so fashionable lately. Yet manhood is more about restraint, and less incontinence. The same could be said of modern women.
Back then in the village, the boys were separated after circumcision—elevation requires separation. But they were placed under an uncle to father them [happy Father’s Day!], one who could teach them the ways of our people, and what we mean when we say a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself. Fathers and sons talking to each other. The child having washed his hands then, and only then, is he invited to dine with kings.
With that, nobody would need to sell you a six-part course on how to be a man. You just are. A son, a brother, a friend. And if nobody claps for you, then who said you can’t clap for yourself? In fact, you can (but probably shouldn’t) start a podcast. Didn’t the lizard that jumped from the high Mugumo tree to the ground say he would praise himself if no one else did?
