Down From the Mount

Every few years in some rural areas in South Africa, the circumcision
schools, also known as the mountain schools, are held for teenage
boys and girls and last about a month. They're held separately for
each gender, and their exact curriculum is a closely guarded secret.
The gist, though, is that boys are taught how to be men, girls are
taught how to be women, and they are put through harsh trials that
ensure that they are ready for the harshness of life. I have heard
all kinds of rumors—ranging from the food they eat to the wild sexual
and sacrificial rituals they partake in—but it's hard to gauge what
is true and what isn't. Keep in mind that it is winter here, even
though it is not particularly freezing in my part, and enduring the
cold seems to be an important part of the trials. The men get
circumcised, as the name implies.

Yesterday the men came down from the school, bodies painted red and
wearing red cloths wrapped around their waists. There were a few
less than a dozen from our village, when in the past you might expect
fifty or a hundred to partake. They all walked with their heads
down, stepping in time with walking sticks, and as they passed
through the village the kokwanas who saw them kalakala'ed (I don't
know what to call it in English—stick out your tongue, move it up and
down, scream, and you'll get the noise).

The nduna (a local sub-chief) held a braai in honor of their return.
Some of the village women, including my sister, brought out their
traditional skirts and took the opportunity to dance. The
traditional skirts have two gathered layers of cloth, the first thick
skirt very short and ending just past the hips and the other skirt,
the same thickness, going down to the knees. People wear them,
though more often the toga-like cloths that are supposed to be worn
over them, around on normal occasions relatively frequently, but the
skirts are especially created to dance in—you can imagine how
extraordinary the two-layered skirts look when they start to move.
Some of the skirts had a red stripe down the back, adding to the effect.

As always in the village, I hung out primarily with the middle-aged
women, and my sister and I left after we had eaten, so I was only at
the braai for a couple of hours. The men from the school, too, could
be seen walking back from it in their straight line only a little
while after we left. However, we live in the lot adjoining the
braai, so I could hear the music playing long into the night.