Initiation
November 19, 2007
We got shipped out last week to get culturized. It’s like Malawi boot camp: same food at every meal, village kids everywhere, hotter than hell. We spent 10 hours a day in class learning about Malawian culture, beliefs and rites. We all have rites, from christenings and bar mitzvahs to fraternity hazing to last rites; we are a species who use the traditional to contextualize, to add meaning.
Malawi, along with neighbors Zambia and Mozambique, have male secret societies called the Gule Wamkulu. It is the members of these secret societies that dress in costume, unknown men inside, to attend rites representing Mother Earth, the British Colonialist, and…the fire dancer?
We were told at our course that the fire dancer, Maninja, attends initiation rites demonstrating the dangers of playing with fire, i.e. HIV but somehow I think there was some prior meaning.
We were told that in Malawi, between colonization, Westernization, and urbanization, these rites aren’t practiced so much anyone. But not three days later, driving through the Zambia bush, we saw the fire dancer running along the side of the road to a ceremony.
