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Shangaani initiation ceremonies put off as hunger bites
Savious
Kwinika,The Standard (Zimbabwe)
April
17, 2005
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?st_id=2182
BULAWAYO - Ravaging
hunger in Chiredzi and Beitbridge has scuttled plans for this year's
annual traditional Shangaan initiation ceremony, The Standard has
learnt.
The Shangaani ethnic group, who converge every year in Sengwe communal
lands in Chiredzi for the event, said they cancelled their traditional
circumcision ceremony because of severe hunger that has affected
the area.
Participants
to the annual rite come from as far as north-eastern South African
areas of Giyani, Malamulele and Tzaneen, and western Mozambique's
Chilothlele, Chicualacuala and Sango border-post.
Chief Mundau
Tshovani told The Standard that due to hunger the annual initiation
ceremony had been cancelled.
"The initiation
ceremony has been called off indefinitely due to hunger. Our boys
and girls, who are ready to assume adulthood duties, will be unfortunate
this time. Maybe they will be forced to wait for yet another year
before undergoing this crucial exercise," Chief Tshovani said.
In Shangani,
initiation for boys is called hoko and tikhombeni for girls, while
in Venda they call it dombeni.
Chief Tshovani
appealed to the government to urgently consider distributing food
relief to the area in order to avert deaths from starvation.
Initiation ceremonies
in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa are "rites of passage"
designed to prepare both boys and girls for their future roles as
fathers and mothers.
University of
Cape Town lecturer, Khomanani Chauke, said the initiation ceremonies
stress the importance of appropriate social and sexual behaviour
in adult life.
"An initiation
ceremony is an opportunity both girls and boys would never want
to miss. It is a God-given rite in which true Shangaan-speaking
people and Venda would never want to miss. Whether these youths
are at the university or studying abroad, they are compelled to
come back home and perhaps go to the bush for two to three months
for the exercise," Chauke said.
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