ABSTRACT
The ritual preparation of a child for initiation forms part of an extended sequence of personal ceremonies spanning a lifetime. The sequence of personal ceremonies respects from an early age. Each child in the family must pass through each stage in strict order of birth regardless of sex. After the naming ceremony in infancy, the next steps in this sequence are a series of operations on the child's face, marking its progress to adulthood. The initiation is the principal event in a child's upbringing. Yet significantly, it is the father who is the key figure. Initiation is a watershed in a child's development that leads in quite different directions for the two sexes. The notion of a child emerging from the mother's hut before initiation is highly suggestive in a ceremony that, like birth, is entirely in the hands of women and indirectly associated with an operation on the genital region.
