ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the methodological approach chosen (HOMALS), and provides information about the study and control samples, together with the total variables found to be associated with infibulation. The lack of concise explanation of ceremonies or ritual activity in general compounds the confusion surrounding the study of infibulation. Even the historical and ethnographic data utilized by this study are: primarily concerned with infibulation, often contradictory due to specific colonial interests or absence of extensive field research, and not exhaustive or comprehensive in either historical or ethnographic terms. Relevant information was extracted from all available sources concerning those geographic areas where infibulation was reported to occur. These included colonial government sponsored studies and reports, medical/demographic studies, travel journals, ethnographic studies, and general historical and/or geographic treatises, all dating from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. More recent studies of female circumcision were utilized, but most were not heavily relied upon.
