Gabriella Santini PhD Anthropology The ban on female circumcision in Kenya has ended Empikas, the only ceremony Siria Maasai girls had to mark their transition into womanhood. However, an attempt to reinvent Empikas, without the circumcision, has been made,...
By
Gabriella Santini
PhD Anthropology
The ban on female circumcision in Kenya has put an end to Empikas — the only rite of passage ceremony for Maasai girls in Siria, Kenya. Empikas is a ceremony organized to celebrate Maasai girls’ transition to womanhood, after having undergone circumcision.
While female circumcision is a dying practice in Kenya, some families still choose to honour this tradition. Because of its illegality, circumcision is done secretly — and girls are no longer celebrated after going through the procedure.
As a result, Maasai girls have lost their only rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. “The boys have all the rituals. Girls don’t have anything,” said one of the girls. Maasai boys have three rites of passage: ??Enkipaata (induction), Emurata (circumcision, becoming a Maasai warrior, or Moran), and Eunoto (graduating into adulthood). “They get all the attention,” she added.
I learned about Empikas after several months of being in the field. It hadn’t come up earlier in conversations or interviews since it’s an ending tradition (and linked to a taboo subject). However, an older woman reminisced on Empikas when we were discussing Olamayio, a lion hunting practice usually performed between the Emurata and Eunoto stages of a boy’s life (or warriorhood). Lion hunting, like female circumcision, has been banned in Kenya, and for a much longer period of time. Yet, rituals celebrating Maasai warriorhood have not died as a result of this hunting ban: they were instead adapted to this new context. So, “Why hasn’t the same been done for the girls’ rite of passage?” thought Jane, my Maasai research assistant.
My research assistant was lamenting the fact that she never got an Empikas and was envious of older women who got to experience this coming together of women for dancing and singing in Maasai dress. So, together we decided to organize an Empikas celebration — without the circumcision — for the girls in the village. The aim was to reinvent Empikas: to give it new meaning and purpose for the 21st century Maasai girl.
My research assistant invited girls from the local area to join us during their holiday from school (secondary school students in Kenya normally attend boarding school, far away from home). We gathered on my host family’s property and cooked food for the group. An elder blessed the girls and guided us in prayers. We sang and danced to traditional and more contemporary Maasai songs. Joyce*, my host family’s eldest, prepared an inspirational speech, urging her peers to do well in school and empowering them to achieve great things beyond the usual expectations of Maasai women.
The girls enjoyed wearing their beads and shukas; spending time away from the household to see their friends and celebrate girlhood/womanhood — something that does not happen often in their day to day. Showing girls that they have the ability to re-invent their own rite of passage offers an opportunity for them to think about what it means to be Maasai women and girls in Kenya today, and to embody this meaning in something tangible that can be passed down to the next generation.
*Name has been changed to protect the identity of the minor.