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Rule -> Circumcision in various populations (2/1/2011 8:57:45 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Elisabella
In West Africa infant circumcision may have had tribal significance as a rite of passage or otherwise in the past; today in some non-Muslim Nigerian societies it is medicalised and is simply a cultural norm. Circumcision is part of initiation rites in some African, Pacific Islander, and Australian aboriginal traditions in areas such as Arnhem Land, where the practice was introduced by Makassan traders from Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago.Circumcision ceremonies among certain Australian aboriginal societies are noted for their painful nature: subincision is practised amongst some aboriginal peoples in the Western Desert.
In the Pacific, circumcision or superincision is nearly universal among the Melanesians of Fiji and Vanuatu, while participation in the traditional land diving on Pentecost Island is reserved for those who have been circumcised. Circumcision or superincision is also commonly practiced in the Polynesian islands of Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and Tikopia, where the custom is recorded as a pre-Christian/colonial practice. In Samoa it is accompanied by a celebration.
Among some West African groups, such as the Dogon and Dowayo, circumcision is taken to represent a removal of "feminine" aspects of the male, turning boys into fully masculine males. Among the Urhobo of southern Nigeria it is symbolic of a boy entering into manhood. The ritual expression, Omo te Oshare ("the boy is now man"), constitutes a rite of passage from one age set to another. For Nilotic peoples, such as the Kalenjin and Maasai, circumcision is a rite of passage observed collectively by a number of boys every few years, and boys circumcised at the same time are taken to be members of a single age set.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision
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