Puberty
Puberty
I want my child, to be a human child
Marry a man,
Tend a farm, And be happy to see her
Peppers and her onions grow. (Nasta 136)
The first step towards becoming a mother is for the girl to become a woman. At puberty, girls are instructed in menstruation taboos and the secrets of childbirth. Most of these initiations last several months, usually during the dry season. The girls are isolated with some elder women from the village. The actual practices that take place vary strongly from tribe to tribe. Some of these ceremonies are agreeable with ritual songs and dances, the eating of certain foods, and even the appearance of masked beings (Coquery-Vidrovitch 201). Most ceremonies though are “a pitiless introduction to the life of labor awaiting peasant women (202).” Some ceremonies also include the practice of female genital mutilation.
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Ashanti schoolgirls near Kumasi (Levy 55) |
In Ghana: “ceremonies for girls are more elaborate, with rituals varying according to the customs of the tribe. Generally they follow the pattern that on reaching puberty the girls are taken out to the family compound and put on display for all the neighbors to see. In some tribes the girls wear very little besides beads. In others they walk around the streets, greeting the neighbors. After this there is an eight-day period when the girls are isolated and cannot touch anything associated with adult life, such as the stove, their newly bought clothes, or the gifts that their family and neighbors bring. At the end of this period of exclusion the girls are dressed in their finest clothes and presented with the gifts that form their capital and that remain theirs even after marriage (Levy 69).”