Step to adulthood

What is the moment in which you become an adult in your society? In the Netherlands, you become an adult when you turn 18, when you are allowed to drink or get a driver's license. In Hamar society the passage into adulthood is the same for every boy. There is a ritual through which every boy must go, the ukulí ɓulá or the leap over the cattle.

A calf plays an important role in this moment. The Hamar boy leaps over a row of cows several times. This is very hard as the back of the cows are not a flat surface, and they constantly move. It’s very hard to not to fall when the cow’s skin twitches or when a cow manages to escape and break the line. A calf at the beginning of the lined up animals allows the boy to step on and begin the leaping. This calf is his stepping stone towards adulthood.I never made a video of the ritual myself. It's a beautiful ritual and I am too intimate to invade that moment with my camera. I prefer to observe and live it with my friends. Tourists on the other hand go, pay, and take pictures. The leap across the cattle is like a wedding. You are there for several days, getting drunk, eating together, sleeping together, singing, celebrating, and so on. The whole village comes, the far relatives, the close relatives, the friends. The ritual is now slowly changing, but the core is there, and the leap is the most important moment. After the leap, the boy spends a month with other initiated boys in the forest, eating only milk and meat, and honey, and nothing else. After a month he comes back to the village and starts his life, builds his house, brings his wife to his father's house etc.

When the ritual is concluded, the Hamar boy receives an honorific title. From this moment on, his mates and his mother will address him by this new honorific title. The honorific title is derived from the colors and the patterns of the first calf of the line. “Annómba” for example means “Father of the cow with a patched forehead” (the cow described as balá). Other honorific titles are “Bordímba”,“Father of the spotted cow”, or “Burrémba”, “Father of the yellow cow”.

Being named after a cow. How beautiful is that? Looking up to the animals around us, wanting to be like them, and carrying their name, to me that seems so natural now. That I was named after a person in the Bible that I never met, on the contrary, seems less logical than before I met the pastoralists people of East Africa. Meeting new people, new traditions enriches the ways we are able to view the world. And meeting animals, believe it or not, can do the same.

Read more stories about the Hamar worldview through their cattle.