JUMPING THE BULL
The Hamar of Southwest Ethiopia have an elaborate age grade system characterised by periodic rites of passage which celebrate transitions from one age grade to the next. By far the most significant ceremony is known as the “Jumping of the Bull”.
Several weeks before the ceremony begins, the boy to be initiated delivers invitations of a blade of dried grass knotted in several places. These knots are a calendar of days and each day the guest must untie one of the knots until the day of the ceremony arrives. The novice also carries with him a carved wooden phallus known as Bokko which he hands to girls whom he meets along the way and they must kiss it three times as a form of blessing.
On the first day several hundred guests gather, among them the Maz (recently initiated men). Aged between 20 and 25, the Maz belong in a special category in Hamar society. Since they have already jumped the bull themselves, they are considered to have left their youth behind; at the same time, however, they are still too young to marry and thus are not yet thought of as properly grown up.
On the day of the initiation itself, the Maz are charged with the important job of steadying the cattle over which the initiate must jump. The novice is then brought in, totally naked (as he was at the moment of his birth), his arms pinioned by two of the Maz. When they release him, he charges at breakneck speed towards the cattle, vaults onto the back of the first one and then runs along all the remaining animals. At the far end of the line he jumps down, turns around, then leaps back up again and repeats the performance in the other direction. Altogether he makes four runs.
For an initiate to fall during the jumping is considered bad luck – and for this reason, great efforts are made by the Maz to keep the cattle still. A single fall incurs no penalty and is blamed on the movement of the animals. However, any boy who fails to complete his four runs will be publicly humiliated: for the rest of his life, he would be teased and insulted by both men and women. Understandably, few initiates allow themselves to fail in this way.
After he has satisfactorily “jumped the bull”, a boy is considered to have put aside childish ways and is allowed to join the Maz – thus taking a vital step forward on the road to full adult status. The Hamar say that maturity is only reached when the heart moves into the eyes – that is, when the eyes see with the heart.
