Speaking of circumcision...

So you may be familiar with the Jewish tradition of circumcision at 8 days. In the US it’s either done at birth, or not at all. However, for Kazakh boys and Doongans (see my earlier post) circumcision happens at 7 to 8 YEARS old! It’s considered the passage into manhood, though that seems like an early age to me. On the other hand, considering life here and the nomadic heritage, 7 or 8 is when a village boy becomes responsible for a lot of the work with the herds.

Anyway, a group of us from the office and some US guests headed out to a circumcision party on Monday June 30th for the son of a friend. The party started at 6:00 am, just after the 5:00 am morning call to prayer. For prayer, Muslims must be ritually clean and to save the need to clean again later for the ceremony, the celebration begins after morning prayers. Thankfully, women don’t need to come till 7:00am!

For us the ceremony consisted of meeting a very stoic faced young man, eating a lot of food including a LOT of meat and having a bit of a dance before getting back to the office in time for the start of the day at 9:00 am. The party went on after us and eventually the newly circumcised young man would…go RIDE A HORSE! No joke. We couldn’t stay to see it, but apparently it’s a very important (and likely painful) part of the ceremony. The thing that surprised me most was having older women throw walnuts (in their shells) at the young man and turn to fling them at the women (to bless us with many sons). I got wacked in the head twice and had them land all over the food!

…In other news, Sara went to a circumcision party at a local orphanage. She saw some of our youngest (5 years old) boys at their circumcision party along with, get this guys, a 14 and 16 YEAR OLD. They had never been through the ceremony and it was a big deal. Hard for the American mind to grasp, but they were proud, not embarrassed at all!

Celebrating the passage to manhood is one thing this culture does really well. I only wonder whether then include the precious knowledge that a boy needs to become a man along with the rituals. I hope so, but being a woman, I’m unlikely to find out any time soon!