Chisungu: a girl's initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia

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Book

Title:	Chisungu: a girl's initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia
Author:	Richards, Audrey I.
Year:	1988
Language:	English
City of publisher:	London
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	041503695X
Geographic term:	Zambia
Subjects:	Bemba girls' initiation
Abstract:	While there have been a number of descriptions and interpretations of boys' initiation rituals, this classic study of initiation rites among the Bemba remains one of the few studies to deal in detail with the initiation of girls into adult life. The author observed the entire 'chisungu' or female initiation rite, an almost continuous series of complex ceremonies lasting for a month, during her research among the Bemba in the northeast of what was then Northern Rhodesia, and is now Zambia, in 1931. She provides a detailed description of the elements of the ritual, and analyses it in terms of the culture of a matrilineal society. Celebrating the attainment of sexual and social maturity, the puberty rituals reflect tribal attitudes to sex, fertility, marriage and the rearing of children. We see how women's ceremonies portray and try to enforce the social obligations of marriage and the setting up of the kinship group, and the conflicts of interest that are involved.