A Companion to Global Gender History. Группа авторов
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who are positioned to take wives, wives who increase their wealth, as well as male daughters who can assume power and act on behalf of their family. These are similar to the female husbands and male daughters among the Igbo of Nigeria, as studied by Ifa Amadiume (1987).
Without circumcision there was and is no entrance into either the Sande or the Poro and without the Sande and Poro those who remained uninitiated cannot enter Mende society as an adult, and certainly cannot take up any significant social, political, or economic role, because they did not have the proper education by which to succeed in Mende life. Mariane Ferme wrote that: “In Mende, uninitiated children are referred to as kpowanga (pl.), a term that also means “mad” and “mentally deficient.” She further comments that “two processes overlap in initiation: one assumes the moral and ideal attributes of Mende men and women at the same time as one learns how to interpret the surrounding world” ((2001: 210). Ruth Phillips, following Carol MacCormack (1979), also wrote that “the Mende regard circumcision as necessary in order to change children, whose sexuality is regarded as ambiguous or neutral, into heterosexual, gendered adults” (1995: 78).
Maintaining Gender in and through Mythology
If the ritual cutting of genitals marked the gender and heteronormativity of the body of initiates, mythology abstracts the material practices of ritual. There are no direct myths among the Mende concerning the foundation of circumcision or the necessity to circumcise children, as one finds in the Tanakh and the commandment of deity to Abram that he circumcise himself and all those males associated with him as part of his covenant with deity. In order to walk before YHWH and “be perfect,” Abram must circumcise himself after which deity gives him a new name, Abraham. Having performed his own circumcision, Abraham was then able to impregnate Sarai, whose name was changed to Sarah (Genesis 17). That said, the conceptualization of perfection and the promise of reproduction in light of male circumcision proposed in the narrative is quite similar to the Mende conceptualization of circumcision. Among the Mende there is an understanding that there was/is a need to bring that which is taken to be in a state of nature, children, and move them into a state of culture, so that they can join Mende society. This shift from a state of nature to a state of culture, from the raw to the cooked (Lévi‐Strauss, 1970), acts in concert with the Mende mythology of the bush as nature par excellence that must be clear cut in order to produce rice, a Mende staple, and other crops such as beans and cassava (Ferme, 2001: 40–47). Like the clearing of the chaotic bush so that it may properly produce, children’s genitals were also clear cut ensuring they might properly produce. As Donald Cosentino wrote: “The worlds of the town and the bush define the limits of the Mende Cosmos. They exist as two poles in absolute opposition – town : bush :: nature : culture :: known : unknown :: human : unhuman” (1982: 25). Fuambai Ahmadu, following Carol MacCormack (1979), also writes that:
Like other areas that fall into the category of “nature,” such as the “bush” or forest before being cleared to be “tamed” and “made” into productive farmland, children must be “made” into either “male” or “female” depending on the appearance of their genitalia at birth, in order for them to be able to reproduce and become part of the world of culture.
(2000: 296–7)
Among the Mende the “bush” is a site of power, and the location of the spirits whose powers can help or hinder Mende folk. Cosentino writes that the bush is the “home of the unhuman and anti‐human” made up of ancestors called ndebla and bush spirits or genii called jinanga (1982: 25). In the bush can be found powerful medicines, called hale, that are used by the Poro and Sande as part of their ritual and medicinal practices. In the Mende system of belief and practice, hale is medicine derived from residual power imbued into existence by the creator deity Ngewo, also called Leve. As Kenneth Little wrote, “He [Ngewo] invested the whole universe with a certain non‐material kind of power or influence, which manifests itself in various ways and on specific occasions in human beings and animals and even in natural phenomena such as lightning, waterfalls and mountains” (Little, 1967: 218). Although Ngewo removed himself to the sky, he can be reached through the spirits of the ancestors, the bush and also the spirits associated with Poro and Sande called the ngafa. These were spirits brought into existence by Ngewo at the outset of creation (Little, 1967: 216–26) and as the ngafa of the Sande and Poro were brought into existence at the outset of time, so too were the Sande and Poro people. Although it is not possible to historically date the foundation of the Sande and Poro societies, female and male initiation societies in Sierra Leone are mentioned as early as the fifteenth century (Grillo, 2018: 106). What the Mende say about Sande is that “they have had a Sande for a long, long time” (Grillo, 2018) or “it has always been there” (MacCormack, 1979: 27).
Gender in Sande and Poro Masks
The Sande and Poro spirits, the ngafa are represented as being in the bush, the site of power and healing, but also of chaos and threat. The bush is nature untamed and therefore threatening, just as in Christian mythology where “untamed nature” is the site of both beauty and threat; it is the boundary between the wilderness and civilization, as seen in the narrative of the protagonist Jesus when he was taken into the desert and tested. The power and medicines of this other place are strong, and access and control are through spirits of the Sande and Poro. These spirits are represented by their associated masks, while the masks are, beyond representing the spirits, receptacles of the power of the spirits, much like icons are receptacles of the saints’ powers in Greek Orthodox Christianity (Danforth, 1989).
Representing the Sande spirits is a wooden helmet mask called the Sowei. Sande and Poro masks, like the societies are gendered (Phillips, 1995). The female sowei masks are worn by heads of Sande chapters, while during the period of initiation Sande chapters in towns come together and chose supreme Sande soweisia known as the Sande Wa jowei or the ndoli jowei, the dancing jowei, who is seen three times in public at three significant parts of the Sande rite of passage. The ndoli jowei is assisted by nyande jowei (the beautiful Sowei) and the ndogbo jowei (the bush Sowei). They dance at the yaya, which occurs after the initiates have been circumcised, while the second time occurs about halfway through and presents the young girls as initiates and potential women of the bush school. The young women are covered in white clay dust from their heads to their feet, while around their waists and neck are strings of beads, cowrie shells, bells, and animal horn and/or teeth. The final dance of the ndoli jowei occurs at the end of the initiation when newly minted adult females are “pulled out” of the bush and sit in state for three days to receive recognition and gifts from the community (Phillips, 1995; Phillips, 1978: 267–70). According to Ruth Phillips, the ndoli jowei is a “tutelary spirit” of the Sande society, a spirit typically seen during initiation only, although she may well come out to bring justice if there is an infraction of Sande laws, and when an important Sande member dies (1978: 272).
Other lesser Sande spirits represented by masks are gonde, a clown‐like character described as ngengema jowei (the funny sowei), and the satirical samawa. These spirits are on periphery, as they represent the inverse of Mende polite speech and action. Like other clowning figures, gonde turns the world upside down in order to reaffirm the rightness of order found in the world right side‐up. As Phillips wrote, through her absurdity, gonde serves to reinforce the dignity of the transcendent power of nodoli jowei. In her graphic representation of the ills which befall offenders against Sande, samawa demonstrates the helplessness of men before the power of sande. (Phillips, 1978: 275).
As to the Poro society, there are multiple male masks representing multiple Poro spirits. There is De nu ge who alerts people as to the coming of Gbeni, and Gbeni, the devil who, leading the boys to the bush school and their induction into Poro, is said to swallow them. There is Ka ge, whose function it is to teach local customs, history, and tradition to the boys undergoing initiation, while the mask of De nu ge also alerts the people as to the coming of Gbe ge, the punisher of adulterers (Arewa