Masculine Identities in Bukusu Circumcision Songs

This chapter is based on a study of the cultural practice of male circumcision among the Bukusu made in the context of the performance of masculinities in this society. Male circumcision is one of those cultural practices that one could term as African. Indeed, as has been observed by Maurice Barasa Wekesa, quoting Mwamwenda (1995), “male circumcision has been part of many African cultures long before Western nations sent their people to Africa as traders, missionaries and colonial administrators” (2015, p. 47). It has been one of the key elements in the rites of passage from boyhood to manhood and as Wagner has observed (quoted in Barasa, mentioned above) the pre-colonial Bukusu society circumcised males at the tail-end of their teenagerhood as an orientation to the warriorhood. The practice was—and is still—known as khukhwingila, which practically means ‘to enter’, an entry not just to adulthood but specifically to the then ultimate social function of masculinity—war.