Kimam Homosexual Ritualized Behavior essays

Kimam Homosexual Ritualized Behavior essays According to an article entitled Growing Yams and Men: An Interpretation of Kimam Male Ritualized Homosexual Behavior, by J. Patrick Gray, PhD, the Kimam can be described by a dualism which is seen through social structure. A man named Laurent Serpenti studied the Kimam, who occupy Kolepom Island. They are a culture of many ritualistic traditions, often including homosexual behavior. According to Serpenti, there are four levels of territorial areas. The patha is a dwelling-island usually containing a small number of nuclear families...often [consisting] of the families of a father and his sons. Then there are kwandas, or village wards, which is the name of units that consist of two or more patha. Several wards combine to form the most important unit in Kimam ceremonial life, the paburu, or village sector. Lastly there is the pa which is composed of two ceremonially dueling paburu. This information is important in understanding the rituals of growing boys into men. The rituals of the bachelors hut is the most important in growing men. A burial rite is the entry ceremony. They treat him as a corpse and sit him on food and row him to the dancing ground. He is then presented with a mourning hood and enters the bachelors hut. In this part of the ritual he is given the name munaka. Then several things happen to the boy: he is smeared with coconut oil and charcoal and cannot enter water, he receives hair-appendages that young males wear and his hair is tied with sago or areca leaves. Then incisions are made to his upper arms, upper legs, and abdomen and these cuts are to be smeared with semen from older men frequently during the initiation sequence. The Kimam spread sperm on the boy because it is considered to have great powers, and is often used as medicine. Also, when there was an epidemic, villagers would smear semen on sago leaf ribs and bamboo poles and place these at t...