is feminine and terrestrial water masculine. Menstruation
and pregnancy have to do with heat. The profound symbolic
changes separating Sotho and non-Sotho circumcision rites
come down to a fundamental alternative: should the ritual
fire be given masculine and solar attributes or the hot proper-
ties of menstrual blood? The Sotho have made the first, the
lion fire, their choice; the Tsonga and Venda have opted for
the second, the elephant fire.
Moreover, the Tsonga do not put political authorities
in charge of initiation. Unlike the Pedi, they entrust the ritu-
al fire to the chief’s principal wife, who keeps it burning in
her dwelling in order to smoke medicine objects. Further-
more, the moon is dissociated from the sun; Moon’s hus-
band is Evening Star. For all these reasons, solar/lunar sym-
bolism sinks into the background. Instead, all symbolism
related to Tsonga circumcision is dominated by the opposi-
tion between masculine water and feminine fire, as shown
by the ritual formulas taught during initiation.
Three animals successively figure in these formulas.
Symbol of the circumcising knife that makes boys fit for re-
production, the crocodile “moves heavily across fords and in
the rushes.” The hippopotamus “opens the road for ele-
phants toward the ford.” The elephant “walks slowly on dry
ground” where rain will fill her tracks. These metaphors
strongly contrast the aquatic, masculine domain of the croc-
odile with the solid ground of the female elephant. Between
these two lies the road opened up by the hippopotamus,
which is associated with a virgin girl whom young boys rape.
They thus open the way to the female elephant, the adult
woman who becomes fertile only after menstruation, which
supposedly stops with the start of the rainy season. The ele-
phant fire is a sign of both feminine sterility and the dry sea-
son. Every day, initiates confront this fire and “stab” it with
a phallic stick while they sing, “Elephant, stay calm!” Signifi-
cantly, they may not drink any water during their retreat.
When the camp is burned down at the end of initation, they
jump into a pool as they proclaim their virility. How to inter-
pret this sequence? Circumcision, the necessary condition for
procreative functioning, falls under the sign of masculine
water. Separated from this element during seclusion, initiates
are brought close to a feminine fire, which they cannot extin-
guish before the rainy season. The symbolic space around the
elephant fire in the center of the initiation camp and the
crocodile’s watery place outside the camp are clearly delimit-
ed. The elephant fire corresponds to menstruation, dry earth,
and feminine sterility; the crocodile’s watery realm to cir-
cumcision, terrestrial water, and masculine fertility.
By playing on these oppositions, the Tsonga merely ad-
justed Sotho symbolism to the thermodynamic code with
which all their rites of passage comply. Recall that newborn
Tsonga children, created inside burning wombs, undergo
cooling rites and that the growth of boys is placed under the
sign of the moon. Just before puberty, the ritual process is
reversed, for sexuality is a new source of heat to be carefully
controlled. Tsonga circumcision rites are an initiation into
the mysteries of feminine fire. Circumcision definitively cuts
the maternal bond and marks the beginning of a young
man’s search for a wife. Wives are normally taken from
among pubescent girls who, excessively hot during their first
menstruation, undergo a collective cooling rite, which is the
reverse of the masculine ceremony. Every morning during
their month-long retreat, they are led, with faces veiled, to
a pool and dunked into water up to their necks. Back in the
hut, they are not allowed to warm themselves near the fire.
During Pedi initiation, girls are also dunked into a stream
to take away heat caused by menstruation, but this occurs
at sunset. The Tsonga and Venda both apply cooling treat-
ments to lower girls’ temperatures.Solar symbolism remains a vital part of the Tsonga cere-
mony. Initiates leave for the place of circumcision at dawn
while the morning star heralds the sun, which will pull them
out of the “darkness” of childhood. In addition to putting
a feminine elephant fire in place of the Pedi masculine lion
fire, the Venda (and probably also the Tsonga) change its di-
rection along a north-south axis. According to a widespread
conception in southern Africa, the sun travels from its north-
ern to its southern houses between dry and rainy seasons.
Like the Pedi, the Tsonga hold initiation ceremonies during
the dry season. As the southern summer solstice and the first
rains draw near, the newly initiated may start “following the
elephant’s tracks”—fearlessly approaching women. The op-
position between the elephant’s dry ground and the croco-
dile’s watery place is a sign of the changing seasons. Sexuality
corresponds, as among the Pedi, to the cosmic order gov-
erned by the sun’s course.Thus the symbolic system of circumcision is based upon
a kind of thermodynamics that characterizes all thought
among the southeastern Bantu-speaking peoples. Moreover,
circumcision resembles the mukanda complex of rituals that
is diffused among such matrilineal Bantu-speaking peoples
as the Ndembu and Chokwe in western central Africa. Con-
sequently it brings to light a particularly interesting historical
problem. Did the matrilineal societies in the region that is
now comprised of Zambia, Angola, and northwest Zaire
maintain a very old Bantu cultural tradition that was lost by
other groups (much like the patrilineal Sotho and their near
neighbors did in southern Africa)? This hypothesis cannot
be dismissed a priori. However many arguments support an-
other interpretation (de Heusch, 1982). It seems more plau-
sible that the southern Bantu-speaking zone should be con-
sidered as the center of diffusion of this institution to central
Africa. This type of diffusion would have taken place in the
land of the Lozi, or Rotse, where the Kololo conquerors (of
Sotho origin) took power in 1836. They ruled until 1864
and set up circumcision camps there that were associated
with the military formation of young men. Among the
Ndembu these rites also make one a warrior. Everything
leads one to believe that during the nineteenth century the
circumcision camps inaugurated by the Sotho conquerors
were gradually adopted by neighboring populations whoSOUTHERN AFRICAN RELIGIONS: SOUTHERN BANTU RELIGIONS 8667