Forest Rites, Tests as Togolese Girls
Become Women
Emile Kouton AFP August 3, 2006
KOUMEA,
Togo -- With just a little scarf around her waist and a
bra to cover her nudity, Sami, 19, traverses the streets of Koumea in the first
stage of an initiation rite toward becoming a woman in Togo.
"I am
preparing for 'akpema.' We are not allowed to wear clothes during this period,"
says the young girl, shyly smiling.
Like Sami, hundreds of other girls
aged between 16 and 20 years have been preparing themselves for two weeks to
undergo 'akpema,' a customary ritual that girls from Togo's northern based kabye
ethnic group have to undergo to graduate to womanhood.
The kabye group,
from which Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe and his late father and Togo
leader Gnassingbe Eyadema hail, is in the majority in the north of the West
African nation.
At the end of the rites, the teenagers, whose loincloths
expose the "tchikita" multicolored pearls dangling around their hips, return
home accompanied by friends to announce their new status to their families.
"Akpema is a time for traditional tests and virginity tests for the
Kabye girls. All girls in our region old enough to be married must undergo this
practical test," said Bekemsi, an elder of Koumea, 450 kilometers (279 miles)
north of Lome.
"It is a long process and the girl who makes it through
all the stages bestows honor to her parents. It is a sign that she has received
good education," he said, seated on a tree trunk in front of mud-and-pole hut.
"In addition to animals offered to the ancestors to beseech their
blessing, the girl is supposed to undergo certain traditional ceremonies, which
vary depending on the villages," explains Yaodem, the traditional chief of
Pya-Tchamde village.
"But the true test is in the sacred forest where a
girl must sit on a virginity stone opposite a traditional chief, to prove that
she has never engaged in sexual intercourse," said Yaodem, warning that
misfortune will befall any who tries to mislead the ancestors.
Evalo, an
assistant to the chief, said that if any girl lies the ancestors release a swarm
of bees.
"In the case of serious impurity, for example a girl who has
already had an abortion, it is a long snake, often a python which will go
between her legs. Alternatively she will start bleeding at that stone," said
Evalo.
Several thousand girls in northern Togo have undergone these
rites. The successful ones receive a small incision under the ear, a sign that
they come from a good family.
"It is not an easy test. I felt really
awful on the day of the big ceremony in the sacred forest," recounts Essohanam,
a vendor of 'tchakpalo,' a local beer.
"We formed a long line and all
the girls were naked ... and the boys were looking at us," she said proudly,
carrying the valued scar under her left ear.
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