Female Circumcision in the Hofriyati of Northern Sudan

Jordan Kreager

Through enculturation, customs and beliefs become ingrained into members of a given society, and are thus culturally enabled. These customs and beliefs are represented by sets of symbols which act as the foundation for the social landscape of this civilization. While some symbols are recognized throughout the world similarly, most symbols arise as a product of environment and are therefore exclusive to a particular grouping of people and their respective locations. Within Janice Boddy’s Wombs and Alien Spirits, her experiences with the Hofriyati people of Northern Sudan explore the notion that females and males are contrived through a system of social stratification. While Muslim based cultures generally offer a sharp contrast between the social identities of females to males, the Hofriyati people engage in practices that are by no means fundamental of Islam. Perhaps the fundamentals of Islamic belief help to perpetuate the inequalities between man and woman in Hofriyat, however, Hofriyati practices have undergone a long process of isolated naturalization which at least first occurred as far back as mid-19th century. Many of these practices are based on the idiom of enclosure, symbolized through the woman’s body and specific locations to which women are designated. Congruently, the Zar cult helps women to deal with problems, often empowering them in a number of ways. Many of these problems faced by the Hofriyati can be derived from the social structure that shelters them. With Boddy’s assessment of the hegemonic role that the Zar cult plays in Hofriyat, it seems evident that the social facets of females and males are only distinguished from one another, which further perpetuates the struggle that these women experience.

The idiom of enclosure, a theme prevalent throughout Hofriyati symbolism, appears to dictate the actions of Hofriyati people of both sexes. Many symbols are represented with a central focus on enclosure, but the practice of female circumcision exemplifies this concept most accurately. The ritual of infibulation is revealed as a rite of passage that is usually experienced by girls between the ages of 5 and 10. Symbolism lies within circumcision of both sexes as the transition that occurs through this practice marks the liminal period of transformation from gender-less to gender. In females, the process of enclosure is approached through the excision of the clitoris, labia minora, and most of the labia majora. After removal of the excess skin, the vagina is tightly sewn to support the prevalent notions of ’pure, clean, and smooth’, of which the Hofriyati hold so sacredly within their social constructs. The duality of females to males represents a variety of symbols, but can almost all be traced back to in reference to the vagina or womb, and penis. “Females are associated with enclosure, and enclosure ultimately with fertility; males are associated with the outside, with political and engagement of the world beyond hosh (Boddy, 58).” Like females, the defining moment for attaining male gender occurs when a males penis is circumcised., and essentially exposes it, which contrasts sharply with the association of enclosure within females in Hofriyat. Children of opposite sexes, once circumcised and thus assigned gender, are essentially forbidden to interact with one another. Infibulation essentially transforms female to a socialized state of fertility and virginity, while males are transformed into men through circumcision. The duality of attained gender between females and males is a sheer reflection of the biological differences between the two, and how these interpretations have been upheld, integrated into Hofriyati society for several generations, and reinforced by symbols of enclosure and exposure.

Through the woman’s body, another representation of enclosure can be drawn from the procedures experienced by a woman just before her wedding. As noted, “Human sweat and odor are thought gauche in Hofriyat at all times, but at a wedding, especially despicable… The relation of dry to moist sets off the distinction between prostitutes and brides and thus, between female sexuality (inappropriate fertility) and female fertility (domesticated sexuality) (Boddy, 65).” This representation of enclosure is enacted cosmetically through a series of physical manipulations to the entire body of a future bride. In effort to reduce moisture, the future bride must undergo depilation, followed by a smoke bath, or dukhana. A dukhana involves the woman, wrapped in only a blanket, sitting atop a hole over a fire for up to several hours. Success is essentially achieved when the woman’s body loses the top layer of skin making her lighter and smoother. Through the use of heat, sterility lies at the forefront of this practice, which is clearly linked to cleanliness, enclosedness, smoothness, and whiteness. As men only use razors to shave, heat and pain must be endured by women, which is also a characteristic of paranoiac circumcision. Like infibulation, smoke baths and other cosmetic preparation for soon-to-be brides demonstrate how the idiom of enclosure forms the gender constructs that envelop a Hofriyati female’s life experience.

Through location, the idiom of enclosure helps facilitate the isolation of men and women in Hofriyat. Incidentally, this isolation succeeds circumcision, as boys and girls who played together throughout childhood are forbidden to play together once gender is attained. This can be viewed as an initiation to sex roles in Hofriyat, and through naturalization, this social adhesion binds boys and girls into adulthood, and thus away from one another indefinitely. A prime example of physical and social enclosure emerges from the Hosh, and Boddy refers to this observation as interiority. Interior spaces in the village also signify purity and cleanliness, and the hosh is kept in order by women, while men generally leave the homes on various pursuits throughout an average day in Hofriat. This acutely corresponds to enclosure, as women are in charge of an array of responsibilities within the confines of the physical structuring of the village. These responsibilities include cleaning, cooking, taking care of the children and sick, and many more. As women tend to the family, men generally spend most of their day outside the village, which is representative of exteriority. “When the Hosh is considered a politicoeconomic unit, then internal or domestic affairs are overseen by women, while external affairs such as wage and labor marketing are the province of men (Boddy, 73).” The village is filled with symbols that have been infused into Hofriyat culture for decades, and they mostly seem to escalate the biological differences in male and female by incorporating these differences into the physical realm of the village.

Incidentally, another instance of enclosure is revealed within the Hosh again through the isolation that occurs within the interior walls of the living space. Similar to the the enclosedness of women to men in regard to working inside and outside of these confines, the Hosh symbolizes the womb, and men use the ‘front’ door, while women use the ‘back’ door. These doors correspond to the anatomy of a women’s sex organs as the front door is associated with the exterior of a vagina, while the back door is connected to the womb. Boddy offers insight into this idea, “The womb is called the bayt al-wilada, ‘the house of childbirth,’ and the vaginal opening is its khashm al-bayat, the men’s opening to the house yard and, metaphorically, one man’s immediate descendants, and the khash of the bay al-wilada, a woman’s genital opening (Boddy, 73).” The idiom of enclosure forms the foundation of Hofriyat society and encourages gender roles through constant assimilation and recognition of the idea that females and males are understood to be polar opposites.

In Northern Sudan, Hofriyati women engage in religious phenomena that undoubtedly seem to alleviate some of the hardships of everyday life that women face. The Zar cult primarily based on spirit possession, essentially offers Hofriyati women a new way to approach certain issues through a spiritual realm. Whether spirit possession is actually taking place or if this is a socialized and learned behavior adapted into ritual, the Zar cult enables women to approach certain inequalities in various ways. The zar process represents a key liminal phase in Hofriyat, as a possessed woman can essentially manifest a particular spirit including male spirits, or foreign spirits and are temporarily catered to for the sake of pleasing the spirit and communicating with it successfully. If the possession aspects of zar are socialized and thus learned, it would not be completely out of the question to assume that women who experience feelings of inferiority see the Zar cult as a facilitator for temporary relief of social stress. As the Hofriyati people view mind and body as one, and not separate, spirit possession is understood essentially as a physical manifestation of a spirit through a living host and this has been infused into Hofriyati logic. As religious phenomena usually provide a platform for relief to particular crises of biological measures, sex roles are often inscribed within these contexts to which a certain ritual may belong. In the case of Hofriyati, Boddy notes, “The process of the zar is a journey to self-awareness, a voyage through space and time within a continuous present aptly represented by the midan, the room beyond the looking glass where otherness appears within the world of Hofriyat... The zar is such a process, and importantly, one which makes this level of awareness accessible to women whose selfhood is opaqued by its cultural overdetermination (Boddy, 301-302).” Through these observations, the Zar cult aides women in grasping the realities of Hofriyat, but gives them a chance to vocalize their concerns in a group setting. The zar empowers by allowing women to question their social foundation, and their voice is essentially interpreted entirely separate from the body that is possessed.

A distinct reflection of society, religious phenomena perpetuates the instillation of certain belief systems by integrating them into the social landscape, allowing for cultural logic to be groomed and maintained fitting particular circumstances. Religion lies at the root of virtually all wars recorded in history, and as a product of society, just like a response to an earthquake is evocative of fear and panic; it often provides shelter from the fear of uncertainty. This shelter is fortified with law symbolizing protection to those under its domain. Cultural evolution is a product of environment as well and territorial boundaries create unique ecosystems where people’s cultural lens is always hierophanized. Incidentally, conflict is inevitable, and on a more microscopic level, these same interpretations affect each and every member of a society in unique ways. Within Hofriyat, we see an ideology of biopsychosocial interpretations which have been immersed into consciousness collectively and leave villagers stranded inside their own confines. However, through zar rituals they are able to transcend, leaping high enough to peek above the societal walls and get a quick glimpse at equality before they return to the ground.

For the cultural development of Hofriyat, the Zar hegemonically supports the gender roles that persist in the village. The Zar rituals, frequented primarily by women, essentially provide an outlet for stress, but clearly carry severe implications pertaining to illness or impurity from onlookers. This is also supported by the duality that exists between the possessed and non-possessed. Through Boddy’s research we see that marriage is generally more accredited when a women has not been possessed. Her statistics support the idea that zar possession is clearly indicative of illness or infertility, “Significantly, it is rare for a possessed woman never to have experienced any problems of this sort, far rarer than for one who is not (or not yet) plagued by zayran. But most impressive is that one of every two possessed women has sustained both fertility and marital problems in the course of her life, whereas for the nonpossessed this figure is only one in five (Boddy, 175).” While Zar rituals may give a woman a voice, or a spirit’s voice, it seems as if these possession cases only provide temporary relief, which would shed light on the consistency of these rituals’ appearances down the lineages in Hofriyat. Through this voice, they are heard mainly by women associated with the possessed, and treated as ill if the effects of the spirit linger onward. The Zar practice seems to reiterate the symbols derived from the idiom of enclosure into all realms of Hofriyati society through enculturation, while isolating the possessed in a variety of ways. The Zar rituals provide slight relief in various significant areas of concern in a Hofriati woman’s life, but the zar can be regarded as a therapeutic device, as Boddy recounts Victor Turner’s observations, “Possession is as much a cultural aesthetic; a means to perceive new and rewarding or possibly disturbing significances in what was tacitly accepted as given, as it is therapy: a means to correct faulty perceptions, or cure (Boddy, 353).” While it may help alleviate psychological stress in women, the Zar seems to fuel its own fire by vocalizing the concerns and communicating them to one another. These concerns are not able to necessarily be addressed on sociopolitical level, and the vocalization of these concerns seems to perpetuate a prevalent theme among Hofriyati women, “we are cattle (Boddy, 265),” in the end.

Within Hofriyat, the segregation of women from men seems to be a norm that has accompanied village life for possibly centuries. Islamic practices generally make a clear distinction between male and female, and thus men and women, but Hofriyat was not completely influenced by Islam until more recently. The separation that occurs between sexes is a deeply rooted cultural principle, that propagates itself through circumcision, smoke baths, gender expectations, and the physical space expected to be filled by each sex. Through religious phenomena experienced through Zar and spirit possession, empowerment is likely experienced, but only temporarily. Spirit possession seems to help perpetuate these problems because the problems are only vocalized, and rarely ever promote any real change in Hofriyat. While religion can be defined in many ways, Karl Marx’s literature regarding religion seems to shed light on a possible role that Hofriyati spirit possession may play in this village on a sociological level, “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people (Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).” While this is simply a philosophical idea, it can be correlated to Zar rituals which provide outlet for stress of the inequality, and essentially numbs the pain like that of an opiate for Hofriyati women.

References

Janice Boddy: Wombs and Alien Spirits

Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right