The changing trends of Imbalu

An Imbalu candidate being taken for circumcision in Mbale District.

When 2016 opened its doors, the blowing of horns announcing the arrival of the annual circumcision ritual among the Bamasaaba were sounded. The legendary ceremony among the Bamasaaba (also called Bagisu), an ethnic group that marks the initiation of boys into manhood brings a festive atmosphere in the Elgon sub-region: Music blares, the dance engrosses, food is in plenty and the beer flows.

Issa Mauki, 15, from Bufukhula, Bukigai Sub-county has started preparations for the traditional circumcision (Imbalu) for the 2016 season due in August. He has visited his uncles and now attends Isonja (local dance) every evening at the traditional courtyard.

Normally, this would be a time of excitement, a time when relatives staying far would come back home to witness how the boys would transform into men like it is believed here.

But now a visit to Bulambuli, Sironko, Mbale, Manafwa and Bududa districts that make up Bugisu sub-region shows even when there was blowing of horns, many traditionalists, who are supposed to be preparing the royal regalia for the 2016 Imbalu, are now busy looking for school fees for their children and tilling land to cater for their families.

Although Stephen Makooba, 63, from Bukyabo in Sironko District has three sons who are supposed to be circumcised in 2016, he says, rather than go through the tradition of communal dancing for five days before circumcision, he will circumcise his children with only the family members in attendance.

“It is expensive and besides, it all about circumcision and anybody can do it irrespective of the manner he has done it. We need to work for our families, there is widespread poverty, we need to survive rather than waste the little one has in the name of circumcision,” Makooba says.

Makooba is not alone, there are many parents who are planning to either take their children to hospitals for medical circumcision or circumcise them without involving in the usual rituals to cut down costs.

Medical circumcision
A surgeon at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, Dr Peter Wakalyembe, says on many occasions, the traditional surgeons use one unsterilised knife to circumcise as many candidates as possible and without gloves. Failure to wash hands puts the candidates at risk of not only septic wounds but also transmission of new infections.

“This makes traditional circumcision unhygienic and expensive in terms of treatment. We admit cases at the hospital due to this traditional circumcision. One of them had his urethra destroyed and he could not urinate so we had to improvise a tube for him,” Dr Wakalyembe says. He reveals that there are many such cases in the villages.

John Musira, a former information minister at Inzu Ya Masaba [Bamasaaba cultural institution], says the boys circumcised out of the traditional ritual or in hospitals are treated like uncircumcised men from other tribes. Musira adds that they must watch from a distance, or in the worst case scenario, flee in case they are mistakenly identified as uncircumcised and that these would never lead any clan amongst the Bamasaaba.

Reports indicate that in the past, the Bamasaaba tradition did not allow young men to be circumcised in hospitals because it is a belief that a true Mumasaaba man should undergo Imbalu before his relatives, friends and other visitors. This showed that the candidate is a genuine son who will later be allowed to inherit land and other properties. Musira says education, poverty, modern medical circumcision and other problems in homes have made people change their approach to circumcision, adding that they now view it as an ordinary thing.

He said as scholars they have found out that weak culture, intermarriage, Christianity, migration and the level of literacy are the major social factors influencing the changing pattern of Bamasaaba circumcision ceremony.

“And high cost of living, high unemployment rate, high costs of education and inadequate resources were the major social factors influencing the changing pattern of Bamasaaba circumcision tradition,” said Musira.

But some scholars believe evolution is to blame for the extinction of Imbalu.

“Imbalu culture and other customs’ extinction is as a result of the evolutionary process of globalisation. We need to rethink our culture and customs, protect them from extinction for our children to know and appreciate where we came from,” says Prof Timothy Wangusa, the vice chairperson Lumasaaba Language Academy.

Shameful venture
Augustine Wandende, the cultural board chairman of the Inzu Ya Masaba, reveals that although the desire to be circumcised among the Bagisu is believed to be spiritually inspired, usually there is an internal preparation to pay off the Imbalu debt required of every Mugisu boy.

He said in the past, Bamasaaba women were taught to secretly report their uncircumcised husbands to elders to be circumcised forcefully but that this is no longer the case.

A contemporary example is one of UPC strongman Stephen Mujoloto who had hidden for many years in Kampala but was later circumcised forcibly in Kampala, an incident that made news.