The Hamar community is a group of people residing
in the southwest part of Ethiopia.
Hamar bull jumping is one of their coming-of-age ceremony for males.
The ceremony takes place around October or
November, starts right before the sun sets,
and ends when the sun rises. It takes 3 days
for the entire ceremony.
According to their culture, a boy has to successfully
finish this ritual to prove his braveness as a man.
Before starting the ritual, the father of the family decides when to send his son to the ceremony.
If there is more than one son in the family,
the oldest one has to complete
the ritual before the younger siblings participate.
Firstly, the boy has to receive the Boko (wooden
stick) from his father and pass it to a girl.
The girl is going to be his wife as soon as
he finishes the ceremony.
In Hamar culture, the parents have to choose their children’s partners.
The girl has to give three kisses to the Boko as a blessing.
The boy then sends invitations to his relatives, along with “a strip of bark” with several knots tied to it.
Each knot represents the numbers of days left until the ceremony.
The people who received the invitation will remove one knot as each day passes by.
Before starting the ritual, the boy has to shave his head and take off all his clothes.
He then rubs the sands around his body to “wash away” the wrongdoing from the past.
The cattle’s faeces are also rubbed around the body to provide “strength.”
Some pieces of tree barks are cut into pieces to attach on the boy’s body.
They believe that it protects the spirits.
The cattle are also covered with its faeces
to make its body slippery.
The ceremony then begins with others playing
music using horns and bells.
Alcohol and various dishes are provided for the guests,
and many of the relatives travel a long distance just to watch this event.
The participant jumps over four cattle.
If he fails, he has to wait another year to
try again.
If he succeeds, he can marry the chosen wife,
start a family and own a cattle.
He can also be part of the Mazas, the group of men who
have completed the rituals before.
As the husband marries his bride, he has to pay for
the bride’s family.
In Hamar cultures, the husband has to provide 35 goats and 20 cattle.
However, 80% of these men die before paying all the bride price.
This seems new and different to us, but there’s
another part of this ritual that surprises
us even more.
During the ceremony, the mother, sister or
female relatives are whipped by the Mazas.
The Mazas use a birch wood to whip them until
their backs bleed.
Those women are not allowed to make any sounds.
Oddly, they force the Mazas to whip harder as more physical pain for women will bless the boy.
It is also a form of insurance policy as the
boy owes these women, meaning that these women
can ask for one favour during their lifetime.
And finally, the whipping ends when the stick
is broken into pieces.
The community then celebrates and dances until dawn.
