Growing up: age sets and initiation

Lesson 5 of 5 in "How societies are built", about 5 minutes

Every society has to turn children into adults. Modern states do it gradually, with school years, examinations and legal ages for voting or driving. Many indigenous societies do it with a clear public event called an initiation. Before it, a person is a child. After it, they hold adult rights and duties. Scholars call such events rites of passage.

The three steps of a rite of passage

• Separation: the young person leaves ordinary life, often going to a camp or a secluded house.
• Transition: a period of teaching and testing. They learn history, law, skills and sacred knowledge.
• Return: they come back to the community in a new status, often with a new name, clothing or mark.

The teaching is the heart of it. Elders pass on what an adult needs to know: how to behave towards relatives, the stories of the land, the duties of marriage and parenthood. The tests, which may involve hardship or courage, bind the group that goes through them together. People who are initiated side by side often remain close for life.

Age sets

An age set is a named group of people, most often men, who were initiated in the same period. They stay in that group for life. An age grade is a stage, such as junior warrior or elder, that each set passes through in turn. Think of a school year group that stays together and moves up through every stage of life as one body.

The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania are the best-known example. Boys of a similar age are initiated over a period of years and form a new age set. As young men they are called ilmurran, often written moran, and by tradition guard the herds and the community. A ceremony called Eunoto marks their passage to senior status, after which they may marry. Later they become elders who make decisions.

Age sets cut across clans and villages. A Maasai man can expect hospitality from an age-mate anywhere in Maasai country. This gives the society a second set of bonds, beside kinship, that holds distant communities together. The Samburu of Kenya, the Oromo of Ethiopia and several peoples of the Nuba mountains in Sudan have comparable systems.

Houses for the young

Some peoples had a special house where young people lived and learned together. Among Naga peoples of north-east India it is called the morung. Boys slept there, learned crafts, songs and history from their seniors, and guarded the village. The Oraon of Jharkhand call theirs the dhumkuria, and the Muria Gond of Bastar have the ghotul, for both girls and boys. Schools have largely replaced these, though some villages keep them for teaching culture.

Many forms

Initiation takes many forms. A Diné girl's coming of age is marked by the Kinaaldá, a ceremony lasting several days. Young Xhosa men in South Africa go through a period of seclusion and teaching called ulwaluko. Among Aboriginal Australian peoples, initiation gives a young person access to deeper levels of ceremonial knowledge, which continues to be revealed through adult life.

Change and debate

These customs are not frozen. Some rites were banned by colonial governments or missions and have since been revived. Others have been shortened to fit around school terms and jobs. Communities also debate practices that can cause harm. In parts of East Africa, Maasai and Samburu groups have adopted alternative rites of passage for girls that keep the teaching and celebration but leave out genital cutting.

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