Suffering_a_Thousand_Cuts - Transcript

Below is the transcript of the video “Suffering a Thousand Cuts” which is located in the Defining Adolescence of Lesson 1

Most boys do want to do the initiation. It's not about looking beautiful, it's an initiation process. It's about becoming part of the community, and it's about becoming a real [? Sepik ?] man.

 I'm not really sure what will happen when I go inside the man house. No matter what happens, I will be strong and I will go through it. I will change. Now I am only a little bit of an adult, but after I go inside I will be a whole man.

They're obviously scared, they're nervous. They also know that they're not going to see their family, their mothers, their younger sisters, their younger brothers for very long time. So they just don't really know what's going to happen to them.

The bottom line is that the initiates are treated as females. Even in their own language they are referred to as wives. The women are obviously worried about their kids. They know what's going to happen to their boys. They have seen this initiation process every year, and they know that their boys are going to be cut to pieces.

I wonder if our boys going to be OK when they cut their skin. It will be bad if they lose their lives or find it very hard in there. I worry about that. The men might tell us that they're OK in the man house, but I cannot go and see it with my own eyes.

They cut my skin, and then I got up and they washed me. I felt very weak, and I had to lie down on the ground.

Because the boys are cut all over their body-- they're cut on their arms, on their chest, on their backs, down their legs-- there's not really much they can do. And the only time they really get up is to go to the bathroom or to eat three times a day.

Now that it's done it hurts to sit down. When you lie down to sleep, your chest and your belly hurt.

The initiation process is actually quite a long process-- it will go over weeks. The humiliation is part of this process, and is repeatedly done to these boys almost on a daily basis. It's to remind them of authority. It's to put them into their place.

There was a lot of blood, but I tried to stay strong during the cutting. The initiation is finished now, and I have become a new man.