Aesthetic of africanism in camara laye’s the african child and the radiance of the king
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| RITUAL OF PASSAGE
The growing up process of any child cannot be viewed in simple ways. It is the main contributing factor to the child’s adulthood, therefore initiation is the rite of passage from one stage of development to the other, it is an integral aspect of African custom that usually announces one to adulthood be it male or female. Laye observes and participates in the ceremonies that precede circumcision in order to preserve and have a full understanding of his traditional society. This enables him to develop awareness of his Malinke customs, norms, morals and cultural values. I was going. The time I had come for me to join the solely of the uninitiated… it was very mysterious to me, though no very secret contained all the young boys, all the uncircumcised of twelve, thirteen or fourteen years of age, and it was run by our elders, who we called the big (Koden) (p.78). They are to spend the night with Koden Diara, the lion who roar in the bush. By the middle of the evening, the drummer and his crew had gathered their harvest. The young boy were matched into the bush. The elders make that nobody is following them. This is the part of the most mysteriousness of the ceremony. They follow the bush path that lead to sacred place where each year the boys were initiated. “Just before we reacted the hollow, we saw flames leap up from a huge wood fire that the bushed had hidden from us until then… the crimson race of the fire envelop us” (p.83). There was a fire at its base the older boys who have accompanied the non-initiates order them to crouch down, lower and hide their heads. Then the roaring begins; Laye explains. We were expecting to hear this hoarse was… but it takes us by surprise, and shatters us, freeze our hearts with its unexpectedness. And it is not only a lion, it is not only Koden Diara roaring, there were ten, twenty, perhaps thirty lions that take their lead from him uttering their terrible roars and surrounding the hollow; ten or thirty lions separated us from us by a few yards only and that the great wood fire will perhaps not always keep at bay (p.34). Initiation is one of the commonest customs in Africa. In spite of Laye’s fear, the roaring finally stops: A new command rang out, and we sat down in front of the fire, now our elders begin our initiation, all night long they will teach us the songs of the uncircumcised, and we must remain quite still, repeating the words after them, singing the melody after (p.86). Laye and others are ordered to sit in front of the fire where they are taught of songs of the uncircumcised for the rest of the night Laye says: “The night of Koden Diara was a strange night, a terrible and miraculous night, a night that passed all understanding” (p.88). The ceremony of lions is a rite which is socio-cultural in nature. Laye becomes fully initiated into the mystic life of his family heritage. In Africa, children are brought up morally, physically, and aesthetically by ensuring that they are initiate into the cults and accepted by the community. The initiation is an esoteric one, a revelation proceeded by a tough, moral and physical exertion. The initiation inculcates mysterious powers and virtues which nourish and fortify the community. The central idea of initiation is that of transformation. Circumcision as a new birth and as a new life may be applied to some one who has attained the age of reasoning and is capable of participating fully in the ceremony in all its implications. Laye makes it clear that this rite as a wider significance. Also dancing proceed the rite that the whole town came in crowds to which. The ceremony is in two phases, the public and secret one. For the public ceremony, the whole turn participates and rejoices with the initiates. It is a great festival, a very noisy one and which last for several days whereas the secret one is make sacred: Its very real physical pains… I knew perfectly well that I was going to be hurt… My companions felt the same; like myself, they were prepared to pay for it with their blood… life itself would spring from the shedding of our blood (p.93).
The moral and physical discipline in the training that what the initiates receive is characteristic of African society, where the experience and wisdom of the elders are respected. The children line up and mustered courage during the operation Laye says: I felt something, like a burn and I closed my eye for a fraction of a seconds the dozen or so boys they were that year became men… As soon as the operation was over the guns were fixed (p.103).
These lessons, the same as had been taught to all those who had gone before us, confined themselves to outlining the sort of conduct befitting a man (p.107). Download 67.34 Kb. Share with your friends:
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