Arab Mohawk Girls

The little Arab Mohawk girls who live across the street just came over. The oldest, Marriam, is now apparently past Mohawk age because they’ve let her hair grow out and she is beautiful. Her little sister, Khadija, now has the awsomest haircut I’ve seen in Chad. She’s got a Mohawk that’s about 3 inches long and two big tufts on the side of her head. Marriam is 6 and Khadija must be about 4. They’re very high energy and were bouncing, rolling, dancing around the room. At one point, Khadija was on my lap describing what kind of candy I should bring her from America and Marriam was braiding my hair very very tightly. Khadija then told me to look up, look up and when I did she thumped me in the throat! I believe that’s the first practical joke that’s been played on me in Chad, and it was well played indeed. The 4 year old got me! Marriam was talking about her friend who just got excised (female circumcision). She was imitating how her friend hobbled around from the pain. She seemed pretty excited about it eventually being her turn. Of course, my sisters were translating this all for me. I can speak Arabic with a 4 year old but not with a 6 year old.

Excision, or female circumcision is the rite-of-passage ritual in which a girl’s clitoris is removed. In other versions, the inner labia or even both inner and outer labia are also removed. The thinking behind the ritual is pretty clear: Keep your girl from misbehaving by not only eliminating the possibility of sexual pleasure, but also ensuring terrible pain (the genitals become one big mass of scar tissue, making sex painful and giving birth dangerous).

Some groups practice excision, some don’t. The Kanembu and Tunjours don’t, the Arabs do. The pattern is similar in southern Christian and animist groups. Some do, some don’t. The Muslim groups that do it say that it’s in the Koran. It’s not. But since the majority of the population is illiterate and can’t read the Koran, they believe what the marabouts say. Southern groups say it’s tradition. I’m getting this info from a book of interviews with Chadian women, by the way, and an interviewed gynecologist said the practice came from Egypt, Somalia, and Sudan in the 19th century. Excision is a very taboo subject, but people are starting, little by little, to talk about it. For instance, say a woman was excised as a girl and has dealt with the consequences all her life and she’s reluctant to do it to her daughters. But if she doesn’t her daughters will be seen as dirty and no-good and loose and no one will ever marry them. So, she’s obligated to continue the cycle, or damn her daughters to a life of scorn and shame.