| English | English The film, a compressed version of a five day ritual, shows an initiate sitting in her hut being stripped of her jewellery, capped, and painted. She is then carried to an especially built isolation hut and placed on grass while women dance the eland dance around it. Her period of isolation and teaching ends on the fifth day when she is turned around, washed, decorated, anointed, and face-painted to resemble a gemsbok brow. She is ritually introduced to all the objects of her daily life and to her foods and induced to shoot at a gemsbok shield with a man's especially protected weapon. Her ritual being a rebirth, the girl is led out of the hut and assisted in walking while men and women dance the eland-bull-fertility dance around the hut. Next day she is led round the village to receive presents, to meet the people and bring luck to their homes. |
