The
Sambia
People
Overview
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Geography
Violence & Aggression
Social Roles
Marriage
Acculturation
Orientation
Home
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Eastern Highlands of New Guinea
Organized in small clusters of villages
Live in the jungle and practice farming
Tend to move frequently to avoid
enemies and prevent taxing their
resources
A History of Violence….
• If they exchange women with nearby villages
= friendship
• Otherwise, they fight the nearby villages
• War is ongoing
• Raids on villages, stealing of valuables, including
women
• Women may seduce young boys from their
own or nearby villages, which also causes
great conflicts
Social Roles
• Men
• Warriors
• Tribe leaders-in charge
of politics and decisions
regarding their tribe
• Hunters
• Guardians of their
ancestry, culture,
traditions, beliefs, and
creation story
• In charge of initiation
rites and rituals
Superstition and Beliefs
• Semen is important to all life, especially males
• Semen is in short supply, and is thus highly treasured
• Women’s sexual essence is menstral fluid and is
something to be feared
• Both males and females have an organ, tingu, that
secretes their sexual essence
• When a woman’s tingu bursts, she is thought to be naturally ready
to reproduce
• When a man is born, his tingu is shriveled and dry
• A boy’s tingu cannot secrete a sexual essence without his
initiation into manhood
• Younger men can die from sexual intercourse with a
woman if they are not properly prepared
• It saps the little resources that they have before initiation
Initiation
• Purpose: To transform boys who are
considered feminine (because they grew up
with women) into strong males
• At the age of 7-10, the boy leaves his
mother’s home and goes to live with other
boys in a big house, or may take up
residence with an older male to learn about
becoming a man (in much smaller villages)
Stages of Initiation
• Stage 1
• Inducted into men’s cult
• Lasts for 7 days and includes
18 rituals
(nose bleeding)
• If any try to run away, they are
treated worse than the other
boys and could endure
beatings for punishment
• Dance ceremony takes place –
boys are told that to become
strong men they must “eat the
penis” and ingest semen
• Initiates are taken off into the
bushes to give fellatio to their
elders for the first time
Stages of Initiation
(cont.)
Stage 2
- This stage is a continuation of Stage 1
- The boys continue to ingest as much semen as possible
- At the end of Stage 2, a great feast is held for the boys and
men to celebrate
Stage 3
- Transition into adolescence
- Boys are severely beaten and nose bled again
- After this, they must capture a woman foe and kill
an enemy warrior
- Adolescent must ingest his semen
Stages of Initiation (cont.)
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Stage 4
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Stage 5
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This occurs when the adolescent is married
There is a ceremony that praises his strength and growth, and is given a certain tree
that symbolizes this
This is the stage where the man learns all about how to protect himself from his wife
During intercourse, the man must put mint leaves in his nose and chew a specific
branch to keep him from smelling the vaginal odors of his wife
After intercourse, he must cleanse himself by bathing in mud
During each menstruation, the man must nose bleed himself to cleanse himself from
his wife’s pollution
Stage 6
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This stage is where the man achieves true adulthood
Adulthood must be proven by having at least one child, possibly two
The man must remain far away from the woman and child during breastfeeding, and it
is suggested to stay away from the child for the first few years of its life
Also the man can stop nose bleeding during this time
Men are remind never to share their secrets with their wives or they will be castrated
and killed
Guardians of the Flutes
• Flute represents their mystical
past
• Only men may guard the flutes
• Only men may learn the stories
behind their culture and the
flutes
• Flute as phallic symbol?
Social Roles (cont.)
• Women
• Have a strong, sensual
mysteriousness about them
• Men understand that a woman’s
sexual essence is what allows
pregnancy
• Menstrual blood shows
reproductive power, but also can
be damaging to men
• Take care of children
• Teach girls how to be good
wives
• Help with gardening and
harvesting
• Daily house chores
Marriage
• When marriage occurs, the girl becomes a
woman
• This is her initiation into womanhood
• This also accounts for stage 4 & 5 of the
initiation
• The brothers and father choose a bride for
the adolescent
• They do not start living together until the bride
has her first period, showing that she is ready
to become a mother (16-18)
Let’s talk about Sex
• Sex is considered very dangerous for the Sambia
men
• It is necessary to have vaginal intercourse many
times to create a baby
• Some find it pleasurable, while others consider sex
work
• Masturbation is unheard of because it would be a
waste of a valuable resource
• Because women are often separated from their
husbands, they sometimes target younger males to
fulfill their desires
• Taking boys away from their homes for their initiation
prevents this from occurring
Childbirth
• The mother’s main contribution to the fetus is
a home and her blood
• Everything else comes from the father’s
semen or the life-essence that is essential for
a fetus to live and grow
• The mother’s strength to get through child
birth comes from the strength in the semen
that her husband gave her
• Also, the baby will feed on breast milk, but it
is said to come from all of the semen as well
Acculturation??
• No recent info found on Sambia
• Nearby neighbors, the Yagwoia, have
given up all of their initiation practices
because of evangelists
Orientation
• Collectivist culture
• No strong political leader, but several head men
(most likely the older, stronger, wiser men)
• High uncertainty avoidance
• Culture is seeped in tradition that dictates all parts
of life: daily activities, rituals, etc.
• Tight culture
• Many rigid rules to follow, superstitions that could
equal severe consequences if broken
• Masculine vs. Feminine culture
References
• http://people.stu.ca/~gszns/initiation.htm
• http://lrivera0327.tripod.com/
• http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/Joepages/
The%20Sambia.htm
• http://www.27designs.com/milena/
• Herdt, Gilbert. (2003). Secrecy and
cultural reality: Utopian ideologies of
the New Guinea men’s house.