Duels and dogmeat for Togolese initiates

Hundreds of Togolese youths are taking part in a tough annual initiation ceremony in the country’s north to prove their manhood and their capability to raise and protect their own families.

The yearly avala ceremony, or the annual festival of “muscles”, is a colourful affair replete with traditional songs and dances staged by local men to spur on young bachelors who engage in bitterly-contested fights.

The rites of passage still draw the majority of young men from the Kabye ethnic race, dominant in northern Togo, as a means of formally establishing their adult status and their right to marry.

The ceremony is held in July.

In one such ceremony in the village of Kagnalada, about 420 kilometres north-east of the Togolese capital Lome, several hundred youths sing and dance to the accompaniment of castanets and traditional drums as fighting gets under way.

Young men, stripped down to their torsos, fight each other in a football pitch and engage in other “muscle games.”

The victors are rewarded by the cheers of young women, who chant ditties such as “Our fighters are brave boys, valiant combatants who quickly bring their adversaries down to the ground.”

“It’s not so much a war as it is psychological combat. Through these exercises, the youths of the region can measure their physical capacities,” said Blanzoua Kao, a researcher at Togo’s

Benin University.

“It’s their culture.

earlier such war games helped the Kabye people, who were engaged in clan wars, to identify young men capable of defending their village,” Kao said.

A traditional chief acting as a judge in one of the competitions said: “A young Kabye on the threshold of manhood has to fight for three consecutive years.

“It is to allow them to learn to fight to safeguard the honour of their families and to prevent themselves from getting wounded,”

he said.

“Those who do not go through this cannot marry, cannot consult a witchdoctor and cannot eat dog meat,” which is highly prized among the Kabyes, he said.

The chief stressed that a fighter could not complain if he was injured. A contestant has to go through several stages before he actually gets to take part in the initiation rites. He has to be 18 and follow diverse rituals.

A week before the ceremony, the youths are interned in different training camps. During this period they are fed with dog meat as canines epitomise for the Kabyes strength and other virtues.

On the eve of the ceremony, the competitors practice songs and dances that they will have to stage on D-day and local women are called upon to serve them.

They then feed on dog meat “to enable them to fight well,” the traditional chief said. - Sapa-AFP