The Sambia people are a tribe of mountain-dwelling, hunting and horticultural people who inhabit the fringes of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, and are extensively described by the AmericananthropologistGilbert Herdt. The Sambia a pseudonym created by Herdt himself are known by cultural anthropologists for their acts of "ritualized homosexuality" and semen ingestion practices with pubescent boys. In his studies of the Sambia, Herdt describes the people in light of their sexual culture and how their practices shape the masculinities of adolescent Sambia boys. The Sambia people speak Simbari, a Trans-New Guinea language belonging to the Angan branch.
Traditional practices and beliefs
Initiation
The full initiation is reported to start with members of the tribe being removed from their mothers at the age of nine. This process is not always voluntary and can involve threats of death. The children are then beaten and stabbed in their nostrils with sticks to make them bleed. In the next stage the children are hit with stinging nettles. The boys are then dressed in ritual clothing and an attempt is made to force them to suck on ritual flutes. The boys are then taken to a cult house and older boys dance in front of them making sexual gestures. Once it gets darker the younger boys are taken to the dancing ground where they are expected to perform fellatio on the older boys.
Maku: This is the first rite of passagefor the boys. They are separated from their mothers at this stage, they participate in blood letting (process in which they stick long sticks up their nostrils to make them bleed, and therefore rid themselves of their mothers' presence in them. The Sambia people don't believe that males are born with semen and so, during Maku, the boys participate in "fellatio". They are also required to stick to a strict diet during this time period which is from age 7-10. This stage lasts for three years, from the age 10–13 years old.
Imbutu: Imbutu is filled with camaraderie, male bonding, and rewards for making it through the first set of Rites.
Ipmangwi: During this stage the boys begin to go through puberty, and they no longer need to participate in "fellatio". They also learn gender roles, and how to have appropriate intercourse. Once they have learned this they look for a wife and marry during this stage. It lasts for three years as well, during the ages 13–16.
Nupusha: During this stage the men get married and have appropriate intercourse. This stage happens once the others are completed, however, they must be at least 16 years old.
Taiketnyi: They undergo blood letting again during this stage, when their wives have their first menstrual cycle as married women.
Moondung: This stage is when the women give birth to their first child. This is the final step, and signifies completion of the Rites of passage. They can now be considered full grown respectable men.
Gender roles and sexuality
The Sambia people believe in the necessity of gender roles within their culture. Relationships between men and women of all ages, within this tribe, are complex, with many rules and restrictions. For example, boys are removed from their mothers at age seven, to strip them of contact with their mothers. They even perform a ritual called "blood letting" on the boys who have just been isolated from their mothers to rid them of their mother's contaminated blood that has a presence within them. This separation is due to their fear of the women in the tribe, as men are taught at a young age about the women's ability to emasculate and manipulate men. The women possess what the sambia call tingu, through which they use their manipulation skills. To combat the women's sorcery, the men go through rites of passage, in which they learn to safely have intercourse with women without becoming metaphorically trapped. The women are also separated from the men when they go through their menstrual cycle. During this time they stay in the "menarche hut" because of the belief that the women's powers are strengthened during this time.
Modernisation
In 2006, Gilbert Herdt updated his studies of the Sambia with the publication of The Sambia: Ritual, Sexuality, and Change in Papua New Guinea. He noted that a sexual revolution had overtaken the Sambia in the previous decade. "To go from absolute gender segregation and arranged marriages, with universal ritual initiation that controlled sexual and gender development and imposed the radical practice of boy-insemination, to abandoning initiation, seeing adolescent boys and girls kiss and hold hands in public, arranging their own marriages, and building square houses with one bed for the newlyweds, as the Sambia have done, is revolutionary." In the 1970s, the system of collective initiations known as the mokeiyu was curtailed. By the end of the 1980s, the ritual of boy-insemination had been abandoned Beginning in the 1990s, a new form of social sexuality appeared, known as the "luv" marriage, where romantic love became the basis for choosing a mate. Several factors contributed to the slow decline and then abandonment of the traditional rituals, followed by the revolutionary changes to sexual expression among the Sambia. In the 1960s, the Australian government's forced cessation of perpetual warfare between tribes in Papua New Guinea eventually led to a significant altering of male identity and the warrior culture that had long sustained their initiation rituals. Immigration, beginning in the late 1960s, also contributed to change, as tribal members began to leave the highlands to work on coastal cocoa, copra, and rubber plantations. This exposed the Sambia to the outside world, with its fast food, alcohol, sex with female prostitutes, western goods, and money. With the passage of time, it would contribute to the ideas of romance and marriage as a team of equals, rather than the traditional hierarchical antagonistic model. Schools - both governmental and missionary - were introduced into the Sambia Valley in the 1970s. Rather quickly, Herdt reports, “schools began to displace initiation as a primary means for gaining access to valued positions within the expanding society.” Education was co-ed, which not only increased women's social standing, but for the first time in Sambia society, the genders were mixed in an intimate space prior to marriage. Increasing contact with the outside world led to the appearance of material goods, which undermined the local economy and traditional masculinity, no longer achieved through the production of local goods. Christian missions also factored in the change through their introduction of schools, material goods, and foreign foods. Missionaries preached against the shamans, the practice of polygyny, and the boy initiations, shaming Sambia elders who still advocated traditional activities. Seventh-day Adventist missionaries had a strong presence among the Sambia, introducing Levitical dietary restrictions, which dramatically altered the indigenous diet, since pigs and opossum – “unclean animals” – were no longer hunted. Thus, one of the major social and political activities for Sambia men – hunting – was abolished among the Adventist converts. All of these developments contributed to the sexual revolution among the Sambia. The cessation of war, changes in opportunities for women via schooling, exposure to the outside world with its ideas, along with the changes in economy in trade goods, food procurement, and the cessation of one social activity with substitution of a new industry which changed traditional roles so that men and women now became co-workers together in their gardens. All of this set the stage for the rise in the 1990s of the “Luv Marriage,” where young people chose their own mates, without any need to go through forced separation from family and obligatory homoerotic initiations or to have parents arrange marriages.
