JATA'S TALE
This is a story for the story mentor-ship group by @michelle.gent . For further info and participation click here
It had been a very dry and dusty summer, so when the rain finally came, it had all the children happily singing and dancing to old native tunes. Every tune had its own dance move, every step had a meaning.
mtoto kuzaliwa
They chanted on and on as they moved to the beats. The kikuyu people's tradition entailed a lot of stipulations. The many concerning child birth often involved lots of celebrations.
Today as Jata, daughter of Kagai and wife to Kahiga struggled through child birth.
The Elders sat around outside Kahiga's thingira as they patiently awaited good news. Not far away, just to the right of the compound, the loud piercing cry of Jata reached across to them with the impact of a thunderstorm. No one could imagine the pain she was passing through as she was fulfilling her job as a woman.
Inside the Nyumba, the mid wife Afafa continued to encourage and massage Jata's laps as she cherered her on. The sound of her voice mixed with the chants of the children outside her hut and the pain that felt like a rat, gnawing at her stomach had a screaming loudly as she dug her already dirt filled finger nails into the ground. Each wave of contraction was accompained by a loud wail and more encouragements from Afafa until finally she heard the first screeching wail of a new born.
Afafa lifted the baby proudly, wrapped in vernix and blood she smiled and turned to look at Jata.
It's a boy
Jata broke into a happy laugh admist tears and reached out to touch her child when another wave of contractions hit. She screamed again and her eyes widened in horror as she felt the movement in her. Afafa carefully placed the baby on the mat and turned to face Jata. First the head spewed forth and a loud cry filled the room once again.
mwiko
The mid wife's face suddenly filled with disgust as she pulled out another child. This one was female.
Jata's tears flowed in torrents now. The gods had cursed her with multiple births. She was cursed and had to be cleansed. She closed her eyes as she distinctly heard Afafa call for more women to clean her up. She was to remain in her hut till the traditional day of cleansing.
She was fed once a day with only bread for four days. The idea was for her body to completely dry out for the circumcision process. For it was a taboo for any uncircumcised woman of kikuyu to birth multiple children. She hadn't asked for this. The gods had cursed her.
Jata knew her fate. She had heard tales of the cleansing ritual, she had seen the blood and flesh cut for her birth mother had been a mid wife to. On the fifth day, Afafa returned with six other women. Dressed in white wrappers and traditional markings on their face, they held her pinned to the ground despite her struggles.
Afafa opened up her wrapper and pushed her legs apart as two of the women held them to the ground. She screamed in pain as her clitoris was cut. The inner labia and a little flesh from the outer labia was cut off.
It was a bloody mess, the excruciating pain worsening as she was sewn up with thorn like needles and ropes were used to tie her legs together. The idea was for her to heal.
Jata remained for four more days in the hurt tie up. she was fed only bread and was made to urinate there. Her once beautiful Nyumba was now a mixture of her blood, tears and sweat and in a few more hours if she hadn't healed she would be cut again.
If the gods would listen to the prayer of the cursed, they would hear that today she didn't pray for help or mercy. As she rolled around the ground, thrashing around in pain while Afafa pushed her legs apart to cut again. She prayed for death.
The idea of this book arose from a movie I recently watched. The practice of female genital mutilation. This practice common in African countries has no medical benefit. The ideology behind it being that most women are promiscuous and in order to prevent this her labia should be cut off. This practice is inhumane.
Most women die from excessive bleeding, they encounter difficulty in childbirth later on in life. Some even have to undergo a secondary cutting procedure to enable childbirth.
This practice is deeply rooted in gender inequality. The cultural practices too involved have been traced back to mythologies and beliefs. Some believe that the birth of twins by an uncircumcised woman is a taboo and so she has to be circumcised immediately after the birth.
This story makes me so sad. I know this happens and I know it's done for reasons I cannot understand.
Well done, you've made me sad and angry with the post.
I started out being sympathetic for the mother going through labour without pain relief, I ended up being desperately heart-sick for her when she should have been allowed to heal and bond with her two babies.
I felt really sad too, though civilization has done a good job of covering up some awful practices, some of these still go on.
I knew of this practice but never in a story. So sad to think of the pain women must endure and how such a wonderful event such as birth turns into pain through superstition.
This post has received a 0.20 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.