05/04/2019
East African Notes and Records: PERIODIC FLOWERING AND CIRCUMCISION CYCLES
More
Create Blog
Sign In
M o n d a y, 1 6 M a y 2 0 11
PERIODIC FLOWERING AND CIRCUMCISION CYCLES
Last week saw a flurry of news stories about the mass
emergence of 13-year periodical cicadas in Georgia and other
southeastern states of the U.S. These cicadas all belong to
Brood XIX, aka the Great Southern Brood, which last appeared
in 1998, and is due now to return in 2024. There are three
broods of 13-year cicadas and 12 broods of 17-year cicadas in
the States, most of them mixtures of different Magicicada
species, and each with its own breeding calendar. It is thought
that their long life cycles, periodicity and synchronous
emergence have evolved to protect these cicadas against
predation. Stephen Jay Gould wrote engagingly about this
strategy of 'predator satiation' in one of his monthly columns
for Natural History Magazine, reprinted in his first collection
of essays, Ever Since Darwin (1978: 97-102). 'Of bamboos,
cicadas, and the economy of Adam Smith' linked the
phenomenon of the periodical cicadas with the similary
periodic and synchronous flowering of bamboos, and it was this
botanical example that struck a chord when I first read it,
rather than the evolutionary explanation that led Gould to
summon the ghost of Adam Smith and his "invisible hand".
Many bamboos (subfamily Bambusoideae) are known to
be plietesials, plants that grow for a number of years,
flower gregariously, set seed and then die. Gould and his
source, Daniel H. Janzen, had written about a Chinese bamboo, Phyllostachys reticulata (syn. P. bambusoides),
that only flowers every 120 years or so. I didn't know what a plietsial life history was when I first read Gould's
essay in Kenya in 1991, but I knew of at least one ethnographic report that suggested a connection between the
periodic flowering of plants and the timing of circumcision and age-set rituals in the Rift Valley and adjacent
Kenya Highlands. The plant in question is called setiot (setyot) by the Kipsigis and other Kalenjin speakers, and
has been identified as Mimulopsis solmsii (family Acanthaceae) (Kokwaro 1976: 16). Blundell describes this as
a trailing, woody plant with "pale blue to yellowish flowers", an "abundant herb of the forest floor in some
areas; altitude range 1650-2550m (5500-8500 ft) and showing the phenomenon of mass flowering every five to
nine years, after which it may be difficult to find it until it increases agains (1987: 395). Beentje has the
flowers as "white or yellowish, often tinged with pink" (1994: 605). Here's an earlier description of periodic
flowering on Mount Elgon, in which the flowers were white:
From 1948 to April 1964 we lived on the north-east slopes
of Elgon near the forest boundary. Near the house was a
patch of untouched virgin forest. I found it was carpeted
with a tangle of plants with soft dark green leaves [...]
These all flowered regularly each year, but I noticed
among them a plant with very different leaves, which did
not flower. Each year it grew taller and eventually
flowered in December 1952 and January 1953. It proved
to be Mimulopsis solmsii Schweinf. By then it was five
feet tall and much branched. The flowers were white
with a pale brown throat, and came out irregularly a few
at a time. The inflorescence was covered with dull red
sticky glandular hairs. It flowered in a mass over the
whole forest at an altitude of 7,500 ft. to 8,200 ft. and
smothered the usual undergrowth Acanthaceae
completely. Eventually it died down, and its dead stems
covered the ground and all the usual herbaceous plants
were buried beneath it. Towards the end of the rainy
season young seedlings appeared among the rotting
stems, and more in the early rains the following year. By
the end of 1954 the usual population of Acanthaceae had
taken over, though in rather different proportions. Then
the plants of Mimulopsis solmsii with their distinctive
Mimulopsis solmsii Schweinf.
leaves began to appear again. In October 1961 they began
to flower, and there was a mass flowering as before,
followed by a similar dying down, and reappearance of the usual plant population. This gives a nine-year
notesandrecords.blogspot.com/2011/05/periodic-flowering-and-circumcision.html
Martin Walsh
Vumawimbi, Pemba, 1995
EAST AFRICAN NOTES AND
RECORDS is an irregular blog by
Martin Walsh (and guests) and
place to post miscellaneous
notes about East African history,
ethnography, ethnobiology,
linguistics, and anything else
that comes to mind. It takes its
inspiration (if not quite its
content and style) from those
marvellously eclectic journals of
regional and national Africana
that political correctness,
disciplinary specialisation, and
the commercialisation of
academic publishing have largely
consigned to the dustbin of
history.
THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD is a
very occasional blog by Helle
Goldman and Martin Walsh in
which we post news, views and
information about the Zanzibar
Leopard (Panthera pardus
adersi) and sometimes other
wildlife in the Zanzibar
archipelago.
Blog archive
►
► 2013 (11)
►
► 2012 (6)
▼
▼ 2011 (12)
►
► December (2)
►
► September (1)
▼
▼ May (3)
OF FROGS AND FIELD
GUIDES
MALE CIRCUMCISION,
VIOLENCE, AND SEXUAL
HEALTH
PERIODIC FLOWERING AND
CIRCUMCISION CYCLES
►
► April (1)
►
► March (1)
►
► February (3)
►
► January (1)
1/10
05/04/2019
East African Notes and Records: PERIODIC FLOWERING AND CIRCUMCISION CYCLES
interval between one flowering and another, but I shall not be there in 1970 to see if the interval between
flowerings is regular. (Tweedie 1965: 92-93)
The same author described two other Mimulopsis species on the mountain, one of which also certainly
exhibited periodic flowering. Beentje (1994: 605) noted three members of the genus in Kenya that are reported
to flower at long intervals: M. alpina, M. arborescens, and M. solmsii. It may be that the Kalenjin name refers
to more than one species, but this remains to be established.
The colonial anthropologist G. W. B. Huntingford claimed that Nandi initiations were linked to the cycles of
mass flowering:
According to Huntingford the opening of a period of circumcision "is fixed by the flowering of a bush called
Setiot (Mimulopsis sp.)", a plant found in adjacent forest zones which blossoms spectacularly every seven or
eight years (1953a: 62). All proceedings were organized in terms of 24 military/territorial units called
pororosiek. When the setiot flowering had been observed, representatives from each area made offerings to
the leading orgoiyot, or prophet, and sought his sanction to open the next round of circumcision ceremonies.
Approval was announced by a further ceremony held separately in each area. Initiations were held for four
years, then closed for several years. Three or four years after the next flowering of setiot, which occurred
during the closed period, the saget ap eito ceremony came due, and with the second subsequent flowering the
initiations were opened for the next age-set. (Daniels 1982: 8)
But this was strongly disputed by Ian Q. Orchardson, who was a fluent Kipsigis speaker:
Mimulopsis solmsii Schweinf.
It has been suggested that the number of years in an
age set might be determined by means of a forest
plant called Setiot. Setiot is a forest-loving plant
with a rambling rather than a creeping habit. It is
inconspicuous in the dense forest growth for a
number of years, but gradually envelops the tree
trunks and bushes to a height of from ten to fifteen
feet with its long thin shoots. It flowers once and
then dies. In the year in which it flowers it
transforms the forest from an almost monotonous
green foliage into a mass of tiny white flowers. It
seems to flower one year later in Nandi than in
Kipsigis. The setiot flowered in the Kipsigis forests in
October and November 1926, probably in 1918 and
almost certainly in 1910. These flowerings do not
correspond with the sub-sets of the last thirty years.
Most Kipsigis give nine years as the flowering cycle,
but they always count inclusively so by the European
method of counting the period would be eight years.
The flowering of the setiot does not regulate Kipsigis initiation; if it did the period covered by an age set
would be 24 years, three sub-sets of eight years duration. Its only connection with initiation is that the
ceremonies must not take place in the second year after the flowering of the setiot. At this time the young
seedlings are just up and the plants are in a flimsy stage during which they sway with the slightest breeze. It
is thought that anybody going to initiation at this time would partake of the same nature and even be
afflicted with trembling or a sort of palsy. Such conditions are always attributed to this cause and explained
by the expression kiwe setio - 'he went in the setiot'. The second year is called Karatet ('tender') and is
preceded by the twig year (Sigorian), when the forest is a mass of dry dangerously inflammable twigs, and the
year of the flower (Kinyit ap Taptet). The prohibition on initiation during the Karatet year also applies to all
new enterprises such as the building of houses.
There are indications that, far from being a propitious plant, which it would be if closely connected with
circumcision, it is the reverse. The common expression rat-setio means 'be a spectator, take no part, idly look
on' but its literal meaning is tie setiot. Probably its present meaning has originated from the fact that, at
many ceremonies, participants tie sacred plants about their persons or around the mabwaita, which mere
spectators do not. In fact, spectators 'rat setio', 'they tie setiot', i.e. they tie nothing and are thus contrasted
with those who tie the sacred plants and take an active part in the proceedings. Another plant, ikunggit, with
an even longer flowering cycle than setiot, is associated with setiot in the Kipsigis mind. When both flower in
the forest in the same year, it is said that a very large number of old people die. (Orchardson 1961: 12-13)
This argument is supported by the American anthropologist Robert E. Daniels in his unpublished papers on the
Kalenjin age-sets:
Orchardson denies flatly that setiot flowerings regulate Kipsigis initiations. Instead he states that the
association is that "ceremonies must not take place in the second year after the flowering" (1961:12) when it
is feared that initiates might share the frailty of the new seedlings. Peristiany gives substantially the same
information (1939:7). One of my informants, born before 1880, gave a similar explanation that initiations
could not be held when the red flowers appeared for fear the initiates would hemorrhage, and Goldschmidt
(1976:104) likewise reports that it was only when the plant was in flower (every five to seven years) that
initiations could not be held. From everything else reported about scheduling important social events among
the Kalenjin, I think it is clear that setiot flowerings were one of no doubt many omens considered and in no
sense should be seen as "a botanical clock." (Daniels 1982: 8; also 1976: 7)
Note that in this account setiot is described as a red flower. According to botanist J. O. Kokwaro the Kipsigis
setyot "has magical properties associated with circumcision and other rites which should not take place when
this plant is flowering" (1976: 16). This has been reiterated by American missionaries working among the
Kipsigis: "Initiation cermonies were not to be performed during the karatet year - the year after the flowering
of the setyoot - a plant that blooms about every seven or eight years" (Fish and Fish 1995: 326).
notesandrecords.blogspot.com/2011/05/periodic-flowering-and-circumcision.html
►
► 2010 (27)
►
► 2009 (8)
Some publications
Walsh, Martin 2018. Treasure
island: buried gold and the
spiritual economy of Pemba.
Kenya Past and Present 45: 2332.
Walsh, Martin 2018. Esmond in
Zanzibar: a personal recollection.
In Peta Meyer (ed.) The
unassuming American: Esmond
Bradley Martin, 1941-2018’,
Kenya Past and Present 45: 8.
Walsh, Martin 2018. The Swahili
language and its early history. In
Stephanie Wynne-Jones and
Adria LaViolette (eds.) The
Swahili World. Abingdon and
New York: Routledge. 121-130.
Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman
2017. Cryptids and credulity: the
Zanzibar leopard and other
imaginary beings. In Samantha Hurn
(ed.) Anthropology and
Cryptozoology: Exploring
Encounters with Mysterious
Creatures. Abingdon and New York:
Routledge. 54-90.
Cheke, Anthony S., Miguel Pedrono,
Roger Bour, Atholl Anderson,
Christine Griffiths, John B. Iverson,
Julian P. Hume, Martin Walsh 2016.
Giant tortoises spread to western
Indian Ocean islands by sea drift
in pre-Holocene times, not by
later human agency – Response
to Wilmé et al. (2016a). Journal
of Biogeography, doi:
10.1111/jbi.12882, 1-4.
Walsh, Martin 2016. Pygmy tales:
tall stories about short people in East
Africa. Kenya Past and Present 43:
49-60.
Prendergast, Mary E., Hélène Rouby,
Paramita Punnwong, Robert
Marchant, Alison Crowther, Nikos
Kourampas, Ceri Shipton, Martin
Walsh, Kurt Lambeck, Nicole L.
Boivin 2016. Continental Island
Formation and the Archaeology
of Defaunation on Zanzibar,
Eastern Africa. PLoS ONE 11(2):
e0149565.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149565.
Walsh, Martin 2013. The Segeju
complex? Linguistic evidence for the
precolonial making of the Mijikenda.
In Rebecca Gearhart and Linda Giles
(eds.) Contesting Identities: The
Mijikenda and Their Neighbors in
Kenyan Coastal Society. Trenton,
New Jersey: Africa World Press. 2551.
Walsh, Martin 2013. Alison
Redmayne (1936-2013).
Anthropology Today 29 (3): 28.
Walsh, Martin 2013. Mung'aro,
the Shining: ritual and human
sacrifice on the Kenya coast.
Kenya Past and Present 40: 1122.
Walsh, Martin 2013. Realizing
the potential of collective action
groups: coordinating approaches
to women’s market engagement.
Case study on women’s collective
action in the vegetable sector in
2/10
05/04/2019
East African Notes and Records: PERIODIC FLOWERING AND CIRCUMCISION CYCLES
Was Huntingford just plain wrong? Or was he describing a
variant practice or belief among the Nandi? He was not alone
in thinking that plietesial plants are good to think with and
to model age-set periods on. A local historian claims that
among the Meru of northeastern Mount Kenya the
"theoretical duration of each government", the period of rule
of an age-set, is "Fourteen years calculated on the basis of
the life span of a mountainous plant called Muruuja"
(M'Imanyara 1992: 27). This isn't identified in the text,
though it might be noted that one Kenyan population of
Mimulopsis solmsii is reported to have flowered after a 13year interval, while M. alpina is said to flower once every 12
years (Beentje 1994: 605). We also know that the Meru and
other Central Kenya Bantu originally took some of their ageset names and related practices from the Kalenjin and other
Southern Nilotes (Ehret 1971: 139-140), and this may well
have included ideas about these woody herbs. Among the
Kikuyu it is recorded that M. alpina is a plant of ill-omen,
and that only girls could be initiated when it was in flower
(Gachathi 2007: 197). This echoes the Kipsigis reports, and
suggests yet another case of divergence. Let me hasten to
add, though, that I've only scratched the surface of
the literature that might have a bearing on this question. I'd
like to think that in some places Mimulopsis spp. were used as botanical clocks, but it may be that I'm allowing
myself to be seduced by a model, and that the same happened to Huntingford, M'Imanyara, and/or their own
sources.
References
Beentje, Henk 1994. Kenya Trees, Shrubs and Lianas. Nairobi. National Museums of Kenya.
Blundell, Michael 1987. Wild Flowers of East Africa. London: Collins.
Daniels, Robert E. 1976. Kipsigis age-sets: coordination without centralization. Paper presented at the 75th
Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 7 November 1976.
Daniels, Robert E. 1982. The extent of age-set coordinaition among the Kalenjin. Paper presented at the 25th
Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 1976.
Fish, Burnette C. and Gerald W. Fish 1995. The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices.
Kericho and Marion, Indiana: Africa Gospel Church and World Gospel Mission.
Gachathi, Muruga 2007. Kikuyu Botanical Dictionary: A Guide to Plant Names, Uses and Cultural Values (2nd
edition). Gituamba: Tropical Botany.
Goldschmidt, Walter 1976. Culture and Behavior of the Sebei: A Study in Continuity and Adaptation. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gould, Stephen Jay 1978 [1977]. Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Huntingford, G. W. B. 1953. The Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pastoral Society. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Janzen, Daniel H. 1976. Why bamboos wait so long to flower. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 7: 347391.
Kokwaro, J. O. 1976. Medicinal Plants of East Africa. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau.
M'Imanyara, Alfred M. 1992. The Restatement of Bantu Origin and Meru History. Nairobi: Longman Kenya.
Orchardson, Ian Q. 1961. The Kipsigis. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.
Peristiany, John G. 1939. The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis. London: George Routledge and Sons.
Tweedie, E. M. 1965. Periodic flowering of some Acanthaceae on Mt. Elgon. Journal of the East Africa Natural
History Society 25 (2): 92-94.
Posted by Martin Walsh at 23:42
Labels: age sets, bamboos, circumcision, evolution, initiation, Kalenjin, Kenya, Kikuyu, Kipsigis, Magicicada spp., Meru, Mimulopsis
solmsii, periodical cicadas, predator satiation, Stephen Jay Gould
No comments:
Post a Comment
notesandrecords.blogspot.com/2011/05/periodic-flowering-and-circumcision.html
Tanzania, Oxfam GB, February
2013.
Walsh, Martin and Helle
Goldman 2012. Chasing
imaginary leopards: science,
witchcraft and the politics of
conservation in Zanzibar.
Journal of Eastern African
Studies 6 (4): 727-746.
Walsh, Martin 2012. The not-soGreat Ruaha and hidden histories of
an environmental panic in Tanzania.
Journal of Eastern African
Studies 6 (2): 303-335.
Walsh, Martin 2010. Deep
memories or symbolic
statements? The Diba, Debuli and
related traditions of the East
African coast. In Chantal
Radimilahy and Narivelo
Rajaonarimanana (eds.)
Civilisations des mondes
insulaires (Madagascar, îles du
canal de Mozambique,
Mascareignes, Polynésie,
Guyanes): Mélanges en
l'honneur du Professeur Claude
Allibert. Paris: Karthala. 453-476.
Wynne-Jones, Stephanie and
Martin Walsh 2010. Heritage,
tourism, and slavery at Shimoni:
narrative and metanarrative on
the East African coast. History in
Africa 37: 247-273.
Walsh, Martin 2009. The use of
wild and cultivated plants as
famine foods on Pemba island,
Zanzibar. Études Océan Indien
(Special issue: Plantes et sociétés
dans l’océan Indien occidental)
42/43: 217-241.
Walsh, Martin 2009. The
politicisation of Popobawa:
changing explanations of a
collective panic in Zanzibar.
Journal of Humanities 1 (1): 2333.
Walsh, Martin 2009. Against
consensus? Anthropological
critique and the deconstruction of
international water policy. In D.
C. Nanjunda (ed.) Social
Anthropology in India: An
Ethnography of Policy and
Practice (Vol. II). New Delhi:
Sarup Book Publishers. Chapter
19. [reprinted without my
permission!]
Walsh, Martin and Helle
Goldman 2008. Updating the
inventory of Zanzibar leopard
specimens. CAT News
(Newsletter of the IUCN/SSC Cat
Specialist Group) 49 (Autumn
2008): 4-6.
Walsh, Martin 2008. The legend
of Mwaozi Tumbe: history, myth
and cultural heritage on Wasini
island. Kenya Past and Present
37: 26-32.
Walsh, Martin 2007. Pangolins
and politics in the Great Ruaha
valley, Tanzania: symbol, ritual
and difference / Pangolin et
politique dans la vallée du Great
Ruaha, Tanzanie: symbole, rituel
et différence. In Edmond
Dounias, Elisabeth Motte-Florac
and Margaret Dunham (eds.) Le
symbolisme des animaux:
l'animal, clef de voûte de la
relation entre le homme et la
nature? / Animal symbolism:
animals, keystone of the
relationship between man and
nature? Paris: Éditions de l'IRD.
1003-1044.
3/10