The fieldwork on which this study is based was carried out between August 1965 and February 1968, among the Kipsigis, the largest of the Kalenjin-speaking communities of Kenya.
Thr transformation of adolescent boys into young men by means of dramatic initiation rituals is found in many societies and has been the subject of much theorizing in anthropology. This study focuses on the central role of male initiations among the Kipsigis, the place of these rites within the system of family and community organization, and the influence of initiation experiences on the nature of Kipsigis attitudes toward members of neighboring groups (specifically, the Gusii, Kikuyu, Luo, Maasai, and Nandi).
The Kipsigis were chosen for study because of the wide range of the cultural diversity between themselves and their various neighbors, and because of the great variation in the types of contacts, even in recent years, between these groups.
Among the Kipsigis, the circumcision rituals for both males and females establish one's adult identity, supporting a cognitive view of a social system that makes strong distinctions between men and women, and between manhood and childhood. Male initiations further emphasize identification with wider groups, through assumption of adult status into the vast network of cattle-based affinal ties, a strong message of sooial brotherhood that transcends family, and induction into the age-set system that spans all the Kalenjin-speaking people. In the pre-colinial past, male intiations functioned to prepare young men for the duties of dealing directly with enemy tribes, and even in the 1960s male initiations taught, at least symbolically, physical stoicism, self-reliance and mutual responsibility, training with weapons, and a readiness to use them.
Ethnicity and masculinity were thus intertwined. Among the most striking aspects of Kipsigis attitudes toward others is the evaluation of outgroups according to whether or not they practice male initiations and, if they do, the degree to which these rites are similar to those of the Kipsigis. Kipsigis comments about members of other groups are marked by a number of cliches and standard anecdotes which suggest that a concern with one's own masculinity is involved. About the Maasai, who practice male initiations which are seem as even more extreme than those of the Kipsigis, it is said that "Even if you fatally spear a Masai warrior, as he dies he will say 'It's nothing; I was killed by a woman!." The neighboring Luo, who do not practice male initiations, were seen as lacking full manhood. Perhaps, therefore, in addition to being judgments based on perceptions of real differences with surrounding communities, the standard Kipsigis stereotypes of their neighbors might be understood in large part as projections of concerns internal to the Kipsigis experience.
This work is an attempt to evaluate generalizations such as these on the basis of something more than impressionistic speculations about the mind of a hypothetical Everyman. To do the granularity of the evidence needs to match the unit of analysis. Explanations base on individual psychodynamics require data which demonstrate relationships across a sample of individuals. It became necessary to reformulate the above generalizations on the level of operational hypotheses which could then be tested with systematically collected data. To this end standardized interviews of one and a half hours each were conducted with sixty-one men from a local area that I had already studied intensively for nearly two years.
The basic hypothesis was that there would be measurable variations among the sample members in the degree of concern with one's own masculinity (cross-sex anxiety), and that these differences would be related to differences in attitudes toward other tribes; specifically, that the more anxious subjects would more consistently and more strongly characterize the Masai as extremely masculine, and the Luo as extremely feminine, while the responses of those subjects who were less concerned with their own masculinity would show less polarization along this dimension, and would be more reflective of other circumstances such as their individual experiences with members of the other tribes. Further, it was hypothesized that these difierences in ethnocentric rigidity and cross-sex anxiety would be related, on an individual basis, to variations in the subjects] experiences during childhood and during initaation.
The study is here presented in two parts. Part I, THE ETHNOGRAPHIC DATA, consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 gives the basic information conerning the Kipsigis and delineates the research area. Chapter 2 is a discussion of the social organization of a typical community. Chapter 3 is a description of male initiations. Chapter 4 reviews the historical aspects of Kipsigis contacts with the neighboring groups. Chapter 5 is a discussion of the interrelation of these data in terms of personality variables, and a formulation of the specific hypotheses to be tested. Part II, THE lNTERVIEWS, includes a discussion of the methods used in conducting the standardized interviews, the analysis of the data collected, and an evaluation of the hypotheses in light of the results.
I also wish to thank Kipsang' arap Soi who was employed as my cook but who took it upon himself to act as a friend and guide to Kipsigis life. I am indebted in many ways beyond those evident in this report to the hundreds of Kenyans, both Kipsigis and others, who made this study possible by their cooperation. I am most especially grateful to have known Kiruchu arap Torgoti and Chesimet arap Indoi, two gentlemen in their 90s, who generously shared with me their precious time, memories, and resources in the last months of their long and fruitful lives.