Before we went in and totally blew the lid off the Mamasaba people's mass-circumcision rite/drunken village rampage, the most authoritative document of the practice was a documentary shot in 1968 by Richard Hawkins for the Royal Anthropological Society called Imbalu: Ritual of Manhood of the Gisu of Uganda. Except for a few taped copies floating around university libraries, the film is almost impossible to dig up, so as a little late-mid-week present to you the reader, we're making available a couple selections for you to feast your peepholes on.
Hawkins stuck to the same MO as we did, following the circumcisees from the beginning of the ritual to the final cut (although, as you'll see, he totally pussied out/showed a modicum of restraint with his depiction of the actual act). In addition to looking really awesome in the way that anything shot in color in the 60s generally does, the film makes a nice counterpart to our series (or vice versa really), because it allows you to trace the evolution of Imbalu over the past 40 years. From what we can tell, the basic ceremony is more or less unchanged, but the participants have gotten approximately 8,095% more wasted.
See? I mean it's possible they just picked the chill village to shoot in and all the other places were orgies of goat shit and yelling, but doesn't everybody in that clip seem a bamillion times more laid-back and encouraging toward the initiates? Ain't nobody getting lynched there for serving mediocre food. Now, admittedly, I don't know much about getting Imbalu'd. Maybe having the living shit hazed out of you for three days by everybody you're remotely related to helps condition your brain to take the blade without flinching. But if it were up to me, I think I'd go with the village where everybody's sober and, instead of badgering me with the permanent shame I'm going to heap on my family if I fuck up, my parents just go off into the bush and consult the entrails of a freshly-slaughtered chicken to figure out whether or not I'm going to poon out. You?
pretty much the same indeed. i remember franco practicing his jump thing, but did he do it before the imbalu took place? i don't think he did or maybe vbs just didn't show it.
Posted by: franco rules | 04/12/2008 at 18:02
a guy named dick hawkins shot a doc on imbalu? too good.
Posted by: han | 04/12/2008 at 18:03
looks like mr hawkins also decided against the goat decapitation scene, thankfully.
Posted by: yuck | 04/12/2008 at 18:04
I think it was too crowded for Franco to jump before the cut. They had him totally smushed in with the drunks. I too would prefer to have my Imbalu in the 60s.
Posted by: jumper | 04/12/2008 at 18:18
you guys are sure getting a lot of mileage out of some guy getting his cock spliced
Posted by: life is a highway | 04/12/2008 at 18:20
i'm glad vbs had the balls the show the actual circumcision.
Posted by: lollipop | 04/12/2008 at 18:26
gotta give the people what they wanna see. sometimes they wanna see bleeding dicks.
Posted by: dick trickle | 04/12/2008 at 18:37
What are the slicer & slicee nibling on???? His freshly cut dick ???ay dios mio!!!
Posted by: mexican nazi helmet | 05/12/2008 at 11:36
He didn't get the customary bottle of coke
Posted by: Pepsi | 05/12/2008 at 18:00
Well, Pepsi, considering that coke bottles weren't introduced into the African bush until the early 80s as depicted in the Gods Must Be Crazy, the Gods Must Be Crazy II, the Gods Must Be Crazy III, the Gods Must Be Crazy IV, and the Gods Must Be Crazy V (The Gods Must Be Funny), it should hardly come as a surprise that they were stuck with their customary millet wine for elixirs.
Posted by: | 05/12/2008 at 18:10