Bassari Initiate, Senegal Bassari males of southern Senegal pass through seven stages in their transition from childhood to manhood. The most important ceremony of the male cycle is initiation into adulthood, which occurs when boys are between 15 and 20 years old. During this time the boys, who normally live in a communal house with other unmarried males, move to a ritual house for several months, and, as the initiation process begins, are taken by older initiates into the nearby sacred forest. There, as legend has it, the boys meet their deaths at the hands of Numba, the mysterious chameleon deity of initiation, who is believed to devour them, and then regurgitate them as fledgling adults.
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