Learning to Say “no” in New Chisungu Initiation Rituals

Abstract

How would one draw on traditional oral education to complement and improve the HIV prevention campaign in the specific case of girls’ initiation as practiced in Northern Zambia? Audrey Richards alludes to the eventual disappearance of the girls’ initiation in the Bemba-speaking region of Northern Zambia, in “Cisungu”, her classic work about the ritual she observed in 1931. Two surveys (1989 and 1998) proved the ritual to be still alive, and adapted to the new context of AIDS epidemics. Following a short presentation of the traditional initiation described by Audrey Richards, this article deals with the changes effected in the ritual and in the UNICEF project for HIV prevention in the “Copperbelt” region of Northern Zambia. Two types of production are presented: songs composed by a group of women in relation to the UNICEF project and the evolution of the ritual conceived by women as a possible answer to the objectives defined by the project for the HIV prevention towards young girls.