Sexual initiation and the transmission of reproductive knowledge

Abstract

Initiation rituals are still widely practised among the Kaguru of Morogoro district in Tanzania. Young women are introduced to the digubi dance at the time of puberty, and a version of the dance is performed at the time of marriage. This form of traditional theatre serves a function of education and socialization, and the question is raised of how much of reproductive behaviour is transmitted in this medium. Our informants suggest that notions of female dependence and standard of behaviour are conveyed in the process, but that information on child rearing and postpartum abstinence are transmitted by personal contact with older women at the time of the first birth