a little of everyday

fat is beautiful (but the process is ugly)

i remembered watching a programme on tv a long time ago and seeing a tribal african man embrace a fat woman, proclaiming that she is beautiful; this, as opposed to the slim woman who is standing beside the former.

so i googled and came upon some interesting discoveries: the various tribes in Nigeria, as well as the Hima tribe in Uganda are some of the places which support the notion of fat is beautiful.

i hope that this will not disappoint the fat black woman because in these societies, her poetry would be something rather ordinary instead of shocking. and she may not make as much money as she would out of them should she decide to strut her stuff there.

before you go out and tell your friends that you have finally found a place where women can be what they want and eat what they like, let me elaborate on their cultures. for the tribes in Nigeria, women before their marriage would have to undergo this "fattening" ceremony where they are enclosed in a fattening house to, simply, get fat. (sounds like something that we have/ought to have read?)

the process of fattening up is rather long and ritualistic, and i have chosen to extract a passage from the site which explains it in detail. this description applies to the Efik tribe:

After reaching the age of puberty, the girl is clothed in an embroidered cloth cap, a loin roll of bright coloured cloth, a correlate ornamented with beads and cowry shells, headed shoulder braces and leglets of gaily coloured cloth or coiled brass rods, necklace and armlets of bead work. She is taken to the fattening hut called Mbobi by her mother. The huts are situated on the outskirts of the village. Her period of seclusion may extend from six months to two years. Whilst in the hut, she is called a woman of seclusion (wann-kukho). During the fattening process she is compelled to eat vast quantities of fat producing foods including pounded yam cooked in palm oil. She is not allowed to exert herself in any way. Her face and body are not washed and she is rubbed with clay. White cloths are tied round her neck, wrists and ankle to prevent evil spirits retarding the process.

While she is in Ufok n-kukho she is not allowed to touch anything in the hut and she must avoid all possible contact with the ground. When she has occasion to leave the hut and go into the yard of the compound, she calls out "Onukhomi, nukhofio". During her period of seclusion she undergoes the operation of clitoridectomy (Circumcision) usually at the hand of her mother.

How the circumcision is done: A piece of coconut shell perforated. The glans of the clitoriclis is drawn through this hole and cut off with a sharp knife or splinter of glass. It is believed that the operation has the effect of making the girl sterile.


all right. so it is not very empowering. in fact, the tribe is still patrairchal in nature, except that these men have opposing tastes. the interesting, as well as disturbing, part in the extract is how the girl undergoes clitoridectomy before she is released from the hut. although the passage explains that this is to make the girl "sterile", the other (underlying) reason for doing it is so that the women relinquish their sexual desires and assume the role of baby producing machines for their husbands, and their husbands only.

apart from the bodily afflictions and mutilations, the women also undergo a mental brainwashing where they come out as subservient wives (yes, polygyny is the norm in Nigerian tribal societies) who will take and accept the pushing, beating, and abusing of their husband-kings.

now would you rather be slim and Singaporean or opulent and Efik?

for those who would like a little more detail of these ceremonies and the lives of these women:

http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/earticles/efik_ibibio_ibo_in_the_fattening.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/wmp/wmp08.htm