Growing Up Sexually

 

LAMBAS (NORTHERN RHODESIA)

 

 

Index Africa Lambas

 


The Lambas marry at age 14, and have no word for virginity (Doke, 1931)[1]. Children practise three types of hut building: one for childhood, boyhood and girlhood (p143-6), although no observations were made on sex play. In the children’s hut, girls may use obscene language (“Now unfold your scrotums and sleep in it”). In the boy’s hut, boys practice phallopoesis by heating a root and pressing it on the penis, “to enlarge and harden the organ” (p145). Girls practice vaginal distension. Christian influence would have begun to have a deterrent effect on both practices.

 

 

 


 

 

 

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Sept 2004

 



[1] Doke, C. M. (1931) The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia. London [etc.]: Harrap