GANZA Initiation

The Ganza ceremony of Banda People (Central African Republic) marked in pre-colonial times the end of a period of initiation and access to adulthood. The term ganza also applies to young girls subjected to excision. Today, with most Banda people having adopted Christianity and Western based customs and taboos, the Ganza ceremony has been used to incorporate foreign elements and initiate a process of assigning a new value to them. These new artifacts continue, in the absence of lost initiatory contexts, to be reconstructed, modified, and resignified. Their exhibition provokes ambivalent reactions among the population, where appreciation or nostalgia for the past can rub shoulders with panic regarding the danger posed by witchcraft objects.

Among the Banda, the term ganza designates circumcision and, by extension, the young neophyte who formerly, to reach adulthood, was subjected to an articulated ritual, sometimes lasting a month or more under the control of the ende (circumcised elders).

Nowadays, only a few rare objects are still displayed, or reproduced and used during festivities, institutional events or in other very specific situations, such as witchcraft trials: this is notably the case of a spiked headdress that young banda people used to wear during the ganza ceremony marking the end of a period of initiation and access to adulthood.

Extended info about Ganza Initiation