ENTRY DESCRIPTION
A moment in a Zulu ceremony for the ritual passage into adulthood.
The young man in the foreground is one of the people entering adulthood. The hand is of the "holy man" (figure in the center) performing the ceremony.

This ceremony is a modern reinterpretation of the traditional ceremonies (still performed in the remote countryside): it is usually celebrated for young people that live in the cities and go to the original village of the parents to please them and perform the ceremony.
The young men participating are usually older than in the traditional ceremony, and no circumcision is involved.
Still, traditional magic and symbols, dances and costumes are still present.

These ceremonies are an example of the mixed education that often young middle-class black South African receive, moving between an African traditional cultural background and Western education and ambitions.
I was present at the ceremony since I was invited by a friend that had to perform it, and that in private nervously commented: "What am I doing here? I am educated, I will soon have a PhD, and these rituals and beliefs do not belong to me!"

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