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While this is sung, girls sit on the ground and tuck their left legs behind their necks, and then move themselves forward along the ground with their hands. After a while, they tuck up their right legs, and then their left legs again.
One explanation of the song is that the difficulty of the action teaches girls that pregnancy can be uncomfortable and painful. Another is that when the time for her confinement comes, a woman must pull her legs up as high as possible, so the baby may be more easily born. Another explanation is that it refers to a man 'carrying off' a woman. Finally, one mistress of initiation insisted that it referred simply to the danger of hyenas breaking into homesteads at night and carrying off goats or calves. |
ni vhone!