The women who want to be whipped blow horns and chant at the Maza (men who can whip them). The men can only whip women if they give them a stick. The Benna tribe whipping was not as harsh as I’ve previously seen in a Hamer bull jumping ceremony. The women also were not as aggressive and demanding to the Maza as I’d seen previously.

This often death-defying ceremonial practice exists within the Hamer culture. Considered a rite of passage, the jumping of the bulls is a task that a Hamer boy must fulfill in order to pass from childhood to early adulthood. Several days before the ceremony initiate pass-out invitations in the form of blades of dried grass. The ceremony stretches for three days; the most important day, however, is the final one, on which, late in the afternoon, roughly thirty live bulls are lined up shoulder to shoulder. The naked initiate rushes towards the animals and vaults onto the back of the first bull. He then runs across the bulls’ backs. At the end of the line, he jumps back down onto the ground, turns around, jumps back up, and repeats the performance in the other direction. If an initiate falls during this process, it is considered bad luck.