REAL CASTRATORS OF ETHIOPIA

Readers of the Eunuch Archive my like to know of the activities of 
the Afar tribe of Ethiopia who  perform testicular castration on 
their enemies all the time.

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REAL CASTRATORS  OF ETHIOPIA 



The Awash river flows into the Danakil desert in Ethiopia and there 
dries up into a salt-marsh.  In the 1930s the British Explorer  
Wilfred Thesinger visited the area and was the first outsider ever to 
go in and come out alive. Before then the area was unexplored.  Many 
had tried and none before had ever returned.  


The tribes people of the area the Afar warriors are tall slim 
muscular and have very dark skin. They have very long fuzzy hair but 
their features are Ethiopian rather than Negroid.


In order to marry an Afar has to have killed someone and cut off 
their testicles which are dried and worn as ornaments.  They carry 
old Italian rifles and shooting someone in the back is considered 
quite acceptable. Indeed giving someone a sporting chance is 
considered rather dumb.  Sometime whole villages wipe each other out 
in battles for trophies. The women wouldn’t dream of marrying a man 
who didn’t have trophies.


There was a television documentary crew visit about 25 years ago but 
since then people hardly ever visited the area.  Even then the crew 
remained hidden in houses when filming women as the local sense of 
honour would have over ridden the local Chief’s guarantee of safe 
conduct if they had been seen with a camera.


The Afar use curved knives but instead of an arc curve they are bent 
in an angle with a pointed tip at the end. They are used by slashing 
sideways to remove the testicles.  Sometimes if a young boy is 
castrated he is not killed but kept or sold as a slave.  


Despite their gruesome reputation the Afar are a very happy jovial 
people and adultery isn’t considered too serious.  One would castrate 
any stranger without a second thought but not do more than whip the 
local adulterer of the same village. 


Since the communists took over the country cotton has been planted 
along the rivers to the north and when the Afar moved up to feed 
their herds during the recent decade of drought they had no where to 
go. Either they have mostly died out or been re-educated by the 
Ethiopian government. 

Another point to note is that was that in the 1930s  Ethiopia  as it 
was the only black country not to be colonised by Europe.  Evelyn 
Waugh noted that when a large European delegation arrived to discuss 
the danger of invasion from Italy the practice of public castration 
was temporally abandoned .  This had been the standard punishment for 
all first offences for most crimes. When the Europeans left public 
castration was reintroduced again.   In fact the country was invaded 
by Italy and may Italian soldiers provided trophies for the Afar.