Who said that African men don’t care about preliminaries? An ancestral practice in the Great Lakes region proves that they do.
It is a tradition passed down from generation to generation that goes beyond college sex education. Umwali, a kamasutra from the Great Lakes region, is a ritual in which young people learn various skills to achieve mutual satisfaction. Umwali is composed of several techniques: Gukuna, kunyaza, kuretesha, and kuvugilira. Each one aims to sexually fulfill both parties and solidify their marriage bonds.
It is said that a queen, tired of waiting for her husband to return from war, ordered a servant to please her. The servant was terrified, but he managed to inadvertently create a technique based on the massage of erogenous zones and luckily his accident was the queen’s pleasure, which lead her to ejaculate that night. Kunyaza was born!
Kunyaza is based on the principle that female pleasure must precede all coitus. To no avail, the church tried to eradicate Kunyaza because of its perceived perversity. Fortunately this practice of female reverence has survived thanks to oral traditions. Female ejaculation is very significant in the Great Lakes: it’s a sign of fertility, fulfillment and marital happiness. Kunyaza is so common that small mats are often offered as a wedding gifts to protect the bed during intercourse.
The fluids (water, milk and beer) are symbols of social bonding, the feelings that develop before any intimate relationship becomes stronger. To avoid breaking their obligations, women are initiated into marriage through another practice called Gukuna. Its goal is to increase sensitivity through a series of reciprocal massages of intimate zones between women.
Trembling with fear, inadvertently invented a technique based on the massage of erogenous zones that triggered the queen and resulted in female ejaculation.
The groom is taught a different preliminary before the wedding that supports his role in facilitating the fluidity of intercourse. This preliminary is called Kuretesha, a method of stimulation that lubricates the vagina, which is imperative to penetration.
It is no surprise that water is the symbolic representation of the abundant secretions that flow during sex. Female sexual pleasure is considered to guarantee a good marriage. The woman, thanks to her many attributes, is said to irrigate (like water to a field) the conjugal home and encourage fertility. Her body, like the earth, thus becomes sacred. If a woman has bathed in her own fluids and those of her husband, she will be a good mother and wife.
The Kunyaza is the result of psychological and cultural conditioning, in which the man takes pride in having satisfied his partner and a wet mat being his trophy. The woman can also experience sexual freedom without fearing judgment. Sure of her sensuality, she is happily fulfilled and is able to provide pleasure to her lover while respecting the tradition of the preliminaries.
Umwali is a culmination of every moment in a relationship and it does not end with marriage. It is a form of continuing education that is maintained by exchanges of information between women seeking to improve sexual practices.
