Early circumcision may be a mark of ethnicity, or it may be considered hygienic or aesthetically attractive, but it does not provide a means by which trauma may be harnessed to the inculcation of moral and metaphysical values, as occurs in many rituals of initiation. Nor can infantile circumcision serve as a test of bravery. These aspects of circumcision, however, are of special interest to the anthropologist of religion. Among the societies that practice circumcision as a rite of passage to adulthood, those of central Australia and East Africa provide the most complex and dramatic examples. In central Australia circumcision is the primary operation in defining male adulthood, although it is often accompanied by tooth evulsion, bodily scarification, and, a year or two later, subincision.
Much pressure is exerted on the initiate to show no fear or pain.
At this time novices witness complex ceremonies in which the mythical origins of the world are enacted and, thereby, the order of the world is reasserted. Circumcision, therefore, is not only the occasion when a youth passes into the circle of informed adults, but it also provides repeated opportunities for him to continue to acquire deeper knowledge of traditions. Australian circumcision furthers male solidarity by forever separating youths from their mothers. The initiates receive ritual objects that are forbidden to the sight of women. Admitted to frequent and complex secret male ritual activities, they begin to spend longer periods away from camp at ceremonies that exclude women.