I don't know how things are done in your village, but this is how they are done in mine.
Nineteen is a sacred number. Nineteen deities are painted on the walls of the holy cavern; nine Gods, nine Goddesses, and one blessed Androgyne. Nineteen moon-cycles are in each ring of the sun. There are nineteen animal spirits to which we can appeal for guidance and nineteen Great Laws passed down to us by our ancestors.
Most importantly, the age of nineteen is when a boy is supposed a man and a girl is supposed a woman. Before nineteen, we are not allowed to fuck. Fucking is the great business of life. It is how we speak to the Gods. It is what builds the bonds of love which holds us together as a people. It is the all-powerful force which creates new life. Before nineteen, it is believed that a young person does not possess the wisdom to master such a great power. Before nineteen, we must do the whacky-whack three times a day to dissipate the sacred energy so it does not consume our souls.
The day a young person becomes nineteen is a day of great celebration for the entire village, and a day of great importance in the young person's life. I was very nervous the day before mine, and my friends and family did nothing to allay my fears.
My good friend Lame Deer turned nineteen just a few moons before I did. He told me that he was forced to walk a thousand miles north to the Great Blasted Desert, to bury his most prized possession in its sands. Of course, his most prized possession was the knife given to him by his father, and he was using it to whittle a stick even as he told me this. So I think he may have been lying.
"You must suck the daddles of every man in the village, and swallow all their bitter spunk," my sister Onion Patch told me. She was but twenty, and already had twin babbies suckling at her tatty nips. "If you vomit, you fail the test and must wait another nineteen years." I think this one was a lie as well.
But my cousin Fell-From-the-Sky was not prone to lies. He was a teacher of children and a very serious man. He said I was to be fucked in the bummy by the Chief Father, and that the Chief Father's daddle was as big as an ordinary man's arm. I knew that much was true because the Chief Father seldom bothered with a loin-covering, and his jewel-adorned daddle dangled past his knees. I had never seen it in its angered state, but my imagination shivered at the thought of that monster crawling into my tight bummy-hole.
So the night before my nineteen was filled with frightful dreams, but ended all too quickly. I was awoken before dawn by the gentle kisses of my mother and a clout on the head by my father. They dragged me from my bed and sent me off to the hut on the river's edge, where I was to be prepared for the ceremony.
Five beautiful maidens, the fairest unmarried women in the village, were waiting for me. Among them was the most beautiful of them all- Dawn's First Light, she of the green-tinged eyes and the perfect round tatties which made one wish to lay his head upon them like soft pillows which would bring the sweetest dreams. Laughing and smiling, but not saying a word, the women stripped me of my bedclothes and bathed me in warm perfumed water. It was wonderful to be scrubbed and massaged by these fair young women in their thin, short ceremonial robes which scarcely covered their bodies. My daddle was already standing at attention even before I was made to drink the sacred brew. The women pointed and laughed and made whispered jokes. The oldest among them, a distant cousin of mine named Mossy Rock, dried me with soft cloths and made very sure my daddle and its dangling sac were quite dry.
Then the sacred brew was brought to me in its ancient stone chalice. Dawn's First Light held my arms and Mossy Rock held my nose as a third woman poured the brew into my mouth. This was the first taste I had of the Semen of the Gods and it was every bit as bitter as I had been told. Foul and thick and slimy, it coursed down my throat past my appalled tongue, tasting like every rotten thing from the jungle floor mixed with stomach bile. It had an aftertaste like something sucked from a dead dog's bummy.
I knew a little of its ingredients. My mother was the village's brewmaster and I had helped her prepare it many times. The potion contained blue mushrooms gathered from the Valley of the Rats, buttons harvested from the Tatty Cactus in the Great Blasted Desert, venom milked from the rare Night Snake, seeds from Dawn Star flowers and various Poppies, flowery buds from the Ganji plant, leaves of the Koka, a twist of the Vine of the Dead, and a few healthy squirts of Tree Monkey spunk. (Mother had always given me the unenviable task of stroking the monkeys until they spurted. They clawed and bit at first, but became embarrassingly attached to me afterward.) There were also a few secret ingredients which Mother had never allowed me to see.
I was forced to drink the entire contents of the chalice. The women politely averted their eyes while I vomited what felt like my entire stomach out. Then my mouth was gently wiped and I was given sweet water flavored with mint leaves to wash the foul taste away.
The preparations continued. I was completely shorn by their careful scraping blades. The light soft fuzz on my cheeks was shaved away for the first time. The hair on my head, uncut since birth and hanging almost to my waist, was cut away and my scalp was made bare. The hair on my legs and under my arms, gone. Even my proud kinky daddle-hairs were removed. I was hairless as a babe, symbolizing my rebirth as an adult.
My tender shaved skin was soothed with cooling creams and then my entire body was anointed with oils and the smoke of fragrant burning powders.
By now the first effects of the wicked brew were beginning to come on. My eyes felt as hard and as faceted as jewels, and I began to see crawling brown vines at the edges of my vision. The vines whispered in their soft windy language of the tricks and treats they were planning to subject me to over the course of this long day and night. But the most remarkable initial effect of the brew was what it had done to my daddle. It stood fuller and prouder, more hard and angry, than it had ever been in my life.
My foreskin had been cut away in another (much less pleasant) ritual only a year before. The bulbous mushroom head bulged and seemed to emit a dull purplish glow. The staff had become so hard and swollen that it curved back in on itself in a sickle-shape, pointing at my navel. I was not used it to seeing it all bald and naked and hairless, either, and this only made it seem larger. Its tiny mouth curved into a grin and the lips moved as if speaking. I could not hear the words it said yet, but knew it would only be a matter of time before I could.
It throbbed with sensations too exquisite to be called pain. The maidens gazed upon its glory with wide eyes and tongue-moistened lips, but they were not allowed to touch or to taste it yet. Except for the elder maiden, my cousin, who was given the task of painting it with dark brown dye. Intricate patterns of spirals and vines and tiny animal totems. Stars and flowers and whirling mandalas. The brew in my inflamed blood magnified each stroke of her brush into shivering vibrations which communicated the sacred meanings of the patterns she drew right into the roots of my soul. It took her nearly an hour to complete and I was bidden to remain still the entire time.
When she was finished, she and the other women blew upon the dye to dry it. The gentle breeze stroked me with indescribable delicacy and my skin could taste the perfumes of their breath. Then the base of my proud staff was encircled with smooth jeweled rings and tight bands of sacred metal.
I was ready. My head full of stars and eyes and jewels and birds, I was led to the first station of my trial.
Everyone in the village was waiting for me in the center circle. As they all watched, I was tied to the great fruit tree which contained our village's protector spirit, Noj. My arms were stretched out onto his branches and bound to them with leather straps. The sacred pose known to the elders as "cruciform." A cloth was wrapped about my eyes so I could see only the light which came from within my soul.
I had witnessed this portion of the ritual many times as a child, and so I knew what was happening. Several people of age from the village, chosen by lot, would kneel before me in turn. Each one would suck my daddle for the duration of nineteen beats of a drum. The one who managed to coax my seed and swallow it would be blessed with good fortune and fertility for the entire sun-cycle to come.
Though I could not see, I could easily tell the identity of each person who sucked me. My blind eyes saw only the cosmic workings of sky and earth, but my daddle could see even if my eyes could not, and it could taste things as well.