A Samburu boy the day before his circumcision. He has daubed the right side of his face and body with white clay while drawing water from a source that never dries up. Each boy will carry for this purpose a new gourd-shaped container made by his mother from hollowed out wood. Before he returns with his colleagues to their lorora (a purpose-built circumcision encampment), he will pluck handfuls of green grass to tie to his gourd and through the knot of his black cloak.Hanging over his shoulder is a nchipi, a distinctive decoration of every boy who participates in the circumcision ritual. Each string of blue beads terminates in a large bronze-coloured wing of a torpedo-shaped beetle, Sterocera hildebrandti.The ring he wears on the middle finger of his right hand is a flap of skin from a ram slaughtered that morning. He will sit on the wet skin when he is circumcised.