Female circumcision is a practice which j.s appalling to many Westerners, yet in cultures where it occurs, it is often considered only a custom. Yet the failure of repeated attempts to eliminate the practice by both Westerners and non-Westerners suggests that female circumcision is intricately interwoven into the social structure of the cultures where it occurs. It would seem that the practice has symbolic meaning and is somehow functional. This research is a comparative theoretical study of the occurrance of and the importance of female circumcision within two different cultures in Africa, the Sudanese and the Maasai.