The welcome jumping dance. Also used to test males prowess.
The enlarged earlobs.
Carrying firewood, one of the women's jobs.
Watching the tourists.
The women singing a song for us.
The wear very bright clot
The young men hanging around.
Their houses in the manyatta (name of their type of village).
The tourist trinket table.
A Maasai working at one of the hotels.
The Maasai
They are East African pastoralists, who
migrated from the Sudanese Nile to the Kenya-Tanzania border area in
the 18th century. A reputation as fearsome warriors
ensured that they were avoided by the slave caravans and the European
explorers who penetrated the interior in the 19th century.
European settlement brought disaster in the form of a rinderpest
epidemic that killed most of the Maasai's cattle and caused large
tracts of their territory to be made into game reserves and settler
farms. Today, their historical land rites are recognized by Kenya and
Tanzania and they are allowed to graze their herds around and into
the national parks. This of course put more pressure on the
environment and leaves less food for the wild grazing herds. It also
puts the Maasai herds in harms way as they graze. The Maasai have
become adept at warding off wild animals such as lions, leopards and
hyena. It used to be part of the maturation process of young Maasai
warriors to prove their prowess by killing a lion. This practice has
been discouraged by the governments as the wildlife is under enough
pressure.
They
are among the best known local populations due to their residence
near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes,
and their distinctive customs and dress. They are also educated in
the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili
and English.
The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 841,622 in Kenya
in the 2009 census,
compared
to 377,089 in the 1989 census.
As
a historically nomadic
and
then semi-nomadic people, the Maasai have traditionally relied on
local, readily available materials and indigenous technology
to
construct their housing.
The traditional Maasai house was in the first instance designed for
people on the move and was thus very impermanent in nature. The Boma
(houses)
are either somewhat rectangular shaped with extensions or circular,
and are constructed by able-bodied women. The structural framework is
formed of timber poles fixed directly into the ground and interwoven
with a lattice of smaller branches wattle,
which is then plastered with a mix of mud,
sticks, grass, cow dung,
human urine, and ash. The cow dung ensures that the roof is waterproof. The
building is small, measuring about 3x5 m and standing only 1.5m high.
Within this space, the family cooks, eats, sleeps, socializes, and
stores food, fuel, and other household possessions. Small livestock
are also often accommodated inside. Villages are enclosed in a
circular fence (an enkang) built by the men, usually of thorned acacia,
a native tree. At night, all cows, goats, and sheep are placed in an enclosure in the centre, safe from wild animals.
Maasai
society is strongly patriarchal
in
nature, with elder men, sometimes joined by retired elders, deciding
most major matters for each Maasai group. A full body of oral law
covers many aspects of behavior. Formal
execution is
unknown, and normally payment in cattle will settle matters. An
out-of-court process is also practised called 'amitu', 'to make
peace', or 'arop', which involves a substantial apology. Many Maasai
have also adopted Christianity
and Islam.
The Maasai are known for their intricate jewelry and for decades,
have sold these items to tourists as a business.
A
once high infant mortality
rate
among the Maasai has led to babies not truly being recognized until
they reach an age of 3 months. Educating Maasai women to use clinics
and hospitals during pregnancy has enabled more infants to survive.
The exception is found in extremely remote areas. For Maasai living a
traditional life, the end of life is virtually without ceremony,
and the dead are left out for scavengers.
A
corpse rejected by scavengers is seen as having something wrong with
it, and liable to cause social disgrace; therefore, it is not
uncommon for bodies to be covered in fat and blood from a slaughtered cow.
Burial
has in the past been reserved for great chiefs, since it is believed
to be harmful to the soil.
Traditional
Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle
which
constitute their primary source of food. The measure of a man's
wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is
respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty
of one but not the other is considered to be poor.
A
Maasai religious belief
relates
that God gave them all the cattle on earth, leading to the belief
that rustling cattle from other tribes is a matter of taking back
what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has become much less
common.
All
of the Maasai’s needs for food are met by their cattle. They eat
the meat, drink the milk daily, and drink the blood on occasion.
Bulls, oxen and lambs are slaughtered for meat on special occasions
and for ceremonies. The Maasai’s entire way of life has
historically depended on their cattle... more recently, with their
cattle dwindling, the Maasai have grown dependent on food such as
sorghum, rice, potatoes and cabbage (known to the Maasai as goat
leaves).
The
Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to
encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic
lifestyle,
but the people have continued their age-old customs.
An
Oxfam
study
has suggested that the Maasai could pass on traditional survival
skills such as the ability to produce food in deserts and scrublands
that could help populations adapt to climate change.
Many
Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their
villages to experience (for a non-trivial fee) their culture,
traditions, and lifestyle.
On
the truck we talked about how the Maasai are of high interest foreign
tourists, so getting them to settle into a regular lifestyle, which
would probably mean most of them moving into the cities to live in
poverty might be counter productive to the tourist industry that both
Kenya and Tanzania want.
Anyone
interested in learning more about the Maasai should watch a really
interesting movie called “The White Maasai” based on a true story
of a young, white German woman who becomes romantically involved with
a Maasai and decided to live with them. Talk about culture shock.
They
are a fascinating tribe, colourful, independent, traditional, proud
of their lifestyle and culture.
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