Thursday, October 5, 2017

The Maasai

 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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