Maasai

Maasai (or Masai), East African nomadic people inhabiting southern Kenya and Tanzania. They remain a pastoral people. The word Maasai is the preferred spelling by the people. The Maasai are generally a very tall and thin, dark-skinned people. They speak the Maasai (or Masai) language from the Nilo-Saharan family and are split into 16 politically independent groups called Iloshon. They traditionally herded their cattle freely across the highlands of Kenya. Probably at the height of their power in the mid-19th century, they suffered from the British colonization of Africa and the resultant ecological and political changes that took place. Rinderpest, an infectious febrile disease, apparently accompanied the British, decimating the cattle herds that supplied the Maasai with milk and blood; and famine and then smallpox followed. The weakened Maasai attacked rather than cooperated with the new rulers, and, in 1904 and the period 1912-1913, the British government relocated the Maasai population to distant southern Kenya and Tanzania, where they now live.

Cattle are highly revered by the Maasai, both spiritually and as a nutritional source of milk, meat, and blood, which they drink directly after slaughter in certain ceremonies and which provides them with essential proteins and fluid. Cow’s blood is also drunk as part of the daily diet when milk is scarce (sometimes mixed with milk) and is given to the sick and to those who have just given birth. Cows are not always slaughtered for their blood—a vein in the cow’s neck can be punctured monthly to let the blood, and is then sealed with cow dung. Although water is scarce for the Maasai, when a resource is found the cattle are given first drink.

Maasai males are rigidly classed by age into the categories boys, warriors, and elders. The Maasai are known in particular for their intricate beadwork on necklaces and arm and leg bracelets; the design of the beads varies according to the wearer’s age-grade. Girls often have their marriages negotiated by their fathers before they are born. Both boys and girls undergo circumcision ceremonies (see Circumcision (male) and Female Genital Mutilation). Older women enjoy the same status as male elders. The Maasai, most of whom are nomadic throughout the year, live in kraals, small clusters of huts made from cow dung, mud, and sticks, which are constructed by the women and positioned in a circle. The men build wooden fences to protect the settlement and to house the livestock.