|
Tribe Snapshots Maasai |
| Location: |
North central Tanzania,
southern Kenya |
| Population: |
350,000 |
| Language: |
Ol Maa (Nilotic) |
| Neighboring
Peoples: |
Samburu, Kikuyu, Kamba, Chaga, Meru, Pare, Kaguru,
Gogo, Sukuma |
| Types
of Art: |
Maasai are best known for their beautiful beadwork
which plays an essential element in the ornamentation
of the body. Beading patterns are determined by
each age-set and identify grades. Young men, who
often cover their bodies in ocher to enhance their
appearance, may spend hours and days working on
ornate hairstyles, which are ritually shaved as
they pass into the next age-grade. |
| History: |
Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers
and are linguistically most directly related to
the Turkana and Kalenjin who live near Lake Turkana
in west central Kenya. According to Maasai oral
history and the archaeological record, they also
originated near Lake Turkana. Maasai are pastoralist
and have resisted the urging of the Tanzanian
and Kenyan governments to adopt a more sedentary
lifestyle. They have demanded grazing rights to
many of the national parks in both countries and
routinely ignore international boundaries as they
move their great cattle herds across the open
savanna with the changing of the seasons. This
resistance has led to a romanticizing of the Maasai
way of life that paints them as living at peace
with nature. |
| Economy: |
Cattle are central to Maasai economy. They are
rarely killed, but instead are accumulated as
a sign of wealth and traded or sold to settle
debts. Their traditional grazing lands span from
central Kenya into central Tanzania. Young men
are responsible for tending to the herds and often
live in small camps, moving frequently in the
constant search for water and good grazing lands.
Maasai are ruthless capitalists and due to past
behavior have become notorious as cattle rustlers.
At one time young Maasai warriors set off in groups
with the express purpose of acquiring illegal
cattle. Maasai often travel into towns and cities
to purchase goods and supplies and to sell their
cattle at regional markets. Maasai also sell their
beautiful beadwork to the tourists with whom they
share their grazing land. |
| Political
Systems: |
Maasai community politics are embedded in age-grade
systems which separate young men and prepubescent
girls from the elder men and their wives and children.
When a young woman reaches puberty she is usually
married immediately to an older man. Until this
time, however, she may live and have sex with
the youthful warriors. Often women maintain close
ties, both social and sexual, with their former
boyfriends, even after they are married. In order
for men to marry they must first acquire wealth,
a process that takes time. Women, on the other
hand, are married at the onset of puberty to prevent
children being born out of wedlock. All children,
whether legitimate are not, are recognized as
the property of the woman's husband and his family. |
| Religion: |
The cow is slaughtered as an offering during
important ceremonies marking completed passage
through one age-grade and movement to the next.
When warriors (moran) complete this cycle of life,
they exhibit outward signs of sadness, crying
over the loss of their youth and adventurous lifestyles.
Maasai diviners (laibon) are consulted whenever
misfortune arises. They also serve as healers,
dispensing their herbal remedies to treat physical
ailment and ritual treatments to absolve social
and moral transgressions. In recent years Maasai
laibon have earned a reputation as the best healers
in Tanzania. Even as western biomedicine gains
ground, people also continually search out more
traditional remedies. Maasai are often portrayed
as people who have not forgotten the importance
of the past, and as such their knowledge of traditional
healing ways has earned them respect. Laibons
are easily found peddling their knowledge and
herbs in the urban centers of Tanzania and Kenya.
|
|
|
