The origins of this ancient warrior tribe is thought to have come from North Africa and migrated south along the Nile Valley, arriving in northern Kenya about mid fifteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century they extended from northern Kenya through the Great Rift Valley into central Tanzania.

The Maasai dominated the plains between Lake Victoria and the coast of East Africa in the nineteenth century. The first stories that Europeans at the coast heard of the Maasai was of a fierce and warmongering people. The warriors of the Maasai, the moran, were the most feared in East Africa. This image has endured as part of the stereotypical picture of the Maasai long after they ceased to dominate the region.

During the mid-nineteenth century the Maasai had fallen to squabbling amongst themselves over cattle, pastures and water. It was the struggles between Maasai sections for control of environmental reources that provoked much of the warfare in the region that the Europeans heard about.

Today Maasai land covers a much smaller area due to land taken for European settlements in the Rift Valley and on the Lakipia Plateau, and later by African agriculturalists. The Maasai of the Mara plains have lost many of their traditional grazing grounds and access to water to wheat farming and the setting up of the Masai Mara Game Reserve. Local Maasai communities have sometimes found themselves in conflict with the desires of conservationists and the protection of wildlife. Attempts to redirect income to the Maasai from the parks and from tourism have been made but with limited success.

The Maasai and their cattle

Maasai are “ people of cattle". Their culture is dominated by cattle, as are their social relationships, their ritual and ceremonial life, their symbolism, and even the idioms of their language. At the heart of their respect for cattle lie strong economic and ecological truths. On the dry grasslands of Eastern Africa cattle offer security where agriculture alone cannot. Maasai pastoralism is well adapted to the environment of the plains. The rainfall of the plains is too little and too irregular for sustainable cultivation of cereals. One year in five might bring drought.

The value of cattle is also judged in social terms. There are good reasons for this. To spread his risk, a wise herder will distribute his animals among relatives, age mates and friends. Livestock are given as loans and in payments of a variety of social debts. If disaster should strike a man’s main herd he can at least hope to call in debts from others in order to start rebuilding.

The Maasai life cycle

Age-grades, and all of the ceremonies asssociated with them, are the crucial markers of the Maasai life-cycle. The movement of a person from one age-grade to the next marks the most important transitions in the life of an individual and in the wider life of the community. The Maasai age set system gives their society its structure.

Each Maasai man passes through three main life stages; boyhood, warriorhood and elderhood. When they are young boys they tend to the calves, shep and goats near the settlements. After circumcision, the boys become warriors, morans, and live by themselves in a special village, manyatta. This stage of life corresponds to both army duty and cultural college, remaining detached from ordinary family life. Warriors also help herding cattle especially in cases of many days walk away from the settlements in search of pasture and water.

The most important of all the Maasai ceremomnies is the eunoto, at which the moran leave the manyatta to become full elder, to marry wives, and to establish themselves as household heads and fathers. As an elder you are treated with deference by younger persons and have right to sit in council with other elders to dipense justice and make decisions about the important issues of the day. A Maasai man may marry several wives.

Masai women

Maasai women do not pass through the same stages as the men. The two most important ceremonies and events for the women are circumcision and marriage. When circumsised they turn from being young girls into being women and only after being circumsised they can get married. Circumcision and mutilation of women is forbidden by Kenyan law and is strongly debated. Deeply rooted in their traditional life, nomadic pastoralist people in Kenya still perform female circumcison. Through education of girls this is slowly changing. Basecamp supports an education support project directed especially towards girls. Read more on Basecamp Education Support Project.

Marriage means safety and a secured future. A woman contributes to the success and the well-being of the family by having many children. They are considered a blessing in the Maasai community. To die without children is thought to be a terrible fate. Still, most Maasai women depend strongly upon their husbands when it comes to economy, ownership of cows and land. A Maasai man may marry several wives and still today many of the men have at least two wives. If the husband is wealthy he has a lot of cows and the women consider it practical to be two wives to share the labour of everyday. But of course family relationships can be complex and tense. It is through the labour and commitment of the wives/women that family harmony is secured.

Each woman has her own hut. The women build the huts, using wooden poles and saplings intertwined with grasses and plastered with cowdung. They collect firewood, fetch water, look after the children, milk the cows and cook.

The Maasai and their spirituality

Maasai spirituality is expressed through cultural practice rather than through an adherence to any clear reliogious philosophy. For this reason, Maasai spiritual beliefs can seem elusive and are difficult to define precisely. Yet the Maasai show a great awareness of the powerful, invisible forces of the universe.

The elements, especially rain, thunder and lightning are viewed as gifts or punishments, signs of the greater force shaping the earth. When the Maasai speak of God, they use the name engai , and this word can also be applied to rain and thunder. Engai is the spiritual force which governs the universe and to whom the Maasai pray. The cultural values and beliefs which underlie Maasai spirituality are not neatly summarized in written words. Rather, it is the spoken word that conveys the essence of Maasi culture. The recollection of oral histories, storytelling, the singing of songs and the recital of poetry are all means of passing on culture from one generation to the next. Even in the language of the every day talks the heavy use of proverbs and analogy reflect what it is to be Maasai.

Emir ilomon leinteipa ile ntadekenya - The news of the evening may triumph the news of the morning.