A Maasai Manyatta celebrating the men's transition to a new age set
October 25, 2003
Maasai are one of the really traditional Kenyan tribes who still wear the old garb, and drink mainly cow's blood and milk mixed together. If anyone watched Survivor Africa, that took place in the Maasai Mara, a national park nearby.
November 3, 2003
In Maasai culture, both girls and boys are circumcised, between the ages of 13 and 15. Since I am only here to study the culture and not change it, I am trying hard not to pass judgment about this.
No men can be present during female circumcision, so he knew little about it - only that women (mothers) performed the ceremony and that the girls could be beaten or tied down if they struggled. The vast majority, 90% of Maasai women, are circumcised, and the decision is the father's.
As for the male ceremony, the boys must stand side by side in a line. They are allowed no herbs or intoxicants, and they must stand straight and not scream or even flinch. If they do flinch, the boy's father must sacrifice a bull, or give the bull to someone - I can't remember. I won't go into any more detail, but if anyone wants to know offline, I got a pretty graphic description of the finished product.
November 4, 2003
Many older Maasai men practiced the tradition of extending their earlobes. I assume this is done by piercing the ear, then putting in larger and larger disks until the hole is very large and the lower ear becomes just a loop of flesh. Unfortunately, this practice has become associated with lack of education, and many Maasai businessmen in Narok now hook the loop of flesh behind the top of the ear so that it's less noticeable.
Saturday November 15
I learned a lot about Maasai culture this week. I don't have my notes with me, so I'm winging it. The Maasai are traditionally herders, and they believe that all animals belong to them. One traditional proverb says, "A home without cows is deserted." A man with 100 cows is richer than a man with 99 cows and a million shillings in the bank. Because of these beliefs, stealing a cow from a Maasai is punishable by death. Not in Kenyan law, of course, but in general society.
Another Maasai cultural note I found interesting - women build the houses. They are made of cow dung, sticks, and straw. I guess they don't have to hold up long since they are a fairly nomadic people. This time of year, representatives from all the villages make their way toward Narok for a 4-month celebration. They build huts on whatever land they can find.
November 18, 2003
First, let me talk a bit about their rights and traditions. Boys are generally circumcised from age 15 to 18. After circumcision, they must throw away all their clothes and never wear the same things again. At that time they become moran warriors for 5 or more years. They go into the bush, and live off food that is given to them, or from stealing cows. It is during this time that the men are expected to be very promiscuous. Around age 25 the come back to the family, and are given a herd to tend. Once they have wealth they can marry.
Girls are cicumcised at 12-13. After they have healed, their clothes are also discarded and their heads are shaved. A girl is called before her father at this point and given a choice - to marry the man her father has chosen, or someone she wants. This is all a formallity of course, the man her father has chosen is often booked before the girl is even born. He is generally much older, the girl agrees to the marriage and the ceremony is private, even the parents don't attend.
A man can have as many wives as he wants. While it's true that a woman in not afforded the same liberty, she is free to engage in sexual activity with anybody she chooses. This is supposed to be some sort of compensation for marrying her off to a much older man. When a man "visits" a woman, he leaves his spear just outside the door. If another man comes, even the woman's husband, and sees the spear, he cannot enter. Furthermore, any child born is solely the husband's responsibility.
A Maasai child is born at home. There are no birth certificates, so it's often difficult later in life to obtain passports, register to vote, etc. They don't celebrate birthdays. Immediately after birth, the child is given a temporary name. About a year later, the parents will hold a naming ceremony. Until then, the mother and child can't cut their hair. In the early morning, the father goes to a permanent water source and brings back water for the woman to drink. A lamb is slaughtered. Mother and child get haircuts, and the hair is placed where calves sleep. Men of the village come together and decide on a name. The child actually receives 2 - one is meant to be a joke. The other name is often after prominent men, so there are apparently several Clintons and Bushes running around these days.
Finally, let me give you a few notes on death. For Maasai, death is a very natural process. In fact, if two friends are traveling together, and one dies, his friend will remove his beads and leave him there. If a man dies at home, his body is smeared with the fat of a slaughtered cow, and taken to the bush. Men stay with the body until nightfall, then leave it to be munched on by wild animals. This is all Maasai tradition. These days, most bodies are buried, though often without a coffin.
April 6, 2004
Moses used to live in Narok, so here’s something interesting he told me about Maasai culture. Social structures are based on “agemates”. If a man is your agemate, then you run in the same circles and can share friendship, beds, and wives. If your agemate tells you he wants to sleep with your wife, you can’t refuse. Otherwise, he will call a meeting with other agemates, and they will decide how to deal with you.
May 3, 2004
Grace said up until a few months ago, the village was going through a terrible drought. The men left, taking all their livestock in search of water. Since Maasai women don’t farm, they were left with nothing to eat. They were subsisting on porridge alone, twice a day. (BTW, I’ve had the porridge. It’s pretty good, though I wouldn’t want to eat it all the time.)
Usually a Maasai man will leave a few cows behind, so the women can sell milk to make money. Of course, this is hardly practical in a village where ALL the women have milk and no money at all. There’s just no market. A woman is not allowed to sell any livestock herself and will likely be beaten for trying, so her choices are to beg or starve.
Grace and Sylvia said if the choice is to be beaten or to be single, it is better to be single. This makes them truly liberated women in Kenya. Still, I know they’re both worried about finding a husband. Here a man would never accept a woman who was more educated or had a better job. They even pointed out that most of the women ministers of parliament are unmarried.
May 17, 2004
I walked back to school this morning, about 2 km. While Mr. Maikweke was arranging chai for me, he asked Jonathan to take me to a nearby manyatta, my first one! These are the family homes of the Maasai, built out of dung by the women. The compound we went to had about 4 of these structures, perhaps 15’x15’ each. Jonathan said 70 people lived there.
I entered one of the homes. It was about 5 feet tall, so I had to stoop. There was only one window, so it was pitch dark. In this tiny cramped space was one bed for the man, one for the wife and children, a cooking fire, and a pen for a calf. (Cows really are more dear than children!)
May 20, 2004
This is why I’m happy to be in Maasai land, where their sense of fashion is more evolved. I just love the shukas – swaths of bright colored cloth the men and women drape over themselves. The Moran (teenage warriors) wear nothing but shukas, and the skirts are so short, I’m amazed they manage to cover everything. It’s a very precise art. Of course, white culture has invaded even these traditions, and I occasionally see lazy Maasai men wearing cotton Docker shorts under their shukas.
July 26, 2004
A manyatta, by the way, can either be a big compound of Maasai houses or a celebration at said place. We got to Kajiado and arranged for a truck to take us there. John’s friend, Elvis, had his three sisters – Grace, Daisy, and Lucy – escort us.
If you’re wondering how a Kenyan guy got the name Elvis, here’s the deal. Maasai people actually have several names. First, there’s a descriptive name to explain their birth. For instance, Ledama means born in the morning. They also get a joke name, though I’ve never fully understood that one. Then there’s the Christian name. Finally, there’s the “famous person” name. You wouldn’t believe how many Kennedys are running around, and I hear Clinton and Bush are popular names too. Normally, they choose a politician, but hey – Elvis was the king.
Anyway, we squeezed everyone into the back of a pickup truck and drove to the manyatta. As we approached, we saw about 300 men and women in traditional garb, singing and dancing in a sort of conga line. When we got closer, I spotted a couple of other wazungu, which tainted things a bit for me. But it was definitely no tourist trap.
We were instructed not to take any pictures, but the sisters were happy to take our cameras and snap photos for us! We walked around the bomas first – 99 of these small houses made of cow dung and put up temporarily just for this 3-4 month celebration. They are arranged in a big circle and each family lives in one – perhaps 8 feet square and 5 feet high.
We went in one of the bomas later on. It was smaller than the one I’d visited before – just a bed, a cooking fire going next to it, and a tiny crawlspace where the owner had managed to cram several cases of beer and soda. It was so pitch dark in there that it took us 20 minutes to notice the baby sleeping on the bed right where we were sitting. It’s a good thing no one leaned back!
Daisy gave Darcy and me some Maasai beads and took us into the conga line. The guys were farther up with the other men. The ceremony was a graduation of sorts. The men were moving into a new age set, so they led the line followed by their wives and mothers.
The line eventually moved past a group of about 50 VIPs that we were supposed to greet. This was a bit awkward, because I wasn’t sure what was culturally appropriate. When one of the VIPs asked me to “give him head”, I had to ignore my natural inclination to be offended, since he was of course referring to the common practice of bowing your head to an elder and letting him touch it as a greeting.
During the procession, a reporter from KBC did a long interview with John, mostly in Kiswahili. We went to a hotel later hoping to watch it on the news, but it never aired.
As thanks for the invite, we each had to give our hosts 300/=. A bit pricy, but well worth it. They fed us nyama choma (roast goat) and chapati that was delicious. And they gave us two big jugs of their traditional honey beer. We finished all of it!
Originally, we were supposed to stay the night there, but Elvis didn’t think it would be safe – something about warring factions among agemates. We headed back to John’s and stayed there. On our way back, I caught my first view of Mt. Kiliminjaro. It must be a couple hundred kilometers from John’s site, but you can just make out the snow caps on a clear day!
September 10, 2004
The only interesting conversation I had was with Catherine. Tribalism really rules in this country. She went on a rant the other night about the living conditions in Narok and how it’s all because the Maasai don’t want to improve their lives. They just want more land, but have no intention of farming it or finding water or building sanitation systems. For the record, she is Kikuyu. And she does have a point. But when I brought up the fact that her husband was Maasai, she got really offended. I get the feeling she doesn’t like him much either – just tolerates him.
She also said how the Maasai have no interest in education or learning. I mentioned that I am teaching in Maasai schools, and that the younger generation is very earnest about schooling. She said, “They’re all half Kikuyu.”
The next day, I got to hear the opposite rant from Bill about how the British and Kikuyu stole all their land, and the Maasai want it back. The situation is very much like the plight of the Native Americans. The Maasai used to be spread throughout Kenya, and there are still small factions and closely related tribes in the West and North. The Brits came in and forced tribes to live on “reserves”. The Maasai were given mostly dry and dusty land, and the range was reduced over the years.
The major difference is that the Maasai aren’t poor. They have access to wealth and education, and they don’t have to build a casino to get it. Those lucky enough to be living in and around the Maasai Mara get paid a monthly salary just for letting the white people come in and look at lions.
I won’t go so far as to say the Maasai choose to be poor. There are very remote areas where access to food, clean water, and decent healthcare aren’t possible. And women and children are the hardest hit. But, after being in Kenya for nearly a year, I’ve come to believe that the problems here are caused by one part corruption and three parts complacency.
November 16, 2004
When a Maasai man (between 25 and 80) decides he wants to marry, he goes to the father of his intended bride to begin negotiations. The girl herself never meets the man, but once negotiations are under way, the family begins brewing their special honey beer, and in this way the girl knows she has been promised to someone.
The groom learns about the family – brothers, sisters, paternal uncles – anyone he will need to give presents to when the time comes. He returns for the gift-giving ceremony, and all the single girls of the neighborhood are invited, so that no one knows who the bride to be is. The groom still does not meet her. Instead, he gives a chain to his best man, who strolls through the crowd, finds the bride, and places the chain around her wrist.
Then the family is bestowed with gifts. Typical bride price is a blanket to each brother, skirt and shawl to each sister, 5 cows and a steer or heifer to dad and one ram to mom. He also must give things to the paternal aunts and uncles. Parents can ask for more depending on how rich the man is. The ceremony of giving gifts to the in-laws is very important as it also serves as a naming ceremony for the groom. From that day forward, the mother in law will always call the new son pakee – the one who gave me the ram – and dad will call him pakume – the one who gave me the steer.
More beer is brewed and the girl is prepared for circumcision. Ninety days after that the marriage takes place.
Typically, the girl is 13-15 years old, and she has never met the man she is to marry – usually at least twice her age. So she tends to think of this man as her enemy, pulling her away from the family. The marriage is not really a ceremony. Instead, the groom and his best man show up at the house and take the girl. The groom walks in front, and the girl walks a few feet behind next to the best man.
As they leave the compound, the groom takes very small, very slow steps to allow the girl time to look back at her family and say goodbye. He walks so slowly that it may sometimes take hours to reach the compound gate. Once outside the compound, the girl must face forward and not look back, as turning around will curse the marriage.
The groom, best man, and girl walk all the way to the groom’s home, speeding up once they’ve left her family compound. At the groom’s place, she is greeted either by in-laws or the older wives, who must each give her a present. They have been waiting hours for the girl’s arrival, and are most certainly drunk from the honey brew. The husband must also give his bride 10 cows for milking when she arrives.
