The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania

Cattle people

'Without the land and cattle, there will be no Maasai.' Tepilit ole Saitoti

Of all African peoples, the Maasai are one of the best known to the western world. Since they share their territory with one of the greatest collections of wildlife on earth, they have close contact with visitors who go on safari in East Africa, and their distinctive dress, weapons and bead jewellery are familiar from magazines and travel brochures. They also have a reputation as brave fighters who kept the slave trade at bay and challenged early explorers. Yet today they are having to struggle to keep their identity and what remains of their land.

The Maasai probably arrived in East Africa from the north (some say the Nile valley) some time in the 15th century A.D. Until the 19th century they dominated the grass plains that stretch from lake Victoria Nyanza east almost to the Indian ocean, and from the highlands north of Nairobi south to the Maasai steppe of Tanzania. But in the late 19th century cholera and diseases affecting their cattle nearly wiped them out, and the northern part of their land was taken over by European settlers through treaties with the British colonial administration. As a consequence today they are confined to a much smaller area in Kajiado and Narok districts of Kenya, and Kiteto, Ngorongoro and Simanjiro districts of Arusha region in Tanzania.

The Maasai are divided into about 12 'sections', or oloshon, which are politically separate and in many ways culturally different and are associated with specific territories. For example, the Kisongo section are mainly found in southern districts of Arusha region in Tanzania, and the Loita in Narok district of Kenya. However, the Maasai all speak a common language, Maa.

Cattle
The Maasai are above all cattle people; their herds are central to their lives. They also keep sheep and goats, and donkeys for transport. Milk is their everyday food, and in times when food is scarce they also draw blood to drink from the neck of a cow or an ox (a procedure from which the animal soon recovers). Cattle are killed for meat only on special occasions. Their old ideal was to live by their cattle alone – other foods they could buy – but today they also need to grow grain and other crops.

They move their herds from one place to another to find fresh water sources, and to give the grass a chance to grow again. Traditionally, this is made possible by a communal land tenure system in which everyone in a locality shares access to water and pasture. However, individuals are obliged to respect private water points and grazing grounds where each household cares for its young and sick animals. In times of drought the Maasai of a given locality will allow others, including non-Maasai groups, to enter their lands, because they know that at another time they might themselves be in need of access to others' land to sustain their herds.

Warriors and elders
Maasai society is organised into age groups whose members pass together through warriorhood to elderhood. All boys of the same generation in a locality are circumcised and, later, become warriors at the same time. In the old days, the warriors were often at war; now they mostly guard the herds against wild animals and help with any other hard or dangerous work. Much of the time, however, they spend making themselves look fine, dancing and courting. Every 15 years or so, all members of the appropriate pair of age groups throughout Maasailand come together at the Olng'eherr ritual to become elders. Their long hair is shaved off and they are told 'Now that you are an elder, drop your weapons and use your head and wisdom instead.'

The Maasai have no traditional chiefs, although each section has a Laibon or spiritual leader at its head. These men are said to have spiritual powers; they can give blessings, heal sickness and foretell the future. The political leadership within each section is provided by spokesmen, chosen by the warrior age groups, and others who acquire respect and status as elders, known as 'Fire Stick Fathers'.

Although Maasai society is dominated by men, women play a very important part in the economy through caring for livestock. They also act as guardians of important aspects of the age-grade system and provide a balance of authority in relations between young and old men.

The Maasai worship one God, Engai, who is said to dwell in all things. He may send prosperity and happiness, in which case he is called Engai Norok, the Black God; but when He is angry and sends famine and death he is Engai Na-nokie, the Red God. Black for the Maasai stands for life and happiness, because it is the colour of the dark clouds which bring the rain on which all life depends. Certain places are regarded as sacred by the Maasai: these include Entim e Naimina Enkiyio ('forest of the lost child'), Oldoinyo le Engai ('mountain of God') and Endoinyo Ormoruwak ('hill of elders') where the Olng'eherr ceremony is conducted. Today, however, many Maasai belong to various Christian churches.

Struggle for the land
During the colonial period from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th, the Maasai's land was divided between two countries, Kenya and Tanganyika (later Tanzania). Since independence in the 1960s, more and more of their land has been taken over; for private farms and ranches, for government projects or for wildlife parks. Six of Kenya and Tanzania's national parks alone cover more than 13,000 square kilometres of what was once Maasailand.

Attempts have been made by governments to 'develop' and 'modernise' the Maasai. The justification that they keep too many cattle for the land has often been used, and various schemes have been tried to get them to sell more cattle and thus reduce their herds. However, studies have shown that the Maasai are in fact very efficient livestock producers, more efficient even than western-style ranchers, and rarely have more animals than they need or the land can carry. These 'development' efforts have also attacked their system of shared access to land, either by the imposition of collectives (Group Ranches in Kenya and Pastoral Associations in Tanzania) or, conversely, by the sub-division of communal ranges into private plots. Whilst this has suited outsiders and a few entrepreneurial Maasai who have been able to acquire land for themselves or sell it off, it has often denuded the soil and brought poverty to the majority of Maasai, who are left with too little and only the worst land.

The Maasai today are striving to protect their remaining lands, and have formed a number of local community organisations for this purpose. They are, for example, trying to gain legal control of the sacred sites at Endoinyo Ormoruwak and Entim e Naimina Enkiyio to protect them from commercial exploitation. Residents of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area are also trying to secure their rights to the land which they have inhabited for centuries, and to ensure that they get a fair share of the money raised from this highly popular tourist attraction. Survival is supporting the Maasai in their struggle.

Background Reading

Beckwith, Carol & Ole Saitoti, Tepilit, Maasai, Elm Tree Books, London, 1980.

Homewood, Katharine & Rodgers, Alan, Maasai Ecology: pastoralist development and wildlife conservation in Ngorongoro, Tanzania, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.

Kituyi, Mukhisa, Becoming Kenyans: Socio-economic Transformation of the Pastoral Maasai, Acts Press, Nairobi, 1990.

Ole Saitoti, Tepilit, The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior: An Autobiography, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986.

Spear, Thomas & Waller, Richard (eds), Being Maasai: Ethnicity & Identity in East Africa, James Currey, London, 1993.

Lane, Charles, Ngorongoro Voices ; Indigenous Maasai residents of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania give their views on the proposed General Management Plan. Available free from FTPP, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7005, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden, Fax: ++46 16 671209, or request a copy by email

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