The Maasai Tribe/People Cultural Experience, Best Things To Do In Maasai Mara National Reserve
Travel Guide To Kenya an iconic African safari destination and home to the Maasai tribe. The Maasai Tribe/People are well known for their unique culture and tribal dress. The Maasai Tribe/People, famous as herders and warriors, once dominated the plains of East Africa and now, however, confined to a fraction of their former range are one of the most famous and fascinating tribes in East Africa and Africa. These nomadic and pastoralist Maasai people are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting selected but large parts of northern, central, and southern Kenya and across the border in northern Tanzania as well. The Maasai are in part the better-known ethnic people in East Africa due to their traditional origins from areas surrounding Masai Mara Game Reserve and Amboseli near the Tanzania border.
The Maasai speak a language known as Maa and their shared Nilotic origins link them in various ways to the Kalenjin tribe of Kenya which is famous for producing some of the best long-distance runners in the world. The Maasai have plenty of unique characteristics about their culture and some of these have been listed below, including their dress, diet, and way of life. They are among the foremost African tribes and are known internationally due to their distinctive traditions, customs, and dress, and their residence near many of the safari game parks of East Africa
For centuries the Maasai have been nomadic pastoralists whose lifestyle depended on their cattle. Young warriors (Morans) walked in search of pasture while protecting the cattle and the community. The Ilkunono, a sub-group of the Maasai, were also known for being skilled blacksmiths, making cowbells and weapons.
The pastoral Maasai are fully nomadic, wandering in bands throughout the year and subsisting almost entirely on the meat, blood, and milk of their herds. Their kraal, consisting of a large circular thornbush fence around a ring of mud-dung houses, holds four to eight families and their herds.
The Maasai Tribe/People Cultural History:
According to the tribe's oral history, the Maasai tribe originated north of Lake Turkana (north-west Kenya) in the lower Nile Valley. They began migrating south in the 15th century and arrived in the long trunk of land stretching across central Tanzania and Northern Kenya during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Maasai territory reached its most dominant size in the 19th century when it covered most of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Dodoma and Mount Marsabit.
At this time the Maasai raided cattle far across the east at Tanga Coast in Tanzania. They used shields and spears but were most feared for throwing Orinka (clubs) which could be expertly thrown from up to 70 paces (approximately 100 meters).
The report of concentrated Maasai warriors told of their moving to Kenya in 1852, after depopulating the Wakuafi Wilderness in southeastern Kenya, the Maasai warriors threatened Mombasa, on Kenya's coast.
The result of this migration led to the Maasai now being the southernmost Nilotic speakers.
The Maasai 'Emutai' of 1883-1902 came after the time of expansion. This period was scarred by epidemics of smallpox, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, and rinderpest. An estimated 90 percent of cattle and half of wild species perished from rinderpest. This drastic period coincided with drought. The rains neglected the lands completely in 1897 and 1898.
Commencing with a 1904 treaty and followed by another treaty in 1911, Maasai lands in Kenya were cut down by 60 percent when the British evicted them to allow space for settler ranches thus confining the Maasai people to present-day Narok and Kajiado districts.
Maasai in Tanzania were forced out from their fertile lands between Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru and most of their fertile mountainous regions near Ngorongoro in the 1940s. More land was claimed to create national parks and wildlife reserves. Masai Mara, Samburu, Ngorongoro, Amboseli, Nairobi National Park, the Serengeti, Lake Nakuru, Manyara and Tarangire.
Maasai are traditionalists and have resisted the urging of the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments to adopt a more modern lifestyle. The Maasai have rightfully demanded pasturing and grazing rights to several of the national parks in both Tanzania and Kenya.
The Maasai tribe stood firm against slavery and lived alongside most of the land's wild animals with an aversion to eating birds and game. Maasai land now boasts East Africa's finest nature and wildlife areas.
The Maasai Tribe/People Cultural Experience:
Maasai society is firmly patriarchal, with elder Maasai men sometimes joined by retired elders, determining most major matters for the Maasai tribes. For Maasai people living a traditional way of life, the end of life is virtually without a formal funeral ceremony, and the dead are left out in the fields for scavengers. Burial has in the past been reserved for great chiefs only, since it is believed by the Maasai that burial is harmful to the soil.
Traditional Maasai people's lifestyle concentrates on their cattle which make up the primary source of food. Amongst the Maasai, the measure of a man's wealth is in terms of children and cattle. So the more the better. They believe that a man who has plenty of cattle but not many children is considered to be poor and vice versa. A Maasai myth says that God afforded them all the cattle on earth, resulting in the belief that rustling from other tribes is a matter of claiming what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has now become much less common.
The Maasai people, both women and men mostly shave their heads to celebrate rites of passage such as circumcision and marriage. This represents the fresh start that will be made as one passes from one to another of life's chapters. It's only the Maasai warriors who are allowed to wear long hair, which they weave in thinly braided strands.
The Maasai children are named upon reaching the age of 3 "moons" and their heads are shaved clean apart from a tuft of hair, which resembles a cockade, from the nape of the neck to the forehead. The young boys are also shaved two days before they are circumcised. The young warriors then allow their hair to grow and spend a great deal of time styling the hair.
The Maasai Tribe/People Shelter and Villages:
The Maasai tribe, historically a nomadic people, have traditionally relied on readily available materials and indigenous technology to construct their unusual and interesting housing. The traditional Maasai house was designed for people on the move and thus their houses were very impermanent. The houses are either circular or loaf-shaped and are made by women. Their villages are enveloped in a circular Enkang (fence) built by the men and this protects their cattle at night from wild animals.
The Maasai Tribe/People Cultural Clothing:
Clothing varies by sex, age, and place. Young men wear black for several months after their circumcision. Although, red is a favored color among the Maasai. Black, Blue, checked and striped cloth are also worn, together with multi-colored African garments. In the 1960s the Maasai began to replace sheepskin, calf hides and animal skin for more commercial material. The cloth used to wrap around the body is called Shúkà in the Maa language.
The Maasai women regularly weave and bead jewelry, which plays an essential part in the ornamentation of their bodies. Ear piercing and the stretching of earlobes are also part of Maasai beauty, and both men and women wear metal hoops on their stretched earlobes.
The Maasai Tribe/People's Diet:
The traditional Maasai diet consists of six basic foods: meat, blood, milk, fat, honey, and tree bark. They drink both fresh and curdled milk. The fresh milk is drunk from calabash and sometimes it's mixed with fresh cattle blood. The blood is obtained by nicking the jugular vein. Mixed blood and milk are mostly used as a ritual drink and as nourishment for the sick.
Bulls, oxen, and lambs are slaughtered for meat on special occasions and for ceremonies. The by-products of the animals – skin and hides are used as bedding while cow dung is used for building (it is smeared on the walls). The Maasai’s entire way of life truly revolves around their cattle. More recently, the Maasai people have supplemented their diet with farm crops such as maize meal, rice, and cabbage among other food crops.
The Maasai Tribe/People Cultural Music and Dance:
The Maasai people don't use instruments when they are singing or dancing. All of their music is vocal, except for the large horns used for certain songs. Their music comprises rhythms rendered by a chorus of vocalists singing harmonies, all the while the 'Olaranyani' (song leader) sings the melody. The 'Olaranyani' is usually the person who can best sing that song. When Olaranyani starts singing a line or title (Namba) of a song, the group responds with one unanimous call in acknowledgment. The beads that both the men and women wear also create a jingling sound themselves while the Masai jump and dance. Women recite lullabies, hum songs, and sing music that praises their sons.
The peak season for singing and dancing is during the rains, which is of course a favourable time to celebrate important passages of life such as circumcision and marriage. This mostly occurs around the manyattas and involves flirting.
The Maasai Tribe/People's Religious Beliefs:
The Maasai people are monotheistic, and their God is named Engai or Enkai, a God who is mostly benevolent and who manifests himself in the form of different colors, according to the feelings he is experiencing. Said colors have precise meanings: black and dark blue mean that God is well-disposed towards men; red, on the other hand, is identified with God’s irritation.
Enkai has two manifestations:
Enkai-Narok, the Black God, good and beloved, brings grass and prosperity. He is found in thunder and rain.
Enkai-na-Nyokie, the Red God, vengeful, brings famine and hunger. He is found in lightning and is identified with the dry season.
The importance of cattle to the Maasai can be traced back to their religion and to Enkai. Today most of the Maasai people are Christians and very few are Muslims, shop Maasai Mara National Reserve and Maasai people cultural tour from here
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