Maasai

Some of you back home may be familiar with who the Maasai people are, while others may have never heard of them. Most of the time, they are the one African tribe that the western world has at least heard the name before. This is probably because that the Maasai have managed to hold onto their ancient culture more intensely than most African tribes that have become increasingly more modern. We know of them because people are fascinated by their way of life that is so unlike anything we know. You may have heard of them because they are known for their nomadic history as pastoralists, roaming East Africa with no permanent home. It wasn’t until more recently that the Maasai began to form permanent settlements. Maybe others have heard of their practice of retaliatory killing, where if a lion kills one of their livestock, they will hunt it down. The one who kills the lion will be considered a great warrior for the rest of his life (I say his because a woman would never participate in these hunts). You also may have heard of the Maasai for their jumping dances or the highly controversial practice of circumcision. While learning about this culture all of last week I found myself both incredibly fascinated and heavily distraught.

First, I should probably explain a little more about their society. Today the Maasai live only in Kenya and Tanzania, where they arrived here from South Sudan a few centuries ago. They structure their society into age groups, where each generation follows each other through a series of ceremonies that lead them into the various stages of life. Before I describe these various life stages, I should probably mention that the Maasai are a very united people. They travel all over to stay in touch with their extended family and tribe members. They identify themselves as part of a clan, and when they are born they adopt the clan of their father. They are also not allowed to marry anyone within their clan. This is really no different than how we inherit our last names; however, the clans expand wider than we tend to keep track of. Clan members are also obligated to assist each other in times of need no matter what. Men go through about five stages of life, starting as a boy, then moving into junior warrior, senior warrior, junior elder, then senior elder. Women more of less have two life stages: girl and then mother.

Around the time that boys hit puberty, they enter the junior warrior stage by being circumcised. Many boys in the same age group will dress in black and a big ceremony will be held, where an “expert” elder will perform the ceremony in the presence of everyone. This process involves no medical expertise or any sort of painkillers. After the ceremony, the boys will dress in black for 3 or 4 months for the healing process. Then, they are ready to attend warrior camp, where they are trained in the ways of Maasai and are taught to defend their livestock with their lives. After they have been circumcised and begin the warrior process, they are eligible to get married. Polygamy is not an uncommon practice with the Maasai. A Maasai man told us that not too far from us there was another Maasai man with 39 wives. 39!!! And as a result, he had about 100 children. Coming from a culture of monogamy and with such a focus on giving children individualized attention, this concept just seems sad to me. I had to remind myself that its just the ways of another culture and that to them, our way of doing things might seem strange.

Perhaps the most troublesome part of this entire experience was learning about the life of a Maasai woman. All girls when they hit puberty are also circumcised, signaling that they are ready to become married and have children. Upon hearing this I became quite bothered and slightly angry. I thought where is the honor in mutilating a young girl to signal her transition into a rigid gender role society? Again, I had to tell myself that this culture views this ceremony as one of the most honorable and brave moments in a Maasai person’s life. From what I understand, the children themselves look forward to this ceremony. I do not think I will ever see it that way. I worry about these unnecessary procedures occurring without medical professionals and what the potential health risks are. Tanzania has actually outlawed this practice, which has only encouraged the Maasai to perform the ceremonies in secret and do it when the girls are even younger. As I write this I feel sick, but who am I to decide what is right or wrong in another person’s culture? It is what they believe and because my culture is more modernized, that doesn’t automatically invalidate theirs. I tried to make myself see how I might be able to understand preserving such a core tradition in the culture. However, I just don’t think I ever will be able to and strongly disagree with the practice.

I should also probably mention that the Maasai tend not to send their children to school, despite laws that say they have to because they do not see the value in western education and also tend to have specific duties for children at home. However, in recent years many more Maasai children are ending up in school systems, meaning more of them go off to college or pursue other livelihoods other than pastoralism. Also, many children do not want to participate in the circumcision ceremony. To the elder Maasai generation this is a very frustrating sight. The general feeling is that western education is “ruining” their culture. And honestly, I can’t really disagree with them. Western education, to an extent, is a real threat to their culture. It is a feat in itself that they have managed to hold onto such traditional ways of life in comparison to most of the other East African tribes that have adopted more modern ways. However, I think it is rare that we can actually witness the impact of western ideals on other parts of the world. I think in most cases, this already happened centuries ago, but it is a good reminder to me to stop and think about the true meaning behind modernization.

I never thought that I could see a negative behind western education. I find that it only leads to a general way of thinking and living that spreads across societies of people. Yes, it is a way of unifying people and there are many good things that come from a modern way of thinking. However, I think we do need to stop and think about the compromise we are making. As we expect our way of doing things to spread, such as my strong feelings against circumcision, then we are asking to lose part of a culture. I think in all, the world is losing so much of the rich culture that makes us all wonderfully different and I think this is something that human society will realize as a whole once it is a little to late.

However, that being said, I can’t discourage the spread of new ideas and education that empowers individuals to make their own informed choices about how they want to live their life. The spread of human rights, such as that of a young boy or girl to decide if they want to participate in an invasive procedure, is never a bad thing. For example, American society didn’t see the problem with slavery, as it was a huge part of the culture at the time. However, eventually we realized that the practice was terrible and needed to be stopped. I for one will not argue against this loss of our cultural past but celebrate it. As you can see this whole experience has been very conflicting to me and I really struggle as to where my final opinions stand. I think one of the best experiences I could have had here was being exposed first hand to a culture that is so drastically different from my own with ideals that go against much of what I believe in. I was reminded to not be quick to judge and to respect the fact that there will be people who will believe in a different way of life than me, but that it doesn’t give me the right to decide what their culture should or shouldn’t be. I think my biggest take away is to really stop and think about different people and cultures and to respect and celebrate their existence. However, at the same time, to critically think about ways that people may be impacted negatively as a result and only come to any conclusions about what I think about the culture after I have really considered the alternative perspective. Even writing this now I still feel an entire mix of conflicting emotions.

Now, I am sure many of you would like a little more of a lighter topic. One of our activities last week included spending an entire morning at a Maasai cultural boma. The Maasai live exclusively in these little structures called bomas. It is a very simple design of various acacia branches caked in a mixture of cow dung and water with a roof made of grasses. The Maasai arrange their bomas in a circle with a layer of sharp spiked branches from the whistling thorn acacia as a form of protection, and form another smaller circle in the center of their bomas where they keep their livestock at night. A fun fact about the whistling thorn acacia is that it has heavily thorny branches as well as little pods that provide homes to ants. The ants in return will attack if browsers start feeding on the tree, hopefully annoying the animal enough for it to go away and prevent the tree from being over browsed.

Anyways, the boma we went to was a cultural boma, meaning that the Maasai who live there offer a cultural experience program where safari companies will bring their guests to the boma to learn about Maasai culture. This all sounds great and dandy, as the Maasai get supplemental income and people can learn about their culture. However, after the experience I learned that these cultural bomas really pose more threats than benefits. I will talk more about this later.

We were lucky in the sense that most tourists do not participate in all of the activities that we got to. When we arrived at the boma we were split into smaller groups and then were escorted by some Maasai to show us what a typical day is like. We collected firewood from fallen acacia branches and “collected” water. When I say we collected water I mean we walked over to a bunch of trees with jerry cans already filled and walked them back over to the boma because it actually takes 5 hours and a 6 km round trip to get water everyday. After this they had us cut down a tree to build up their protective barriers. Nothing could have prepared us for this next part as they proceeded to put a giant pile of wet cow dung on the ground and said: “Here, go rub this on the boma!” Needless to say that that was an experience in itself and there may or may not be a picture of me looking way too excited that my hands are covered in cow poop. After this, they taught us how to bead bracelets, which we got to keep afterwards. When they bead the bracelets they put a pile of beads on top of their skirts while they are sitting and they poke the wire through the pile of beads in no particular manner to get them on the wire faster than just putting them on one by one. I think the beading was my favorite part.

After this they brought us out into a field and had us practice our spear throwing skills. Of course we were all quite bad at it and then the Maasai warrior had to show us all up. Once we all took a turn they brought us inside a boma. These structures are so small and dark it’s amazing to me how anyone could live in them. It is quite literally a place to sleep and cook and that is it. Even the smallest of bedrooms in the states seem like a mansion in comparison.

The coolest part of the entire experience came next when they performed traditional dances for us. Watching the entire performance was so mesmerizing. The dancing and singing were all so wonderful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen. This is when I was reminded that despite certain aspects of the culture that I struggle to agree with, the culture itself is beautiful and exciting and would be such a loss to the world to see it go. After the performance they made a fire for us. As to why they did this I am not sure, but I have never seen a fire be made so fast in my life especially just using all natural materials. The final part of the program was showing us a medicinal soup they typically make by boiling the bark of a certain type of tree of which the name escapes me and mixing it with broth that was boiled with meat. They offered to let us try it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Oddly enough it is supposed to cure stomach ailments, but I was fairly convinced I would have developed a stomach ailment had I tried it. Some people who did try it said it tasted like meat bark, so I don’t think I was missing much.

Overall, I really enjoyed this day and getting to experience the culture. However, by the end many of us realized that these cultural bomas are not as good as they may seem. Apparently, many of the tourism companies that they have deals with give the boma only a small fraction of what they actually charge for the package. Also, keep in mind that although most tourism companies hire mostly Tanzanians, they are still foreign owned and most of the profits are funneled out of the country and away from local economy. Thus, the Maasai are very unaware of the fact that they could actually be making a lot more money. Also, a lot of the money that is made by the boma goes towards paying for some of their college educations. This, in conjunction with the fact that this business steers them away from pastoralism is perpetuating a cycle of the Maasai stemming away from their pure cultural roots. Also, the cultural bomas are motivated by the money, and less so by the fact that they get to share their culture. Unfortunately, the future of the Maasai culture seems bleak, and I believe they are headed towards modernization like many of the other African tribal culture already have.