CULTURAL FEATURE: THE MAASAI PEOPLE OF KENYA
THE MAASAI
PEOPLE
OF KENYA
WHO ARE THE MAASAI? WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? WHAT IS THEIR
MODERN CONSERVATION ROLE?
The Northern and Southern Maa speakers
of East Africa have been the pre-eminent cattle keepers in terms of wealth,
land control, and influence in both Kenya and Tanzania for a very long time. At
the height of their ascendancy in the mid 18th century the range lands that
they “owned” included the Great Rift Valley and fertile volcanic lands on
either side over an area of more than 350,000 km sq. ( 60% of the land mass of
modern Kenya). Prior to 'Emutai’, the decade of disaster between 1893 and 1903
that probably killed 60% of the pre-disaster population of Maasai (because in
the first few years it killed over 95% of the cattle that they depended upon
for their daily milk), the population of Maasai that controlled this vast area
was likely less than 100,000. It is incredible that even with well-organized
standing armies of bachelor warriors the Maasai could have owned and controlled
such a huge area of diverse terrain with only one fifth of a person per square
kilometer.
In the north they were close neighbours
of pastoral Dasenech, Turkana, Gabbra, Rendille, Boran, and Pokot who were all
confined to less productive rangelands on the periphery of the northern Maasai
(Samburu and Chamus). The southern Maasai occupied a long broad tongue of semi
arid land bounded by sixteen agricultural peoples: the Meru, Embu, Kikuyu,
Kama, Taita, Usambaa, Parakuyo, Larush, Iraqw, Tatoga, Kuria, Gusii, Luo,
Kipsignis, Nandi, Maraquet and Elgeyo. The Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic
speakers of Africa and their homeland includes the range lands of the Boma Plateau
bounded in the south by the waters of the Sobat River which flows from the
Ethiopian Highlands into the White Nile and the Sudd just south of Malakal.
Modern genetics and traditional
linguistics show information and genetic exchanges with their Afroasiatic
(Cushitic) neighbours to the north and east over the past 3000 years. And yet
authoritative treatments of Maasai history do not penetrate beyond the last 20
to 23 remembered fourteen-year age sets. The oldest remembered north Maasai age
set of warriors was probably initiated about 1690, but these Lkasurutia men (“
of the brass coils”) inherited the way they thought, acted, spoke, and prayed
from people who walked the mountains of Sinai and the shores of the River
Nkishon which flows into Galilee.
The Maasai are named as being amongst the Hebrew priests in Chronicles and the Samburu are called the Korr, or Kore, and are listed in following verses of the same Bible Chapter as singers and gatekeepers. At times of great challenge modern Maasai pray 'Nkai ai Oi Pasinai’ = my god given at Sinai.
The Maasai are named as being amongst the Hebrew priests in Chronicles and the Samburu are called the Korr, or Kore, and are listed in following verses of the same Bible Chapter as singers and gatekeepers. At times of great challenge modern Maasai pray 'Nkai ai Oi Pasinai’ = my god given at Sinai.
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