Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Maasai Village

When I went on safari to the Serengeti the guide stopped in a Maasai Village.  One of the elders gave us a tour of the village and talked about the life of the Maasai.  It was very interesting and certainly eye opening.

The first thing that he said was the elders are comprised of men 45 years and older.  With that in mind I could have been an elder quite some time ago.  :)
They live a simple subsistence life.  The Serengeti park service allows the Maasai to live and graze their cattle, lambs and goats in the park.  This is because the Maasai exist within the environment which they live and leave very little impact environmentally as well as ecologically.  They do not hunt the game that is in the park.  The only time they hunt and kill an animal is when it has attacked a cow, sheep or goat.  Then the warriors will hunt the lion, leopard or cheetah.  Other than that they leave the animal population alone.  

The elder had the Maasai men first greet us with a traditional welcome dance.  Then the women sang and danced to bring us into the village.  It was a sight to see.  

The village is enclosed with a circular fence made of brush and stakes from the area.  It has thorns to help keep their animals within and keep them from wandering out.  Then the huts are built around in form around the circle of the village.  The center is reserved for ceremonial purposes.

The Maasai home/hut is a simple building built of sticks and mud with cow dung used as well.  A hut takes 3 weeks to build and it is built solely by the women.  It takes one week to gather all the material and two weeks to put it up.  They spend very little time inside the hut. The only times they are in the hut is for sleeping, cooking and eating.  All else is done out side.  The hut is one large room with a "bed" area.  The bed area has two sleeping platforms/beds.  One is for the parents and the other for the children.  The children stay with the parents in the hut until they are 10.  Once they reach that age they move to a seperate hut with other older children.  

Maasai boys become men at 16 years old.  That is when they have the circumcision ceremony.  It is a public event in the village.  It shows the courage of the boy if he does not cry out or wince during the process.  If he does, he disgraces his family and especially his father.  

The marrying age starts at between 16 and 18.  It is an arranged process with the parents running it.  The kids can have some say but limited.  In order to get a bride the males family must give the girls family 8 to 10 cows.  The Maasai judge their "wealth" or success by how many cows  or goats or sheeps that you have.  

The diet of the Maasai is meat from their animals; cattle, sheep, goats; milk from their animals and blood from their animals.  Yes, I said blood!  They mix the fresh blood with the milk and make a milk shake kind of thing.  Sounds delicious doesn't it?!  They do not eat any vegetables (I could fit in with that) and no fruit.  You can tell there is some dietary issues in that their teeth are in terrible shape.  


Maasai men doing their dance to welcome us.


The women singing their song to bring us into the village.


The typical hut has an entrance that shields the living quarters from the wind and dust.

1 comment:

  1. I never got a tour, but have been to a village. It sounds like about what I remember. In South Africa they make a butter for bread out of blood. It had what I would call an iron like taste and I really did not care for it.

    Have a great day.

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