The Maasai Man--Part 1

Men dressed in green, night-watchman’s uniforms carry rifles at the Grumeti Lodge in northern Tanzania on the edge of the Serengeti.  Their purpose--to protect the guests from the wild animals that roam around this remote encampment at night.  And they are there, right outside the canvas walls of our luxury tent!  “Is that a lion?” I asked loudly in the middle-of-the-night darkness. “Yep,” my husband said in his half-asleep voice.  “Is that a zebra?” I asked when I heard a strange braying cry. “Yep.  That, or a wildebeest,” he said.  I didn’t need to ask--I recognized the barking of hyenas.  Security guard or not, I didn’t sleep very well.

The next morning Wambura, our safari driver, introduced us to Twerta, one of the guards, and a Maasai from the area who would be our scout for the day.  I think Wambura just wanted him along so we wouldn’t get lost again on the barely-more-than-a-path of a road that had,  eventually, lead us to this wilderness hotel the evening before.

Sitting directly behind Twerta, in our Tanzania Journeys safari vehicle, I was immediately intrigued; I could see that his ear lobes were tucked up over the tops of his ears.  A “real” Maasai, I thought, so I launched right into asking him a thousand questions (as I often do--to the chagrin of my family). Wambura translated.   

Twerta explained that he is 35 years old and has “one, lovely wife.” (Maasai culture is polygamist, so I guess that is why he was so specific.)  Twerta continued, “besides my four children, I have 37 cows and 60 goats.”  While he is at work at the lodge during the week his boys take care of his herd.  He has this extra job because, “I just want to see my cows grow higher and higher.”  Meaning, I guess, that increasing the size of his herd is his primary goal in life.  I asked him why he needed so many cows. ”To sell,” he said, “If I need money for the kids’ school uniforms, I sell a cow. If I need to build a house, I sell a cow.” Trice, my very fiscally-aware husband, asked, “How much do you get for a cow?” “Depends,” he said, then in Shilingi, told us the equivalent of about $300, indicating that the cattle do hold great value and are a clear measure of a Maasai man’s wealth.

“Don’t you also eat them?” I asked.

“Not too often,” he said, “we do drink their milk.  I drink more milk than water.”  Then, he added, “we also drink their blood.”

Blood?!  That halted my interview abruptly. I had to ponder this foreign concept.

“The Maasai believe that all cattle on earth belong to them, and that taking cattle from others is their right.”  

Peter Matthiessen, The Tree Where Man was Born

Several hundred years ago the Maasai people and their cattle migrated south of the Nile to a place they called the “seringet,” (which means vast, open space in the Maa language).  They remained in this area that is now north central Tanzania and southern Kenya.  Maasai chiefdoms grew in number and these “semi-nomadic pastoralists”  became renown for their fierceness and for their propensity to rob other tribes of their cows.  To the Maasai however, it wasn’t stealing, they were just taking what was rightfully theirs, as their deity, Engai, had bequeathed all the cattle in the world to them.  

The Maasai only slaughter their cows for meat for special occasions.  They prefer to keep them alive and to periodically bleed them by puncturing an artery in the neck.  They capture the blood in a gourd container and mix it with milk.  This “delicious and nutritious” beverage is a significant component of the Maasai diet. If you aren’t squeamish, there are several YouTube videos (not my own) about the procedure:  Just type in: Maasai Blood Drinking Ritual.  

Indeed, the whole Maasai culture revolves around cattle.  Even young boys are expected help shepherd the beasts, using long acacia sticks as cattle prods.. See my YouTube video: Maasai Boys Herding Cattle in Tanzania.

Once the boys reach puberty (between the ages of 14 to 17) they are set to become “moranis”--warriors that  protect their herds and their homes, known as “bomas.”  This begins with a circumcision ceremony.  

Twerta told us about his own experience. First, he and his friends were dipped in cold water.  It was about 4 in the morning.  Then, were then made to stand up straight while an elder took the scalpel to them.  “If you shook you were told you were a coward and warned that no woman would ever want you. You had to just bear the pain.”  

For the next couple of months, instead of wearing the typical red or blue toga-like cloth, called a “shuka,” the new moranis dress in black and paint their faces like white skeletons.  Their heads are shaved and are sometimes adorned with huge ostrich plumes.  During this period the boys/men live out in the bush, they eat only meat, and they are trained to use traditional weapons, spears and long double-edged knives.  Traditionally, they must test their courage by stealing cattle and, as part of the initiation ceremony, to kill a lion using a poisoned spear.

Photo from National Geographic

“We aren’t allowed to kill the lions anymore,” Twerta said, then interrupted himself to exclaim, “There’s one now!”  

Twerta pointed at a sand-colored female lion basking below us in a dry riverbed.  Up the embankment from her was a  young male companion.  After a couple of minutes, she got up and trotted off.  He immediately followed.  They moved even closer to us and settled down to watch some nearby bushbucks.  We were in silent awe as these shared moments passed--man/machine (Toyota Land Cruiser), the beasts, and the breeze.

See my YouTube video: A Young Lion Pair, Grumeti River, Tanzania

We had many more animals sightings and conversations with Twerta.  By the end of the morning, I felt comfortable enough to ask if he would let down his ears. He kindly obliged by unfolding his lobes, something, I can safely say,  no one has ever done for me before.