“ Pythons and a species of snake are revered as the reincarnated forms of their more celebrated ancestors. A kind of worship is paid to the hyena in some districts: the whole tribe going into mourning if the beast crosses their path. ”

“ The Masai are not hunters of big game except lions, but they eat the eland and kudu. The domestic animals are cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and dogs. Only women and the married men smoke. The dead are ordinarily not buried, but the bodies are carried a short distance from the village and left on the ground to be devoured by hyenas, jackals and vultures. Important chiefs are buried, however, and a year later the eldest son or successor recovers the skull, which is treasured as a charm. The medicine men of Masai are often the chiefs, and the supreme chief is almost always a medicine man. ”

“ The only furniture, besides cooking-pots, consists of long gourds used as milkcans, half-gourds as cups, and small three-legged stools cut out of a single block of wood and used by the elder men to sit on. ”

“ All the hair on the body of both sexes is pulled out with iron tweezers; a Masai with a moustache or beard is unknown. The hair of the head is shaved in women and married men; but the hair of a youth at puberty is allowed to grow till it is long enough to have thin strips of leather plaited into it. In this way the hair, after a coating of red clay and mutton fat, is made into pigtails, the largest of which hangs down the back, another over the forehead, and one on each side. The warriors smear their whole bodies with the clay and fat, mixed in equal proportion. ”

“ No tattooing or scarring is performed on the men, but Sir Harry Johnston noticed women with parallel lines burnt into the skin round the eyes. In both sexes the lobes of the ears are distended into great loops, through holes in which large disks of wood are thrust. ”