Maasai

“ The Masai, the terror of their neighbours, are a mixture of Galla and Nilotic Negro, producing what has been described as the finest type in Africa. The build is slender and the height often over six feet, the face is well formed, with straight nose and finely cut nostrils, the hair is usually frizzly, and the skin dark or reddish brown. They are purely pastoral, possessing enormous herds of cattle in which they take great pride, but they are chiefly remarkable for their military organisation which was hardly surpassed by that of the Zulu. ”

“ Speaking of old women in the Masai tribe, Mr. Hinde says: “As long as she can crawl about she continues her labours, and death is the only release she can hope for.” As a rule, a girl becomes the wife of a man who can afford to pay goats and cattle for her; but the Masai parents consider their daughter’s wishes, and she is not obliged to become the wife of a man she does not like.
The life of Masai people depends almost entirely on herds of goats and cattle, which are driven from pasture to pasture. ”

“ The Masai, indeed, never made slaves or took prisoners, and it was their proud boast that where a party of elmorani had passed, nothing of any kind was left alive. The object of these raids was, of course, to capture live stock, for the Masai are not an agricultural people and their wealth consists entirely in their herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Curiously enough they do not hunt game, although the country abounds with it, but live principally on beef and milk ”

“ The Masai warriors, with their wives, children, and herds, seem to me to be fit accessories for this desert landscape. In the evening, dances amuse us till late in the night, and many a wordy skirmish breaks out as some of my bearers who, thanks to former journeys, have some knowledge of the Masai tongue, gossip with these nomads of the wilderness. The coast folk think themselves high as the heavens above the “savage” Masai. ”

“ Small coasting vessels act as lighters to convey the cargo to the larger Arabian and Indian ships lying off in readiness to receive it, which then sail for India directly.
At a distance of half a league from the shore of Abyssinia, and two leagues from Arkiko, is an island in the possession of the Viceroy of Egypt, named Massauwa, which forms, as it were, the key of Abyssinia; for all the ivory brought from Abyssinia, the Galla country, and the south-west and southern parts of Africa, must pass through this island. ”

“ Beyond the lagoon lie the hard, sun-baked alluvial flats which border the sluggish river. Upon the southern and western sides of the charming oasis of Masinya’s Kraal stretch the great open grass plains, flecked with springboks, and dotted here and there with a troop of larger game, which fifteen or twenty miles away are checked by the endless and waterless forest and bush of the Kalahari—that vast desert which, thanks to its lack of surface water, lies to this day dim, unknown, and mysterious to all races of mankind, save the wandering Bushmen and Vaalpens who inhabit it. ”

“ The Masai are a pastoral people depending entirely on their herds, which must have abundant pasture; while, on the other hand, the Akikuyu are tillers of the soil. In order to make a tract of land clear for sowing, they are in the habit of burning large tracts of forest, a practice which annoys the Masai, because herds of cattle shelter under the trees, where they find fresh grass, when all the country exposed to the sun is parched and withered. ”

“ But the Masai, and especially those tribes who live near to the lake, are so hostile to travellers, that the risk of going there is considered too great to be profitable, though all Arabs concur in stating that a surprising quantity of ivory is to be obtained there at a very cheap rate. ”

“ The character of the country now changed considerably, the dense bush and coarse, rank vegetation of east Kenia giving way to open plains with small rocky hills scattered here and there. The level of the country now descends slightly, M’thara being situated about 4500 feet above sea-level, 200 feet less than Munithu. To our right rose the succession of rounded prominences known as Chanjai, which are inhabited by a tribe who, though really A’kikuyu, show many marked Masai characteristics. They are warlike and treacherous. ”

“ MASSAWA, or Massowah, a fortified town on the African coast of the Red Sea, chief port of the Italian colony of Eritrea, in 15° 36′ N. and 39° 28′ E. Pop. about 10,000. The town stands at the north end of the bay of Massawa and is built partly on a coral island of the same name—where was the original settlement—and partly on the islets of Tautlub and Sheik Said, and the neighbouring mainland. Massawa Island is from 20 to 25 ft. above the sea, its length does not exceed 1⁄2 m. and its breadth is about 1⁄4 m. The harbour is formed by the channel between the island and the mainland. ”

“ A railway connects Massawa with Asmara, the capital of the colony. Besides the Abyssinians, who speak a Tigré dialect corrupted with Arabic, the inhabitants comprise Italian officials and traders, Greeks, Indians, Arabs from Yemen and Hadramut, Gallas and Somalis. Massawa is the natural port for northern Abyssinia but commerce is undeveloped owing to the lack of rapid means of communication. The trade done consists mainly in exporting hides, butter, Abyssinian coffee and civet, and importing European and Indian cotton goods and silks. ”

“ The island itself is very small, scarce three quarters of a mile in length, and about half that in breadth, one-third occupied by houses, one by cisterns to receive the rain-water, and the last is reserved for burying the dead.
Masuah, as we have already observed, was one of those towns on the west of the Red Sea that followed the conquest of Arabia Felix by Sinan Basha, under Selim emperor of Constantinople. At that time it was a place of great commerce, possessing a share of the Indian trade in common with the other ports of the Red Sea near the mouth of the Indian Ocean. ”

“ I might say here that the porters of East Africa, taking them all round, are a happy, careless lot. They will go through the greatest hardships on a journey, and on their return at once forget all their troubles in the pleasure of spending their wages as quickly as possible. They are chiefly Swahili, with a mixture of a few other tribes, such as the Wakamba. The Masai, however, even to this day, will not lower themselves to carry loads. ”

“ The Masai are a very bright, intelligent, and truthful people; very rarely will a full-grown man commit a theft or tell a lie. Unlike many [Pg 20] African tribes, these people have no musical instruments, and their few war songs and verses, sung while herding cattle, are very simple. Generally speaking, African natives are musical, and flutes, drums, also stringed instruments are very ingeniously made. ”

“ Making war, stealing cattle from other tribes, plundering caravans, and similar predatory performances make up the life of a Masai warrior. When a man marries he gives up fighting and settles down into domestic ways, and thus it happens that all the warriors in Masai land are single men. Mr. Thomson says the Masai women are the handsomest of their sex in all Africa ”

“ In the course of our journey we had seen immense droves of camels, belonging to the Tigré, or Nayib's tribe, of Shiho, wandering among the Gira trees, and had found that the opening from the mountain was not more than a mile and a half south from Arkeeko. Soon afterwards we proceeded round to Massowa, where, to our great regret, we discovered that the Marian had not yet arrived, and were not able to learn of any other means of conveyance to Mocha. ”

“ The British provide for the men who uphold the banner of empire in East Africa homes that are not only clean but attractive. They have succeeded far beyond any other nationality as administrators over the millions of primitive blacks.
The Masai, long noted as warriors and cattlemen, live in huts made of branches woven together and plastered with mud, so that their homes look from a distance like so many bake-ovens. ”

“ Massowah, as well as the immediate surrounding country, is mainly dependent on Abyssinia for its supplies. Jowaree is the staple food; wheat is little used; rice is a favourite amongst the better classes. Goats and sheep are killed daily in the bazaar, cows on rare occasions; but the flesh of the camel is the most esteemed, though, on account of the expense, rarely indulged in except on great occasions.
The inhabitants being Mussulmans, water is the ordinary beverage; tej and araki (made from honey) can, however, be purchased in the bazaar. ”

“ Although Masuah is situated in the very entrance of Abyssinia, a very plentiful country, yet all the necessaries of life are scarce and dear. Their quality, too, is very indifferent. This is owing to the difficulty, expence, and danger of carrying the several articles through the desert flat country, called Samhar, which lies between Arkeeko and the mountains of Abyssinia; as well as to the extortions exercised by the Naybe, who takes, under the name of customs, whatever part he pleases of the goods and provisions brought to that island ”

“ CHAPTER VII THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE MASHONALAND RUINS
The ancient geography of the east coast of Africa is a subject fraught with difficulties on all sides. To begin with, our authorities are not only meagre, but they are men who had no practical knowledge of the subject, and who knew next to nothing of the vast extent of commercial operations which were going on outside the limits of the Red Sea. ”

“ There are certain points in which the Masai resemble Zulu tribes; for instance, their fighting men must not marry, and there is a royal family from which a chief is always selected. Some of the marriage customs are very similar, and among both Zulus and Masai there are like methods of painting warriors’ shields in order to distinguish companies and larger units. ”

“ The Ngati paoa tribe’s chiefs, in 1853, counted fifteen generations from and with Hotunui who came from Hawaiki with the first settlers in New Zealand in the canoe Tainui, companion to Arawa. Average thirty years to a generation = 450 years—1400 or thereabouts. (Sir Geo. Grey’s Polynesian Mythology.)
The proper trade wind at Tahiti is from east-southeast to east-northeast and is called Maarai. When the wind is to south of southeast it is called Maoai. ”

“ The few hunters, traders, and Trek Boers who cross the dreaded Thirstland of the Northern Kalahari, and, upon their long and trying journey towards Lake Ngami, strike the Lake River (marked upon the maps Zouga or Botletli River) , well know the pleasant outspan at Masinya’s Kraal. Masinya’s is a small village of Bakurutse natives, planted a mile or so from the southern bank of the Lake River. Between the kraal and the river, amid a thin grove of spreading giraffe-acacia trees, set upon a little islet of rising ground, lies the outspan where travellers bound to and from Ngami usually halt. ”

“ There are very few camels, and horses and mules are scarce and dear. The population has been estimated at about 4,000. The island is dependent on Egypt, and is ruled by a governor appointed by the Khedive. The chief inhabitants of Massawa are a few Greeks and Italians, an Italian and French Consul, one Englishman, and a small colony of Banians, through whose hands almost all the trade passes. ”

“ The number of slaves exported, may be computed annually at about a thousand, part of whom are sent to Massowa, and the rest to the small ports northward of that place, whence they are privately shipped off by the natives, for the purpose of avoiding the duties levied by the Nayib. The provinces to the south of Adowa chiefly abound in cattle and corn, which, together with the salt procured on the borders, constitute their chief articles of barter. ”

“ The Masai are pastoral, and keep immense herds and flocks. Therefore they inhabit the grazing countries, and are nomadic. Their villages are invariably arranged in a wide circle, the low huts of mud and wattles facing inwards. The spaces between the huts are filled in with thick dense thorn brush, thus enclosing a strong corral, or boma. These villages are called manyattas. They are built by the women in an incredibly brief space of time. ”

“ Amhara, which word is at present only used to designate the Christian population of Abyssinia, was, previous to the introduction of the Mahomedan religion, the descriptive appellation of an extensive red people, who principally occupied the eastern border of the Abyssinian table land, from the latitude of Massoah in the north to that of lake Zui in the south. To the west of these, and occupying the portion of the table land in that direction, lived a people decidedly different in their complexion, their features, their language, their religion, and their customs. ”

“ These crossroads and the abundance of water, which is not found farther eastward, explain why the settlement of Maʻan has been preserved till the present day, instead of being destroyed by the innumerable attacks of the nomads to which all the surrounding settlements to the southwest and northwest have already succumbed. It would have been surprising had the settlement of Maʻân not been of considerable importance during the period when the greater part of international trade was directed along the above-mentioned routes. ”