Masai people

“ 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 and Other Tribes A few Masai may still be seen on the Athi Plains, but as a rule they keep away from the railway, the majority of the tribe being now settled on the Laikipia Plateau. Formerly they were by far the most powerful native race in East Africa, and when on the war-path were the terror of the whole country from the furthest limits of Uganda to Mombasa itself. Their numbers have latterly become greatly reduced through famine and small-pox, but the remnant of the tribe, more especially the men, are still a fine, lithe, clean-limbed people. ”

“ The Masai that our Walunga people call 'Wahumba' are on good terms with us. We brought about peace between them and Mbogo. They come to our station to trade and we have cured several of their wounded men from bad lion bites. We will send messengers to the Humba Masai asking for a large war party of spearmen to await down below in the plains any attack by the Arabs. I think the mere knowledge the Masai are there will keep the Arabs from coming near Ulunga. ”

“ The Masai physical type is slender, but among the finest in Africa. A tall, well-made people, the men are often well over six feet, with slim wiry figures, chocolate-coloured, with eyes often slightly oblique like the Mongolians, but the nose especially being often almost Caucasian in type, with well formed bridge and finely cut nostrils. Almost all the men and women knock out the two lower incisor teeth. For this custom they give the curious explanation that lockjaw was once very common in Masai-land, and that it was found to be easy to feed the sufferer through the gap thus made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You can also tell the big man at Unguja—Sir Godfrey Something—what has happened in case he cares to know. I don't suppose he does care. Those big pots always sneer at Nonconformist Missionaries. But I want him to know this. We should have all been killed and perhaps tortured and our station might have been utterly destroyed and our people carried off into slavery if it hadn't been first for the Masai, and most of all for an old Arab, Ali bin Ferhan—I think he spells his name. ”

“ The southern Masai will average between six and seven feet in height, and are almost invariably well built. Of most tribes the physical development is remarkably strong and graceful; and a great many of the women will display a rounded, firm, high-breasted physique in marked contrast to the blacks of the lowlands. Of the different tribes possibly the Kikuyus are apt to count the most weakly and spindly examples: though some of these people, perhaps a majority, are well made. ”

“ After we had made camp we saw a number of Masai warriors hovering about the opposite bank, but they did not venture across. Some of their women did, however, and came cheerily into camp. These most interesting people are worth more than a casual word, so I shall reserve my observations on them until a later chapter. One of our porters, a big Baganda named Sabakaki, was suffering severely from pains in the chest that subsequently developed into pleurisy. From the Masai women we tried to buy some of the milk they carried in gourds ”

“ Like the Masai, Turkana and Suk, the Nandi-Lumbwa tribes were originally nomadic, but they have become agriculturists. They own large herds of cattle. They have a double administrative system, the chief medicine man or Orkoiyot being supreme chief and regulating war affairs, while representatives of the people, called Kiruogik, manage the ordinary affairs of the tribe. The medicine men are of Masai origin and the office is hereditary. The young men form a separate warrior class to whom is entrusted the care of the country. ”

“ The Kikuyu young men frankly ape the customs and ornaments of their powerful neighbours. Even the British Government treats them very gingerly indeed, and allows these economically useless savages a latitude the more agricultural tribes do not enjoy. Yet I submit that any people whose property is in immense herds can more easily be brought to terms than those who have nothing so valuable to lose.
As a matter of fact the white man and the Masai have never had it out. ”

“ And to do that they must fight their way through the Rangi and Fiome peoples. The Rangi people speak a language like Chi-gogo, and so—oddly enough—do the fisher folk round this extraordinary lake. But the others don't look like ordinary Negroes. They are more like Somalis. And I can't make anything out of their language. But although they're different to the Masai they seem to have some kind of alliance with them, and they received us here as friends, because the Masai brought us. What a field for the Lord's work! And to think I almost doubted God when He let the Ruga-ruga attack Burungi!... ”

“ Thomson found that the Masai warriors came quite near the coast in their marauding expeditions, and several of the Wa-kamba villages in the region back of Frere Town had been plundered. The Wa-kamba people have large herds of cattle, goats, and sheep; they drive these herds into zeribas or stockades, at night, to prevent their capture, in raids by the Masai. The stories of these raids continued to alarm Mr. Thomson's porters, and, in spite of all his watchfulness, two of his men managed to get away. ”

“ Socially the Masai consider themselves several cuts above anybody else in the country. As social superiority lies mostly in thinking so hard enough—so that the inner belief expresses itself in the outward attitude and manner—the Masai carry it off. ”

“ To have started to run would—they knew—have been fatal. They just stood about, silent, while the advancing army—perhaps three hundred in number—suddenly halted and lay down behind their large, gaily-painted shields. The two men of the expedition who knew the Masai language drew up to the Kiongozi—unfortunately the Masai guides were away, out hunting with Roger. A hundred yards distant there stood out one superb Masai warrior, the leader of the party; a naked figure of perfect manhood, red in colour, with a naturally brown skin, raddled with ochre and powdered with the dust of the red ground. ”

“ The Masai has no love for work, and practises no industries. The women attend to his personal needs; and trades such as smelting and forging are left to enslaved tribes such as the Dorobo (Wandorobo) . These manufacture spears with long blades and butts and the peculiar swords or simés like long slender leaves, very narrow towards the hilt and broad at the point. Most of the Masai live in the British East Africa Protectorate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Australian aborigines, and even Andaman Islanders, have shown some aptitude when they have overcome the difficulty of a common language with their teacher; New Guinea children do very well in the mission schools. The Masai are the most backward of all the East African tribes, yet Mr. Hollis, the Government Secretary of Uganda, employs two Masai boys to develop his photographs. It is, in fact, doubtful whether there is any race of marked mental inferiority, though, as among ourselves, there are thick-witted individuals, and these may be more common in one race than in another. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Masai have a wonderfully well-organised military system. The warriors (elmorani) of the tribe must attend strictly to their duties, and are not allowed to marry or to smoke or to drink until after their term of active service is completed. Besides the spear and shield they generally carry a sword or knobkerrie, suspended from a raw-hide waist-belt; and they certainly look very ferocious in their weird-looking headdress when on the warpath. Once or twice I met detachments out on these expeditions, but they were always quite friendly to me, even though I was practically alone. ”

“ Nor, I think, do we realize sufficiently the actual fundamental differences between the African and our peoples. Physically they must be in many ways as different from our selves as though they actually belonged to a different species. The Masai are a fine big race, enduring, well developed and efficient. They live exclusively on cow's milk mixed with blood; no meat, no fruit, no vegetables, no grain ”

“ 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. ”

“ Compared with other peoples of Africa the Masai [Pg 32] are not very superstitious, though no doubt we should think their beliefs very strange and fanciful. No poor man is thought to have a soul that can live after his body is dead, but the spirit of a rich man is believed to enter a snake, which then visits the tribe and acts in a peculiar way to warn them of danger. When rain is badly needed, all women and children gather bunches of grass, which are held in the hand, while they stand in a circle and pray to the Black God to send water for their pastures and cattle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My followers now began to emerge from the shelter of the various trees and bushes where they had concealed themselves after their wild flight from the resuscitated lion, and crowded round his dead body in the highest spirits. The Masai, especially, seemed delighted at the way in which he had been defeated, and to my surprise and amusement proved themselves excellent mimics, some three or four of them beginning at once to act the whole adventure. ”

“ The Swahili Kiongozi fortunately was on the spot, and then and at other times never lost his head. He stood quietly beside Lucy, who was seated in her deckchair with her white umbrella to shade her from the sun. "Starehe, Bibi," he said; "usiogope; Muungu anatulinda. Hawa ndio Masai, kweli; walakini tutawashinda na akili." [#]
[#] "Be tranquil, Lady. Do not fear. God is guarding us. These indeed are Masai truly, but we shall overcome them with intelligence."
The porters just stayed where they were. ”

“ Nearly all the men wear little bells on their ankles to give notice of their approach, while the women are very fond of covering themselves with large quantities of iron or copper wire. Their limbs, indeed, are often almost completely encased with these rings, which I should think must be very heavy and uncomfortable: but no Masai woman considers herself a lady of fashion without them, and the more she possesses the higher does she stand in the social scale. ”

“ Again, their manner of circumcising the young men is exactly the same as that practised by the Masai, which differs from the custom of any other race, as I shall show later on. The name for God, Ngai, is the same in both peoples, and they both have a similar custom of retiring to a so-called “sacred grove” in the bush, where they slaughter a sheep, which is afterwards roasted and eaten in honour of their god.
These points, to my mind, all go to show a connexion between the Kikuyu and the Masai, rather than, as some inquirers argue, between the Kikuyu and the Wakamba. ”

“ To their surprise the Masai made peace.
"We have watched the war with the Wakamba," they said, in effect, "and we have seen the Wakamba kill a great many of your men. But more of your men came in always, and there were no more Wakamba to come in and take the places of those who were killed. We are not afraid. If we should war with you, we would undoubtedly kill a great many of you, and you would undoubtedly kill a great many of us. But there can be no use in that. We want the ranges for our cattle; you want a road. ”