Maasai people
![]() | |
Total population | |
---|---|
883,000 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
![]() (estimates vary) | 377,089 or 453,000[1] [2] |
![]() | 430,000 |
[2] | |
Languages | |
Maa (ɔl Maa) | |
Religion | |
Monotheism including Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Samburu |
The Maasai are an indigenous African ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. Due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa, they are among the most well known of African ethnic groups.[3] They speak Maa,[3] a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer, and are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been variously estimated as 377,089 from the 1989 Census[1] or as 453,000 language speakers in Kenya in 1994[2] and 430,000 in Tanzania in 1993[2] with a total estimated as "approaching 900,000"[3] Estimates of the respective Maasai populations in both countries are complicated by the remote locations of many villages, and their semi-nomadic nature.
Although the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, the people have continued their age-old customs.[4] Recently, Oxfam has claimed that the lifestyle of the Maasai should be embraced as a response to climate change because of their ability to farm in deserts and scrublands.[5]
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Maasai_man.jpg/240px-Maasai_man.jpg)
According to their own oral history, the Maasai originated from the lower Nile valley north of Lake Turkana (North-West Kenya) and began migrating south around the fifteenth century, arriving in a long trunk of land stretching from northern Kenya to central Tanzania between the seventeenth and late eighteenth century. Other ethnic groups were forcibly displaced as they settled there. [1] The Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-nineteenth century, and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south.[6] At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger group they were part of, raided cattle as far east as the Tanga coast in Tanzania. Raiders used spears and shields, but were most feared for throwing clubs (orinka) which could be accurately thrown from up to 70 paces (appx. 100 meters). In 1852 there was a report of a concentration of 800 Maasai warriors on the move in Kenya. In 1857, after having depopulated the “Wakuafi wilderness” in southeastern Kenya, Maasai warriors threatened Mombasa on the coast of Kenya. [2][7]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Bundesarchiv_Bild_105-DOA0556%2C_Deutsch-Ostafrika%2C_Massaikrieger.jpg/300px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_105-DOA0556%2C_Deutsch-Ostafrika%2C_Massaikrieger.jpg)
Because of this migration, the Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers.
The period of expansion was followed by the Maasai "Emutai" of 1883-1902. This period was marked by epidemics of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, rinderpest, and smallpox. The estimate first put forward by a German lieutenant in what was then northwest Tanganyika, was that 90 per cent of cattle and half of wild animals perished from rinderpest. German doctors in the same area claimed that “every second” African had a pock-marked face as the result of smallpox. This period coincided with drought. Rains failed completely in 1897 and 1898. [3]
The Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann traveled in Maasai lands in 1891-1893, and described the old Maasai settlement in the Ngorongoro Crater in the 1894 book Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle ("Through the lands of the Maasai to the source of the Nile"): "There were women wasted to skeletons from whose eyes the madness of starvation glared ... warriors scarcely able to crawl on all fours, and apathetic, languishing elders. Swarms of vultures followed them from high, awaiting their certain victims." By one estimate two-thirds of the Maasai died during this period. [4]
Starting with a 1904 treaty, [5] and followed by another in 1911, Maasai lands in Kenya were reduced by 60 percent when the British evicted them to make room for settler ranches, subsequently confining them to present-day Kajiado and Narok districts.[6] Maasai in Tanzania were displaced from the fertile lands between Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro, and most of the fertile highlands near Ngorongoro in the 1940s.[8][7] More land was taken to create wildlife reserves and national parks: Amboseli, Nairobi National Park, Masai Mara, Samburu, Lake Nakuru, and Tsavo in Kenya; Manyara, Ngorongoro, Tarangire [8] and Serengeti in Tanzania.
Maasai are pastoralist and have resisted the urging of the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle. They have demanded grazing rights to many of the national parks in both countries.
The Maasai stood against slavery and lived alongside most wild animals with an aversion to eating game and birds. Maasai land now has East Africa's finest game areas. Maasai society never condoned traffic of human beings, and outsiders looking for people to enslave avoided the Maasai.[9]
Essentially there are twelve geographic sectors of the tribe, each one having its own customs, appearance, leadership and dialects. These subdivisions are known as the Keekonyokie, Damat, Purko, Wuasinkishu, Siria, Laitayiok, Loitai, Kisonko, Matapato, Dalalekutuk, Loodokolani and Kaputiei.[9]
Culture
Maasai society is strongly patriarchal in nature with elder men, sometimes joined by retired elders, deciding most major matters for each Maasai group. A full body of oral law covers many aspects of behaviour. Formal execution is unknown, and normally payment in cattle will settle matters. An out of court process called 'amitu', 'to make peace', or 'arop', which involves a substantial apology, is also practiced.[10] The Maasai are monotheistic, and they call God Enkai or Engai. Engai is a single deity with a dual nature: Engai Narok (Black God) is benevolent, and Engai Nanyokie (Red God) is vengeful.[11] The "Mountain of God", Ol Doinyo Lengai, is located in northernmost Tanzania. The central human figure in the Maasai religious system is the laibon who may be involved in: shamanistic healing, divination and prophecy, insuring success in war or adequate rainfall. Whatever power an individual laibon had was a function of personality rather than position.[12] Many Maasai have become Christian, and to a lesser extent, Muslim.
A high infant mortality rate among the Maasai has led to babies not truly being recognized until they reach an age of 3 moons, ilapaitin. [13] For Maasai living a traditional life, the end of life is virtually without ceremony, and the dead are left out for scavengers. [14] Burial has in the past been reserved for great chiefs, since it is believed to be harmful to the soil.[15]
Traditional Maasai lifestyle centers around their cattle which constitutes the primary source of food. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not the other is considered to be poor.[16] A Maasai myth relates that God gave them all the cattle on earth, leading to the belief that rustling cattle from other tribes is a matter of taking back what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has become much less common.[17]
Shelter
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Ludzie06%28js%29.jpg/280px-Ludzie06%28js%29.jpg)
As a historically nomadic and then semi-nomadic people, the Maasai have traditionally relied on local, readily available materials and indigenous technology to construct their housing. The traditional Maasai house was in the first instance designed for people on the move and was thus very impermanent in nature. The Inkajijik (houses) are either star-shaped or circular, and are constructed by able-bodied women. The structural framework is formed of timber poles fixed directly into the ground and interwoven with a lattice of smaller branches, which is then plastered with a mix of mud, sticks, grass, cow dung and human urine, and ash. The enkaji is small, measuring about 3m x 5m and standing only 1.5m high. Within this space the family cooks, eats, sleeps, socializes and stores food, fuel and other household possessions. Small livestock are also often accommodated within the enkaji.[10][11] Villages are enclosed in a circular fence (Enkang) built by the men, usually of thorned acacia, a native tree. At night all cows, goats and sheep are placed in an enclosure in the center, safe from wild animals.
Social organization
The central unit of Maasai society is the age-set. Although young boys are sent out with the calves and lambs as soon as they can toddle, childhood for boys is mostly playtime, with the exception of ritual beatings to test courage and endurance. Girls are responsible for chores such as cooking and milking, skills which they learn from their mothers at an early age.[18] Every 15 years or so, a new and individually named generation of Morans or Il-murran (warriors) will be initiated. This involves most boys between 12 and 25, who have reached puberty and are not part of the previous age-set. One rite of passage from boyhood to the status of junior warrior is a painful circumcision ceremony, which is performed without anaesthetic. This ritual is typically performed by the elders, who use a sharpened knife and makeshift cattle hide bandages for the procedure. The Maa word for circumcision is emorata.[19] The boy must endure the operation in silence. Expressions of pain bring dishonor, albeit temporarily. Any exclamations can cause a mistake in the delicate and tedious process, which can result in life-long scarring, dysfunction, and pain. The healing process will take 3–4 months, during which urination is painful and nearly impossible at times, and boys must remain in black cloths for a period of 4–8 months.[20]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Young_Maasai_Warrior.jpg/120px-Young_Maasai_Warrior.jpg)
During this period, the newly circumcised young men will live in a "manyatta", a "village" built by their mothers. The manyatta has no encircling barricade for protection, emphasizing the warrior role of protecting the community. No inner krall is built, since warriors neither own cattle or undertake stock duties. Further rites of passage are required before achieving the status of senior warrior, culminating in the eunoto ceremony, the "coming of age".[21]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Bandera_masai.svg/150px-Bandera_masai.svg.png)
When a new generation of warriors is initiated, the existing ilmoran will graduate to become junior elders, who are responsible for political decisions until they in turn become senior elders.[22][23]
The warriors are in charge of society's security, and spend most of their time now on walkabouts throughout Maasai lands, beyond the confines of their sectional boundaries. They are also much more involved in cattle trading than they used to be, developing and improving basic stock through trades and bartering rather than stealing as in the past.[24] Boys are responsible for herding small livestock. During the drought season, both warriors and boys assume responsibility for herding livestock. Elders are directors and advisors for day-to-day activities. Women are responsible for making the houses as well as supplying water, collecting firewood, milking cattle and cooking for the family.[25]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Traditional_Maasai_Dance.jpg/320px-Traditional_Maasai_Dance.jpg)
One myth about the Maasai is that each young man is supposed to kill a lion before they are circumcised. Although lion hunting was an activity of the past, and lion hunting has been banned in East Africa, lions are still hunted when they maul Maasai livestock,[26] and young warriors who engage in traditional lion killing do not face significant consequences.[27] Increasing concern regarding lion populations has given rise to at least one program which promotes accepting compensation when a lion kills livestock, rather than hunting and killing the predator.[28] Nevertheless, killing a lion gives one great value and celebrity status in the community.
Young women also undergo excision ("female circumcision" or emorata) as part of an elaborate rite of passage ritual in which they are given instructions and advice pertaining to their new role, as they are then said to have come of age and become women, ready for marriage. In Kenya female circumcision is practiced by 38% of the population. The most common form is clitorectomy.[29] These circumcisions are usually performed by an invited 'practitioner' who is often not Maasai, usually from a Dorobo group. The knives and blades which make the cut are fashioned by blacksmiths, il-kunono, who are avoided by the Maasai because they make weapons of death (knives, short swords (ol alem), spears, etc). Similar to the young men, women who will be circumcised women wear dark clothing, paint their faces with markings, and then cover their faces on completion of the ceremony.[30]
To others the practice of female circumcision is known as female genital cutting, and draws a great deal of criticism from both abroad and many women who have undergone it, such as Maasai activist Agnes Pareiyo. It has recently been replaced in some instances by a "cutting with words" ceremony involving singing and dancing in place of the mutilation. However, the practice remains deeply ingrained and valued by the culture. Some might consider it necessary since some Maasai men may reject any woman who has not undergone it as either not marriageable or worthy of a much-reduced bride price. The practice can result in thick scar tissue, which makes urination difficult, and this has also generated controversy. [31] FGC is illegal in both Kenya and Tanzania.[32][33]
Married women who become pregnant are excused from all heavy work such as milking and gathering firewood. Sexual relations are also banned.[34]
The Maasai are traditionally polygamous; this is thought to be a long standing and practical adaptation to high infant and warrior mortality rates. Polyandry is also practiced. A woman marries not just her husband, but the entire age group. Men are expected to give up their bed to a visiting age-mate guest. The woman decides strictly on her own if she will join the visiting male. Any child which may result is the husband's child and his descendant in the patrilineal order of Maasai society. "Kitala", a kind of divorce or refuge, is possible in the house of a wife's father, usually for gross mistreatment of the wife. Repayment of the bride price, custody of children, etc, are mutually agreed upon.[35]
Music and dance
Maasai music traditionally consists of rhythms provided by a chorus of vocalists singing harmonies while a song leader, or olaranyani, sings the melody. The olaranyani is usually the singer who can best sing that song, although several individuals may lead a song. The olaranyani begins by singing a line or title (namba) of a song. The group will respond with one unanimous call in acknowledgment, and the olaranyani will sing a verse over the group's rhythmic throat singing. Each song has its specific namba structure based on call-and-response. Common rhythms are variations of 5/4, 6/4 and 3/4 time signatures. Lyrics follow a typical theme and are often repeated verbatim over time. Neck movements accompany singing. When breathing out the head is leaned forward. The head is tilted back for an inward breath. Overall the effect is one of polyphonic syncopation.[36][37][38]
Women chant lullabies, humming songs, and songs praising their sons. Nambas, the call-and-response pattern, repetition of nonsense phrases, monophonic melodies[39][40] repeated phrases following each verse being sung on a descending scale, and singers responding to their own verses are characteristic of singing by females.[41][42] When many Maasai women gather together, they sing and dance among themselves.[43]
One exception to the vocal nature of Maasai music is the use of the horn of the Greater Kudu to summon morans for the Eunoto ceremony.[44]
Both singing and dancing sometimes occur around manyattas, and involve flirting. Young men will form a line and chant rhythmically, “Oooooh-yah”, with a growl and stacatto cough along with the thrust and withdrawal of their lower bodies. Girls stand in front of the men and make the same pelvis lunges while singing a high dying fall of “Oiiiyo..yo” in counterpoint to the men. Although bodies come in close proximity, they do not touch.[45]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Masaidance.jpg/250px-Masaidance.jpg)
Eunoto, the coming of age ceremony of the warrior, can involve ten or more days of singing, dancing and ritual. The warriors of the Il-Oodokilani perform a kind of march-past as well as the adumu, or aigus, sometimes referred as “the jumping dance” by non-Maasai. (both adumu and aigus are Maa verbs meaning "to jump" with adumu meaning "To jump up and down in a dance"[12]) Warriors are well known for, and often photographed during, this competitive jumping. A circle is formed by the warriors, and one or two at a time will enter the center to begin jumping while maintaining a narrow posture, never letting their heels touch the ground. Members of the group may raise the pitch of their voices based on the height of the jump.[13]
The girlfriends of the moran (intoyie) parade themselves in their most spectacular costumes as part of the eunoto. The mothers of the moran sing and dance in tribute to the courage and daring of their sons.[46]
Contemporary Hip Hop musicians X Plastaz from northern Tanzania are incorporating traditional Maasai rhythms, beats and chants into their music.
Influence of the modern world
Government policies such as the preservation of parks and reserves, with the exclusion of the Maasai, along with increasing populations, etc, have made the traditional Maasai way of life increasingly difficult to maintain.
With increasing poverty and migration, the traditional authority of Maasai elders appears to be lessening.[47]
Over the years, many projects have begun to help Maasai tribal leaders find ways to preserve their traditions while also balancing the education needs of their children for the modern world. The emerging forms of employment among the Maasai people include farming, business (selling of traditional medicine,running of restaurants/shops, buying and selling of minerals, selling milk and milk products by women, embroideries), and wage employment (as security guards/ watchmen, waiters, tourist guides), and others who are engaged in the public and private sectors.[14]
Many Maasai have moved away from the nomadic life to responsible positions in commerce and government.[15] Yet despite the sophisticated urban lifestyle they may lead, many will happily head homewards dressed in designer clothes, only to emerge from the traditional family homestead wearing a shuka (colourful piece of cloth), cow hide sandals and carrying a wooden club (o-rinka) - at ease with themselves and the world.[48]
Body modification
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Bodymodmassai.jpg/160px-Bodymodmassai.jpg)
The piercing and stretching of earlobes is common among the Maasai. Various materials have been used to both pierce and stretch the lobes, including thorns for piercing, twigs, bundles of twigs, stones, the cross section of elephant tusks and empty film canisters. Fewer and fewer Maasai, particularly boys, follow this custom.[49] [50] Women wear various forms of beaded ornaments in both the ear lobe, and smaller piercings at the top of the ear.[51] [52]
The removal of deciduous canine tooth buds in early childhood is a practice that has been documented in the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. There exists a strong belief among the Maasai that diarrhoea, vomiting and other febrile illnesses of early childhood are caused by the gingival swelling over the canine region, which is thought to contain 'worms' or 'nylon' teeth. This belief and practice is not unique to the Maasai. In rural Kenya a group of 95 children aged between six months and two years were examined in 1991/92. 87% were found to have undergone the removal of one or more deciduous canine tooth buds. In an older age group (3–7 years of age), 72% of the 111 children examined exhibited missing mandibular or maxillary deciduous canines.[53] [54] diagram
Diet
Traditionally, the Maasai diet consisted of meat, milk, and blood from cattle. An ILCA study (Nestel 1989) states: “Today, the staple diet of the Maasai consists of cow's milk and maize-meal. The former is largely drunk fresh or in sweet tea and the latter is used to make a liquid or solid porridge. The solid porridge is known as uoali and is eaten with milk; unlike the liquid porridge, uoali is not prepared with milk. Meat, although an important food, is consumed irregularly and cannot be classified as a staple food. Animal fats or butter are used in cooking, primarily of porridge, maize, and beans. Butter is also an important infant food. Blood is rarely drunk.”
Studies by the International Livestock Centre for Africa (Bekure et al. 1991) shows a very great change in the diet of the Maasai towards non-livestock products with maize comprising 12 – 39 percent and sugar 8 – 13 percent; about one litre of milk is consumed per person daily. Most of the milk is consumed as fermented milk or buttermilk - a by-product of butter making. Milk consumption figures are very high by any standards. The needs for protein and essential amino acids are more than adequately satisfied. However, the supply of iron, niacin, vitamin C, vitamin A, thiamine and energy are never fully met by a purely milk diet. Due to changing circumstances, especially the seasonal nature of the milk supply and frequent droughts, most pastoralists, including the Maasai, now include substantial amounts of grain in their diets [16][17]
The Maasai herd goats and sheep, including the Red Maasai sheep, as well as the more prized cattle.[55] Electrocardiogram tests applied to 400 young adult male Maasai found no evidence whatsoever of heart disease, abnormalities or malfunction. Further study with carbon-14 tracers showed that the average cholesterol level was about 50 percent of that of an average American. These findings were ascribed to the amazing fitness of morans, which was evaluated as "Olympic standard".[56]
Soups are probably the most important use of plants for food by Maasai. Acacia nilotica is the most frequently used soup plant. The root or stem bark is boiled in water and the decoction drunk alone or added to soup. The Maasai are fond of taking this as a drug, and is known to make them energetic, aggressive and fearless. Maasai eat soup laced with bitter bark and roots containing cholesterol-lowering saponins; those urban Maasai who don't have access to the bitter plants tend to develop heart disease.[57] Although consumed as snacks, fruits constitute a major part of the food ingested by children and women looking after cattle as well as morans in the wilderness.[58]
The mixing of cattle blood, obtained by nicking the jugular vein, and milk is done to prepare a ritual drink for special celebrations and as nourishment for the sick.[59] However, the inclusion of blood in the traditional diet is waning due to the reduction of livestock numbers. More recently, the Maasai have grown dependent on food produced in other areas such as maize meal, rice, potatoes, cabbage (known to the Maasai as goat leaves), etc. The Maasai who live near crop farmers have engaged in cultivation as their primary mode of subsistence. In these areas, plot sizes are generally not large enough to accommodate herds of animals; thus the Maasai are forced to farm. [18]
Clothing
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Maasai_woman.jpg/200px-Maasai_woman.jpg)
Clothing varies by age, sex, and place. Young men, for instance, wear black for several months following their circumcision. However, red is a favored color. Blue, black, striped, and checkered cloth are also worn, as are multicolored African designs. The Maasai began to replace animal-skin, calf hides and sheep skin, with commercial cotton cloth in the 1960s.[60]
Shúkà is the Maa word for sheets traditionally worn wrapped around the body, one over each shoulder, then a third over the top of them. These are typically red, though with some other colors (e.g. blue) and patterns (e.g. plaid.) Pink, even with flowers, is not shunned by warriors.[61] One piece garments known as kanga, a Swahili term, are common.[62] Maasai near the coast may wear kikoi, a type of sarong that comes in many different colors and textiles. However, the preferred style is stripes.[63]
Many Maasai in Tanzania wear simple sandals, which were until recently made from cowhides. They are now soled with tire strips or plastic. Both men and women wear wooden bracelets. The Maasai women regularly weave and bead jewelery. This bead work plays an essential part in the ornamentation of their body. Although there are variations in the meaning of the color of the beads, some general meanings for a few colors are: white, peace; blue, water; red, warrior/blood/bravery.[64]
Beadworking, done by women, has a long history among the Maasai, who articulate their identity and position in society through body ornaments and body painting. Before contact with Europeans beads were produced mostly from local raw materials. White beads were made from clay, shells, ivory, or bone. Black and blue beads were made from iron, charcoal, seeds, clay, or horn. Red beads came from seeds, woods, gourds, bone, ivory, copper, or brass. When late in the nineteenth century, great quantities of brightly colored European glass beads arrived in East Africa, beadworkers replaced the older beads with the new materials and began to use more elaborate color schemes. Currently, dense, opaque glass beads with no surface decoration and a naturally smooth finish are preferred.[65]
Hair
Head shaving is common at many rites of passage, representing the fresh start that will be made as one passes from one to another of life's chapters.[66] Warriors are the only members of the Maasai community to wear long hair, which they weave in thinly braided strands.[67]
Upon reaching the age of 3 "moons", the child is named and the head is shaved clean apart from of tuft of hair, which resembles a cock's comb, from the nape of the neck to the forehead.[68] The cockade symbolizes the "state of grace" accorded to infants.[69] A woman who has lost a child in a previous pregnancy would position the hair at the front or back of the head, depending on whether she had lost a boy or a girl.[70]
Two days before boys are circumcised, their heads are shaven.[71] The young warriors then allow their hair to grow, and spend a great deal of time styling the hair. It is dressed with animal fat and ocher, and parted across the top of the head at ear level. Hair is then plaited: parted into small sections which are divided into two and twisted, first separately then together. Cotton or wool threads may be used to lengthen hair. The plaited hair may hang loose or be gathered together and bound with leather.[72] When warriors go through the Eunoto, and become elders, their long plaited hair is shaven off.[73]
As males have their heads shaved at the passage from one stage of life to another, a bride to be will have her head shaved, and two rams will be slaughtered in honor of the occasion.[74]
See also
References
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- ^ a b c d Ethnologue report for language code:mas ethnologue.com, '453,000 in Kenya (1994 I. Larsen BTL) ... 430,000 in Tanzania (1993)', Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International
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- ^ English - Maa
- ^ Maasai Association
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- ^ Maasai Association
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 88. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ Maasai People, Kenya
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- ^ Razor's Edge - The Controversy of Female Genital Mutilation IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs March 2005, accessed May 14, 2007
- ^ tan007 Tanzania fails to enforce law against female mutilation
- ^ The Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation — Infoplease.com
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- ^ ilMurran
- ^ [ http://www.laleyio.com/songstructure.html]
- ^ Maasai Music
- ^ Homophonic
- ^ What is monophony, polyphony, homophony, monody etc.?
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Pages 43, 100. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ Song Structure of Maasai Music
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- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 12. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 85. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Pages 43-45, 100, 107. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ 403 Forbidden
- ^ Kenya: The Maasi - Travel Africa Magazine
- ^ The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation Without Illusion. Jonathan S. Adams, Thomas O. McShane. 1996. University of California Press. page = 42. ISBN 0520206711
- ^ The Myth of Wild Africa, Google Books.
- ^ Culture and Customs of Kenya. Neal Sobania. 2003. Greenwood Press. page 91. ISBN 0313314861
- ^ Culture and Customs of Kenya, Google Books
- ^ Hassanali J, Amwayi P, Muriithi A (1995). "Removal of deciduous canine tooth buds in Kenyan rural Maasai". East Afr Med J. 72 (4): 207–9. PMID 7621751.
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ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Hiza JF, Kikwilu EN (1992). "Missing primary teeth due to tooth bud extraction in a remote village in Tanzania". Int J Paediatr Dent. 2 (1): 31–4. PMID 1525129.
{{cite journal}}
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ignored (help) - ^ 403 Forbidden
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 87. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ National Geographic Oct. 1995, page 161
- ^ Ethnobotany of the Loita Maasai: towards community management of the Forest of the Lost Child; experiences from the Loita Ethnobotany Project; People and plants working paper; Vol.:8; 2001
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 90. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ Maasai | Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Cultures | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Maa (Maasai) Dictionary
- ^ Kanga history
- ^ East Africa Living Encyclopedia
- ^ Northern Tanzania with Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar by Phillip Briggs (2006), page 216. ISBN 1 84162 146 3
- ^ (Klumpp 1987, 105, 30, 31, 67
- ^ Broken Spears - a Maasai Journey. Elizabeth L. Gilbert. 2003. Atlantic Monthly Press. page 82. ISBN 0-87113-840-9
- ^ Broken Spears - a Maasai Journey. Elizabeth L. Gilbert. 2003. Atlantic Monthly Press. page 136. ISBN 0-87113-840-9
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 169. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 55. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 169. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
- ^ Maasai. Tepilit Ole Saitoti with photos by Carol Beckwith. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1980. page 79. ISBN 0-8109-8099-1
- ^ Maasai. Tepilit Ole Saitoti with photos by Carol Beckwith. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1980. pages 126, 129. ISBN 0-8109-8099-1
- ^ Maasai. Tepilit Ole Saitoti with photos by Carol Beckwith. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1980. page 171. ISBN 0-8109-8099-1
- ^ The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Page 168. Camerapix Publishers International. ISBN 1 874041 32 6
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Working for a just and self-sustaining community for the Maasai People
- Mara Triangle Maasai Villages Association
- Network of Change Organization for Maasai
- Maasai communication/info exchange - NOC Community
- Kisaru Maasai Community Project
- Massailand Website about the Maasai people and supporting projects.
- Volunteer to help with projects in Maasailand - Kenya