What to Know About The Maasai People

The Masaai people are a tribe in Kenya and Tanzania that belongs to the Bantu ethnic group, the largest of the three ethnic groups in Kenya. There are nine different clans within the tribe, and many of the clans have different subdivisions and villages. In total, the Maasai population is 2.1 million people, with the majority living in Kenya. Over winter break, my family and I were lucky enough to learn from our guide, Kintai, a former Maasai warrior. We were even able to visit a Maasai village in the Maasai Mara located in Southern Kenya. When we arrived in the village, we were greeted with a song, dance, and jumping competition. Kintai later told us that the song was a traditional Maasai welcome song. We then met with one of the elders in the village who taught us about the Maasai people and their way of life.

He first informed us that Maasai people are nomadic, so every ten years, they burn down their village and move. However, the move is often minor: their previous village was only about 100 meters away from the current one. We learned that all Maasai villages are constructed in a circular shape surrounded by a fence, and the center of the village is a pen for the cattle. The geographical centrality of the cattle is a product of their significance to the culture, as they not only provide people with milk but also signify an individual's wealth. According to Kintai, “Asking someone how many cows they have is like asking how much money you have; it is very bad.” Other indicators of wealth include wives and children, as only very wealthy men can afford multiple wives and support many children. All of these symbols of wealth are interconnected: without cows, a man may not pay the dowry of multiple wives, and without many wives he is less likely to have plentiful children.

Not only do men manage the wealth of the family, but they must also serve as  Maasai warriors for ten years and protect the village from neighboring settlements and thieves. Additionally, the governing body is entirely made up of male elders. Despite the patriarchal

structure of the Maasai community, Maasai women play an invaluable role and have their own specific responsibilities. Although a man may have as many wives as he pleases, he never picks his own wives: his parents pick his first wife, his first wife picks his second wife, and each following wife picks the next. The existing wives even decide when they want to introduce another wife into the marriage. Kintai says, “My wife will tell me when she wants me to have another wife, when she needs a helper or friend.” Each wife lives in her own home with her children, and the husband must divide his time among his wives. If he shows more love for one wife than the others, it is “heko matata,” meaning a big problem. In addition to managing the households and choosing her their husbands' next wives, Maasai women also work to better the community as a whole. In the village I visited, the women of the community started a school within the settlement for the children, as the nearest government school is two hours away. Currently, the community school only covers through grade four, but the women hope to expand as they gain more experience and willing teachers. In the meantime, the older children must walk two hours to and from school daily.

Government school exposes Maasai children to very different cultural practices and clothing styles. However, individuals who go away to university often return to their villages instead of leading a life outside of the Maasai community, a testament to their love for their way of life. The village elders do not appreciate when older members of the village introduce external cultural practices to the children. Kintai told us that when he returns to his village, he must change into his Maasai clothing before entering because the village elders do not want people to wear “Nairobi style” or westernized clothes. They refer to westernized clothing as “Nairobi style” because as the capital of Kenya, Nairobi is a hub for travel and industrial progress and is often the benefactor of the influx of clothing coming from Western countries and manufacturers.

Kintai speaks fondly of his village, but progress-wise, he refers to it as “miles behind the United States and even Nairobi.” Maasai villages have no electricity or cell phones, and they rely on the food that they grow or get from their livestock. Although through a western lens this way of life may seem primitive, for many, it is the life they choose: “The way we live is very simple here, and people love to live this way,” says Kintai. It was incredible to hear his perspective as someone who has been exposed to both the Maasai way of life and very westernized parts of Kenya. He was the first one to acknowledge the differences between these two ways of living, but he was also adamant in his love for his community and his culture. When we visited the Maasai village, he was thrilled to show us some of his own culture, and those within the village were excited to share it with us.

Despite the fact that we were so clearly outsiders, with our pale skin and western clothes, the community welcomed us with open arms, showing us around and speaking to us as friends. Even the children, many of whom had never seen a white person before, were excited to talk to us. The way that the community shared such intimate aspects of their lives and their homes with people that could not be more different from themselves was truly inspiring. This warmth and acceptance of differences is something that is greatly lacking in the United States. In order to attain a richer, more successful, and more beautiful country, we must dispose of xenophobic thought and embrace the wealth of knowledge that our differences hold. In other words, we could learn a thing or two from the Maasai people.