The
Massai are a prominent “tribe” in the region Im currently visiting here in
Africa…
Apparently they were originally from Southern Sudan but they drifted
South over the centuries and are now centred around the Serengeti/Mara region
of Northern Tanzania /Southern Kenya.
They are
nominally a nomadic people who herd cattle and do not grow crops or even hunt
wild game. They have a very strong culture and have been the most resistant to
changing as a result of European
colonization over the past few centuries… Even today there are many Massai who
live largely outside the economic world of Western culture and abide by their
own cultural traditions and values… And that’s what makes them so visible… They
wear their traditional dress (not our Western clothing) and they are proudly
independent. But along with that pride seems to come quite a bit of arrogance
too (pretty normal human behavior yes) and no matter how true to their culture
they try to be they are still constrained by the world changing around them and
that means there are unavoidable compromises to be made, not least as a result
of the land they used to roam across being largely divided up and fenced in and
owned by others now. So many of the Massai now lead more sedentary rather than
nomadic lives and many also do some crop growing in the form of corn and rice.
But they still value their cattle most of all and that is their preferred way
to accumulate “wealth”.
When I
briefly visited this area twenty years ago I also noted the Massai and I think
they were much less “modified” then than now… I recall seeing the men almost
exclusively wearing red garments (that seems to also be their favorite colour)
and only ever traveling on foot (though it was just a brief visit of a few
weeks)… This time round I have seen them wearing many coloured garments though
always of traditional style (red and blue are the most common colours this
time) but I also see them riding bicycles or small motorbikes, and most seem to
have cell phones and a few other western adornments (like watches and rings
etc).
I also
seem to here any number of different stories about their culture and behaviors
both from themselves and other Africans… For example, when I went to visit one
of their villages as a tourist (I paid a small fee for the privilege) I was
told by the Massai “guide” that they used the money from the tourists to buy
water for drinking… But the man telling me this had a very nice Gold watch on
and a diamond ring to boot!, so Im more inclined to believe my driver who said
that this group of Massai was very wealthy due to the tourism and that the got
free water delivered to them by the government and that they used the tourist
money to buy more cattle… Which I believed as the very large herd of cattle
near-by was clearly their property (thousands of head!)… So as I say, the pride
and independence definitely comes with its fair share of human frailties.
Some other
things that I do believe about them though are…
They are
the only people that are allowed to live in the Wildlife reserves which border
the national parks… The reason is that they pose no risk to the animals in the
park since they simply don’t like to eat anything but their own goats and
cattle. They do come into conflict with lions (who would eat their cattle) but
the Massai have been living this way for centuries and for the most part the
Lions and the Massai avoid each other out of mutual respect/fear… Likewise,
their cattle don’t pose any real risk again since they have been living this
way for centuries… The only problem I see with this system was that the cattle
herds near Serengeti were getting very large and over grazing seemed to be
coming a bit of a problem even in these “nomadic” areas… The problem seemed
more intense in less remote areas where the grazing land was more restricted by
fences and other land use areas.
They have
a diet that consists of about 75% meat with the rest made up mostly of blood
and milk… They don’t seem to eat cereals or harvest tubers etc (at least not
traditionally)… They do seem to use a lot of collected herbs for food and medicine
but it’s a minor percentage of diet by weight. Its also worth noting that all
their food is “free-range organic” so to speak J That may
seem a rather extreme diet but I tell you that I have NEVER seen a fat Massai.
Note also that they seem to get a great deal of constant exercise wandering
around on foot tending their cattle. Now that diet obviously works well for
them but that doesn’t mean that other people have metabolisms that are equally adapted
to it (like I said, they have been living this way for centuries if not millennia
and that surely would have “weeded out” the ones who didn’t have suitable
metabolisms)… You also NEVER see a short or a “round faced” Massai, so they are
I believe a “genetic race” rather than just a “culture”.
Anyway,
here are a bunch of pictures from around the place:
