Maasai Culture

ENVIORMENT & ADAPTATIONS

The Maasai people of East Africa live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania along the Great Rift Valley on semi-arid and arid lands with a population of one half million people. Maasai live in a rural setting but are very dependent on one another, for the Maasai people are split up into several groups that surround each other. Many animals graze the land in which the Maasai people live which includes elephants, lions, giraffes, leopards, hippos, and crocodiles. Long strands of yellow long weeds, patchy grass, and tall trees make up the vegetation that dominates the land of the southern part of Kenya where this culture lives. The average rainfall of the land is 500mm a year, with short rainfall November-December and long rainfall March –April. Cold months are June- July dipping as low as 13 degrees Celsius, with hot months October- November reaching 30 degrees Celsius. A major stressor that makes it hard for the population to live are droughts or the late timing of rain. The Maasai are so dependent of rainfalls that without it, a number of things are affected, making it hard to survive. To adapt to this environmental stressor the Maasai people have migrate to new land where they can come back to homeostasis.

Due to the temperature, the Maasai have a high melatonin in their skin, which over a long period of time has developed and helped them adapt. Another long term adaptation the Maasai culture has developed is their diet. A diet consisting of mostly meat and then milk and other nutrients has shaped them into being naturally thin individuals because of the mothers and fathers genes that have been develpod over generations of time. Weapons have become a big adaptation in attaining food, along with houses that are made out of resources that accommodate their living environment because of heat and another cultural adaptation would be items made by the Maasai women like baskets, or bowls that would help perform tasks such as catching water when they travel long distances to get it.

LANGUAGE & GENDER ROLES

The language of the Maasai culture is called Maa, also referred to as Olma. What is unique about the Maasai culture is that the Maa language is spoken from the South to the Southeast end of Lake Baringo. Different cultures within this area share the same language even though they have many cultural differences. There are a few written versions of this language for example the Maasai Bible and dictionary. What I can infer about the Maasai culture by analyzing their language is that they are very traditional. Since there wasn’t much written forms of this language, how to speak and write it was passed down from generation to generation.

There are only two specific genders in the Maasai culture which are men and women. The women in the Maasai culture fetch water, cook, collect fire wood, garden, herd small animals, and even construct houses. Men go through the process of being a warrior where they are in charge of herding large cattle and protecting the village. Roles in the Maasai culture are very distinct, although the women have attained more and more roles over time, they cannot perform and take on the roles of a warrior or vice versa. There are no negative repercussions for one gender performing the role of another but socially it might not be accepted because men are very dominant in their roles. Being a warrior, a man is very prideful of his role, therefore if a woman were to perform it, it will negatively be looked upon. In contrast if a man were to perform a role of women she might be looked upon as degrading. For the men roles, boys are raised from the beginning of boyhood, and put through a serious of test so one can become a warrior. If the father were to die, the eldest son would take on his role, so his mother would not. Women pass down knowledge and skills to their daughter as they progress with learning more roles over time. I believe the Maasai would accept the protagonist in the article "The Blessed Curse" because the Maasai culture believes in a God that is neither a woman nor a man. Translating this to the intersexed protagonist in the story, the Maasai would accept her if she were to choose which role she was going to play in their culture, and stick to it.

ECONOMY & CULTURE

The Maasai do not produce any kind of food surplus because they only attain as much as they need. Killing more cattle or using them excessively would have a negative impact later when they do need it. Cattle are a big source of currency, for the Maasai trade them for other goods they do not have or goods that they need. By trading for other food or goods, the Maasai are able to survive without going to extreme means, putting their life at danger. Goods and Wealth are not distributed, for they are always used up within the culture. Labor is split up within the culture, but collectively the Maasai come together in unison, performing tasks in order to live.

The main food that makes up the Maasai cultures diet is cattle which consist mainly of goat, cows,sheep. They also drink milk from these animals and their blood on special occasions, which serves as great nutritional health. Meat serves as good nutrition to this culture, but as animals move to find their own food and water based on the seasons, the Maasai people have to travel and rotate as the animals do to hunt .As the Massai people trade more with different cultures that surround them, their diets and general nutritional intake expands. Maize meal, rice, potatoes, and cabbage are some examples of types of nutrition they have become dependent on by other people. Because the Massai people do trade, these items are available when they do need it. Massai people that live near crop farmers have also engaged in cultivation which now stands as a main subsistence for their culture. Cultivation has created an unfortunate situation for the Maasai people because once they use the land for farming; animals can no longer graze for food.  The Maasai look upon this as cultivation as a crime against nature and would rather stick to their more traditional ways, than progress into cropping. Labor is split up between men and women but women take on different levels of responsibility. Growing boys are in charge of herding the livestock, women take on the responsibility of milking the cattle, men warriors protect and trade and elders watch over everyone as they complete their duties. Age divides this culture in many ways but only making a positive impact because subsistence patterns are taken on by boys as they herd cattle before they start their training in becoming a warrior.

Kinship & Marriage

Marriage patterns are not polygamous, and are very organized and planned. Sometimes marriages are planned even before the girl is born or when she is young. Marriage for the women is scheduled soon after she hits puberty.  Although men cannot marry until their late twenties when they have finished stages in becoming a warrior. In trade for marriage a man will give his future wife a brideswealth which consist of money, livestock, and services. Clearly women have more cultural pressures of importance in getting married. Both sexes have to collectively work together to have children or the marriage is seen as incomplete. Men have the most power between the two and linages are traced through their side of the family. The rules in marriage are very strict for boys and girls, for they have to go through important stages in their life before marriage can actually take place. Girls must learn how to be a wife and are taught this for several years and boys are gone away from home while they train to become a warrior and protect the village.

 Elders possess the most authority within the family of the Massai culture. Elders watch over everyone and give out daily tasks and orders for people to perform. The longer you have lived the more wisdom one is viewed to have. A grandmother or grandfather would be an example of kinship authority in the Maasai culture. Elders arrange marriages without the bride or mothers consent.  A herd of cattle is given to the bride by the father. When the mother or father passes, the eldest son will take on his father’s cattle and the youngest son will take on his mothers. Daughters do not inherit anything. Although kinship terminology is broadly of the Omaha type, there is a general preference to address others by the use of teknonyms or, among close kin, to establish gift terms that emphasize mutual respect. The Maasai are a patrilineal people, with shallow dispersed lineages that extend for only one or two generations beyond the oldest living elders.

RELIGION & ART

The Maasai believe in a God called Ngai also spelled 'Ngai, En-kai, Enkai, Engai, and Eng-ai. Ngai is neither male nor female but the Maasai interpret their God as two different forms. One being dark and benevolent and the other bring red and angry. The Maasai worship this both Gods for what they represent. The Maasai believe these Gods are responsible for all life and death on earth but the black God is seen in thunder and rain, which brings grass to the cattle and prosperity to the Massai; the red God is expressed in violent lightning, which can strike and kill, and the extreme dry season, which brings famine and death. The story of how the Gods the Ngai worship was once said that the sky and earth once separated but Ngai sent down cattle  so they could graze on the land by means of the aerial roots of the sacred wild fig tree, and told them to look after them. The Maasai culture practices some rituals such as ceremonies, wedding ceremonies, and the earlobe ritual.  These ceremonies or rituals are performed to make a new stage in a man or women’s life.  A ritual in the Maasai culture is seen as a new start in whatever stage they feel is important in someone’s life. These stages are known, and not random, therefore performing and receiving these sometimes painful rituals become very traditional. Because these rituals make up this culture and play such a big role in everyones life, I believe the Maasai culture could not function without out it.  These rituals are signifying a separation in class and without separation there could be more violence along with other problems in the culture.

Visual arts among the Maasai focus predominantly on body decoration and on the beaded ornaments that are displayed by warriors and complemented by the beaded ornaments of girls and young women. The Maasai culture is known gathering in circles, dancing, and singing using their voices as a beat to dance to. Seen in this picture the Maasai people jump high with one another performing during times of celebration for example someone’s marriage. Beading and clothing is a huge form of religious art, as they create elaborate gowns, necklaced, bracelets and other jewelry for these religious rituals. Maasai women thrive on coming together and making these forms of art. This beautiful beading that the culture wears also stands as religious art because it has become a tradition, forever being passed down from generations.

SOCIAL & POLITICAL

The stratification of status within the Maasai culture is age. Depending on the age in which the person is, they are put through a labeled stage that establishes their status for example a senior warrior. The longer one lives (longevity), the more power they have, hence the reason why elders watch of the village community every day. Elders determine how people are punished in the culture. There are no prison systems within the culture therefore sometimes depending on the crime committed, elders determine how much cattle is a way in trade for what they have done.

Within the culture there is little to no violence because of the strong kinship between everyone. Warriors that protect the village act in violence in order to protect themselves along with the rest of the Maasai people when encountering Non-Maasai. In recent years, violence in the Maasai culture has occurred because of the lack of natural resources. Because different Maasai neighbors that live upstream are progressing in ways to produce more food through irrigation are cutting the Maasai people short of water that would natural flow downstream to them. This deprives them of the water they would be using for their own crops and cattle. It was written that the Maasai people were carrying guns with them; in result police shot two men down and killed them. The effects of violence have little effect on this culture. Their bond is too strong for violence to tear them apart. What this culture does to resolve violence when it does outbreak is hold peace meetings or trade cattle in order to compensate families. This is a positive thing because

CONCLUSION

The Maasai culture is healthy and thriving. They work with what they have to survive. They stay true to there beliefs and grow together as a culture more while sticking to traditional ways. Maasai people stay isolated in some ways but as time goes on they become more custome to the people that live around them, engaging in trade. Trading with different cultures that live around them and growing in different ways, opens many oportunities for the Maasai culture to have a impact on the modern world. Because the Maasai are so traditional in their everday lifestyle and customes, they are constantly being taken advantage of by people that live close to them that are progressing with the current time.

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