Maasai traditions

What lies ahead for the Maasai?

Lion Guardian Coordinator for Olgulului and Eselenkei ranches, Eric Ole Kesoi writes about the future of his people, the Maasai: The devastating drought that has been ravaging the Amboseli ecosystem has drastically reduced the status of the Maasai pastoralist people, who are still primarily rural and strongly livestock-dependant. Anticipating the onset of the rains, many…

Lion Guardian gets married!

Saturday was a special day for one Lion Guardian. Apart from me, our youngest Lion Guardian Solonka Sakimpa was the only one not married. But this Saturday we were all very pleased to celebrate his wedding with him. Early in the morning we went to pick up his new wife from Mbirikani village, which is…

Initiation ceremony for the new Maasai warriors

Friday marked the arrival of a new generation of Maasai warriors, or murrans. A ritual called “Enkipaata” was marked in our district to see if the new murrans were ready to go under the knife (circumcision) and become the next Maasai army. This celebration happens every 13 years, or sometimes longer. The murrans to-be were…

Maasai marriage

Marriage in Maasai culture is one of our most important traditional activities. A man has to be married as soon as he undergoes the circumcision ceremony. A Maasai murran is not able to choose whom he is going to marry. If a murran’s father has a good friend with a daughter, then the fathers will…

The burden of a Maasai woman

 I think it is only here in Maasailand that women are the beasts of burden. They have a lot of responsibilities; land tilling, herding cows, collecting water and firewood and even building houses. Recently I came across a new house being built from local materials. In the photo you can see branches collected from the…

Maasai grooming

Being a murran means one has to be smart all the time; but this does not mean a murran must take a shower every day. Instead, a murran always carries a mirror tied to one end of his shuka, and you will often see him looking at himself in the mirror, making sure he is…