Maasai Society Research Articles

Jumping is not just about height: Biosocial becomings as an integrative approach in understanding contextualized jump performance in Maasai society.

Studies focused on jumping performance in humans have so far investigated either its biological or sociocultural significance, with very little attentions paid to the inseparable relations of these two aspects in daily life of people. Integrating both ethnographic and biomechanical methods, this research investigated the biosocial features of the jump performance of Maasai youth in its most well observed context, the wedding ceremony. Ethnographic data were used to explain the social status of participants, the physical movements and singing tempo of performers, and their interactions. Biomechanical methods were applied to assess the heights and frequencies of identified repetitive double-legged vertical jumps (n = 160, from 15 male youths). All youth performers followed a certain posture pattern, paying specific attention to their final landing. Large variations exist in their jumping heights [coefficient of variation (CV) = 0.237]; however, the frequency in jump repetitions were maintained with the least variations (CV = 0.084). Cheering interactions were confirmed, but with no significant difference in height between the cheered and non-cheered groups. These results indicate that the Maasai youths did not compete for jump height during local ceremonies. Rather, they emphasized the rhythmical retention of jumps, corresponding to other youth mates who were singing alongside. In the broader context of human behaviors, the analysis addresses the diverse meanings of motor performances in different daily contexts that reject the generalized sports regime of "higher/faster-the-better".

Animal names applied to a person in Maasai society

Abstract Cultural norms of interactions influence Maasai people to apply animal names to address each other. This article explains that avoidance of personal names of certain categories of people in Maasai influences the use of animal names. In the theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics, the author analyzed information from an ethnographic exploration through observations and interviews with Maasai informants in Tanzania. The article shows that Maasai’s categorization of people and avoidance system make senior members accumulate more animals through the process of selecting animal names to use. The patriarchal cultural beliefs and conceptualizations of domestic animals have implications on how animal names are applied between men and women. Only women married to polygamous men use animal names to address each other. There are some lexical, morphological and semantic differences between men and women’s names to mark gender categorizations.

Sociocultural Dimensions of Children's Physical Activity in Contemporary Pastoralist Maasai Society.

Children’s physical activity (CPA) in low- and middle-income regions has received increasing attention, but research is still very limited. This study explores the CPA in contemporary pastoralist Maasai society in rural Kenya by considering its sociocultural dimensions. The physical activity of 25 children (15 girls and 10 boys) was documented with mixed methods, including an epidemiological assessment of the CPA and semi-structured interviews with the targeted children regarding their daily activities. These methods were integrated with the ethnographic data on children’s socialization in the same area. Results showed a very high level of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of these children with significant gender differences especially outside school. Children reported their continued social participation in local gender–age labor divisions outside of school. As their activities outside school strongly contributed to their empirical learning of local knowledge and skills, a high MVPA plays an active role in enhancing the children’s ability to access and manage livestock and different natural resources. Findings from this study first show that the CPA is not merely physical, but also has significant sociocultural meanings in the process of in situ learning of local wisdom. We call more attention to children’s social roles in future investigations of CPA among less examined populations.

Comparative social demography, livelihood diversification and land tenure among the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania

We analyse social demography, livelihood diversification and land tenure among the Maasai people inhabiting Kenya (three sites) and Tanzania (one site) with contrasting land tenure policies. In Kenya, land was communally owned in the rural Amboseli, fully privatized in the peri-urban Kitengela in Athi-Kaputiei and partially privatized and communally owned in the rural Maasai Mara. In Tanzania, the government owned the land but granted user rights to local villages in rural Simanjiro in Tarangire-Manyara. We interviewed 100 households per site from May to July 2006. There were regional distinctions in social demography, livelihood diversification, hiring herding labour and settlement arrangements, portraying differential transition away from traditional pastoral Maasai society. The transition is most advanced in Kitengela located near Nairobi City, where privatization of land tenure in the 1980s triggered land sub-division, unprecedented land fragmentation and large-scale collapse of the commons, pastoralism and conservation. Land privatization and sub-division in Maasai Mara and Amboseli started in 2000s and were followed similarly by unprecedented fragmentation through fences and accelerated collapse of the commons, pastoralism and conservation, except where wildlife conservancies were later established. We found several differences at the household, regional and national levels. The average age of household heads was lower in Maasai Mara and Amboseli than in Kitengela and Simanjiro. The average number of wives per male household head was lowest in Kitengela, intermediate in Mara and Amboseli and highest in Simanjiro. Correspondingly, the mean number of children per family was lowest in Kitengela, intermediate in Mara and Amboseli and highest in Simanjiro. Household heads were more educated closer to urban centres. Household heads without formal education were thus most common in Amboseli, intermediate in Mara and Simanjiro and fewest in Kitengela. Livelihood diversification was marked in all the sites. Notably, cultivation was widespread and most of those interviewed were interested in crop cultivation. The average number of acres cultivated per household was far higher in Simanjiro than in all the other sites. The mean number of hired herders per household was higher in Kitengela, with the highest number of children enrolled in schools, than in the Mara, Amboseli or Simanjiro. The average number of households per settlement was highest in the Mara, intermediate in Amboseli and Simanjiro and lowest in Kitengela. The marked regional variation in social demography, livelihood diversification and land tenurial arrangements reflects underlying variation in proximity to urban centres, agro-climatological and national developmental and policy environments.

The Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics of Maasai Greetings

Abstract The speech act of greeting is one of the most frequent linguistic interactional routines performed among the Maasai of Arusha in Tanzania. The structure of their greetings demonstrates a number of culturally specific features of Maasai society, illuminated by analysing data collected through interviews and non-participatory observations of both men and women. The structure of Maasai greetings highlights the importance of maintaining gentility and exercising deference in everyday affairs. Politeness and civility are demonstrated by acknowledging vertical ranking between those who greet each other; sustaining propriety is determined by recognition of social status and by a heightened gender sensitivity which is ever present. Good manners are performed not only by following verbal codes scrupulously, such as tone of voice and word choice; non-verbal signals are just as important in the demonstration of Maasai etiquette; these include the posture adopted when a greeting is initiated, the adjustment of spatial distance and by whom once a greeting has commenced, the manner of shaking hands, as well as the length of time spent greeting.

The Unchanged and Unrepresented Culture of Respect in Maasai Society

The Unchanged and Unrepresented Culture of Respect in Maasai Society

The Role of Social Norms and Interactions in the Process of Learning-by-Doing: From the Ethnography of Daily Work, Play, and School Participation of Children in Contemporary Pastoralist Maasai Society in Southern Kenya

The Role of Social Norms and Interactions in the Process of Learning-by-Doing: From the Ethnography of Daily Work, Play, and School Participation of Children in Contemporary Pastoralist Maasai Society in Southern Kenya

Как кооперироваться в масайском обществе, или не злите масайских женщин

Как кооперироваться в масайском обществе, или не злите масайских женщин

Maasai Girls’ Education Aspirations and Socio-Cultural Constraints: Reflections from Monduli Tanzania

The paper aimed to explore the Maasai girls’ education aspirations and the social cultural constraints they face in their effort towards acquiring formal education in Monduli, Tanzania. Capability Approach (CA) was used to guide the understanding of girls’ education aspirations. The study employed ethnographic research design by involving 30 participants across the community, including elders, parents, traditional leaders, children (school and out-of-school) and the district education officer. Participant observations and ethnographic interviews were used to collect data for a period of three months. Data were analysed thematically. As a result, the study revealed that girls and some other members in the Maasai society had positive views about girls’ education. Girls had education aspirations of acquiring specific careers like being nurses, teachers and doctors. Their aspirations were, however, constrained by some traditional beliefs and practices such as early marriage, girls’ circumcision and esoto (a night dance between young girls and the Moran). These traditional beliefs made the Maasai girls’ aspirations unfulfilled as they slowly found themselves accustomed to these traditional arrangements while losing the ability to develop capabilities they would need to attain their education aspirations. The study, thus, argues that obstacles that hinder attainment of girls’ aspirations on education need to be eliminated from the community. Formal education should enhance girl’s agency in order to develop the capabilities they need for their social functioning.

Ethnobotanical knowledge acquisition during daily chores: the firewood collection of pastoral Maasai girls in Southern Kenya

BackgroundResearchers considering children’s traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) highlighted the importance of examining children’s daily activities as empirical contexts for its acquisition. Many of them evaluated children’s TEK acquisition linearly as gain or loss, and paid less attention to the adaptive nature of this knowledge system and the social relationships arising from its acquisition processes. This study approaches children’s TEK acquisition considering these abovementioned aspects. I utilize pastoral Maasai girls’ firewood collection as a case study, and analyze the personal, interpersonal and cultural institutional aspects of girls’ Ethnobotanical knowledge (EK) acquisition within this chore.MethodsParticipant observation and unstructured interviews were used for data collection. I joined 12 girls (6 to 15 years old) on day trips for firewood collection, and documented their participation and performance during this chore. I observed interactions among girls and between girls and women concerning this activity, and investigated girls’ perceptions of local wood species via their descriptions. I also informally interviewed 15 women, between 20 and 80 years old on their evaluation of the wood species to be used as firewood.ResultsCurrent diet change and gender-age roles in chore participation in Maasai society require females to continually participate in firewood collection. Within this social context, girls intensively participated in day trips of firewood collection during the long-term vacation in the dry season. They collected a sizable amount from 24 plant species, and generated EK through personal sensual experiences, such as fragrance, hardness, and heaviness of different wood species. They acquired local taxonomy and terminology of different wood species, and learned others preferences for wood species used as fuel through interpersonal communication. These personal and interpersonal aspects, together with current diet change and division of labor within gender-age roles in Maasai society, provide EK with multi-dimensional meanings in current subsistence strategies.ConclusionsResults of this study show that girls acquired EK with multi-dimensional meanings through daily firewood collection, which cannot be only evaluated in a linear manner. Future studies focused on children’s TEK acquisition should consider the personal, interpersonal, and cultural institutional aspects of this adaptive knowledge system and children’s roles within it.

Ethnobiological knowledge generation during “herding games” in pastoralist Maasai society (southern Kenya)

Savoir ethnobiologique engendré durant les « jeux de conduite de troupeau » dans la société Maasai pastoraliste (sud Kenya). Cet article explore la production du savoir ethnobiologique relatif au bétail par les enfants Maasai du sud du Kenya, à travers des jeux de conduite de troupeau. Dans la communauté Maasai qui continue à utiliser et à gérer collectivement les terres, les enfants prennent part activement aux tâches quotidiennes liées au bétail, lesquelles servent de cadre à la production du savoir ethnobiologique. Pendant le jeu, les enfants mettent en pratique et communiquent leurs compétences relatives au bétail, tout en les ajustant aux conditions sociales et environnementales actuelles, et en mettant en scène les relations sociales qu’ils découvrent au fil de leurs tâches quotidiennes. L’étude met en lumière la pertinence du jeu dans la construction du savoir ethnobiologique dans des contextes sociaux pastoraux durant les jeux de bétail. Ce faisant, les enfants contribuent à l’enrichissement des relations homme-bétail-environnement dans la société Maasai actuelle.

P2-S9.01 The impact of customs and sexual practices on young Maasai women's ability to negotiate their sexual and reproductive health in relation to HIV and AIDS in Loitokitok, Kenya

This research investigated the ways in which Maasai culture, as practiced in a rural and relatively isolated area of Kenya, impacted upon the transmission of HIV/AIDS. The author focused her...

Maasai couples seek safer solutions to infertility

Q: How prevalent is infertility in the Maasai community ? A: When I started working at Endulen Hospital (in 2008) not one patient reported infertility problems to me. Since then, the number of cases has been increasing slowly, as a result of increased trust and willingness to report the problem. By May 2010, 25% of the female patients at my outpatient consultations were reporting an inability to conceive. All can be epidemiologically defined as infertility cases, as these women had had unprotected sexual intercourse for more than two years. However, no study on the prevalence of infertility has been conducted in this area. Q: Why is infertility so high in this community? A: Many of the women that I have counselled on infertility had a history of a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Factors that are known to increase the risk of STIs include having had the first sexual contact at an early age and multiple sexual partners, combined with a polygamous marriage structure. Condom use--to prevent STIs--is low, as many Maasai people believe it is a waste of semen. But STIs are not the only cause of infertility. Tuberculosis and unsafe delivery practices can also cause infertility. Q: Is infertility a new problem for the Maasai people? A: No. Traditionally, Maasai society has developed creative solutions to infertility. If a woman did not conceive, her husband often permitted her to have sexual relationships with other men. Sometimes she went on a special journey for this purpose. If the woman conceived, the children were regarded as her bus band's children. But people are realizing more and more that this traditional solution can lead to health problems, such as HIV. Couples are therefore looking for safer solutions to overcome infertility. Q: What is the attitude to infertile women ? A: Women have limited say over money and goods. It is very important for a woman to have a husband or male relative to take care of her. Having children affirms her blessed relation to Engai [God], strengthens the relationship with the children's father and can secure inheritance of cattle via her sons. Traditionally, men hold decision-making power in Maasai society. They own the cattle, which are the main source of both food and income. If women do not have a husband or are not well taken care of, which is often true of infertile women, they may feel forced to ask for support from another man in return for transactional sex, and this creates new risks. Q: Do safer infertility treatment options exist for this community ? A: Risky sexual behaviour has been used to solve fertility problems for a long time in this community. Changing this will be difficult and can only be achieved in time, with education about prevention, diagnostic options and treatment so that people have an alternative to traditional solutions to infertility. Otherwise, infertile couples put themselves at risk of STIs, including HIV infection. At Endulen Hospital ultrasound services, semen evaluation and counselling are available. More advanced infertility treatment options are available in Arusha, about a one-day journey away. Q: What sort of programmes are in place? A: Endulen Hospital runs health education programmes, which include reproductive health, in secondary schools. Adolescents that do not go to school are hard to reach as they are mostly away with the cattle during the day. The hospital deploys extensive outreach clinics in child and maternal health by car and plane. On top of this, hospital staff sets up special campsites in remote corners of our catchment area. The staff then travels around in the area to offer voluntary counselling, testing and care for HIV, as well as education on STI prevention. Currently, these programmes do not educate people on the link with prevention of infertility. Q: You talk about Maasai women and infertility, what about the men ? …

Disruptive Discourses: Kenyan Maasai Schoolgirls Make Themselves

Author(s): Switzer, Heather | Abstract: This abridged discussion of Maasai schoolgirls and disruptive discourses comes from my dissertation (in progress), Making the Maasai Schoolgirl: Developing Modernities on the Margins, an ethnographic case study of development at the local level that examines an emergent social category in contemporary Kenyan Maasai society: the “schoolgirl.” It is only recently, in the past generation, that Maasai females have attended school in any number, and access remains relatively limited. The dissertation analyzes rural schoolgirls’ narratives of education and development in their daily lives, which are characterized by a contradictory resistance to ‘traditional’ gender norms and social forms. These narratives are embedded in larger questions regarding the transnational intersections of ethnicity, gender, and class in the formation of local identities in marginalized indigenous communities in postcolonial Kenya. The overall project relies on 98 interviews with Maasai schoolgirls ages 10-20 in nine primary government day schools in Kajiado District, Kenya. From this larger work, this short discussion thinks gender by examining the practical effects of two central disruptive discourses--thetensions between mainstream development’s “girl-child” and the Maasai “schoolgirl” and the articulation of futurity and the limits of the aspirational horizon of desire—as they play out within a neoliberal developmentalist discursive regime.

Women as heads of houses: The organization of production and the role of women among Pastoral Maasai in Kenya*

The Maasai are cattle pastoralists, living on the grass savanna in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. This article, which deals with Kenya, describes Maasai women as “heads of houses”. The house as a physical structure shelters and symbolically embodies a matrofocal unit of consumption and resource sharing which is the smallest unit of Maasai society. In terms of livestock property, such units are subordinated to larger, patriarchal units. According to the author, the relative autonomy of Maasai houses, and in particular women's control over food resources is significantly decreasing. The reason for this is the present commercialization of Maasai production.

Stock theft and moral economy in colonial Kenya

Opening ParagraphFrom the earliest years of colonial government in Kenya, cattle raiding by Africans against their neighbours, and in particular livestock thefts from European farmers, presented the administration with their most persistent policing problem in the rural areas of the colony. As the period of colonial rule in Kenya was drawing to a close, reported cases of stock theft were once again showing a sharp increase, climbing from 1578 cases in 1955 to 4243 in 1962 (Kenya Police Dept, 1955 and 1962). In a pattern by then familiar to the Kenya administration, this prompted the renewal of demands from the European settler community for more extensive and concerted government action to deal with the activities of the thieves. Settler opinion held that the continuing prevalence of stock theft had much to do with the ‘social prestige’ attached to the crime in many African communities. The unwillingness of the African public to assist in the prevention and detection of stock theft had long been interpreted as a tacit sanctioning of such theft, leading to the conclusion that, within the ‘moral economy’ of many African communities, stock theft was not thought of as a crime at all. ‘After all,’ commented the Provincial Commissioner of the Rift Valley Province in 1959, ‘stock theft is the traditional sport of the young men of many tribes, and the elders cannot be expected to act as kill-joys and stamp it out unless they themselves are liable to suffer.’ This view was applied most readily to the pastoralists of the Rift Valley and western Kenya, the Maasai and Kalenjin, who were commonly involved in crimes of this sort. The belief that stock theft was an acceptable form of accumulation within Kalenjin and Maasai society determined the nature of the legislation put forward by the colonial administration to deal with the crime. Policing and punishment were accordingly based upon the notion of collective responsibility for acts of stock theft, with wide powers to extend collective punishments to families, villages and even entire locations found to be implicated in thefts.

Pollution and pastoral antipraxis: the issue of Maasai inequality

The issue of the inequality of specialized classes in pastoral Maasai society is discussed in relation to Mary Douglas's theoretical contribution to the analysis of pollution. The Douglas view, which would emphasize the social marginality and classificatory ambiguity of Maasai hunters, blacksmiths, and diviners is criticized as leaving unexplained their multiple forms of pollution and the origin of their distinctiveness. In contrast, this paper claims that these classes lie at the symbolic genesis of pastoral identity, through involvement in forms of “antipraxis,” necessary to yet structurally contrasting to the ideal of pastoralism. Pollution and inequality are thus primary values, not secondary manifestations, that dialectically constitute, rather than reflect, the symbolic order of Maasai productive classes.

The Maasai Warriors: pattern maintenance and violence in colonial Kenya

This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior (moran) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of themoransystem; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and theiresprit de corps.