UNREST IN EAST AFRICA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue LXI, 12 July 1930, Page 11 (Supplement)

UNREST IN EAST AFRICA.

TROUBLE BREWING IN KENYA. THE WAELIEE MASAI. TRADITIONAL ANTAGONISMS. (By B. TREMLETT.) The unrest in East Africa, threatening of late to break out into an inter-tribal war, is due to an ancient and traditional antagonism between the two tribes, Masai and Lumbwa.

In the present case it appears to be the young men of Lumbwa who are indulging in an outbreak of lawlessness, but it is generally known to settlers in Kenya and Tanganyika territory that the Masai are the most warlike of the East African natives. They are nevertheless very aloof, and while they may sub»ufc to the ruling of their own chiefs they take less kindly to European administration.

A Masai villag* it not the somewhat scattered collection of native huts usually met with. There k a hint of the fortress about the oblong formation of mud-plastered, semi-detached huts, acting as a kind of stockade to protect their cattle, which are herded into the enclosure in the centre at nightfall. Nor is this merely a precaution taken against lion and leopard, but also against their neighbours in the Lumbwa reserve who may attempt cattle thefts. Apparently they are happy to remain in this precarious and uncivilised state. And there the difficulty lies for those in authority who do their best not only to instil law and order into the minds" of these warlike tribes, but also to avert actual bloodshed. Even in these more enlightened days they do not thank you for any kind of interference whereby they are hindered from sharpening their j spears and furbishing up their shields; the Masai are noted for the primitive weapons of defence.

Until comparatively recent times no young Masai was considered a man among his own people until he had blooded his spear, and this meant but one thing—the killing of a man. The white man, whose task it is to dircrt these people's inhuman customs into a different channel, is faced with the direct

problem m to how to act without making matters even worse. Dealing with a race which is hide-bound for centuries past with superstition for their chief god, it is hard to realise how incredibly sacred to them is the keeping of these old-time traditions, however gruesome. But much has been accomplished, and of late years the young Masai becomes a hero and a full-blown warrior at the killing of his first lion.

Unlike the Swahili native, who lives mainly on cereal food, the Masai are a meat-eating people, living in cattle country free from tsetse-fly. Not only do they kill their cattle for meat, but they are also known to tap them for their blood without actually harming them. Indeed, civilisation does not appeal as yet to the Masai warrior.

They are an independent and selfcontained race, desirous of keeping to themselves above everything, and with no wish to understand European customs and acquire knowledge or even money.

Even in the Great War, during the East African campaign, the Masai kept aloof and disinterested from what they evidently considered no quarrel of theirs. For the fighting on the frontier in the early stages they were used as guides and runners, having an amazing capacity for finding their way in a country which

would appear to «• peculiarly drroH. erf landmarks, and also abl* to keep up a speedy, shuffling gait for long distances.

The Masai wa,rrlor still represents a fine picture of an African native, yet a strange aboriginal-like creature, never parted from his long steel spear, practically without clothing, and his entire body smothered in a queer coppery pigment made from, red day soil, even to his hair, which is caked and plastered in the same way. The women wear innumerable brass and copper bangles; in some cases so tightly fitting as to have almost grown into the flesh of their arms or legs. It its also a mark of beauty for the lobes of their ears to have been so weighted down that they drop nearly to the shoulders,,

It is to be wondered how much longer these people will be content to live in this primitive state, while others of their colour who have been to the coast and tasted life in more civilised surroundings are trying to ape the white man. At least the warlike tribes of the uplands have not lacked respect from their black brothers in the past. They have always been the overlords; can you then wonder that the Masai warrior clings hard to the old-time traditions that to him mean the glory of his race? —{"Star" and A.A.KS. Copyright.)