MASAI TRIBE, FIERCEST IN ALL AFRICA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6810, 14 January 1929, Page 8

MASAI TRIBE, FIERCEST IN ALL AFRICA

Has Many Unpleasant Customs WAR DANCE FOft THE PRINCE Wiieu the Prince of Wales recently visited Nairobi, Kenya Colony, the Masai tribesmen entertained him with a war dance. Amid roaring war whoops the tribesmen, hidden behind their large shields, menacingly wiolded their spears in a way which showed the Prince why explorers avoid Masai villages when the tribesmen are on the warpath. "The Masai are one of' the fiercest tribes in Africa,” says a bulletin from the Washington headquarters of the National Geographic Society. “While members of the tribe near Nairobi have been tamed by British and missionary influence and have settled down on plantations, their relatives in the hills of western Kenya still spend their time raiding neighbouring tribes when not tending, their herds. “A Masai village is a military barracks. At the call of the chref, the young warriors don lions manes which they wear about their heads, and, perhaps, a string of beads. With spears and leather shields as their only arms, they set out to attack the ‘enemy.’ The Masai begins his military career at sixteen. When he is thirty, he becomes an elder, settles down, and has as many wives as he desires. The furniture in his home of mud-plastered sticks costs no more than his haberdashery. Over an open fireplace hangs an iron kettle while additional utensils are made of gourds. A long gourd is a Masai milk can and half-gourds aro used for cups. Some of the huts have a three-legged stool or two for the older tribesmen. Spitting is “Pipe of Peace.’’ “Even when the Masai is not on the warpath, the traveller would be inclined to avoid him for sanitary reasons. Spitting upon a visitor is a sign of reverence and good will among some of the tribesmen. Everyone who sees a newborn baby must spit on it. If a warrior is friendly, he spits on his hand before greeting a stranger. “Outside the villages, one might stumble upon the skeleton of a tribesman whose body has been left to tha Ivyenaa, jackals, and vultures. Only the chief of the tribo deserves a burial. After a chief has been buried for a year the son of his successor digs up the old chief’s skull, which is a treasured possession in the village. “The tribesmen’s wives presiding over his hut jingle with every move. Their legs and arms are covered with dozens of wire rings. These adornments and a dozen or more rings encircling their necks sometimes weigh between fifteen and twenty-five pounds. Both men and women are froquently seen with wood cylinders and tin cans in their distended ear lobes. “Masai tribesmen have been almost impossible to convert from nature worship. When the chief would invoke the pleasure of the gods all the children in the village stand in a circle and chant. Grass is sacred to the tribesmen. If a Masai hands a stranger a tuft of green grass it suggests friendship. When young warriors start out on raids their sweethearts throw grass upon them to ensure victory. The hyena has a certain sacred character.* If a beast happens to cross the path of a warrior the whole tribe goes in mourning. The python is held in veneration, for they believe the souls of their ancestors are reborn in them. Some tribesmen worship a black and a red god. The black god is benevolent, living immediately above the earth, while the red god lives further up in the heavens. When the Masai hear thunder they believe the red god is trying to get through the domain of the black god. The rumbling is the voice of the black god pleading with the red god not to harm the tribesmen below.

“The Masai hate, agriculture in their native environment. They are cattle herders when not on the warpath and live entirely upon the food their herds provide. It is a common practice to drink warm blood immediately after it has been drawn from a cow shot with tn arrow through the jugular vein.” .