Maasai Village Visit

Our tour company arranged a visit to a traditional Maasai village.  (Our guide called such sites “tourist villages.”) As we drove up, we were greeted with song and dance by men of the village wearing Maasai garb. 

The red plaid robe is called an alkarasha.

One blew notes on a traditional horn.

The men took turns at the adumu dance, the jumping dance performed by the morani, or young warriors and protectors of the village, who perform the adumu for initiations, rites of passage, and weddings. The dance is a competition, whereby the moran who jumps highest receives the greatest esteem and bragging rights for his display of strength and masculinity. 

Tourists were invited to join in, and Deb accepted the challenge.

The village elder brought out his lion headdress and let Deb try it on.  In the past, Maasai boys proved their manhood by killing a lion—killing lions is now illegal; the headdress was so old most of the fur had worn off.

We were invited inside the boma—the fence of sticks and poles that surround the village—and inside one of the houses.

The houses are made of sticks and poles and plastered with cow dung.

The village we visited had two elders, brothers, one with eight wives and one with seven.  Traditionally, prestige among Maasai is determined by the number of children a man has and the number of cattle.  There were 75 people living in the village, we were told, wives and children of the elders.  When a man takes a wife, he brings her to his village and with the help of the women of the village, she builds her own house.  The house we visited had three main rooms: a sleeping room for the wife (and husband when he visited), one for the children, a central room for cooking and other activities and several smaller rooms.   I was told that the houses last about ten years before they need to be rebuilt. 

The villagers were dressed in finery and posed for the tourists.

When we came out of the house, the men put on a demonstration I had never been convinced worked: rubbing sticks together to start a fire.

But sure enough, by spinning the olive stick in a hole in the board, they started a fire in less time than it takes to tell about it. 

And then they offered to sell us fire-starter kits for US$20, and also other Maasai crafts and jewelry.  A villager told me they entertain five to ten tour groups every day.

We returned to our lodging at Mara Leisure Camp where we were housed in tents, luxurious compared to the traditional Maasai homes.