The Maasai

The Maasai are a nomadic people that originally migrated to Kenya and Tanzania from an area that is know today as Sudan. In many areas the Maasai still live a very traditional life and have stayed outside the mainstream development in Kenya. They are often seen as a symbol of “tribal” Kenya with their traditional red clothing and beaded ornaments.

The Maasai live by their livestock, cows, sheep and goats, cows being the single most important thing to the Maasai, believing that God gave them all the cattle in the universe. The Maasai family live in small settlements fenced from the wildlife and inside the fence they build their small houses from sticks and cow dung.

The Maasai community is strongly based on age groups. Each stage of life is decided by the promotion of successive generations to new positions of responsibility. The chief autocrat of the entire community is the ‘Laibon’, who decides when the time is right for the tribe’s age group rituals where each generation is elevated to a new level of seniority. Each level is characterized by a name, the youngest and fittest of a generation and the most elite warriors are known as Ilmorran. The various colours used in traditional Maasai beadwork represent different phases of life and can also denote major life events and even signal where one was born, which village they came from.