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The Masai People of Kenya and Tanzania
The Masai people commonly written Maasai make up one of the numerous varied African tribes inhabiting most of northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. In Kenya, they are located in three counties, specifically Samburu, Kajiado, and Narok. Smaller groups like the Njemps (Ilchamus) reside around Laikipia District and Lake Baringo. In Tanzania, the huge population inhabits Kiteto, Monduli, Ngorongoro, kilimanjaro and Longido. The Maasai (or Maa) natives are pastoralists fall under the plain Nilotes ethnic group. Even though the ethnic group has urbanized in recent times from their nomadic, pastoral, and warrior ways of life into a more developed people, the traditions that exemplify their culture and their everyday lives stay virtually unchanged. This paper provides an overview of the Maasai identity, culture, as well as their political and social structure as it is associated with a typical Maasai culture. 1. Language and dialects
There are various Maasai subdivisions found in their dialect, geographical locations, and socio-territorial. The Maasai converse in Maa language. The language has two inner subdivisions; the Ilsampur (Samburu), and Maasai. Maasai people live jointly amid two different kraals types. The enkang is the first type of kraal, which is a place where married people reside with their relations. The enkang is made of approximately thirty to fifty shelters usually huts surrounded by a rounded thorn fence. Every family includes one or two entrance in the fence. The huts of the wives are situated on every side of the main hut; the odd numbered ones get the gate’s right side, whereas the wives who are even numbered are positioned on the gate’s left side.
The manyatta is the second kind of kraal where young males groups reside together with their sisters and mothers upon their circumcision. The manyattas are made up of sixty to a hundred shelters (usually huts) that home lots of people. Unlike the enkang, the manyatta does not have fences surrounding them. 2. Marriage customs, Rites of passage, Religions, death
There are a number of rites of passage that go along with precise rituals for every rite that stand for significant phases of a Maasai's existence. These rites of passage comprise of birth and babyhood, youth, warriorhood for boys and marriage ceremony for girls, matrimony and parenthood for males and parenthood for females, elder hood, and finally death. Pregnancy is a blissful occurrence since a big family is much loved. If it is the first pregnancy for a woman, a ritual is carried out at some point of the eighth month of the pregnancy. The pregnant woman will dress in a sheepskin skirt and shawl and will cover the blood and all over her body as a sign of purity. The woman will gulp water from a gourd and put on a grass ornament made by an old woman in the kin; the water and grass are taken to be lucky things. All the women, including her and children of that homestead will consume the ribs of a single side and the arms of the goat that is slaughtered by her spouse that daybreak (Priest 84-5).
Ahead of a child's first birthday, a baptism rite is held. Very early in the first light of the ritual, the mother picks an animal, either a bull or a goat, and the men direct it to the woods where it is killed for a feast. The children are cleaned properly, and the women put on their finest, most gorgeous beadwork. The child and the mother shave their heads indicating the child's foremost haircut and the mother’s first ever since the delivery of the child. The entrance of the mother's manyatta is closed off with bushes and twigs pending the day of the naming ritual, when she can clear it. When the livestock come back home and go in through the entrance, the ceremony formally begins. The aged are responsible for giving the child a name since they are taken to be consecrated and wise. (Priest 86-7)
The subsequent big rite of passage is youth and entails circumcision of both young men and women. The girls are circumcised at the beginning of puberty and boys amid the ages of eleven and fourteen. When the men have been initiated, they leave to go and dwell with the other circumcised men of the clan, staying in the manyatta. They put on women's jewelry and clothing that has been colored black and fixed firmly on one shoulder, with a thread of cowries fixed around their waist to maintain the dress in at the right place. Through this moment in time, the young men attain warrior status (Adamson 224).
Two months subsequent to the female circumcision, she is permitted to put on multicolored beads on her forehead and matrimony plans commence. The marriage of a young woman is prearranged many years ago by her parents and her suitor's father. The suitor takes an ox to the girl's family that is believed to be holy. The ox is butchered at the entrance and skinned. The hide is offered to the mother of the bride (Priest 89). Maasai men get married to multiple wives, as numerous as they able to afford. (Adamson 224) many wives, children, and livestock are a symbol of enormous wealth amongst the Maasai people. (Priest 90)
There are quite a lot of other rites of passage that are marked with different rituals amid marriage and elderhood, all entailing the slaughtering of animals, may it be a goat, sheep or a cow, as well as a fertility ceremony and a purification ceremony of the males. The rite of passage towards elderhood is another important mark in the existence of a Maasai. The senior elders are not responsible for making decisions, as it might be thought. This task is the responsibility of the grown-up men. At the age sixty, men and women develop into elders. They are requested to make decisions anymore, but are now consulted for wisdom. They are significant to diverse rituals for the reason that their attendance gives the holiness to the ceremonies (Priest 99-100).
The Maasai thoroughly carry out their religiosity by offering sacrifices to their God ( Enkai), when the community is experiencing difficult circumstances that obligates divine intercession and in times of protracted drought, Enkai (God) is offered sacrifices to soothe him for downpour. The Maasai can be considered monotheistic (Hodgson, 2004). Enkai is a lone divinity with a double character: Black God ( Enkai Narok) who is kind, sympathetic, and caring and Red God (Enkai Nanyokie) who can be revengeful and harmful (Hodgson, 2004). The Black God and Red God stand for diverse features of Enkai; they are not two split gods (Hodgson, 2004). The Maasai accept as true that Enkai is the creator and originator of everything in the world. In prayers, Enkai is professed as the one who is exceptional and all-knowing, immanent and magnificent, great and blameless and, still personal and obliging to the human race.
Customary death rituals implicated only leaving a dead body in the forest for wild animals to eat to eat; nevertheless, the observance of burial has turned out to be more broadly used. The corpse was covered with a skin of a specific animal, dependent on the position of the individual who died. An ox is slaughtered when an adult or elderly man dies. The body is covered with the hide after being lathered up in the fat of the ox. Leather flip-flops are made out of the hide of the ox and put on the feet of the corpse. The corpse is buried, located on its side envisaging east. When a female dies, a black ram is slaughtered, and she is covered in the customary ritual sheepskin. Her corpse is also lathered up in the fat from the sheep, and her beadwork is taken off before she is laid to rest. If the woman did not have children, or a child or warrior dies, no animal is killed. If an infant dies, it is lathered up in milk and the head is shaved clean. If a ceremony head dies, the corpse is buried and sheltered with stones. From time to time, upon transitory one of these rock graves, the person walking by might add one more stone to the heap. (Priest 100-101) 3. Status of men, women, children, the elderly
The Maa people do not pursue wildlife, apart from lions during the initiation period, but as an alternative live off of the milk and meat from their herds of cattle. They, in addition, do some farming, growing mainly maize, tomatoes, beans, and tobacco. It’s the women’s duty to milk the cows and carry out farming, amongst other chores. When there is an abundance of milk for her relatives, Maasai women trade their milk for money, which they may use to purchase beads and additional materials essential for crafting school uniforms and jewelry for their children. Kids from the age of four to five are expected to assist in caring and herding cattle. Some families let their children go to school. Girls who approach teenage years do less herding and use more time assisting their mothers with their siblings, fetching water and gathering firewood, as well as cooking. 4. Political structure, Economic system, Social organization
The Maasai family unit is a strongly knit household unit in which all constituents have distinct responsibilities. Each member not only represents a societal arrangement, but they are also an economic aspect in all families. The arrangement is in such a way that every family, including the extensive relatives resides in a common homestead meant for economic and psychosocial support plus security. The male was the family's head and had total power to decide his children partners. In rare cases, a close relative or the mother might also contribute; depending on the relations strength among the family entity. The girl-child does not have a say on the option of a husband or suitor. In terms of the right to property, the girl-child can have the right to use the possessions but not any right to hereditary of property from her parents’ house. This is regarded as a safety measure for the reason that she will be married someday as accepted by her family and will go to her husband’s kraal. 5. Attitudes of ethnicity and race
The Maasai people are renowned for their very intriguing nature and their simple lives with no technologies or modern machineries. They have become skilled at living off of the resources given to them by nature and are successful and happy in doing so. Their customs are closely and intently followed, and their sense of loyalty and community living that is in their midst is exceptional.

Works Cited
Adamson, Joy. The Peoples of Kenya. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York: 1967. Kaplan,
Hodgson, Dorothy Louise. Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Cultural Politics of Maasai Development. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print.
Hogg, R. (1992). Should pastoralism continue as a way of life? Disasters, 16 (2), 131-137.
Kaplan, Irving, and D.C. Washington. Area Handbook for Kenya. 2d ed. Washington: For Sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1976. Print.
Linden, E. "Lost Tribes, Lost Knowledge." Lost Tribes, Lost Knowledge. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/abacus/lost-tribes-lost-knowledge.html>.
Priest Jr., Doug. Doing Theology with the Maasai. William Carey Library, California: 1990.