“But if I remain, Chaggi, and if I ask the authority to make you once more chief of your own people, can I count upon you to refrain from raiding the Suk ever again?”
“Is there a maggot in my brain, Effendi?” Chaggi’s fore-finger was placed against his temple in an expressive manner!
I asked the son of Aijigwa whether he had any desire to return to the raiding habits as of old. “Certainly not!” said this young chief.
“Then why is Chaggi so keen on it?”
“Effendi, you will with difficulty understand the Turkana. Chaggi has become a chief whilst retaining the heart of a young warrior. It is the young women, the girls of our tribe, who incite the young men to deeds of bravery and the blooding of their spears! That is the thing you should seek to change, Effendi; find something else for the girls and the young Moran to do. But Chaggi has never grown up; he is the bravest of the brave, but his heart remains the heart of a young warrior in the breast of a chief.”
I reinstated Chaggi with the most reluctant consent of my own superiors.
The Desert and the Green Earl of Lytton.
Dickson, a Maasai schoolboy living near Nairobi in the mid 1980s, tried to combine lion hunts and cattle raids with schooling and cities.
The Keekonyokie moran numbered more than a thousand and ranged in age from about fifteen to twenty-five. The older moran lived in the manyattas, which their mothers built. There were elders around to give instruction on the social order, and mothers to act as chaperons for the uncircumcised girls who stayed with the boys. The moran competed at wrestling and club throwing and practised with spears, swords and shields; at night they danced and sang with the girls. Hairdressing was another preoccupation; the upkeep of a moran’s hairdo required long hours of tedious work. Bits of wool had to be twisted into the hair to lengthen it for styling into the moran’s distinctive plaits. Dickson’s friend Runges, a senior moran, wore a tight plait that hung to his shoulder blades.
Dickson once wrote out for me a list of rules for moran, most of which were designed to instill discipline and group spirit. Moran were not allowed to eat or drink alone, or to drink milk at their family bomas. I asked him about the rule that forbids moran to have sex with circumcised women – or to eat meat that the women have seen or handled – and he acknowledged that the sex prohibition was not strictly followed. The moran referred to their secret affairs as “night traveling”.
The traditional duties of the moran were to defend the tribe and restock the herds through cattle raids. But since there were no more wars to fight, except an occasional border skirmish, he said the moran mostly roamed about in small competitive bands, stealing cattle, hunting lions and building up reputations.
Dickson had been on lion hunts, the most recent a “fantastic adventure” in which twenty-eight moran took part. With bells strapped to their thighs, they had hiked to a remote area and made camp. Throughout the night they heard roaring; nobody slept. At dawn, they scattered across the countryside. When one group spotted a male lion, they shouted for the others. A senior moran ordered some to hold back, in case the first group’s spears missed their mark. But the back-up regiments – including Dickson’s – objected: everyone wanted a chance to throw the first spear and claim the lion’s mane, or to snare the tail as a prize. Ignoring the command, the moran charged forward. Dickson threw his spear quickly, but the lion jumped out of the way. A second moran hit the lion’s chest, and a shower of other spears followed. The lion sprang, and within seconds two moran were on the ground bleeding and groaning. The wounded lion lay beside them, writhing and near death. All eyes were on the unclaimed tail. Several scrambled to hack it off. When it was certain the lion was dead, the scalp and mane, which rightfully belonged to one of the wounded boys, were sawed off. The moran then loaded their injured friends onto their backs, taking turns carrying them, and hiked to a road where they flagged down a passing truck to take them to the district hospital. The wounded boys were soon back in action, proudly showing off their scars.
Dickson said the highlight of moran life was olpul, the meat-feasting camps at which the moran gorged on meat to build up strength before a lion hunt or a cattle raid. To bolster their courage, the moran also drank a special “soup” made from herbs, roots and bark that acted as a narcotic to rouse their aggression. High on this soup, they were ready to face lions.
Once, at Saikeri, I happened to see several moran who had taken the brew. They behaved as if they were having seizures, flew into fits of hysteria, made strange choking sounds and foamed at the mouth; two of them fell on the ground rigid. At first I assumed it was mere acting, since all the moran have a theatrical air about them. But Joseph, Noah and Dickson assured me the soup was powerful, and the frenzy was “real”. In severe cases, often at ceremonies, little girls were made to sit across the fallen moran’s legs, an act that generally restored them to consciousness.
“Once you start shaking, you can’t stop,” Dickson said, and added that drinking the soup also brought on sweating and headaches, and sometimes a hangover.
After his circumcision, Dickson was invited for the first time to attend an olpul in the forest with his older brother and his friends. Neighbouring bomas donated eight bulls for the feast, and the moran had slaughtered and eaten two of them when he arrived from school. Dickson did not drink the soup but watched the others. “First, they started shaking and bragging about how great they were,” he said. “Then they decided to go on a cattle raid.” He stayed behind to tend the camp. Later that night, the moran returned with seventeen stolen cows. The cows belonged to a high-ranking Kenya Army officer who later sent helicopters to search the bush for them. When the cattle were not located, the officer made a radio plea for the return of four of the cows that had recently calved. Some Maasai elders heard the news in Ngong and relayed the message to the moran, who, for the sake of the calves, complied, leaving the four where they were easily found. They kept the rest.
There came a time when the warrior had to lay aside his spear, renounce love-making with the maidens and settle down to marriage and the raising of a family. The Eunoto ceremony marked the graduation of the warrior to the status of a junior elder. This event, which took place near Ngong in the mid 1980s, may have been the last Eunoto ever to be held.
The ceremony began in late October, on a full moon. A strong, hot wind was blowing across the plains. The air was heavy with dust. The Keekonyokie moran were to arrive in regiments – in stately single-file processions of twenty or thirty at a time – from Euaso, Saikeri, Narok, Nairragie-Enkare and the Kaputei plains. Hundreds of celebrants had gathered at the manyatta to await them. At first, you could not see them. There was only the distant trumpeting of kudu horns and the clang of bells strapped to the warriors’ thighs. A deep chanting grew louder as they finally appeared on the plains, still far in the distance. They approached the manyatta with a slow, rhythmic step, their footfalls resounding with bells, and paraded into the manyatta, some in head-dresses made of black ostrich feathers or lions’ manes. They wore red cloths tied around their hips, some ornamented with spangles; many had ritual scars, like welts, in patterns across their chests. Their ornate hairdos were caked with grease and red ochre; the same paint had been applied to their legs in swirling patterns. With each step they thrust forward chins, the movement coinciding with a deep bass grunt – Hhooohn! Hhooohn! Hhooohn! – a warlike sound, which in the old days was fair warning to all who heard it.
Letangwua, dressed in a full-length cape of dark hyrax fur, stood with commanding dignity, reviewing the troops as they circled inside the manyatta. The moran looked straight ahead, with expressions of grave and sullen pride that seemed remarkable, even for the Maasai. The women and girls backed away a respectful distance….
By late afternoon, all of the moran had arrived. It was the first time the entire group had come together since the ceremony preceding their circumcisions. There were predictable skirmishes between rival groups – pushing, shoving, wrestling – and some wa
rriors restrained their comrades from inflicting injuries on each other or themselves. No emotions were held in reserve. Some moran trembled and writhed on the ground, high on the potent herbal brews concocted in the bush.
No one was seriously hurt, but the women fled the manyatta. Joseph broke up fights and told his friends to “act sensibly”. When the moran were worn out, they assembled outside the manyatta where the elders gave final instructions. The old men waved their clubs and fly whisks and sternly warned that ancient differences were to be put aside in the interests of peace and community. The moran half listened and worked on each other’s hair plaits. Some held hands or draped their arms around each other’s shoulders. Many were quite young, their military service cut short by the early graduation. Some were schoolboys who had joined up at the last minute. But Dickson’s friends, including Runges, were men in their early twenties who had spent years in the bush. With long pigtails and flinty eyes, they seemed of another era, and their swagger and belligerence intimidated the younger moran….
That evening, as the wind died down, I set up a tent outside the manyatta, made a fire and watched the full moon rise. In the darkness, the valley seemed to draw in on itself, and the flanking mountains stood like a wall barring the outside world. The sky thickened with stars; I was sorry Noah had not come with me.
Most of the moran left the manyatta for the night to drink more of their powerful herbal soup and sleep in bush camps. The older men were singing drunkenly in their huts. A few children ran around in the dark, too excited to sleep, and several boys tried to calm a moran who cried out for others to join in a lion hunt. Around nine o’clock I noticed a reddish-brown stain spreading across the face of the moon.
A string had been tied around the perimeter of the manyatta as a symbolic protection against bad luck, and I climbed under it and went inside. The Maasai were watching the moon with surprise, some with fear; it seemed the eclipse was unexpected, and troubling. A full white moon is auspicious for the holding of major ceremonies, but when the moon disappears – “dies” – the Maasai become circumspect. The moon’s dark phase is symbolic of death, and significant activities are curtailed at that time to avoid the possibility of bad luck.
The shadow on the moon – the color of ochre – continued to creep. I stood with Joseph, his mother and some of his school friends from Saikeri, all of us looking up at this strange sight. The Maasai were silent, then some of the women cried out. “The moon has died!” Others began singing a song which tells the legend that links the moon with death.
An elder scorned the women’s concern. “This is nothing new; I have seen such a thing before.”
“It is blood from the war in Uganda spoiling the moon!” another man yelled.
The moran began trembling. “It is a curse,” one of them said bitterly. Others shouted, “Enemies have cursed our ceremony!” Some proposed going on a cattle raid, before it was too late.
An old woman sobbed. “These moran are right – the world is ending! We will all die!”
An elder shouted her down. “It might be a good thing,” he said. “It is a message from Engai that the Maasai should not be ending moranship.”
A schoolboy who was with Joseph said, “It is only an eclipse, a natural thing.”
Letangwua seemed to agree. “Calm down, go back to your huts!” he ordered. I returned to my campfire. At midnight the moon was completely dark, and the air was still.
Maasai Days Cheryl Bentsen.
The ceremony lasted for four or five days and involved much dancing, singing, consumption of mead and emotional fits intensified by the broth of herbs favoured by the moran. Bulls were sacrificed, the morans’ locks shorn, their bodies decorated, and a ceremonial pilgrimage took place to the summit of Mount Suswa. Finally the participants were blessed by the elders and received a collective name – Ilmirisho, Those Who Will Not Be Defeated. A week or so later Joseph, one of the participants, lunched at a Nairobi restaurant with Cheryl Bentsen to celebrate his election as youth-wing chairman of the local branch of the ruling political party. He was employed as a salesman of veterinary medicines and was writing a book.
Courtship and Marriage
A Meru girl from north of Mount Kenya is fattened up for marriage (circa 1965).
We bumped across forbidding country for as far as even a Land Rover could go and then continued on foot, accompanied by the local headman. He guided us to a tiny hut which seemed deserted, for nobody answered our calls. While we were waiting for someone to turn up, the headman told us that here in Tigania a girl lives in seclusion for two years with an older woman who instructs her in her future duties and all that married life will entail. During this period the girl has to behave in a helpless manner, is only allowed to speak in a whisper, and has to keep her eyes downcast under a fringe of metal chains; she is made as fat as possible and, when she leaves the hut, has to be led by her “mother’s” hand and walk extremely slowly.
All this seemed to me to indicate a symbol of rebirth, the fringe across the eyes intimating that she has not yet learned to see, the whisper that she does not know how to speak, nor can she walk alone. During these two years she sometimes occupies herself by looking after a small child or making string-bags or ornamenting calabashes.
If her bridegroom wants to visit her during her seclusion, he has to bring costly presents, not only to her but also to her family; in consequence he cannot afford to see her often. At the end of the period he marries her within a week….
I hardly could believe what I now saw. When I entered the tiny hut I almost banged into a partition facing the entrance. After my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness inside, I realized that this was one of the walls of the girl’s sleeping room which was only just large enough for her to crouch in. On one side of the cubicle, between it and the outer wall of the round hut, was a small storage place for her belongings. The inside walls of the hut were plastered with mud on which representations of ornaments such as a man’s armlet made of buffalo horn or a design of women’s skirt-embroideries were painted.
Most intriguing were little mud receptacles, plastered like swallows’ nests on the wall and painted white. Each contained three different seeds, probably charms. I was told that these were taken away by the bridegroom when he finally came to get the girl. From the roof hung pieces of wood which, when burnt and allowed to smoulder, gave off a pleasant scent.
The girl herself was very plump and covered in a long, charcoal-blackened skin, decorated with cowries and blue seeds. Her head was shaven except for the top where the hair was shaped into a crown. From the back of her neck across her skull and hair ran a broad white mark painted with a strong-smelling substance, which was also painted on her nose. Her “mother” showed a similar line across her shaven head. In the girl’s hand I noticed a piece of string with many knots and was told these had to be unravelled by her bridegroom or his supporters before the marriage could be consummated.
The Peoples of Kenya Joy Adamson.
Polygamy is the norm in most parts of Africa. The women have often been the first to defend it.
Polygamy is of course an integral part of the tribal system. It is not merely a question of domestic arrangement, but of social organization. The poverty stricken condition of the “rich” white man in respect of wives aroused unfailing interest. My husband’s attempted explanation, “that a white woman preferred to have her husband to herself,” fell extremely flat. “Exactly an opposite view,” Mungé assured us as we sat round the camp fire, “obtained among the best people in Kikuyu. The first wife would soon say, ‘Why have I to do all the work; why do you not buy another wife?’”
“If,” she said, “there is much food or drink to get ready, it is very hard work for one, it is very easy for many.” The first wife also retains her pre-eminence, and her child is in any case regarded as the eldest, if it even should have been actually born after that of a later wife. She is usually about the same age as her husband; the man’s later wives are conside
rably younger than he is, and the older he grows the more difference there is in age between himself and his latest acquisition. Sentiment and prestige are thus on the side of being an early comer in the matrimonial establishment; on the other hand, some girls of a practical turn of mind prefer to marry older and richer men.
It is quite usual to come across a man with only one wife; many such exist, but this is by force of circumstance, and is a sign of poverty. Two or three wives is a fairly ordinary allowance, while the rich man has six or seven. The chief Karuri is said to have as many as sixty, who perform a useful office in looking after his interests in various parts of the country.
It is impossible to suppose that there are no heartburnings and jealousies in a homestead, but I have never heard of such, and the fact that each wife has her own hut, shamba, and independent establishment, places the whole on the footing of a village under one headman.
With a Prehistoric People W. S. and K. Routledge
A Swahili writer expresses a different point of view.
A man with two wives is in a difficulty. He has to foreswear himself every day to keep the peace between them, for between co-wives there is incessant jealousy. If he buys anything, he cannot come into the house to divide it. He must do so outside and then send each her portion. If he divides it indoors, there will be trouble. And food, too, he cannot eat a full meal at one house, because when he goes to the other and does not eat, there will be trouble. And sleep, he must share it equally, three nights here and three nights there, and whichever house he sleeps in, his wife must sleep with him. If he sleeps with one wife only, in the morning there is trouble. The other will complain to her parents that he does not sleep with her.
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 50