Cultural safari - Maasai Culture
The Maasai have come to represent Africa at its most primal, a fiercely independent tribe of legendary courage who sternly shun the modern world in favour of traditional rites and customs. The Maasai are undoubtedly one of the most famous traditional cultures on earth.
In recent years, the distinctive Maasai beading and decorative jewellrey have become a fashion item in the West, and remain one of the most popular items taken home by visitors to Kenya. So popular has Maasai beading become that many modern functional items, including watchstraps, belts, handbags and even mobile phone covers are being produced in Maasai designs.
The Maasai are indeed a truly independent and proud with a culture more complex and interesting than popular imagination would suggest. They once ranged widely across much of Southern and Central Kenya, extending north to Laikipia, and South across the border into Tanzania. Today most of the Maasai population lives throughout the South West of the country.
The Maasai have ancestral ties to the Samburu and the Njemps with whom they share a language Maa, from which the name Maasai comes. The Maasai are completely nomadic cattle herders, and it is only very recently that any move towards agriculture has become evident.
Cattle are very important to the Maasai, and are the subject of mystical beliefs and reverence. Maasai mythology tells of a time when the earth and sky were joined together, until they were suddenly torn apart, with only the wild fig trees left as bridges between the two. As a gift to the Maasai, God - calledEnkai sent herds of cattle down through these trees to earth.
