Maasai

The Maasai live in Kenya and northern Tanzania in East Africa near the Great Rift Valley. Traditionally, they have lived a seminomadic lifestyle, raising livestock in territory shared with African wildlife, such as lions, rhinos, and warthogs. While some have accepted modernization, many of the estimated 500,000 to 1 million Maasai continue to live much as their ancestors have for centuries. The Maasai people and their culture have drawn the interest of Western tourists. However, their name, images, and fashions have since been used to promote products in the Western world, which has led to an effort to help the Maasai regain control over their intellectual property.

Background

The Maasai speak an Eastern Nilotic language known as Maa. Maasai means "people who speak Maa." They were formerly known as the Masai, but this is an incorrect designation that came about when the British military encountered the Maasai in the 1890s. The Maasai are a Nilotic people, meaning they originated in the Nile River Valley and speak one of the many languages in the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Maasai would eventually live the farthest south of any of the Nilotic peoples.

Most of what is known about the Maasai's background is limited to the oral history passed down by members of the group. According to this history, the Maasai originally lived in the lower Nile River Valley near the area known as Lake Turkana. As a seminomadic people, the Maasai moved along with their livestock as needed to find food and water. During the fifteenth century, this nomadic wandering began to move them south. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they reached Tanzania and Northern Kenya.

The Maasai civilization was at its peak during the nineteenth century, when their warriors' prowess with spears and the orinka (a type of club) made them a fearsome adversary. According to the Maasai's religious beliefs, their god gave them the right to all cattle, so they raided cattle across a large area of Kenya. By 1852, the Maasai were spread throughout most of Kenya, posing a threat to other local peoples.

Things became much harder for the Maasai at the end of the nineteenth century. Beginning in 1883, they faced multiple smallpox epidemics, and a disease known as contagious bovine pleuropneumonia ravaged their cattle. Both the Maasai's livestock and the region's wild animals fell victim to rinderpest, a viral disease that claimed nearly 90 percent of the Maasai's cattle. Before these bouts of illness ended in 1902, the Maasai also faced a two-year drought that began in 1897. The Maasai call this time the Emutai, or "the wipe out."

As difficult as this time was, the Maasai faced an even greater challenge to their way of life from the British, who settled in the area in the 1890s. The British convinced several small groups of Maasai to sign treaties in 1904 and 1911 that essentially gave away more than 60 percent of the territory held by the group at that time. They were forced out of an area that contained fertile ground and grazing lands, much of which was turned into nature reserves and national parks.

Overview

Despite the loss of much of their land, the Maasai, for the most part, have staunchly resisted efforts to modernize. Many of them still live in loaf-shaped or round Inkajijik, or mud houses. Women usually make the houses, which are fashioned out of wood, mud, and grass. The walls are coated with cattle dung and smoothed with cattle urine. The homes are usually windowless and dark inside, with a floor formed by layers of animal skins.

A fence called a kraal that usually includes the thorny branches of the acacia tree encloses the homes of four to eight families to help keep away predators, such as lions. The fence also helps protect the Maasai's cattle, which are central to their lives in a nearly religious way. In addition to using the cattle and other livestock, such as sheep and goats, for trade, the Maasai get much of their meat from the cattle. They also drink their milk and, occasionally, their blood. Blood drinking used to be more common among the Maasai, but it is now mostly used in rituals and special ceremonies led by a ritual expert called an oloiboni, celebrating circumcisions and women who have given birth.

The Maasai diet also incorporates food items that they have traded for with neighboring Tribes. In contemporary times, this includes rice, potatoes, cabbage, and maize meal. The Maasai belief system does not approve of farming because it takes away land that could be used for grazing, so they grow little to no food of their own. The Maasai believe in communal living and share land and resources with their neighbors, though some have begun to subscribe to the concept of land ownership, as introduced by the government beginning in the 1960s.

There is a strict division of labor among the Maasai. The girls and women make the houses, gather water and firewood, milk the cows, and prepare meals. The boys tend the livestock while the men build and tend the fences and serve as warriors. When boys reach their teen years, they must live in isolation in the bush and gain courage, strength, and wisdom by learning the traditional customs and values of their ancestors. However, in the twenty-first century, the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments have encouraged the Maasai to end this tradition and send their young men to receive a formal education.

While some Maasai have begun to work in cities and wear contemporary attire, many of the Maasai still wear the bright red sheet-like garments known as shuka, accented with many pieces of brightly colored beaded jewelry that they make themselves. Many engage in piercing and stretching their earlobes. Both sexes go barefoot or wear simple sandals made of cowhide. The women often shave their heads and remove two lower front teeth as part of a ritual.

Traditionally, the Maasai worship a single god who is sometimes good and sometimes vengeful. However, in contemporary times, many Maasai have become Christians. A few follow the Muslim faith.

With their adherence to traditional dress and customs, the Maasai present a living example of a bygone era in modern Africa. Because of this, they became a subject of fascination for many Westerners. This led some companies to co-opt the Maasai name and traditional clothing for commercial purposes. Efforts have been made to help the Maasai receive royalties from this use.

In 2022, the Tanzanian government began implementing a relocation plan, removing over 82,000 Indigenous Maasai living in their ancestral Ngorongoro Conservation Area so the land could be used to build luxury tourist facilities. Though the relocation was purported to be voluntary, many human rights organizations documented instances of violent force or reduced access to essential services like healthcare and education being used against those who did not agree to relocate. In 2025, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a statement confirming that forced evictions, violence, and coercion continued to be perpetrated against the Maasai people, particularly in Ngorongoro and Loliondo.

Bibliography

"About Us." Maasai Association, www.maasai-association.org/our-vision. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Faris, Stephan. "Can a Tribe Sue for Copyright? The Maasai Want Royalties for Use of Their Name." Bloomberg Business Week, 25 Oct. 2013, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-24/africas-maasai-tribe-seek-royalties-for-commercial-use-of-their-name. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Fratkin, Elliot M. Maasai: A Novel of Love, War, and Witchcraft in 19th Century East Africa. Africa World Press, 2020.

"The Maasai." Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, maasaiwilderness.org/maasai. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"Maasai." Survival International, www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/maasai. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"The Maasai Tribe, East Africa." Siyabona Africa, www.siyabona.com/maasai-tribe-east-africa.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"Tanzania: Indigenous Maasai Being Forcibly Relocated." Human Rights Watch, 31 July 2024, www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/31/tanzania-indigenous-maasai-being-forcibly-relocated. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"UN Body Reiterates Urgent Concerns over Evictions of Maasai Indigenous People in Tanzania." Forest Peoples Programme, 12 May 2025, www.forestpeoples.org/publications-resources/news/article/un-body-reiterates-urgent-concerns-over-evictions-of-maasai-indigenous-people-in-tanzania. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Young, Sarah. "Maasai People of East Africa Fighting against Cultural Appropriation by Luxury Fashion Labels." The Independent, 7 Feb. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/maasai-people-cultural-appropriation-luxury-fashion-retailers-louis-vuitton-east-africa-intellectual-a7553701.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.