Among The Maasai

In 1999, Juliet Cutler leaves the United States to teach at the first school for Maasai girls in East Africa. Captivated by the stories of young Maasai women determined to get an education in the midst of a culture caught between the past and the future, she seeks to empower and support her students as they struggle to define their own fates. Cutler soon learns that behind their shy smiles and timid facades, her Maasai students are much stronger than they appear. For them, adolescence requires navigating a risky world of forced marriages, rape, and genital cutting, all in the midst of a culture grappling with globalization. In the face of these challenges, these young women believe education offers hope, and so, against all odds, they set off alone―traveling hundreds of miles and even forsaking their families―simply to go to school. Twenty years of involvement with this school and its students reveal to Cutler the important impacts of education across time, as well as the challenges inherent in tackling issues of human rights and extreme poverty across vastly different cultures. Working alongside local educators, Cutler emerges transformed by the community she finds in Tanzania and by witnessing the life-changing impact of education on her students. Proceeds from the sale of this book support education for at-risk Maasai girls.

Everyone “knows” the Maasai as proud pastoralists who once dominated the Rift Valley from northern Kenya to central Tanzania. But many people who identity themselves as Maasai, or who speak Maa, are not pastoralist at all, but farmers and hunters. Over time many different people have “become” something else. And what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today. This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested, and transformed from the time of their earliest settlement in Kenya to the present, as well as raising questions about the nature of ethnicity generally.

"A photographic essay about the Maasai people in Kenya, traditionally nomadic herders, exploring the contemporary challenges they face focusing on environmental changes such as the overgrazing of land and the threat of wildlife extinction and how the Maasai are adapting their agricultural practices and lifestyle while preserving their culture"--Provided by publisher. Includes Maasai proverbs. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.

A unique look into one of the most fascinating tribes in Africa, through Western eyes. Eti Dayan, researcher and tour guide, used to visit a Maasai village during her trips to Kenya. When Dayan is invited to attend a traditional wedding at the village, she undergoes a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A few months later, she receives a small note informing her that her Maasai hostess, No'oltwati, has fallen gravely ill. Dayan decides to fly back to Kenya, and use creative ways to save No'oltwati's life. During her stay in the village, she falls in love with the members of the tribe. She is given a Maasai name, Nayolang, One of Us, and is invited to build her home in the village. One of Them tells the story of the amazing life of Eti Dayan which became and unexpectedly interlaced with those of the Maasai people in Kenya. Through Dayan's Western perspective, the reader is allowed a rare peek into the culture of one of the world's most unique ethnic groups. In a tone lush with honesty and grace, with impressive knowledge and great charm, Dayan relates wonderful stories we have not yet read about the Maasai daily life, special ceremonies and cultural clashes, while debating questions of belonging, sustenance, parenthood, ownership, sexuality, male and female circumcision, politics, heritage, hunting and more.

What happens to marginalized groups from Africa when they ally with the indigenous peoples' movement? Who claims to be indigenous and why? Dorothy L. Hodgson explores how indigenous identity, both in concept and in practice, plays out in the context of economic liberalization, transnational capitalism, state restructuring, and political democratization. Hodgson brings her long experience with Maasai to her understanding of the shifting contours of their contemporary struggles for recognition, representation, rights, and resources. Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous is a deep and sensitive reflection on the possibilities and limits of transnational advocacy and the dilemmas of political action, civil society, and change in Maasai communities.

How two young Maasai tribesmen became warriors, scholars, and leaders in their community and to the world. They are living testament to a vanishing way of life on the African savannah. Wilson and Jackson are two brave warriors of the Maasai, an intensely proud culture built on countless generations steeped in the mystique of tradition, legend and prophecy. They represent the final generation to literally fight for their way of life, coming of age by proving their bravery in the slaying of a lion. They are the last of the great warriors. Yet, as the first generation to fully embrace the modern ways and teachings of Western civilization, the two warriors have adapted — at times seamlessly, at times with unimaginable difficulty -- in order to help their people. They strive to preserve a disappearing culture, protecting the sanctity of their elders while paving the way for future generations. At this watershed moment in their history, the warriors carry the weight of their forbearers while embracing contemporary culture and technology. While their struggle to achieve this balance unfolds exquisitely in this story, their discoveries resonate well beyond the Maasai Mara.

A host of international organizations promotes the belief that education will empower Kenya's Maasai girls. Yet the ideas that animate their campaigns often arise from presumptions that reduce the girls themselves to helpless victims of gender-related forms of oppression. Heather Switzer's interviews with over one hundred Kenyan Maasai schoolgirls challenge the widespread view of education as a silver bullet solution to global poverty. In their own voices, the girls offer incisive insights into their commitments, aspirations, and desires. Switzer weaves this ethnographic material into an astute analysis of historical literature, education and development documents, and theoretical literature. Massai schoolgirls express a particular knowledge about themselves and provocative hopes for their futures. Yet, as Switzer shows, new opportunities force them to face, and navigate, new vulnerabilities and insecurities within a society that is itself in flux.

Oral Literature of the Maasai offers an extensive collection of types of oral literature: oral narratives; proverbs; riddles; and a variety of songs for different occasions. The versions in this book were collected by the author from a specific Maasai community in Kajiado County of Kenya. The author listened to many of the narratives and participated in many proverb and riddle telling sessions as she grew up in her Ilbissil village of Kajiado Central Sub-county. However, she recorded most of the examples of oral literature in the early seventies with the help of her mother, who performed the role of the oral artist. Many songs were recorded from live performances. The examples ring with individuality, while also revealing a comprehensive way of life of a people. The images in the literature reveal the concrete life of the Maasai – people living closely with their livestock and engaged in constant struggle with the environment. But like all important literature, the materials here ultimately reveal a people with its moral and spiritual concerns, grappling with questions of human values and relations, struggling for a better social order. This book recommends itself to the general reader. However, the book is more than this: it includes stimulating discussions of examples, as well as review questions and exercises. The book is highly recommended to students of oral literature at secondary school level and at the university.