The Maasai Cultures In Crisis

“Cultures in Crisis”

Climate Change and the Maasai

Amy Martin

Cultural Anthropology 231

October 27, 2015

The Culture of the Maasai People of Kenya, Africa:

The Maasai are a semi-nomadic indigenous people group of Eastern Africa in Kenya and Tanzania with a population of about one million. The majority of the sixteen different Maasai groups reside in Kenya along the Great Rift Valley under a communal land management system. (The Maasai Association 2012) In the Maasai lifestyle, children, women and men have different jobs within the society and all are governed by a tribal leadership council of Maasai elders who give them directions every morning before they go about their day. Women do most of the work keeping up the home by bringing

Their huts are made from grass, mud, sticks, cow poop and urine and the protective fences around the Kraals are walls of acacia thorns to keep out unwanted predators. (The Maasai Association 2012) Collectively, they are pastoralists who participate in a subsistence economy relying on their livestock of cattle, goats, and sheep as primary sources of income as they trade for other livestock, products, or money. Now, they are relying more and more outside of their own Maasai market and into outside economies for clothing, beads and grains where their money earned often goes toward education for their children. With the Group Ranch Project implemented in the 1980’s, they have become more involved in a market economy ever since. (The Maasai Association 2012) Maasai people pray to their god for “cattle and children [which] are the most important aspect of the Maasai culture” and we can see this by the way the Kraals are set up and how their society works. (The Maasai Association 2012) With new technology, and more relations with people around the world interacting with them and their land and neighboring lands, problems are being caused majorly affecting their traditional

“Pastoralist societies in East Africa face more demands on their way of life than at any previous time. Population growth, loss of herding lands to farmers, ranchers, game parks, and urban growth, increased commoditization of the livestock economy, out-migration by poor pastoralists, and dislocations brought about by severe drought, famine, and civil wars are increasing throughout the region.” (Fratkin 2001) Not only do other people cause issues, but the main problem that they go through is seasons of drought that severely affect climate change and their empty stomachs and pockets directly. They solely rely on their livestock and drought is one of the greatest causes of livestock mortality in Kenya. (Huho et al.