Time, Space and the Unknown: Maasai Configurations of Power and Providence

TIME, SPACE, AND THE UNKNOWN

Uncertainty is an aspect of existence among the Maasai in East Africa. They take ritual precautions against mystical misfortune, especially at their ceremonial gatherings, which exude displays of confidence, and generate a sense of time, space, community, and being.Yet their performances are undermined by a concern for clandestine psychopaths who are thought to create havoc through sorcery. Normally elders seek moral explanations for erratic encounters with misfortune, viewing God as the Supreme and unknowable figure of Providence. However, sorcery lies beyond their collective wisdom, and they look for guidance from their Prophet, as a more powerful sorcerer to whom they are bound for protection.This work examines the variation of this pattern, associated with different profiles of social life and tension across the Maasai federation. Paul Spencer is Emeritus Professor of African Anthropology at SOAS and Honorary Director of the International African Institute. He has published extensively on age systems and pastoralism in East Africa; and the present work follows from his earlier books on The Samburu (1965) and The Maasai of Matapato (1988) both now reissued by Routledge.

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ROUTLEDGE

THE MAASAI OF MATAPATO Paul Spencer THE SAMBURU Paul Spencer STONE AGE ECONOMICS Marshall Sahlins ABORIGINAL WOMAN Phyllis Kaberry WOMEN OF THE GRASSFIELDS Phyllis Kaberry HUNGER AND WORK IN A SAVAGE TRIBE Audrey Richards CUSTOM AND POLITICS IN URBAN AFRICA Abner Cohen

TIME, SPACE, AND THE UNKNOWN Maasai configurations of power and providence

Paul Spencer

First published 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2003 Paul Spencer All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Spencer, Paul, 1932– Time, space, and the unknown : Maasai configurations of power and providence / Paul Spencer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Maasai (African people) – Rites and ceremonies. 2. Cosmology, Maasai. 3. Maasai (African people) – Psychology. 4. Space and time. 5. Age groups – Kenya. I.Title. DT433.545.M33S65 2003 306⬘.89⬘965–dc21 2003046670 ISBN 0-203-58352-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-33885-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–31724–X (Print Edition)

TO BENET AND RUTH

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Preface Note on orthography 1

x xii xv

Introduction

1

PART I

The boundaries of time, space, and certainty 2

The age system, and the social construction of time and experience

13

15

The two arenas and the gerontocratic premise 15 The manyata system and the integrity of moranhood 18 Jostling on the age grade ladder 23 Homo Ascendens and Homo Hierarchicus 29 The integrity of elderhood and the avoidance of daughters 32 The ascent of women from pawns to custodians 35 Conclusion: the process of ageing and the social construction of time 37 3 Power and the social construction of space The ordering of domestic space and the flux of gender relations 43 Moranhood and the hazards of the bush 50 Tribal sections and the boundaries of trust 55 The ritualization of behaviour and the uncertain unity of all Maasai 58 Wakuafi or Iloikop? 62 Conclusion: performance and the arena of space 63

vii

43

CONTENTS

4 Providence and the cosmology of misfortune

67

Mystical forces and the propitious role of ritual 68 Prayer, sacrifice, and the cosmic manifestations of God 71 Transgressions of the moral order and the power of the curse 75 The limits of reasonableness 77 The experience of misfortune in childhood 78 Diverging models of accountability among the Samburu and Maasai 81 The ambivalence of ritual knowledge among the Samburu and Maasai 83 Guardian spirits and the Samburu 85 Castigation, abandonment, and parental images of God 88 Conclusion: the benign God and the spectre of misfortune 91 5

The Loonkidongi diviners and Prophets

98

The practice of divination 98 The reputation of the Loonkidongi 102 Marriage and the two communities 104 The Prophet and his domain 106 Variation in Loonkidongi influence 112 Loonkidongi succession as the arena of a contemporary myth 115 Conclusion: the Prophet, his possessions, and the legitimacy of sorcery 119 6 Loonkidongi oracles and cyclical reckoning among the Maasai

124

The oracular number cycle 126 Maasai time cycles 134 Conclusion: simulating the pattern of affliction 142 PART II

Diverging models in space and variation over time

145

7 The Purko Maasai in 1977: a northern model

147

The role of boys in inaugurating a new age-set 147 The segregation of the manyata from the domestic domain 150 Eunoto 156 The transition to elderhood and relations through food 161 Queuing and the sequence of ritual precedence among kin 169 Conclusion: the characteristics of the northern model 175

viii

CONTENTS

8 The Kisonko Maasai of Loitokitok in 1977: a southern model

180

Moranhood and manyata organization in Loitokitok 181 The change-over as a critical event 186 The transition to elderhood 188 The rivalry between firestick alliances in elderhood 190 The alternation of power and the involvement of the Prophet 194 Conclusion: the northern and southern models of constraint 197 9 A pre-colonial model and the hub of power

205

The colonial intervention by British and German administrations 205 Merker’s model of moranhood around 1900 206 Merker’s model of elderhood around 1900 211 A critique of Merker’s model of moranhood 212 The Prophet and the dynamics of power 216 Conclusion: colonial intervention and the transformation of the age system 218 Appendix: loose ends in Maasai history 224 10 Alternative models of social control among the Arusha Maasai

234

The classification of disputes among the Arusha 235 Confrontation and dispute referral 238 The competition for scarce resources and the integrity of age systems 242 Conclusion: self-interest and social control 244 11 Conclusion: the interplay of power and providence, and the theory of dilemmas

248

Transactional approaches and the shifting saddle-point 248 Asymmetrical competition and the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma 250 Confrontation and the Hobbesian dilemma 254 Confidence and the dilemmas of altruism 257 The interplay of dilemmas 262 The Pareto cycle and the spiral of ageing 264 Conclusion: Providence and the dynamics of the Maasai age system 267 References Subject index Name index

272 279 286 ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 4.1 5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7

The demographic profile of age grades among the Samburu The split ‘cycle’ of moranhood among the Maasai Age and the two male arenas The age ladder and the spiral of ageing The prof ile of a Maasai hut, village, and tribal section Koko’s family The variable profile of annual rainfall (Kajiado) The Loonkidongi dynasty and their domains as perceived in 1977 The oracular cycle of digits Variation of propitious and unpropitious numbers with context The ‘clock-face’ and the axis of misfortune The Maasai lunar month The annual cycle of seasons The ‘cycle’ of apprehension and confidence in moranhood The ceremonial progression of the Purko age system The sequence of ceremonial precedence within the Purko family The ceremonial progression of the Kisonko age system in Loitokitok The Kisonko spiral of alternating power between firestick alliances The Cat-and-Mouse dilemma facing moran and novices Providence and the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma in Samburu cosmology Confrontation between Hawks and Doves The Prisoner’s Dilemma between brothers The Rebel’s Dilemma The interplay of outcomes and shifting dilemmas Two facets of the Maasai age ‘cycle’

x

17 22 27 38 45 47 72 107 132 133 133 136 139 141 166 170 182 191 252 254 255 259 261 264 266

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps 1.1 The Maasai and Maa-speaking region 5.1 Client tribal sections as the arena of rivalry between two Prophets 8.1 The Loitokitok area and the ceremonial centres of Kisonko

xvi 113 181

Tables 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 8.1 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 10.1 10.2

Variation among the Maa-speaking peoples The sequence of publications relevant to this volume Perceived composition of a typical manyata in seven tribal sections Contrasting profiles of generation span Maasai age-sets and age grades in 1977 Recurrent themes in thirty-nine Maasai children’s stories Categories of Maasai ritual behaviour Polygyny rates among the Loonkidongi and the Matapato Maasai Variation in the tenure of Loonkidongi as Prophets The oracular and lunar cycles The oracular and seasonal cycles The oracular and age-set cycles Avoidances and privileges with age among the Purko Variation in the sequence of personal feasts Range of variation between northern and southern models Merker’s model of the Maasai age system Age and age-group development Estimates of boys’ age at initiation Age and age-set development Prophets and the division of age-sets in Kisonko Manifest causes of Arusha disputes Dominant themes in the sample of Arusha disputes

xi

4 10 20 28 28 52 92 105 112 138 140 142 162 173 199 208 213 214 215 222 239 239

PREFACE

This book is based on research that was conducted at the same time as my work among the Matapato Maasai in 1976–7, extending to other Maasai tribal sections. It was originally conceived as Part II of a single volume on the Maasai, exploring the degree of variation beyond the Matapato model that had been developed as Part I. Earlier drafts of the present work (Chapters 3, 5–8, and 11) were prepared with this in mind. But it became increasingly clear that the whole conception was overloaded and needed to be broken down into separate, more manageable publications. My research interests and teaching responsibilities were expanding, and I decided to publish the first part as The Maasai of Matapato, which was already clearly a volume in its own right (1988). The second part was more comparative and could usefully wait until forthcoming work on the Maasai by other authors had been published. Meanwhile, my attention was drawn to the urgency of broader aspects of pastoralism in East Africa and the transition to the modern economy; and it was these aspects that were published next. This was in part to clarify my understanding of change among the Maasai-speaking peoples, but I also needed to collate the strands that underpinned my teaching before my retirement in 1997, while my grasp of the growing mass of published material by other authors was still fresh.The present volume could then have my undivided attention. Elsewhere, I have referred to earlier drafts of this work as ‘Models of the Maasai’, before it acquired its present shape with a more comprehensive title. Extracts from ‘Models’ have been borrowed for incorporation into various articles over the years, responding to the opportunity or the occasion, but always with this volume in mind (Chapter 2: Spencer 1985b, 1993; Chapter 5: 1991, 1992; Chapter 11: 1989). Chapter 10 has been adapted from sections III, IV, and parts of V of an earlier article (1976) and I wish to thank the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for permission to reproduce this amended piece here. In its original form, this volume contained an extended appendix, collated in 1981 and entitled ‘A Survey of Variation among the Maasai, 1977’. This was derived from material collected in ten communities across the Maasai area.While this survey was a necessary step towards the present volume, the concentration on detail made it essentially archival material for the specialist on Maasai practices. I would invite any readers who are interested in a copy of this survey to contact me, whether it is for xii

PREFACE

their personal collection or to delve into the wider pattern for themselves and perhaps suggest alternative ways of analyzing it, especially if they have further material of their own on the Maasai. I must again express my gratitude to all those individuals and bodies who have made this extended enquiry possible.They are listed in the prefaces to earlier volumes. To these I would add colleagues and students in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, where I have valued the critical climate of support as I have worked over these problems. I would also express my debt to other authors whose findings among the Maasai are cited in these pages. Their writings have contributed to my understanding, probably more than I realize. At Cambridge, Dr Jack Trevor first set me along the road leading to the Maasai with the rare gift of a first edition copy of M. Merker’s Die Masai (1904). It is fitting therefore that this classic study inspired a whole chapter towards the end of this volume – just three Maasai age-sets later. In addition to the Maasai of Matapato, whom I have previously thanked, I would like to express my gratitude to those whom I met among the Purko, Loitokitok, Loonkidongi, Loita, Kisonko, Siria and Uasinkishu, for their hospitality and unremitting enthusiasm concerning their social system and worldview. While I toyed with the idea of extending my work to the Maasai of Tanzania, it became increasingly apparent that there was altogether enough variation on the Kenya side of the border, with the Loitokitok representing a northern branch of the Kisonko of Tanzania.The Kenya Maasai provided me with as much data as I could handle. My lasting memory is of writing up my notes between bouts of conversation with Maasai on the topics discussed here. Meanwhile, my companions would elaborate on these among themselves, debating the point, recalling further aspects, and leaving me struggling to catch up when I was ready to rejoin their gossip, reassured that these were live issues of concern.As exhaustion set in, I sometimes wished they would lose interest, setting a limit to the amount that they had to offer. But it was not to be, and I was constantly guided into new channels, leading to further questions on the next occasion we met. It was the differences throughout the Maasai region that arose out of this discourse and seemed to hold the key to so many lines of enquiry. This led me to pay further visits to the Purko and Loitokitok, and to seek out a second Loonkidongi community, because these emerged as high points in this search. In short, this publication has to thank the Maasai for their willing collaboration in the one way in which they excel: open and generous conversation. I wish again to thank the Samburu from whom I first acquired a sufficient fluency in the Maasai language and culture to pursue these studies. Indeed, I sometimes feel that I had more training in research methodology in their hands than anywhere else. The present work begins appropriately with a model of the Samburu age system as they saw it, and this is further elaborated in Part II. The Samburu also have a significant role in Chapter 4, which draws on my first (unpublished) conference paper concerning aspects of their religion (1959a). I revisited the Samburu in 1973 and 1976, and this suggested no substantial change in their xiii

PREFACE

practices or beliefs since 1960. For present purposes, my references to the Samburu and the Maasai proper may therefore be regarded as essentially contemporaneous. This work, then, arose out of my earlier volumes on The Samburu, and then on The Maasai of Matapato. The re-issue of these two books as paperbacks by Routledge to coincide with the publication of the present volume provides two detailed case studies that complement the broader view that I attempt here. This joint production of all three works was quite beyond my more limited aim when I approached Routledge with the present volume in mind, and I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Julene Knox, as Commissioning Editor, for proposing that they should be linked in this way to form a trilogy. Finally, I would again like to express my warm gratitude to Rosalind and our sons,Aidan and Benet, who tolerated my restless search for data and yet more data, charming our hosts as they entered into the spirit of the exercise. As we uprooted ourselves from our Matapato base and travelled to other tribal sections, constantly pursuing what must have seemed an endless trawl for odd ends, they were my constant companions, and I still treasure this memory. Paul Spencer SOAS

xiv

NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY

In this work, I have followed the style previously outlined in The Maasai of Matapato (p. xii). The spelling ch should be pronounced as in change; nk represents a sound between NK as in thinker and NG as in finger; ng is used for the velar nasal sound as in thing, and not as in finger.Thus the term Loonkidongi pronounces the K implosively and does not pronounce the G at all. In other respects, I have tried to follow Tucker and Mpaayei (1955) to indicate Maasai usage, ignoring dialectical variation between different parts of the Maasai area. Frans Mol’s extensive dictionaries (1978, 1996) have been especially useful for re-assessing Maasai terms in my fieldnotes.

xv

0 Lake Victoria

Uasinkishu (16t)

Moitanik (11t)

Miles

50

Kms

0

Damat (11t)

100

Siria (12t)

R. Mara

N Keekonyukie (46t)

Purko (108t)

Kaputiei (21t)

Laitayok (5t)

Loita (24t)

Matapato (22t)

Lake Natron

Salei (5t)

Dalalekutuk (8t)

Loodokilani (17t)

Loitokitok (39t) Serenket (4t)

Mt Kilimanjaro Mt Meru

Uganda

Kenya

Samburu (99t)

Kisonko (82t)

La

ke V

ict

or

ia

Chamus (9t)

Maasai

ean

Key

Oc ian Ind

Tan za

nia

Ke nya

Arusha (150t)

Parakuyu (37t)

Map 1.1 The Maasai and Maa-speaking region.

Main map

Maasai tribal sections

Inset

Principal Maa-speaking peoples

(...t)

Estimated population (thousands) Relocation of the Maasai in 1904 and 1911

1 INTRODUCTION 1

Interest in the Maasai as nomadic pastoralists has generated an extensive literature since the mid-nineteenth century, when they dominated the hinterland in the emerging map of East Africa.This cumulative search for understanding a particularly resilient society poses a number of questions that the present volume seeks to address.The study is based on material that was collected in remoter parts, before commercial tourism and media attention raised the additional question concerning the authenticity of Maasai ritual performances in a global setting, where they are patently out of place. There are two principal areas of concern.The first relates to the sheer variety of different accounts, reflecting changing traditions over a period of transition, and also a considerable diversity among the Maasai themselves. The need is not so much to establish some pristine and authentic version, as to discern patterns that underlie the variety in space and time. The second area of concern is the general absence of Maasai views and perceptions in this literature to match the wealth of description of their ceremonial activities. Generally, the religious beliefs of nomadic pastoralists below the Horn of Africa have aroused little interest among social anthropologists, and the Maasai are no exception.This reflects the way they present themselves in visual terms.They discuss their ritual practices avidly and in detail, but they are diffident about their myths and they do not respond easily to questions searching for explanation. Nevertheless, when pressed, they are adamant regarding the relevance of these practices for their survival as a people. The point to stress here is not the tenacity of particular traditions or their consistency across the Maasai area. The details of ritual performance are matters for debate, and also reinterpretation as times change. The crux of the argument does not concern the details as such, but rather the human relations that are highlighted by the debates and the ritual event. These are grounded in social institutions and bear on the dynamics of community life and the involvement of different roles and points of view.Their ritual behaviour gives substance to the premise of their existence as Maasai; and any account of their ceremonies that overlooks the accompanying perceptions and beliefs misses a vital component and reduces the essence of tradition.There is a need to portray a Maasai world view and cosmology in terms that relate to their daily lives and community experience. 1

INTRODUCTION

There have been two direct influences on my research in this area.The first was my earlier study of the Maa-speaking Samburu (1957–62). The Samburu warrior organization still persisted despite the general absence of intertribal warfare at that time. This led me to examine links between their age system – a form of stratification by age – and other aspects of their society. Polygyny was extensive among older men, and this led to a shortage of marriageable women and a prolonged bachelorhood up to the age of about thirty years for ‘warriors’ (moran, s. morani). In these times of peace, the age system could be viewed as a gerontocracy that placed moran in an extended state of social suspension; and in response to the tensions of this regime they displayed delinquent tendencies. By the time ageing youths were eventually admitted to the responsibilities of elderhood and marriage, they had acquired a stake in perpetuating the system, when they too would aspire to further wives (Spencer 1965, Samburu). The second influence on my work was Philip Gulliver’s analysis of the Arusha (1963). The Arusha were settled agriculturalists with a distinctive pattern of land ownership vested in patrilineages that was not shared by the nomadic Maasai. However, they followed the Maasai age system, and Gulliver provided the first coherent account of this cyclical system in which men over a span of some fifteen years are grouped together to form an age-set, and are promoted together through a series of stages – age grades – rather as a class of children progress in a school. Whereas my understanding of the Samburu had focused on tensions between elders and moran as the two principal age grades, Gulliver drew attention to the dynamics of relations between successive age-sets of elders, leaving the moran politically on the sidelines. This provided a radically different type of explanation that did not appear relevant for the Samburu. Did our contrasting viewpoints perhaps reflect different phases of the cyclical age system? Or had Gulliver delved further into a model of the age system as perceived by elders, whereas my own analysis as a younger colleague had identified more closely with the moran? Or were the Arusha and Samburu simply quite different? Both the Arusha and the Samburu were on the fringe of the Maa-speaking area, and questions raised by our alternative findings prompted me to turn my attention to the Maasai proper. At a time when others were looking beyond the Maasai to problems of development and adaptation to a new order, I set out to fill gaps in the ethnographic map of their institutions and tradition.The prospect of change in the area was of less concern to me than the need to explore contradictory aspects of Maasai society before these were obscured as they merged into a changing world. A variety of evidence suggested that much of Maasai tradition would persist.They still had warrior villages in Kenya despite attempts by successive administrations to abolish these; and the time-span of their age-sets had remained doggedly constant since pre-colonial times, despite repeated predictions of their demise. Again, there was widespread apathy towards education, which undermined attempts to enrol growing numbers of children in schools.2 But increasingly, influence was slipping to Maasai who had some education and were developing networks in the wider region, pastureland was being displaced by agriculture, and herds were becoming 2

INTRODUCTION

confined to grazing schemes. These were signs of change that were creeping inwards from the borders and outwards from the growing townships. Meanwhile, dispersed over an area equivalent to Scotland and Wales combined, most Maasai lived in remoter parts where traditional pastoralism persisted and persists, adapting as necessary to new demands. Because of the resilience of this tradition, the ethnographic present is used in the earlier chapters of this volume.These refer primarily to the 1970s, but draw on material collected over a longer period. It is this sense of persistence that I wish to convey here, avoiding overuse of the past tense, which refers to topics that clearly belong to the past or concern a particular period in time (Chapters 7–10). The terms Maa and Maasai have a variable usage throughout the region. Here, I use Maa to include peoples, such as the Samburu and Chamus in the north and the Parakuyu in the south, who cannot claim to be pastoral Maasai proper, although they belong to the Maa- (or Maasai-) speaking cluster with traditions of common origin. Besides language, these fringe Maa have similar social institutions to the Maasai proper, but their age systems are quite independent of one another and this corresponds to being separate political and ritual entities. They contrast with the core of this cluster, which consists of sixteen (territorial) tribal sections. These are indisputably Maasai in the sense of a ritually united federation that subscribe to the same age system.3 Historically, some changes of alignment between these tribal sections have taken place with circumstance, but the general notion of a Maasai federation persists. So too does the sense of continuity in a tradition that still holds the clue to the way in which Maasai respond to changing circumstance. The Maasai recognize common bonds of clanship throughout the federation, but the configuration of clans and sub-clans varies quite strikingly. The Laitayok clan, for instance, are numerous in the south but are absent in the north; the Uasinkishu Maasai have their own quite separate set of clans; and so on. The nub of the Maasai sense of unity is not their clans, but their shared age system.Within this system, peers of the same age-set grow old together and owe one another clear obligations, extending beyond the tribal section to all Maasai proper, binding them uniquely as a people.This vital link is lacking in their relations with outlying Maaspeakers, such as the Samburu or Parakuyu. Table 1.1 summarizes differences between fringe Maa-speakers and the Maasai proper, indicating some of the variables that are discussed later.Three tribal sections that live to the west of the River Mara fit uneasily into this scheme: they are the Uasinkishu, Moitanik, and Siria. These ‘Trans-Mara’ Maasai are fully integrated into the Maasai age system, but they also have their own independent Prophets and separate histories (Waller 1984). The progression of this volume broadly follows my own research interests from 1976, when I undertook my principal fieldwork among the Matapato, who were more or less at the geographical centre of the Maasai federation and probably as typical as any other tribal section (Spencer 1988, Matapato). Aspects of the earlier studies of the Samburu and Arusha seemed relevant to Matapato, but the Maasai age system was altogether more elaborate, and a different explanation seemed necessary to account for its persistence. The patriarchal family emerged as a key 3

INTRODUCTION

Table 1.1 Variation among Maa-speaking peoples Maa-speaking group North Samburu

Traditional Age system economy compared with Maasai proper villages?

Moran form Influence of Prophets of warrior Loonkidongi dynasty

Pastoral

No

Similar in form, but not in detail Samburu and Maasai features Identical (acquired?) Prototype

None; have their own diviners Chamus AgroRecently None; have their pastoral acquired own diviner Trans-Mara Pastoral Yes Remote; rely mostly on Maasai their own diviners Maasai proper Pastoral Prototype Divided among tribal sections ----------------------- Kenya–Tanzania boundary ------------------------------Maasai proper Pastoral Prototype No longer Kisonko Prophets dominate Arusha Agricultural Overtly No Kisonko Prophets close by identical Parakuyu Pastoral Independent but No longer Have a Prophet who claims quite similar Loonkidongi ancestry South

feature in this. Unlike the Samburu, the development of relations between overbearing fathers and maturing youths could relate to the separation of moran in their own semi-autonomous warrior villages (manyat, s. manyata) as the liminal phase of an extended rite of transition.Work among the Matapato raised issues that could have a wider bearing on the Maasai as a whole, suggesting the next horizon in my research. It was with this in mind that I set out to explore the degree of variation in other tribal sections with an open-ended checklist of questions – a list that expanded as I pursued my itinerary among the Loitokitok, Purko, Loita, Kisonko, Siria, Uasinkishu, Chamus, and two Loonkidongi communities of diviners (il-oibonok).4 Regarding the pattern of variation, it should again be stressed that there is not and probably never has been just one code of practice shared by all Maasai proper. Thus the Matapato system, as the principal focus of my study, was only typical in the sense that the Matapato were no more different from any notional norm for all Maasai than any other tribal section at that time.They saw their own version as ‘true’ Maasai, but so did their neighbours. The searching question, therefore, does not concern any normative view of Maasai society, but the extent to which the degree of variation can help us understand the significance of the broader pattern. Turning from the background of this volume to its content, Part I progresses from the Maasai construction of time and of space in the world they inhabit to a hidden other world that they insist cannot be known. The perception of time is governed by their all-embracing age system (Chapter 2). Relative status associated with age seniority dominates social life among men, and the process of ageing provides their most far-reaching experience of time.Women have a secondary role in this, but the nuances of the age system are characterized by men’s relations with 4

INTRODUCTION

women and through women, and this binds women to the system at different stages of their lives.The Maasai construction of ageing is relatively straight forward, and certainly, it is easier to grasp than other age systems in East Africa where generational position within the extended family is a complicating factor. But even so, this chapter reveals a measure of complexity that lends itself to a variety of interpretations. These may be regarded as Weberian ideal types that highlight different facets of the process of ageing and career development, varying with context and gender. Here, it is useful to distinguish between the cycle of ceremonies that punctuate the process of time, spanning about fifteen years, and the experience of those passing through this cycle as age mates or peers: members of the same age-set.They perceive it as a ‘ceremonial cycle’, but they never return to the same point, for meanwhile they have been promoted to the next stage. In effect, they experience it as an ‘ageing spiral’. As with the passing of days or seasons, a cyclical process is involved, but time moves on, and the spiral of ageing involves a time-span that is more than merely recurrent. It is unique to each age-set and only recurs a limited number of times over any lifetime, providing a shared experience for its members as individuals.While women have an essentially passive role in this process, they do have their own independent career profiles; and the chapter ends by outlining their gathering experience of the life-course, which consolidates their role. This contrasts with the tailing off among men, who in certain respects become anomalously peripheral to the system as they reach old age, placing them beyond time. Chapter 3 considers the Maasai construction of space, working outwards from the village as the focus of relations between the sexes.This relationship had been a topic in my earlier volume on the Samburu, which noted the extent to which women were ruthlessly exploited in gerontocratic societies – a theme that was not yet topical in social anthropology. However, I was inevitably trapped on the male side, impelled by my age to tread a delicate tightrope between moranhood and elderhood.This virtually precluded trespassing on the minefield that separated the sexes, which bore on the sensitive issue of women’s clandestine affairs with moran and their former lovers. It was hardly different nearly twenty years later among the Matapato Maasai, when my age identified me as an elder. Here too, the relationship between the sexes was dogged by misgivings, and I could not appeal to trust from both suspicious elders and secretive wives. My involvement with women was essentially at the overt level that they chose to present themselves in public, complaining about the elders in general and sometimes even about their own husbands, but giving away no hostages to fortune.This inevitably introduced a gender bias in my work, and I tended to overlook the network of support shared among women.5 In this chapter, I have attempted to bridge the gap in my own material by reviewing a vivid case study undertaken by Ulrike von Mitzlaff (1988). This provides a very perceptive view of the women’s domain in striking contrast to my own published work. In her model, power in village life shifts between men (when they are present) and women (especially when they act in concert). Once again, these contrasting points of view clarify complementary aspects of a more complex social reality that is not dominated by either sex. 5

INTRODUCTION

The remainder of the chapter extends to Maasai perceptions of space beyond the village. If elders are vulnerable to ridicule within the village, no one questions their higher authority and overbearing shadow in the wider scene.The uncertainties of the bushland are associated especially with moran as the principal defenders of Maasai herds, based on their manyat and conspicuously pursuing their affairs in all directions during the day. However, the bush at night holds unseen dangers; and hidden from view is the bizarre belief in the sorcerer, a secretive misanthropic spectre laying his traps.While the popular image of moranhood expresses an idealized form of masculine virility, the notion of the sorcerer may be regarded as a perverted form, a caricature of the more unscrupulous aspect of elderhood. Beyond the borders of the tribal section, a further ambiguity pervades the concept of the Maasai proper as a confederation. On the one hand, there is the prevailing notion that the sixteen tribal sections are all ‘Maasai’ in a full sense, united by a single age system. Intermarriage is unusual but widely approved in principle, and intermigration in times of necessity supports the claim that land inhabited by Maasai belongs to all Maasai. On the other hand, each tribal section independently organizes its own ceremonial cycle that concerns the development of each new age-set; and this involves considerable variation between tribal sections, who turn to different Prophets for advice. It is the territorial tribal section that provides a sense of identity and the context of community action, and local concern rarely extends beyond their borders to neighbouring Maasai. A sense of mistrust and ambiguity attaches to these borders. The stranger who is Maasai and yet unknown as a personality, poses a sinister figure, especially if he is also an age mate.At its most inclusive level, the age system poses a larger more impersonal edifice. Pride in being Maasai is tinged with a sense of awe beyond their immediate comprehension. Maasai religious concepts are elaborated in the next three chapters and these form the core of this work. The interpretation of misfortune is considered in Chapter 4, with special reference to the general belief in the elders’ power to invoke God through their prayers – to bless and to curse. God is perceived as the all-powerful and arbitrary force of Providence, whose intentions can never be known. Only in retrospect can there be even a glimpse of some overarching pattern, linking human lapses to unexpected misfortune. Even Prophets, who are adept at probing the causes of misfortune, have no more than a dim notion of the nature of the cosmos.The flamboyance of Maasai ceremony and self-regard is offset by a sense of resignation to an unknown and unknowable future. They see themselves rather like Plato’s prisoners in a cave, ill equipped to delve into ultimate truths. The elaboration of these beliefs touches on the experience of growing up in a regime where children and wives are ‘possessions’, subordinated to the principle of patriarchal authority. Similarly, elders in their prime – the patriarchs – are no less subordinate to powerful forces that lie beyond their moral comprehension. Their piety is expressed in terms of an ultimate submission to a divine order that lies beyond the world they understand.The humility of this ignorance is linked to the widespread concern over sorcery, disavowing the hidden knowledge that this implies.The Samburu are relevant here, partly because they have a more elaborate 6

INTRODUCTION

system of beliefs, and also because this seems to correspond to certain differences between the two societies. Notably, Samburu fathers are more constrained within their local communities, engendering less concern over sorcery and a more open attitude towards ritual knowledge. Both societies have a similar attitude towards misfortune, but there is an apparent correlation between family structure and the perception of God. The Samburu do not share the formidable reputation of the Maasai historically, and their diviners do not compare with the Loonkidongi dynasty of Prophets, who are closely associated with the earlier successes of the Maasai. Chapter 5 elaborates the ritual and quasi-regal nature of Loonkidongi patronage as intermediaries with the unknown. This gives them a shadowy doubled-edged reputation. As diviners, the Loonkidongi see themselves as a class above ordinary Maasai and keep themselves apart. They claim superior knowledge and higher standards of behaviour, and they point to the fees from their clients that bring them greater wealth. Most successful are those diviners who become Prophets.The Maasai of each tribal section have their own Loonkidongi Prophet, who is described in terms of an infallible ‘godfather’. However, deep respect for him is edged with fear: he protects his clients from sorcerers through a more potent form of sorcery, and he may withdraw this protection if they do not reward him or try to desert him. The general image of the Loonkidongi at large is of fratricidal sorcerers competing with one another for the spoils of patronage; and the reputations of successful Prophets are dogged by the threat of misfortune, leading to madness and early deaths. The Maasai in their turn prefer to dissociate themselves from Loonkidongi communities, who are felt to live in a dangerous semi-mythical world. Central to the power of the Loonkidongi is their manipulation of oracles, involving an ability to interpret the number of pebbles thrown during a consultation. The process of acquiring this skill is considered in Chapter 6, leading to an examination of the symbolic structure of the numerology implicit in their technique. This reveals a pattern that echoes Maasai concepts of cyclical time and the spiral of ageing. At a symbolic level, the configuration of Prophets, diviners, and their oracles are fully integrated into the Maasai system of belief. Part II of this volume is concerned with the pattern of variation around these themes. Within each tribal section, the Maasai are aware that variety exists elsewhere, but they tend to regard it as idiosyncratic and discount any deeper significance.There is a general lack of comparative curiosity, and other people’s customs do not command the same attention to detail as the nuances of their own practices. It is the unity of the Maasai age system that is stressed, and local differences are trivialized and even denied. Yet there is a striking pattern that extends to all Maa-speaking peoples. My earlier comparison of the pastoral Samburu and agricultural Arusha had noted the existence of contrasting models of age organization (Spencer 1976). The first emphasized gerontocratic rule that led to tensions between elders and moran among Samburu; whereas the second displayed a certain disregard for age seniority in the competition for power between successive age-sets among Arusha. The two models seemed to be quite unconnected and 7

INTRODUCTION

incompatible, but my subsequent fieldwork revealed a broad trend that was fully consistent with the Samburu model, located at the northern extreme of the Maaspeaking area, and the Arusha model in the deep south, with a broad shift in emphasis from north to south among tribal sections of the Maasai proper. The Matapato were in an intermediate position, leaning towards the south. The existence of this broad north–south trend was wholly unexpected, and only when I encountered it in the field did I realize that it had been a logical possibility in my earlier review. Far from being fringe anomalies, as I had assumed, the Samburu and Arusha were part of a wider pattern. Further south still, the Maa-speaking Parakuyu have an age system that appears very similar to their Kisonko neighbours. Thus, the Samburu in the far north provide a particularly clear-cut and even extreme example of the northern model, and the Parakuyu in the far south seem to fit into an extended north–south pattern. However, a critical feature that defines both societies as ‘Maa-speaking’ rather than ‘Maasai proper’ is the independence of their age systems. These shifts in emphasis highlight the different approaches towards age organization and the notion of mystical misfortune.The Purko Maasai are the dominant tribal section in the north, and they are taken to represent a node along this continuum in Chapter 7. In the following chapter, the Loitokitok Maasai represent another node, as a branch of the Kisonko who are the dominant tribal section in the south.These two chapters display contrasting aspects of the Maasai age system, and the whole process of ageing takes on different complexions.There is a shift in focus from the contrasting ideologies of opposed age grades in the north (youth vs middle-age), to a struggle for power between opposed age-sets in the south, where there is a shared ideology regardless of age differences, and a more immediate concern over sorcery.This corresponds to very different types of relationship between the Maasai of each tribal section and their Prophet. Chapter 9 attempts to reconstruct the pre-colonial system of the Maasai, when the Prophet had more influence over the moran and the Maasai held their destiny in their own hands. The principal source for this is an early study undertaken by Moritz Merker (1904), who served in the military administration of German East Africa (now Tanzania). While the English translation of Merker’s book has never been published, his description of their society, extending over more than 200 pages, deserves to be treated today as a classic in its own right, with an authentic ring, and insights into the Maasai age system that now seem decades ahead of their time. Compared with other early accounts that raise more questions than they answer, there is an exemplary attention to ethnographic detail that inspires confidence. However, there are some inconsistencies and clear differences with more recent accounts that deserve closer attention. This aims towards a historical perspective of the Maasai system, both for its own sake and to understand better the process of change since that time. Following this reassessment of Merker’s study, Chapter 10 examines Philip Gulliver’s more recent account of ‘social control’ among the Arusha Maasai, which took a similarly pragmatic approach. Gulliver rejected the possibility that institutions 8

INTRODUCTION

such as the age system or the patrilineal system were constraining, and he presented them as arenas of opportunity, prone to manipulation. This provided a novel and dynamic twist to our understanding of age organization. However, such expediency did not explain the persistence of Arusha institutions or the complexity of the Maasai age system. Without some form of constraint, anarchy rather than order would surely prevail, and any patrilineal or age-based concepts would fall into disarray. This chapter reconsiders Gulliver’s rich case material and suggests that the Arusha age system did in fact have a major role in containing the excesses of patrilineal squabbles, and it was itself constrained as well as constraining by the emphasis on consensus. But it remains that Gulliver’s transactionalist approach provides a dynamic model of the succession of age-sets, viewing the age system as a perennial battle for power and prestige. It follows on from Merker’s study quite neatly, and its aptness for the present volume is clear throughout this text. Gulliver presented the politics of social control, in other words, as a constant sum game, in which the gains made by one age-set at any time balanced the losses among its rivals.This critique of his work leads to the final chapter, which provides an overview of the topics considered in the present work. Here the argument is developed a stage further with reference to a theory of non-constant sum games. These are sometimes described as games with Providence, or taken together they may be regarded more aptly still as composing a theory of dilemmas. This modified approach views social interaction at a more indeterminate level, where the players cannot read each other’s minds; and the dilemmas they face have their counterpart in the patterns of belief associated with mystical misfortune and the unknown. Because ageing, family tensions, and misfortune concern ambivalent relations between young and old, between the sexes, and between Maasai and Loonkidongi, any theory that is concerned with dilemmas has potential. The northern and southern models provide parallel opportunities for exploring this neglected theory as a tool for the analysis of choice, risk, and action.This extends beyond the transactions of politics to the uncertainties of developing age relations within the fifteen-year ceremonial cycle. By examining the application of just three basic types of dilemma to different points in this cycle, an attempt is made to bring the northern and southern models together as facets of a recurring age system. The sheer scope of this work has precluded an examination of the contradictions between tradition and development.This is not to deny an articulation with the forces of modernization elsewhere in East Africa, typified by sporadic attempts at imposing grazing schemes and an ambivalence towards money as a growing medium of exchange. Rather, it is to be drawn into the enclosed world of Maasai society that works as it is felt always to have worked, with little sense of historical change. Cattle and women are treated as commodities, but time and space are perceived as representations of a traditional order, opposed to any suggestion that they too are commodities stemming from the creep of global capitalism. Yet, the need to perceive the Maasai in a wider setting is clearly a pressing issue, and this led me to put an early draft of the present volume to one side, while I turned my attention to the broader aspect. This was published as The Pastoral 9

INTRODUCTION

Table 1.2 The sequence of publications relevant to this volume Topic

Publication

Maa-speaking cluster Samburu (Maa-speaking pastoralists) Matapato Maasai Maasai world view and cosmology Chapters 2–4 Loonkidongi Prophets Chapters 5–6 Purko Maasai Chapter 7 Loitokitok Maasai Chapter 8 Maasai c.1900* Chapter 9 Arusha (agricultural Maasai)* Chapter 10 Chamus (Maa-speaking agro-pastoralists) Other African pastoralists besides Maa-speakers

The Samburu (1965) Nomads in Alliance (1973) The Maasai of Matapato (1988)

}

present volume

}

The Pastoral Continuum (1998)

Note * Critiques of earlier work.

Continuum (1998), collating studies of pastoralism and development in East Africa with historical material that I had gathered among the Maa-speaking Chamus of Lake Baringo. The Chamus provided a useful microcosm of the problems of resilience and change throughout the region, but this involved a separate line of enquiry from the aspect considered here.The present volume, then, is the most inclusive of my writings on the Maa-speaking area. Logically it leads on to The Pastoral Continuum, which is more inclusive still, historically and geographically. Table 1.2 summarizes the logical progression of these various publications, and provides a setting for the pages that follow.

Notes 1 The population estimates in Map 1.1 have been extrapolated from a variety of sources, ranging from some earlier more detailed surveys to more recent censuses that have provided broad indications of growth, without identifying separate ethnic or sub-ethnic groups. The sources for this map are: Tucker and Mpaayei 1955: xii; Tanganyika 1958; Beidelman 1962: 10; Jacobs 1963: 52a; Kenya 1965 vol. 2: 98–102, 131–173, 192–205; 1966: 36; 1980: 13–14;Tanzania 1969: 267–8; 1991. 2 Eg. Johnston 1886: 407; Merker 1904: 339; Kenya 1934–5: 4–5 (citing earlier reports), cf. Saitoti in Beckwith and Saitoti 1980: 269; Holland 1996: 38, 66, 287–8. 3 Among these sixteen tribal sections, ten claim ‘pure’ Maasai descent and customs, uninfluenced by any non-Maasai neighbours. These are the Damat, Kaputiei, Keekonuykie, Kisonko, Loita, Loitokitok, Loodokilani, Matapato, Purko, and Salei. Six others diverge from the notion of purity in various ways, including clanship. They are the Dalalekutuk (who had links with the Kikuyu), Laitayok and Serenket (who had links with Dorobo foragers), and Trans-Mara Maasai of whom Moitanik had links with Luhya, Siria with Luo, and Uasinkishu with Kalenjin (Waller 1984). On the fringe, the Arusha and Chamus have agricultural traditions; and the Paraguyu are interspersed among agriculturalists, such

10

INTRODUCTION

as the Gogo, Hehe, Irangi, Kaguru, Nguu, and Pare (Beidelman 1960: 251). It is not clear from available material how far the closeness of Uasinkishu and Moitanik to the Maasai proper, as compared to the separateness of the Parakuyu, stems from a more inclusive approach towards the Maasai problem by the British administration during in the early years of colonial rule in Kenya, in contrast to a more divisive approach by the German administration further south. 4 For fuller details of this itinerary, see Spencer 1978, and Matapato: 4–5. A systematic outline of my findings with comments on the literature is recorded in ‘A Survey of Variation among the Maasai, 1977’ (Spencer nd.). This was originally intended as an appendix to the present volume, and it is available for anyone who wishes to rearrange this jigsaw with perhaps further pieces to add. 5 Cf. Llewelyn-Davies 1978: 222–36. My attempt to record an old women’s autobiography (Chieni and Spencer 1993), for instance, emphasizes the mutual loyalty between the sexes and provides some rather bland reading when compared with von Mitzlaff ’s more dynamic account or my own chauvinistic impressions among Maasai men.

11

Part I THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

2 THE AGE SYSTEM, AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TIME AND EXPERIENCE 1

The Maasai age system is the most characteristic feature of their social organization, and it entails a ritual cycle that recurs every fifteen years or so.This imposes a cultural construction on the natural process of ageing, providing a constant backdrop to people’s experience of time and punctuating their awareness that the life-course is ticking away. The Maasai are a very age-conscious people. For men in particular, the age system patterns their lives and cultivates a sense of shared destiny. It is essentially a male institution, but it also shapes the way in which both men and women relate to one another and through one another to third parties. Women play a significant although largely passive role. This chapter is concerned with the ramifications of this system. The Maasai themselves adopt a range of viewpoints that vary with context, highlighting different facets that are appropriate to the occasion. In this way, aspects of the age system are thrown into clear relief by approaching it from a variety of angles.These are what Max Weber described as ideal types, reducing ‘reality’ to some basic principles – Maasai principles – that enable us to arrive at a fuller understanding. A particularly useful approach derives from the Samburu, who are Maa-speakers living in the far north. The age system of the Samburu contains the same basic ingredients as among the Maasai proper, although in a more clear-cut form – a Weberian ideal type without the trimmings that characterize the Maasai.

The two arenas and the gerontocratic premise A Samburu once drew my attention to two herds of gazelle nearby. In one herd, the gazelle were grazing peacefully and he explained that they were the ‘elder’ and his ‘wives’. The second herd was more restless, with some gazelle frisking one another, and he pointed out that these were the young ‘moran’ (warriors) who had been excluded from the elder’s herd, so that they would not mix with the females. My companion was, of course, describing the rudimentary organization of his own society, drawing the analogy between Samburu elders with their wives in general and the notion of a single dominant male with his harem. The complementary aspect of this analogy was the extrusion of immature young bachelors. Moran are excluded politically and ritually from the society of married elders. With the 15

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

curtailment of intertribal warfare, they are no longer ‘warriors’ in any strict sense, but nor are they fully accepted as adults. Real power lies with the elders, notably through their monopoly over marriage in a regime that excludes the moran. By delaying the marriages of younger men, the elders create a surplus of marriageable girls for themselves. From this point of view, the survival of the moran system in times of peace is not concerned with external threats of raiding, but with internal relations between young and old men over the possession of women, and ultimately with the persistence of gerontocratic power. Older men control the marriage market, while moran are allowed to ‘play’ with young unmarried girls of their own clan. However, because these clans are exogamous, moran cannot marry their girlfriends, and the elders can snatch them away to be married elsewhere at their whim. Meanwhile, the moran covertly defy the elders by filching stock and also young wives in adultery; and they engage in a form of gang warfare between clans – frisking among themselves. The analogy with the habits of gazelle could be extended to the herds of Samburu cattle, and especially to the periodic change-over when a younger and stronger rival outfights the reigning bull and wrests control over the females. Similarly, in the Samburu age system, a point is reached when elders have to allow mature moran into the competition for wives, typically around the age of thirty. (And significantly, perhaps, this is the one ceremony marked by the sacrifice of a bull.) However, by denying younger men a share in the marriage market for as long as they can, the older men are playing for time and maximizing their share of wives and the scale of polygyny. The distribution of Samburu by age and gender in Figure 2.1 illustrates the delay in marriage for moran compared with girls. The wider the relative age difference at marriage – that is, the span of moranhood – the greater the scope for polygyny.This averages about 1.5 wives per Samburu elder, and could increase to 2.0 if widows were allowed to remarry.2 Clearly, there is a crucial difference between the state of raw nature and polygynous societies such as the Samburu. The gazelle-elder was in his physical prime and forced younger males away from his harem by brute strength; whereas his Samburu counterpart are a cohort of ageing polygynists: it is the cast-out younger males who are physically in their prime. Among humans, the chances of survival into middle age are enhanced, and there is a shift from the physical supremacy of fully grown males – an ability to contest in direct encounters – to the moral supremacy of older men.The Samburu elders maintain their authority by asserting the effectiveness of their curse, which would leave younger men without mystical protection. Their regime is maintained by a ritualized display of hidden power rather than by physical trials of strength. It depends on the elders’ ability to maintain this mystique, persuading the moran that their disrespect betrays their immaturity and forces them to remain as moran. This asserts a moral dimension that raises (male) society above the Hobbesian jungle of confrontations and brute strength.The moran are trapped in a vicious circle. The concerted power of Samburu elders rests on the premise of their deeper experience and understanding, notably when they gather in discussion as a local 16

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

Figure 2.1 The demographic profile of age grades among the Samburu (1958).

clan group, away from any village and beyond the purview of moran or women. On such occasions, they claim to be the custodians of traditional wisdom, representing the clan and ultimately the Samburu at large. In raising their authority to a ritualized level, they carve out their own niche. With no spectators that are not themselves elders, the performance projects itself inwards rather than outwards. As orators, those who wish may put forward their arguments, commanding the space around them and the timing of their thrusts as the initiative passes – or is wrested – from one performer to another, as they once did in their dances as moran. But unlike the dancing of moran that broadcasts a defiant message to the world beyond, their deliberations are surrounded by the collective charisma of elderhood.Within the community at large, their ritual authority is underpinned by a sense of awe among those who cannot be present.The performance is pitched at a higher and more mystical level by the exclusion of others. Then, at irregular intervals, the elders of a local clan group may muster the moran for harangues, drawing on this mystique to threaten their curse before blessing them. While the social construction of this system is fundamental to the present work, rather than any physical analogy with animal herds, there are closer parallels with the natural world when one turns from the social dominance of the elders to the assertiveness of moran over boys. Uninitiated boys are excluded from the arena of moran affairs, just as moran are excluded from elderhood, and the social boundary between moran and boys displays a similar tension, but it is backed by physical rather than moral force. Boys risk being beaten if they filch the privileges assumed by moran, notably their claim to affairs with unmarried girls. It is the ‘play’ among 17

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

younger people that bears a closer resemblance to the herds of gazelle.As older girls are married off, so they are replaced by younger girls; and this continues until the boys are strong enough to attract the popular attention of the younger girls away from the ageing moran.Then the time is ripe for a new set of initiations.This triggers a chain reaction at higher levels. Growing boys displace moran, stemming from a combination of biological and demographic factors. The moran become disaffected with their own youth, and they are poised for elderhood. The elders in turn have to accommodate to this new state of affairs, breaking the vicious circle between them and the retiring moran, who may now begin to marry. If teenage pubescent boys seem to be at a natural stage for adolescence in Western terms, then the point to note here is that they are treated as preadolescent among Maasai. It is the moran who are treated as adolescents, excluded from the family as more than mere children, but not yet accepted as adults. They are held in a limbo – a state of social suspension – well into their twenties and occasionally beyond the age of thirty; and their delinquencies have to be viewed against this background. Once they are past their physical prime as a group, they begin to settle down to elderhood and marriage. Adolescence is not simply a phenomenon of urban civilization as has sometimes been suggested; nor is it a genetically programmed stage of behaviour, as some primatologists have implied.3 In such societies as the Samburu, it shares some characteristics of adolescence elsewhere, but in a delayed and extended form that is moulded by the social context. It is socially constructed. This model provides a very basic framework for the age system within each tribal section of the Maasai proper also. In their view, the premise of gerontocracy is so fundamental to their way of life that it does not require explanation or justification. Maasai moran too are trapped in a regime imposed by the elders and yet at the same time they are largely left to themselves to create their own alternative reality.They are notorious for their headstrong ways and a general lack of respect that absorbs them in a subversive subculture as a class apart. Every theft, adultery, and fracas confirms the elders’ view that they are still immature hooligans, and provides a pretext for delaying the next step towards marriage, which in turn fuels the temptations for moran to continue in their ways.The gerontocratic rule of the elders and their control over the disposal of women is bolstered by these lapses. But the lapses also reveal the extent to which elders have only partial control over young men and even over their own wives. They lack the power to command every aspect of their top-heavy regime, and this produces a power-vacuum lower down the hierarchy. Discreet defiance is the price that the elders have to pay for imposing their will.

The manyata system and the integrity of moranhood The ambiguity of Maasai moranhood poses a threat to social order. Both the problem and its partial containment are associated with the manyata system. ‘Manyat’ (s. e-manyata, pl. i-manyat) are large ‘warrior’ villages that are self-governing and 18

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

responsible for defending a clearly defined territory.There are typically about four manyat in any tribal section, and these persisted in each of the areas that I visited in Kenya, although this arrangement had lapsed in Tanzania. Significantly, perhaps, the gerontocratic premise is stronger in the north, and this may provide a clue for the continuation of manyat after their defensive role had become attenuated. Successive administrations in Kenya failed in their attempts to force the Maasai to abandon this institution.With each new age-set, moran have asserted their right to build manyat, and the elders have recognized this as a device for coping with young men and keeping a recurrent problem at a discreet distance from their villages and wives.The tenacity of the manyata system, like moranhood itself in more peaceful times, draws attention to its value as an internal arrangement. In order to elaborate this model, it is useful to distinguish between what may be termed ‘age-sets’ and ‘age grades’. An ‘age-set’ comprises a group of peers who are circumcised during a defined period as youths, and it persists throughout their lives.An ‘age grade’ concerns the status that is ascribed to such a group for a period of their lives before they move on. Figure 2.1 focused on the principal age grades, and within this, the grade of moranhood in its fullest sense is occupied by just one age-set at a time, whereas the grade of elderhood comprises a series of age-sets that have previously matured from moranhood in succession. A further elaboration concerns the division of each age-set into two successive ‘age-groups’ – sub-sets – first of the ‘right-hand’ side and then of the ‘left-hand’. These two sides, or agegroups, pass through the stages of moranhood separately until they are formally united into a single age-set as they reach elderhood. During moranhood, the notion of being age mates together applies primarily to those of the same manyata, extending to other manyat of their tribal section; but they are also aware that they belong to a designated age-set that will extend to all Maasai proper and demand a higher loyalty on formal occasions when they become elders. The first circumcisions of a new age-set mark the initiation of the senior righthand age-group of moran.As their numbers build up, they assert their control over the arena of moranhood with an ostentatious display of privileges, culminating in the formation of their manyat as the supreme privilege. Parading their power, they mount mock raids against the villages of their fathers, taking cattle to provide food for the manyata and snatching away their mothers to rebuild their huts there, but no more than one ‘mother’ from each family. Typically, there are 2–3 moran per hut.There are no negotiations with their parents, and fathers are expected to comply with this in good grace, or risk the humiliating seizure by the moran. If a mother-of-moran is the only wife, then she may be left and her moran sons would attach themselves to another ‘mother’; or – if she is very popular with the moran and the father is very old and benign – they may both be taken. Such old-menof-the-manyata would be well looked after by the moran and treated as special guests. Their presence adds a touch of dignity and of earlier traditions to what is otherwise regarded as a place for young people to ‘play’. This decisive event places the new age-group on the political map. However, the composition of the manyata is less decisive. Some moran do not have mothers 19

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

there, and these should attach themselves to the hut of another mother-of-moran. There are also various categories of moran. Some do not actually reside at the manyata. They include those who are needed to herd their fathers’ cattle as nonmanyata moran, and others who are forced to retire prematurely to elderhood because they have already inherited substantial herds of cattle. A more anomalous category in the past were impoverished moran who had belonged to the previous age-group and then, instead of retiring to elderhood, they ‘reverted’ to join their successors in the hope of mending their fortunes.After the initial flurry, fathers-ofmoran are expected to allow certain uninitiated children to join the manyata, where they will benefit from manyata discipline, typically one boy and one girl per hut. Boys herd the cattle, and girls help their mothers and associate with the moran. Table 2.1 indicates the balance between the various categories, as perceived by elders in seven tribal sections, listing these in broadly descending order from north to south.4 It is at the manyata that the peer bonds are consolidated among moran, stressing accountability to one another as the ultimate democratic ideal. This extends to non-manyata moran, when they have the opportunity to join their peers. Loyalty and sharing are supreme virtues that become almost an infatuation. Moran identify themselves above all with their manyata.They should keep company and travel together, observe the strict etiquette of sharing food and sharing in their hardship. They should seek special dispensation from the manyata to pursue any personal interest elsewhere. Manyata decisions are by consensus under the guidance of an appointed ‘spokesman’ (ol-aiguenani ), and they are binding. Within this regime, moran do not tolerate any breach of manyata discipline, and this extends to other behaviour that could tarnish its reputation, such as a personal show of defiance towards the elders.The standard punishment for a deliberate lapse is the confiscation of a fine ox for a feast to calm the anger of other moran.The culprit should submit to this to reaffirm his loyalty or he would be beaten. Later, as an elder, his

Table 2.1 Perceived composition of a typical manyata in seven tribal sections Tribal section

Manyata moran

Non-manyata Premature Reverting Old men of Cattle moran* elders* moran the manyata per hut

North Purko Uasinkishu Loita Siria Matapato Loitokitok Kisonko South

500 50 500 50 300–400 10–20 100–200 5 200 300 300–400 200 100 100

100 20 10–20 10 25 5 10

Note * Associated with the manyata, but not as residents.

20

2–3 ? ? ? 2 0 2–3

4–6 ? 5–6 ? 2 3–4 1–2

10–20 9 4–10 c.8 9–20 10–50 5–40

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

defiance could provoke a terrible age-set curse, but that is not the way of moran, who both loathe and do not understand cursing. They want to bring their most headstrong age mates to their senses, nurturing them through physical coercion rather than isolating them. This period of moranhood lasts several years and reaches a climax when the manyat of a tribal section converge on one site to celebrate their eunoto festival. Then they return to their original sites and disband at some point after this. The manyata episode is bounded by two ritualized burlesques that draw attention to the changing triangular relationships between moran, their mothers, and the elders at this time. First, the ‘ox-of-the-wooden-earplugs’ follows an initiate’s transition to moranhood, when he celebrates his first forest feast with other moran. On this occasion, his mother and other wives spar with the moran, engaging in verbal horseplay with sexual innuendoes that taunt the father and other elders.Years later, when the manyata episode has run its course, the parade ‘of-the-sheepskin-cowls’ marks the formal disbanding. This takes the form of a mock raid by elders – the patrons of the moran – who dress up and behave ludicrously, hurling similar abuse at the moran and their mothers; and the mothers especially are terrified at the possible effect of the elders’ mock curses and rush to pacify them. In effect, the elders have the final laugh before each morani has to return with his mother to the subservience of the father’s regime. Following their return from the manyata, the ‘right-hand’ take a hesitant step towards elderhood: each morani performs a ceremony of ‘drinking milk’ by himself, formally breaking the spell of sharing with his age mates.This is followed by further circumcisions, marking the initiation of the smaller left-hand age-group, who are then granted the privileges and panache of the arena of moranhood, and form their manyat for a shorter episode. Each step is spaced out over the cycle of about fifteen years, as shown in Figure 2.2. The striking contrast between the moran and elders corresponds to two very different views of one another.The elders hold the moral high-ground in claiming to have a general sense of respect which the moran have yet to acquire. They argue that the moran have double standards, parading their manyata virtues, while surreptitiously exploiting any opportunity to filch from the elders.The trail of moran indiscretions leaves the elders unconvinced, suspicious of their extra-manyata subversions, and vigilant. In response to this, the moran are equally dismissive, pointing to the mean self-indulgence of the elders as against their own ‘groupindulgence’.The vigilance of the elders is seen to stem from an acquisitive urge to build up their herds and families as personal possessions, which they jealously horde in small isolated villages. What the elders regard as their growing family responsibilities, the moran see as a selfish and hypocritical concern for accumulating personal possessions. The apparent anomaly of elderhood concerns a distinction between capital (stock), which moran are in no position to accumulate before marriage, and the consumable proceeds of that capital (milk or meat), which elders continue to share with their age mates as they did when moran. The ideal of sharing the 21

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

Figure 2.2 The split ‘cycle’ of moranhood among the Maasai.

company of peers and a sense of shared experience and a shared future persists among elders, especially at their festivals, even though differences in skill and luck lead to gross inequalities in wealth. The distinction between personal ownership and unstinting hospitality is accepted by the elders, but is challenged by the moran, who face the contradiction that their pride in the ideal of shared bachelor poverty plays into the hands of polygynous elders. The strength of the Maasai manyata system is well illustrated by the contrast with the Samburu, whose more laissez-faire attitude towards youth focuses attention on moran delinquencies rather than on any developing accountability.Among Maasai moran, acquiring manyata discipline underpins a developing relationship with the elders. This contrasts with the sustained opposition between Samburu moran and elders.Apart from congregating for their occasional ilmugit festivals, the Samburu do not appear ever to have had a manyata organization comparable with the Maasai or the opportunity to cultivate the finesse of self-government as moran. Living in a harsher region, they often spend long periods in remote cattle camps. Similar ideals are expressed, but moran activities are mobilized around dispersed clan loyalties rather than focused on manyata solidarity. Among the Maasai, clan loyalties may break the surface in the heat of the moment, but manyata discipline cuts across these and should prevail in the aftermath. Again among the Samburu, the personal honour of each morani is linked to the fidelity of his girlfriend, and any breach can lead to a personal attack, even building up to a wider fracas; whereas 22

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

Maasai moran extend the spirit of manyata sharing and solidarity to include sharing the favours of their girls with one another. Maasai moran expect one another to display their maturity by accepting manyata discipline over personal rivalries; whereas Samburu moran seek to resolve these physically as warriors, and personal grievances may build up to simmering feuds between clans.5 Compared with the Maasai, Samburu moran effectively remain in a marginalized state of suspension for a more extended period until the initiation of the next age-set, and few marry before that point.There is no division of an age-set between right-hand and left-hand age-groups, and nothing equivalent to the first eunoto when right-hand moran among the Maasai are permitted to marry.The Samburu have no intermediate step towards elderhood for the older members of an age-set, and the strains of moranhood are pushed towards an extreme. Maasai moran experience similar strains, but these are less prolonged and are offset by the manyata system which places the moran in a powerful position in their own right, and steers them towards elderhood and marriage. Samburu moran eventually become eligible for marriage at a much later point in the age cycle, broadly equivalent to the left-hand eunoto among the Maasai. Following this and supported by their clansmen, they are all expected to marry quite soon after the initiation of the next age-set. This corresponds to the striking boundary between moran and elders in Figure 2.1. Among the Maasai, this boundary is more blurred, with a more individualistic approach to marriage (as towards accumulating wealth subsequently). The disbanding of the manyata is accepted as an ideal point to begin negotiations for marriage, but a few young men may be forced by their fathers to marry before this point, and some at an even earlier stage as an alternative to becoming moran. Others may have to wait a number of years before a marriage can be arranged, and some may never marry.Thus, Samburu moran are more disunited than their Maasai peers and over a longer period, but clan support over marriage promotes greater uniformity in the sharp transition to elderhood.6

Jostling on the age grade ladder The Maasai age system does not involve ageing moran trickling into elderhood as they are replaced at the bottom by a trickle of circumcised boys: instead it entails a burst of circumcisions at the initiation of each new age-set that transforms the prospects for all moran of the previous age-set, whatever their age.The model can be elaborated further by subdividing the category of elderhood into grades through which members of each age-set pass together, rather as pupils in a school are recruited and promoted together through successive forms.This suggests superimposing a ladder on the male half of Figure 2.1 as a model for the system of age stratification. Each rung would then represent an age grade, with youths climbing onto the lowest rung at initiation and older age-sets passing in procession up the ladder. In the school example, each rung is occupied and all the classes are marshalled to the next rung simultaneously at the beginning of the school year. In the Maasai system, with a cycle of about fifteen years, the dynamics are linked to 23

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

demographic processes as youths mature, mature men age, and pressures build up for initiation and promotion.This creates a changing configuration of power relations as age-sets step fitfully up the ladder. Spacing tends to be uneven with a certain jostling between successive age-sets for the privileges and power associated with a particular rung at that time, and sometimes a vacant rung elsewhere – an intermediate age grade with no incumbent. Changes in this configuration are predictable, however, and one complete cycle of about fifteen years later there will be jostling and unoccupied rungs at precisely the same levels on the ladder, although each age-set meanwhile will have climbed up to the position previously held by its predecessor. In other words, the Maasai perceive a regular process, and in order to understand the system, one has to discern the forces that produce this regularity. After initiation, the next rung on the ladder is associated with the privileges of moranhood, which concern their appearance, their rights over unmarried girls, and above all their claim ‘to rule’ as the body of young men who are best fitted for defending Maasai cattle from raiders. A new age-set of novice moran may at first be denied these privileges by their predecessors and may be beaten into submission when they attempt to filch them until they are strong enough to assert themselves successfully. Once this point has been reached, the seniors avoid humiliation by discarding the privileges as no more than ‘children’s play’, and take a significant step towards elderhood. In this way, the change-over from one age-set to the next involves a certain jostling for control of the lower rungs which may begin to build up even before the new initiations and continue for some years. By comparison, the mid-cycle transition within an age-set – from the right-hand to the left-hand – is treated essentially as an internal matter: after right-hand moran have paraded the privileges over a prolonged period, they extend them to the left-hand as a gesture, but they do not discard them in disgust. There is a changing of the guard, while the privileges still remain within the age-set. The intense rivalry over privileges in pre-colonial times is revealed in the following example. This is taken from Moritz Merker’s outstanding study of the Maasai around 1900, when the manyata villages of moran provided continuous cover against raiders (in contrast to the more intermittent cover since then).7 Case 1. After the initiation of a new age-set, novice moran carried shields and would be given permission by the elders to adorn these with a black symbol and an ornamental black stripe. However, the ruling moran of the preceding age-set would at first forbid them using any red paint on their shields and above all the coveted red symbol of warriorhood. As the novices gained strength and confidence, they would filch the red symbol and taunt the ruling moran that they were becoming too old to be worthy of it. If they were not beaten, the novices would then build their own enclosure in the bush as a prototype of their manyata village. The ruling moran would respond by attacking the novices and sacking their ‘manyata’. If the novices were defeated, they were forced to erase the red symbol from their shields and disperse. They might 24

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

eventually be allowed this symbol if they distinguished themselves in cattle raids on their neighbours, but normally they had to assert their claim once more, again assuming the red symbol on their shields and rebuilding their ‘manyata’ enclosure. Sooner or later, after several confrontations, the ruling moran would either be defeated or lose the will to persist and accept that it was time to become elders and marry, leaving the novices the space to proclaim themselves the true defenders of their district. The transition from one age-set of ruling moran to the next could be bitter, but it did not normally last long. The presence of two rival manyat in the same district at the same time was short-lived: if the ruling moran could not wreck the novices’ village, they would start to abandon their own. In describing the process whereby all men ‘climb’ through successive grades, the Maasai emphasize the importance of the ‘firestick’ relationship (ilpiron) between alternate age-sets. In this relationship, it is the seniors who ceremonially bring the junior age-set to ‘life’ by kindling a ritual fire, and through this act they become the ‘firestick’ patrons of this new age-set. Age-set A kindle a fire for age-set C. Fifteen years later, age-set B will kindle a fire for D. And so on, linking alternate age-sets in a chain of patronage. It is the age-set of firestick patrons who are the moral and ritual guardians of the moran, with responsibility for controlling their promotions up the ladder towards elderhood.This is backed by a firm belief in the patrons’ potent blessing and curse over their protégés. The relationship between adjacent age-sets does not have the same strictures, and this leaves a certain scope for jostling and rivalries that are fanned by the adulteries and other misdeeds committed by younger men against their seniors. When young elders turn from defending the privileges of moranhood, they have to adapt to the task of establishing their families and herds, keeping a watchful eye on the segregation of their young wives from novice moran. Increasingly, they come to grasp the nuances of community affairs among elders by sharing company with older men.This ranges from casual exchanges of gossip to more formal meetings that seek to impose order on any tangle of relations or differences of opinion. The manyata ideal of unity among moran is matched by an ideal in elderhood that all differences of opinion can and must be resolved by debate until they arrive at a consensus that is sufficient to stifle further protest from individuals. This is then confirmed with a blessing by the oldest men. On matters concerning the moran alone, the firestick patrons’ age-set are dominant; but a wider concord is necessary on other issues.Young elders have some experience of debating from their manyata days, but they have to adapt their style to accommodate to a more experienced community where the ideal of democratic unity is compromised by tensions between age-sets. At first they are inexperienced and few have sons old enough to take over the herding if they wish to keep close company with elders. In time, they gather strength and confidence – as they once did as boys seeking initiation – and increasingly they can mobilize as a united age-set to assert their interests on some issue in debate.Their eventual aim is to take over the initiative in public affairs from 25

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

their predecessors – the firestick patrons of the moran – using each incident of lawlessness among the moran to discredit them. But they too have to impress the community at large that they have the qualities to take over as firestick patrons for a future age-set of novices. In the rhetoric of debate, if doubt can be cast on the competence of the established patrons to control the moran, their legitimate authority can be challenged. But if the aspiring patrons betray their inexperience, then their bluff is called – by the same men who once humiliated them as boys aspiring for moranhood.The outcome is inevitable since time is always on the side of the younger men. As elders in their prime, firestick patrons need to absorb and interpret the cross-currents of gossip and rumour at all times, mustering their numbers to attend important discussions, and then to retain their mental vigour in the heat of debate. Much depends on the fitness of their most adept and imaginative orators. Their ability to do this reaches a peak in their mid-fifties, and then begins to wane as the advantage slips away from them and they lose the determination to persist.The only uncertainties, as with the battle over privileges, are precisely when the seniors will retire, and if they will do so gracefully and even with considerable credit, rather than being humiliated into old age. A clear account of the rivalry between adjacent age-sets was first outlined by Philip Gulliver in his analysis of the Arusha Maasai (1963). Gulliver pointed out that the rivalries between adjacent age-sets do not only concern the tussle between novices and retiring moran at the time of change-over, but persist into elderhood where firestick patronage brings with it considerable prestige and power in the arena of elders’ affairs. The rivalry becomes especially acute during the period when one age-set of novice moran (of age-set D) are poised to establish themselves and take the limelight from the retiring moran (of age-set C). This broadly coincides with the point at which their respective firestick patrons (of age-sets B and A) are engaged in a tussle for political supremacy among elders. Ultimately, age-set B move up to a significant rung; and having been displaced, age-set A move up further still towards old age and increasing obscurity.These transitions among younger and older men concern different types of struggle for credibility within the community at large and may not coincide exactly. But whatever the pattern, alternate age-sets are bound up with one another and are broadly in step. Thus, as the moran of an age-set mature towards elderhood, passing through their physical prime, so their firestick patrons, who are broadly thirty years older, pass through their political prime (Figure 2.3). During this period of about fifteen years, there is a notional ‘firestick’ alliance between these two age-sets in opposition to young elders of the intervening age-set, who are temporarily eclipsed, but will emerge as firestick patrons to a new age-set of novice moran in due course. When this occurs, they come out of eclipse and power switches to the alternative firestick alliance for the next 15 years. It is this pattern of alternating alliances that seems to account for the span of the 15-year age cycle: over a period of 45 years (3 cycles), from the age of about 20 until 65, adult males pass through their physical and then their political primes. Before this period they are mere boys and afterwards they are a dwindling array of ageing men. If men aged more slowly among 26

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

Figure 2.3 Age and the two male arenas.

the Maasai, then the periodic cycle of age-sets would extend beyond fifteen years. In this way, the model of firestick alliances links the average age-set span to the active life-span of adulthood; whereas the gerontocratic model linked it to the level of polygyny. These two models pose a certain contradiction.The gerontocratic interpretation regards the firestick patrons as disciplinarians, acting on behalf of all elders to curb the excesses of the moran through their power to curse (A vs C; B vs D). The notion of an age grade ladder, on the other hand, highlights rivalry between adjacent age-sets (A vs B; B vs C; etc.). Here, the moran and their firestick patrons are allies, with two firestick alliances in opposition to one other (A  C vs B  D).This can hardly be described as a gerontocratic ladder, especially in the jostling between adjacent age-sets and as power declines with old age.Taken together, these models point to the ambivalence of relations between men of different ages. However, in both cases, it is in the interests of all elders to delay the advancement of the moran, and the firestick patrons above all seek to keep the moran in check. The contrast between the two models is reflected in the profiles of age difference between fathers and sons. The firestick alliance is especially marked among the Kisonko Maasai in the south (Chapter 8), and there is no suggestion of incompatibility if a father is also a firestick patron of his own son (cf. Fosbrooke 1956: 196–8; Gulliver 1963: 30). Among the Samburu in the far north, however, the gerontocratic model applies and elders insist that sons of age-set A should not be initiated into C, or their role as indulgent fathers would soften the regime imposed by the austere firestick patrons. Age-set A are designated the ‘fathers of age-set D’ 27

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

Table 2.2 Contrasting profiles of generation span Community and survey date

Kisonko (1954) Samburu (1958)

Distribution of age-set differences between fathers and sons (%) 1

2

3

4

5

6

2 —

29 1

52 53

11 34

4 11

2 2

Sample base

Span per age-set (years)

Mean in years (and standard deviation)

136 646

15.0 13.5

43.8 (13.6) 48.7 (10.6)

Table 2.3 Maasai age-sets and age grades in 1977 Age-set

(Age range)

Age grade

Dareto Terito Nyankusi Seuri (Un-named)

(over 70 years) (56–70 years) (41–55 years) (26–40 years) (18–25 years)

Fading but respected elders (firestick patrons of Nyankusi) Retired elders (firestick patrons of Seuri) Firestick patrons of moran Young elders (recently retired from moranhood) Moran (right-hand only, later joined by the left-hand to become Kitoip age-set)

and continue to play a role in public life in defending their ‘sons’ (of D) from the harsh demands of their firestick patrons; and they have an interest in hastening the initiation of age-set D to perpetuate their families.Thus, unlike Kisonko elders of age-set A who have formally retired, their Samburu counterparts still have a role, extending the span of active involvement beyond three age-sets, and correlating with a slightly shorter average age-set span of 13–14 years.Table 2.2 illustrates the contrast between the two profiles of generation span, with a considerable proportion of older sons closer in age to their fathers among the Kisonko Maasai than among the Samburu.8 In the Maasai system, firestick patrons formally retire as an age-set when they approach the upper end of the age ladder. However, their most resilient members do not necessarily fade into oblivion and they may continue to assert themselves as individuals, drawing on their wealth of experience and claiming the dignity of old age. It is precisely these men who are most likely to have well-established reputations and they may continue to assume a certain authority in community affairs for a while yet, even though their age-set has no further role. Case 2. Table 2.3 shows the array of age-sets in 1977. At this time, elders of the Terito age-set were mostly in their sixties, with well established families and a reputation that could not be matched by younger men. Among the Matapato Maasai, they had been humiliated by their successors of the Nyankusi age-set some years earlier, and they were still smarting from the experience of being formally harried into retirement, even though they still commanded respect. Now the Nyankusi were firestick patrons of the moran 28

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

of Kitoip age-set, who were preparing for their right-hand eunoto festival: the most prestigious event of their moranhood. The Terito elders had no formal role in these preparations. However, many of them had sons in the Kitoip, and they could claim a direct interest in this ceremony. Moreover, with more experience of the Maasai system extending back to earlier times, they claimed to know the authentic ceremonial details better than the Nyankusi.This led to a certain jostling from above.At meetings among the elders to discuss the forthcoming ceremony, the Nyankusi could not prevent members of Terito age-set from parading this knowledge and raising relevant issues.The Nyankusi elders had to assert their own authority from time to time and remind the Terito that this was none of their business.They would order the Terito elders to leave at critical points of a debate that was strictly a Nyankusi matter, but this did not stifle their overbearing interference.At a strategic point of the ceremony, when the firestick patrons and moran gathered to bless the ritual leader’s ox before it was sacrificed, a leading Terito elder appeared among them and stole the limelight by singing authentic warrior songs from earlier times that the Nyankusi had never properly learned.The moran appreciated that these songs were entirely appropriate, giving an added aura to the occasion, but their firestick patrons were aggravated by the humiliation. Following this performance, elders of the Seuri age-set, who followed Nyankusi, were already suggesting optimistically among themselves that just as the Nyankusi had harried the Terito into retirement, so their time to harry Nyankusi was close. In this example, it was in the interests of the Terito age-set to parade their knowledge in its fullest ritual finery, even embroidering tradition to this end. Their diminished powers undermined the gerontocratic premise; but by invoking ‘true’ tradition and seeking to rise above the jostling for power among younger men, they retained an impregnable niche. Meanwhile, elders of the Nyankusi age-set had to defend themselves against the challenges of younger men of Seuri by asserting their right by age and the force of tradition. Paradoxically, each ritual event in the age cycle is stage-managed by firestick patrons, but it also marks a step towards their political demise. Minor confusions that are characteristic of any ritual occasion may be depicted as signs of their growing incompetence, discrediting them, undermining their confidence, and edging them towards a premature retirement. Given the shifting rivalries as young men mature and mature men grow old, any accommodation between adjacent age-sets can only be temporary and may be challenged at the next public occasion.

Homo Ascendens and Homo Hierarchicus Clearly, inequalities of age contradict the widespread assumption that pastoralist societies are essentially egalitarian. It is age mates above all who should treat one another as equals; but beyond the age-set, there is a rigid system of stratification based on age differences.This contrasts in a number of ways with forms of stratification 29

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

based on descent. However, there are also some striking parallels.The model of an age grade ladder may be elaborated to illustrate some of these more fundamental principles that extend beyond a system based solely on age. With Cases 1 and 2 in mind, it is revealing to compare the dynamics of the Maasai age system with Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus, where he claimed the uniqueness of caste in India. In their traditional settings, both types of system involve a stratified hierarchy of groups with life-long membership. However, they are radical opposites in terms of social mobility. Caste systems are characterized by perfect immobility: the status of each caste is fixed at a certain level within the hierarchy, and people may not climb above the rank to which they were born.Whereas age systems are characterized by perfect mobility: age-sets are promoted systematically from the lowest rung at initiation to the most senior, as they pass in procession up the age ladder. Apart from this fundamental difference, there are also some striking parallels, and transposing some of the essential components of Dumont’s model leads to an equally clear-cut ideal type for the Maasai, based on similar structural principles. (a) Age grades among the Maasai may be compared with varna, the ancient Vedic divisions within the Hindu hierarchy. Both provide an ideological framework for the system of stratification, overriding regional and local variations. Untouchables in Dumont’s model are at the bottom of the caste system and outside varna; Maasai boys remain outside the age system until they first step onto the age ladder at circumcision. Dumont’s approach to defining a series of ascending levels of varna in terms of increasingly exclusive oppositions could be applied to the Maasai also. Boys are not yet moran and cannot inherit (they have no ‘dominion over animals’). Moran are segregated from the elders and excluded from wider political decision-making. Junior elders have no effective curse over younger men until they become firestick patrons to a new age-set, which is the next step (and gives them ‘dominion over people’).9 (b) Corresponding to the parallel between age grades and varna, which concern a ranked hierarchy of statuses, there is a parallel between age-set and caste, which are bounded groups and characterized by internal equality and external inequality.Thus, age grade : age-set :: varna : caste (c) The ideological premise of the Hindu caste system relates status to ‘purity’, ascending from extreme impurity at the bottom, associated with the most polluting occupations, and leading upwards towards the extreme purity of the Brahmins, who alone can sacrifice. Rather than ‘purity’, the premise of the Maasai age system evokes a scale of ‘respect’ (enkanyit). Boys as a general category are widely disregarded as thoroughly irresponsible and incapable of any sense of respect: they are not only outside the age system, but at a level of popular expectation they are also moral outcasts. Moran have a mixed reputation, 30

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

progressing towards elderhood although with sporadic lapses that betray their youth. Elders have acquired a sense of respect, which is held to increase with age. The oldest men may no longer wield political influence, but their age envelops them in an aura of greatness that demands respect from all other sectors of society. To say in Maasai that an old man has respect is synonymous with saying that ‘he is great’ (e-kitok). The Hindu and Maasai systems, with contrasting ideologies, are both pegged down firmly at the two extremes: with purity opposed to impurity in the first instance, and respect opposed to gross irresponsibility in the second.These extremes impose inviolate values that provide orientation and meaning for each society, while the political and economic dynamics of day-to-day existence take place somewhere in the more volatile middle reaches. (d) In this respect, Dumont distinguishes between ‘status’ and ‘power’, implying a contradiction between alternative scales of value and claims to superiority. Brahminic priests are expected to remain detached from worldly administration, transcending the murk of politics at the lower levels, but this undermines their authority.Among the Maasai, the oldest men face a similar contradiction. As their firestick protégés transcend moranhood and withdraw to elderhood, so elders of the patron age-set lose the initiative in community affairs, but still claim the respect due to their age.The older men are the prime custodians of Maasai tradition and have an informed detachment that often gives their advice an air of absolute wisdom. At any meeting that involves elders of all ages, it is the oldest men that are always sought for a general blessing. Maasai is a society where one can conceive of the charisma of old age. As in the Hindu parallel, practice may fall short of the ideal on occasion, but the ideal remains strong. Only when they have finally vacated all the rungs associated with the privileges of wielding power can senior men enjoy the inviolate status of old age.They have reached the top of the ladder and can be harried no further. Meanwhile on the lower rungs, the assertions of power lay bare the contradiction between age and youth, which gives the age system its vitality. (e) Other commentators on the Hindu system have noted local variations: the political dominance of one caste may be undisputed in some areas, and may be undermined by internal factions in others, or be challenged in contests with rival castes.10 Correspondingly, on the dominant rung of the Maasai age ladder, the ruling firestick patrons may be in an unchallengeable position in one tribal section, or their unity may be threatened by unresolved differences of opinion in a second, or they may find themselves increasingly harried by the next age-set jostling for this rung in a third. Their earlier experience as young men seeking to usurp and then retain the privileges of moranhood is replicated in later life. Paraphrasing Dumont:‘Each [age-set] will try to manipulate this situation to its own advantage, but other [age-sets] may be of a different opinion … [while with regard to the total pattern, it] can be seen that a fundamental opposition which is conceived as the essence of a whole series of concrete distinctions really underlies the hierarchical order.’11 31

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In other words, among the Maasai, when juniors harry their predecessors for the next rung of the ladder, there is a certain show of disrespect towards them. By this very act, however, they reaffirm the value attached to the rung and to the system of stratification as a whole, and hence ultimately the value of respect for age.The seniors can always claim a superior status, but they find themselves locked in a power struggle with their juniors over the symbols of status. The juniors always have time on their side – each rung must be conceded sooner or later; but paradoxically, the more prematurely they discredit their seniors, the more they devalue the system and expose themselves to similar tactics by their own aspiring juniors. All Maasai men have an ambiguous stake in the ideological premise of increasing respect and charisma with age, and this extends to those flaunting the privileges of youth at the bottom of the ladder.

The integrity of elderhood and the avoidance of daughters The indeterminate balance of power between adjacent age-sets at any time provides an element of disarray in community affairs. But the ideal of age-set unity is unaffected by shifting fortunes as they age. Like moran, individual elders are answerable to their age mates for any breach of discipline, even at the most dispiriting times, and this is underpinned by the belief in an age-set curse. Unlike the curse of firestick patrons, which is paraded in rhetoric to keep moran in their place, any threat of an age-set curse implies a fundamental breach of trust among peers. On the scale of age-set punishments that mount with popular feeling, a young elder may first be warned by his age mates for minor offences. If he persists, and especially as he matures, then his age mates will raid his village and seize one of his finest oxen for a feast.This is esoogo, and the offender should acquiesce or risk further punishment. If two mature age mates fight and one draws blood, then an esoogo is inflicted on them both separately, for it is their unseemly behaviour rather than the balance of blame that concerns the others. Esoogo aims to dissipate the collective anger within an age-set, averting the destructive mystical consequences of this anger. A more extreme step would be to unleash their outrage by pronouncing a collective curse on a culprit, in effect excommunicating him from the age-set. Elders refer to this curse as the most terrible punishment, stripping the victim of the most enduring aspect of his social identity and placing him and his wives and children at extreme risk. Petty rivalries among age mates do not give any one of them a licence to break ranks, so long as they remain inside Maasai society. Each age-set displays a robust front and the age system remains intact. In handling their domestic affairs, however, Maasai elders are altogether less restrained by their peers, and may assume a patriarchal authority over their wives, children, and even adult sons, who are all their personal ‘possessions’ (imaali).12 The implication of this was vividly illustrated during the disastrous cattle epidemics of the late nineteenth century, when starving Maasai were recorded as ‘selling’ their children to neighbouring peoples in exchange for food. Commenting on this episode, contemporary Maasai suggest that fathers were fully entitled to dispose of 32

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their children, especially as they were fulfilling their moral responsibility by saving them from almost certain death and procuring essential food for their emaciated wives. The same principle applies to the disposal of girls in marriage. Each father has the responsibility to secure his daughter’s future by marrying her to a suitable family, and she is groomed to accept the inevitability of his decision. It is the family that is emphasized, and he has the right to negotiate the most favourable terms as he sees them. Consistent with the respect associated with ageing, the father should be venerated within his family for his wisdom and judgement in such matters; and this is underpinned by the support of other elders, notably his ‘brothers’ and his age mates. This has a particular relevance for the development of bonds within the age-set. The virtue of sharing among moran is carried over to elderhood, where there is an almost compulsive element in the sharing between all age mates, and not just between those who have been close and trusted friends since their manyata days. After marriage, this maxim of age-set sharing extends to the sexual favours of their wives, as it did to their girls when they were moran. They point out that a suitor is accompanied by an age mate when he first negotiates for his bride, and again when he leads her to his village. While a woman’s fertility becomes a possession of her husband at marriage, her hut (f. enk-aji) in a sense belongs to his age-set (m. ol-aji), and any age mate may visit it, expect food and hospitality, extending even to discreet sex. If she bears a child then the husband should be grateful rather than jealous. Children are not always easy to come by, they argue, and this reciprocal service is widely regarded as a worthy demonstration of the ideal of sharing. All her children are fully accepted as possessions of the husband; but with uncertain paternity, any of his age mates could be their natural father. It is in this limited sense that children are regarded as ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’ of an age-set, and subject to their power to bless or curse; and in this sense also, an age-set may be regarded as a property-owning corporate group.13 Resort to the curse is an extreme and unpopular measure, but there is one situation in which it is readily threatened.When a younger man seeks to marry a girl, any member of her father’s age-set may block the suit by threatening his curse over her and her future children if he bears a grudge against the suitor. Her father would be bound to refuse the suitor until he has made peace with his adversary by offering a gift in return for his blessing. Any offended elder can resort to this threat as often as he likes, even merely on grounds of suspicion.And any young man must reckon with his tally of indiscretions when calculating his chances of obtaining a bride. An elder’s power to veto the marriage of girls extends to all those whom he may not himself marry because they are classed as ‘daughters’, including girls of his clan and daughters of these ‘daughters’. However, it is the ‘daughters’ of his age-set that are especially prominent in this category. Some clansmen may be rather distant, and there are frequent breaches of clan exogamy among the Maasai. However, the principle of age-set sharing dictates that all age mates are close, and the avoidance of age-set ‘daughters’ dominates their ideals of propriety. The sexuality of these girls is theirs to bestow but not to consume. There would be severe criticism of the 33

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remotest hint of intimacy between them, and any suggestion of ‘incest’ arouses a particular horror. This is of a different order to their bemused disapproval where suggestions of incest merely concern classificatory ‘mothers’ or (clan) ‘sisters’. A girl is taught to avoid her own father from a very early age, and this extends to all members of his age-set.The uniqueness of this relationship is stressed.Within any family, she may have brothers spanning twenty years or more and ranging across two or three age-sets; and this could also be true of her future sons. But the age-set of her father is unique. She can only be the ‘daughter’ of just one age-set, rather as she can only be the wife of just one other age-set. Because marriage between an elder and the daughter of an age mate is unthinkable, it is in this sense that one may speak of ‘age-set exogamy’ among the Maasai. Such an expression can only be meaningful in relation to their daughters, and not to their mothers or sisters.Avoiding the ‘daughters’ of an age-set and vetoing their marriages are regarded as the very essence of their sharing and an altogether more sensitive issue than the more surreptitious ‘sharing’ of wives. This practice has an intriguing bearing on Lévi-Strauss’s theory of incest and exogamy in lineage-based societies. This argued that undue familiarity with close kinswomen would restrict intermarriage between lineage groups, threatening social solidarity based on marriage alliances beyond the family. In this way, LéviStrauss interpreted the horror of incest as an expression of outraged public morality moulded around this sensitive field of alliances. The theory has raised various objections, yet the Maasai appear to provide an oblique confirmation. They have weak clan exogamy, no strong corporate patrilineages, and ‘brother’–‘sister’ or ‘mother’–‘son’ incest are hardly topics that concern them. On the other hand, the pattern of ‘age-set exogamy’ as defined above, corresponds exactly with an intense horror of ‘incest’ with an age-set ‘daughter’. This leads one to transpose LéviStrauss’s argument, substituting affinal respect between age-sets for the affinal alliances between lineages in the original theory.14 The transposed argument runs as follows. Among the Maasai, there is an exceptionally close bond between age mates that is cultivated during moranhood and places an emphasis on sharing and mutual favours for the remainder of their lives. It is disloyal and even dangerous to refuse any reasonable request from an age mate. Because polygyny is common and elders marry young women, members of an age-set could face overwhelming pressures to give away daughters to each other as wives – if there were no restriction on such marriages (cf. Lévi-Strauss 1969: 41). In such a system, older men would accrue many wives, while younger men would find difficulty in marrying at all, let alone begetting daughters to bestow on their age mates.The practice of age-set exogamy at least ensures that this situation does not arise. Instead, this is essentially a system of age-set hypogamy, whereby nearly all daughters are married downwards to younger sons-in-law.There is no exchange of women between age-sets, but rather a conditional endowment of ‘daughters’ to future generations. The transposition can be taken a stage further, for these wives provide a linkage across age-sets that jostle for position on the age ladder and foster grievances 34

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against younger men. The marriages of ‘daughters’ superimpose a morality demanding respect. Even if Maasai show little respect for their own wives, they have to respect their fathers-in-law, the fathers-in-law of their age mates, the age mates of all these ‘fathers-in-law’, and hence ultimately all older men, or they would spoil their chances of further marriages.And they have to respect their own daughters, the daughters of their age mates, and the strict privacy of the sexual lives of junior age-sets who have married these ‘daughters’.The bestowal of women to younger men creates bonds that cut across age-sets and unites them in a selfperpetuating reproductive system. Public confrontations between adjacent age-sets are matched with private respect that prevails between them as affines. Indeed, the term ‘affines’ is sometimes loosely applied to the relationship between adjacent age-sets, although this describes less than one-third of all marriages. It is in this sense, echoing Lévi-Strauss, that the avoidance of ‘daughters’ might be said to constitute the bedrock of social morality. Certainly, Maasai sometimes describe this avoidance as the most sensitive issue defining their age system. It is fundamental.

The ascent of women from pawns to custodians In this political interplay among elders, women are treated as pawns.A woman does not belong to any age-set, although in quite different ways she may be identified successively with the age-set of her morani lover as a girl, of her father as a bride, of her husband as a wife, and then of her moran sons as a ‘manyata mother’. Girls have a certain freedom to choose their moran lovers, and they may even play a significant part in the transition from one age-set to the next when they begin to switch their attentions to uninitiated boys: for the ageing moran, the privileges of moranhood begin to lose their lustre from this point. However, once a girl has a lover, her freedom is strictly tempered by the demands of moran within the manyata regime.At any time, she may be snatched away by her father for marriage, and this is likely to be sooner rather than later if she stirs up rivalries among the moran. Neither she nor her mother is consulted, as this is axiomatically a matter that only elders understand. Corresponding to the age when her brothers are initiated and aspire to the high tide of moranhood, her career is at low ebb and her subordination is absolute. As a commodity, she is forced to accept her father’s choice of husband and then to submit passively as a wife, or she will be beaten into submission. This bleak episode in a girl’s career is softened by the prospect of entering the woman’s world as an adult and having children. As a dependent wife and young mother, she remains subservient, but she also builds up her network of bonds with other women. In their nomadic lifestyle, it is her husband who determines when they should migrate and in which direction, and this may periodically disrupt her relations with other wives locally; but it also opens up opportunities to re-establish earlier friendships and extend her network. The development of her partnership with her husband varies with the interplay of their personalities, but this is always against a background of growing confidence within the women’s domain, notably 35

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during her extended absence from his control as a manyata mother. Her husband is invariably older than she is, usually much older, and during the manyata episode and especially after his death, she acquires a new freedom. Control over her passes formally to her sons, but it is by no means certain that they will dominate her. She has the opportunity of playing a pivotal – even dominant – role in the development of their families as well as those of her own daughters; and her personal network is established on a broad base for which she is widely respected. This development of a woman’s career contrasts with that of men shown in Figure 2.3. This diagram revealed two peaks of male attainment: as moran when they are physically in their prime, and later as middle-aged elders when they dominate politically.Thereafter, they decline to a relatively benign old age, respected but without influence in community affairs. Superimposed over these two male primes, one may now trace the developing career of a woman as a rising curve that expands increasingly to the right and continues into old age. From the low point of her arranged marriage, opportunities to build up her own life-pattern slowly emerge, her confidence increases and, unlike male careers, there is no tailing-off as old age approaches. Her peers are not just her contemporaries, but women of all ages in a developing network; and this provides a milieu within which any resilient woman can foster her reputation and influence. Beyond the two arenas of young and middle-aged men, there is a third that belongs exclusively to women.This is displayed whenever women gather together for a dance, giving mature wives the opportunity to lead others in taunting men for their sexual hypocrisies; while the elders keep away at a mute distance. This inviolate spirit of independence reaches a peak when women gather as a mob to punish an elder for some flagrant abuse of a ‘daughter’.This event is comparatively rare, but when it occurs it has the appearance of a shock-wave as the news spreads, leaving its imprint on local folklore. It sends a shudder through the community of elders. Such a man loses the respect of his age-set peers completely and places himself beyond their care. They abandon him to mob punishment by women, which resembles the esoogo punishment among elders (and bears the same name in some parts). As rumour of the outrage spreads over a wide area, that a ‘father’ has abused one of his ‘daughters’, the women call to one another, like warriors before a raid. In mounting anger, they set off to raid his village, determined to kill his finest ox, and even to manhandle him if they can catch him. In Maasai terms,‘he has fallen’ completely, and only this mob punishment can restore him to his senses and avert a catastrophe.The anger of the women’s mob could well be fuelled by simmering grievances over the arbitrary way in which elders abuse their very basic rights, even within their own huts. However, the abuse of a ‘daughter’ raises the stakes to quite an unacceptable level.The elders keep an anxious distance from any mobbing and should be careful at all times to avoid raising even the slightest suspicion so far as their ‘daughters’ are concerned. To the extent that the structure of the age system hinges on the avoidance of ‘daughters’ in order to make them available to younger men, the threat of total humiliation following some abuse upholds this structure. In the final analysis, it is 36

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women who assert themselves as the ultimate custodians of a system that holds them in subjection. As brides, they are pawns that are married off and forge the tacit links between age-sets. Paradoxically, as a punitive mob, it is these same women in later life who uphold the fundamental moral premise on which the patriarchal system is based.

Conclusion: the process of ageing and the social construction of time This chapter has highlighted two different aspects of Maasai age organization.The gerontocratic model presents two ideologically opposed age grades: ‘moranhood’, displaying the ideals of rebellious youth, confronts ‘elderhood’, which shoulders the sombre responsibilities for the community at large.Whereas the model of competition on the age ladder is of ideologically similar but politically opposed age-sets jockeying for position. These approaches display different facets of a system that structures the process of ageing among men and has a dominant impact on the lifecourse of women. The Maasai have difficulty in assessing the passing of time in years; and with an alternative measurement in ritual cycles of about fifteen years, they see no need.15 This cycle focuses especially on the moran, whose progress is popularly measured by the length of their hair since being newly shaved novices (il-barnot) – first for those of the right-hand age-group and later for those of the left-hand. Beyond moranhood, each cycle constitutes a unique slice of life experience for older people also, and this gives it a distinctive quality that is lacking in the briefer cosmic cycles of time reckoning. It provides both men and women with a culturally defined sense of time, structuring the life-course within an endless stream of ageing age-sets that link with oral traditions of the past. These cycles ‘go round and round’, as they say, but also ‘they climb’ and time moves on, spiralling towards old age.To simulate this process visually, the sequence of ceremonial festivals could be wound in a tube, like the band around a barber’s pole, as shown in Figure 2.4.Viewing this spiral from below would replicate the cycle of moranhood (cf. Figure 2.2). If the pole were now viewed sideways and revolved on its axis once every fifteen years, then the upwards movement of the band would replicate the ageing of males, with new age-sets triggering movement up from the base, and senior age-sets dwindling from the scene at the top. Between these extremes, intermediate age-sets would be seen to climb successive steps in the passage towards old age. Each ceremonial promotion marks the developing relationship between age-sets.When the cycle of moranhood at the bottom of the pole appears to be quiescent, there may be a contest between rival age-sets at some higher point and popular attention switches from the moran to another level of political awareness. Ceremonial festivals and demographic pressures are complementary aspects of the age system. The ceremonial gatherings are the formal nodes – the events that accentuate the points of transition – while it is the process of physical ageing that 37

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

Figure 2.4 The age ladder and the spiral of ageing.

provides the main-spring, both in terms of juniors pushing their way upwards and ageing seniors losing the will to resist the nudge into retirement. Moran or firestick patrons in their prime might wish to stop the clock; but time is ticking away and others are waiting to usurp their position. Each transition is inevitable, and very broadly it can be expected to occur when the time is ripe. It is not just the festivals themselves but also the way in which they are mounted that indicate the changes that are taking place. In other words, the age system has a fixed sequence 38

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of events, but it is the interpretation of each transition and the panache of the performance that highlight the process of ageing. A Maasai festival typically generates a strong sense of occasion as large numbers gather for a display that has been widely discussed beforehand. The apprehension of the event reflects an awareness of each age transition as a unique and irreversible change for the community as a whole within what is perceived as an unchanging social order. It may generate a penumbra of anxieties and confusions that mar the performance, but these again highlight its public nature. Topical concerns over extraneous issues detract from the main thrust of the festival.There may at first be delays; and then, after a halting start, there is often disagreement on matters of procedure with heated arguments among elders. Attendance may be disappointing at first, and then there may be an unexpected surge of interest with too many to feed at once, leading to complaints of hunger and meanness. Celebration is mixed with a heightened awareness that any ritual gaff could lead to misfortune; or at best it will be remembered by some as a humiliating experience and by others as a hilarious anecdote. Precautions are taken against sorcery, but rumours of phantom malcontents can build up unexpectedly and spoil the event; anxiety spreads, even leading to panic on rare occasions. Seen in retrospect, it is as though there has been a slow and repeatedly delayed build-up, and then a sense of fulfilment when it is all over, but not always a particularly significant event in-between. This one-sided view glosses over the genuine high spirits that are normally aroused leading towards the ceremonial climax. However, it serves to draw attention to the wider context. Maasai descriptions that dwell on the minutiae and glitter of display are part of the build-up that encapsulates the essence of being ‘Maasai’. Delays prompted by the lack of respect shown by the moran beforehand, and the anticlimax of gossip over the shifting rivalries between age-sets, the confusions, and the incompetence of older men afterwards, reflect an awareness of the process of ageing.Thus, corresponding to popular interpretations of history, a ‘conspiracy theory’ of Maasai ritual would view it as a display of power and mystique, a device to overawe and suppress younger people in an attempt to stop the clock; whereas a ‘cock-up theory’ of ritual would note the bewildering effect of the unexpected in heightening sensibilities to the spectre of change, facilitating the transition (cf. Samburu: 245–54). The damp squib element draws attention to the fact that the throb of community existence does not depend on attending lavish displays – or even on the displays being particularly lavish – but on a sense of orientation in time, an awareness of the pulse of events that take their place in due course and mark the passage of time. This process is entwined with the life-courses of individuals. For those directly involved, it is their life. For others – men and women – it reflects a shift in the configuration of relations and the ebb and flow of power with age.The significance for them is that the ceremony has taken place. At a distance, gossip leading up to the event switches in the aftermath from anticipation to reminiscence, and from reminiscence to the faint anticipation of the next event in an unending series. Within the community of interlocked relations, each promotion involves a step in 39

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the process of ageing for them all. A bystander at some minor transition may remain on the same rung of the ladder, but the configuration has changed, bringing the next step closer, and everyone ages. Everyone, that is, except the oldest men. Beyond the transitions that mark the process of ageing, are the more senior age-sets with a diminishing relevance. The ideal of respect enhances their status, but ritual authority and the dynamics of power are in the hands of younger men in the prime of middle age. Once older men have been harried into retirement, they have no defined role in community affairs, whole age-sets become ageless, events become timeless, and time in a sense stands still. Case 3 (follows on from Case 2). Ageing elders of the Terito age-set had made sporadic attempts to intervene at meetings prior to the eunoto festival, although this was strictly none of their business: it was the concern of the Nyankusi age-set as firestick patrons of the moran. Subsequently, there was some confusion in the performance of the ceremony itself, and Nyankusi elders roundly blamed this on the meddling interference of the older men and ordered them angrily to stay away from these meetings. From this point, the Terito kept their own company, drinking the beer that had been provided for the celebration by their moran sons, joking together, singing boisterously, and displaying a camaraderie that was reminiscent of their youth. They seemed quite unconcerned with the ritual climax of the festival within earshot or its authenticity, turning the occasion essentially into a social reunion so far as they were concerned. In this example, the eunoto festival was staged as a major transition within the age cycle of moranhood, while the behaviour of the surviving members of Terito ageset was pitched at the highest level, beyond the dynamics of the spiral of ageing.At first, they interfered and were rebuffed. Then they trivialized the occasion and hence the system of ageing on which it was based, setting up an alternative and in some ways more powerful counter-display nearby. In their wilful behaviour, they showed the irrepressible spirit of younger men.To this extent, old age itself had to be respected, not only as the ultimate achievement, but also for its own irrepressibility. Their private festivity could be seen as a play upon ageing and hence in a sense on the process of time itself, which became a plaything: a joke at the expense of younger men who were still struggling or being harried up the age ladder – towards a non-existent top rung. In a system that gave no formal role to older men, their seniority was enhanced by assuming a licence beyond the temporality of the age system. Rather as the Samburu model of gerontocracy drew attention to the marginalized delinquency of moran in their youth, so this Maasai example draws attention to an element of marginalized dissent in old age. The Maasai have no belief in afterlife or the survival of ancestral spirits with arbitrary privileges and knowledge beyond ordinary mortals. But their conception of the roleless charisma of those who survive to old age has a certain affinity with such beliefs.The power 40

MODELS OF THE AGE SYSTEM

of the older men through their blessing and knowledge of ritual protocol is expressed in terms of their being closer to God. They radiate the propitiousness that their life-course has run its full length; but paradoxically their ageing also undermines their authority.They have transcended all stages of the age ladder, and in this sense they are beyond time.

Notes 1 For an elaboration of some of the themes of this chapter, see Matapato: 79–119, 186–223; Samburu: 95–172, 228–75; Pastoral Continuum: 26–30, 94–7; Spencer 1976: 153–60; 1985a: 171–95; 1985b: 140–3, 156–7. 2 The populations for adults in Figure 2.1 are based on the Samburu ‘clan census’, while the populations for boys and girls have been extrapolated from their proportions to adult women in the ‘settlement census’. Unlike the Maasai, the similarity in the age range of both boys and girls derives from the Samburu practice of initiating all children in strict order of birth within each family, which entails moranhood for boys and marriage for girls.The steps in this figure are derived from the Samburu age system. Because of a certain overlapping in age between successive age-sets among men, the most senior sub-set of each age-set has been grouped with the junior sub-sets of its predecessor, providing a reasonably clear-cut division into age categories.The ages of women have been estimated from the age-set of their premarital lovers, again providing a set of relatively uniform age categories (Samburu: 319–21.). 3 Mead 1928: 196; Demos 1969: 632; Jolly 1972: 261–3; Dohinow 1984: 66–9; Caine 1986: 338–9, 345; Spencer 1990: 3–7; Quiatt and Reynolds 1993: 220. 4 For fuller details of these various categories and the manyata system, see Matapato: 93, 101–38.With regard to individual tribal sections: my Purko informants suggested that the number of non-manyata moran had recently increased from about 50 to 100; the Kisonko figures refer to a period before the manyata system had lapsed; in Loita, there was tighter control over the moran, with two firestick patrons always residing at the manyata in addition to the ‘old men of the manyata’, possibly in response to the murder of a District Commissioner by a Loita moran (Kenya 1946); and associated with this tighter regime, there was less resistance than elsewhere to married moran bringing their wives to the manyata. 5 Samburu: 74, 111–13,117, 139–43, 161; Matapato: 82, 104–5, 113, 210–11; Merker 1904: 97; Saitoti 1986: 47. 6 Corresponding to the longer delay before marriage among the Samburu,Table 2.2 indicates that the age span between fathers and their older sons tends to be wider than among the Maasai. However, polygyny rates are comparable between the two societies, suggesting a similar average age difference between men and their first wives, although with more variation among the Maasai. For fuller details on this point see Samburu: 320; Matapato: 26, 172, 250; Pastoral Continuum: 56, 88 (Kisonko, Matapato, Samburu). 7 Adapted from Merker 1904: 81–2, 102–3. Merker could have witnessed the transfer of privileges from Talala age-set to Twati II around 1896, early in his tour of duty, and his description may well have been of this event. 8 This table is derived from Fosbrooke 1956: 196–7; and Pastoral Continuum: 104–5 (cf. Samburu: 150).The final columns of Table 2.2 assume a constant age of circumcision over successive age-sets (but for inconsistent evidence, see Pastoral Continuum: 104n and Table 9.4 this volume).The difference between the two means is not significant at 10 per cent (t  1.58, df. 780). However the difference between the standard deviations is significant at 1 per cent (F  1.51, df. 645, 135). This is due to the greater skew of the distribution in the Samburu sample, where 47 per cent of the sons are more than three age-sets junior to their fathers compared with only 17 per cent among the Maasai. Allowing for the fact

41

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

9

10 11 12 13

14

15

that the Samburu age-sets have a shorter span, a more direct comparison can be achieved by interpolating the Samburu data to increase the age-based intervals from 13.5 to 15 years. The figure for younger sons then decreases from 47 to 39 per cent, which is still much higher than the Maasai figure of 17 per cent. Correspondingly, with this adjustment, the proportion of older Samburu sons less than 3 age-sets younger than their fathers rises from 1 to 7 per cent as compared with 31 per cent among the Maasai. Among the Chamus, incidentally, the span of the age cycle is of the order of only twelve years.This appears correlated with just one brief period of circumcision into each ageset, which then leads to a more critical build-up towards an earlier initiation of the next age-set (Pastoral Continuum: 134, 181). Dumont 1972: 38, 84, 106–15, 207–29; cf. Gulliver 1963: 35–9, 145.While emphasizing these contrasting types, there are certain submerged parallels in the finer detail. Thus, respect for age among the Maasai corresponds to the dignity acquired by older Hindu who keep apart from the intrigues and dealings of younger men (Dumont 1972: 229). Similarly, the position of Hindu Untouchables may be compared with blacksmiths among the Maasai, who were traditionally treated as a polluted endogamous caste; but blacksmiths were still an integral part of the Maasai system and could rely on Maasai protection, unlike the more marginal hunter-gathering Dorobo (Merker 1904: 110; Nomads: 118–19). One may also note that herding among the Maasai, like agriculture in India, may be undertaken by all categories of people: in Dumont’s terms, it has a ritually neutral position with no associated avoidances (Dumont 1972: 137). Srinivas 1955; Bailey 1957; Lewis 1958; Burghard 1978. Dumont 1972: 95–6; cf. Gulliver 1963: 45. For an elaboration of a father’s control over his adult sons, see Matapato: 228–36. Age-sets have sometimes been described as corporate groups that own no substantial property (cf. Gulliver 1968: 159, 161; Baxter and Almagor 1978: 9). However, ownership consists of a bundle of rights that are dispersed among a variety of ‘owners’, which may extend to an age-set.Among the Maasai, even the power of the patriarch over his household is limited by the rights that his age mates may claim over his wives’ sexuality, his daughters’ marriages, and ‘their’ hut. Lévi-Strauss 1969: 62; Leach 1970: 103.The suggestion that the Maasai have weak clans and a diminished concern over ‘brother–sister’ and ‘mother–son’ incest is particularly evident when comparing them with the Samburu. The Samburu have a similar avoidance between age-set ‘fathers’ and ‘daughters’; but they also have strong corporate clans and sub-clans, and these correspond to unambiguous clan exogamy and strict sexual avoidances within the sub-clan. In this respect, the Maasai are closer to an ideal type in the present argument (Matapato: 193–5; Samburu: 29, 74, 82). Samburu guesses at my own age (when I was about 27 years) ranged from 6 years old to several hundred.

42

3 POWER AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE

Corresponding to the sense of identity that Maasai derive from their age system, fixing their lives and destinies in time, their social awareness is also projected on to the world around them.The collective displays that mark the major transitions in time are also nodes in space.They are the focal points of attention over a wide area, providing the arena for any contest over power; and this extends from elders and moran to women also. As nomads with herds and flocks to tend, the Maasai have a keen sense of the shifting opportunities and hazards in the space around them. Herding is a dominant metaphor; and the term for tending the herd, a-irrita, is also used for caring for dependants as the elders’ ultimate concern. The upraised stick, as if poised to keep a herd from straying, is a favourite motif when elders seek to impose their will over those around them, deftly marshalling the points of a tidy argument at the centre of a debate, rhythmically overawing the moran between each invocation in their formal blessings, or asserting their authority over their families with a threatening gesture. Any junior should back down (‘run away’) from an elder’s upraised stick, and the episode then becomes a joke among the seniors, relishing the proof of herd discipline. Maasai ideals are characterized by an emphasis on orderliness, typified by the stereotyped layout of each village and hut (Figure 3.1).This layout is a template for order, expressed as an array of customary rights within the family. But it is dogged by the ambiguities of power.The wife’s control over the hut she builds and maintains is tempered by her husband’s superior rights; and the control that elders claim over their wives is tempered by the collective presence of women concentrated in the village.While elders control the nodes and hence the process in time, they do not always find their wives compliant and they may be challenged by the partiality of this control and events beyond their reach.

The ordering of domestic space and the flux of gender relations In their public lives, men and women have their distinctive roles and keep their separate company, relaxing in different spots of shade during the heat of the day. It is only within the seclusion of a woman’s hut that they regularly interact against a backdrop 43

Figure 3.1 The profile of a Maasai hut, village, and tribal section.

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

of two very different and unequal worlds. Generally, Maasai expect an understanding that bestows the weight of privilege and responsibility on the husband, and leaves the wife with some clear rights and freedom to develop her own social life around her domestic duties. However, an equally popular view is of an uncompromising impasse between husbands who are seen as unreasonable and wives who are no longer trusted; and the hut is then the battleground on which domestic strife is played out. Elders regard women as inherently difficult to manage and they contrast the social order that they themselves cultivate with endemic disorder associated with their wives.Women of all ages tend to accept the wisdom of male domination in a world that they do not claim to understand so well. However, they are also aware of the abuse of power by husbands in particular and counteract this with an inviolable network of bonds through which they draw support among themselves. The reputations of certain husbands tend to be measured in terms of their ability to assert their authority without alienating their wives unnecessarily, and of wives in terms of their ability to adjust to the realities of their marriage. The balance of initiative between the sexes varies with context, and this results in two perspectives of village life. The elders’ point of view has prevailed in this account so far, stressing the dominance of males (women as pawns). For a telling illustration of an alternative viewpoint (women as custodians), one may consider Ulrike von Mitzlaff ’s study of a group of Parakuyu villages over the period 1982–5.The Parakuyu are the most southerly group of Maa-speakers, with unusually small villages and no manyat for their moran.They are interspersed with agricultural communities (in this case the Nguu), who are relatively poor, but provide a useful link with the developing cash economy.1 Case 4. Koko was a widow, and one of the oldest women in the area. She had two moran sons, of whom Manketi was the older and assumed the male role in managing her stock, although his close association with other moran led to frequent absences from the village. Legisa was the younger adopted morani son, who was self-educated and a successful broker in the informal economy, with a wide range of contacts beyond Parakuyu. He too was able to play a useful role in Koko’s household, although she had difficulty in understanding his world. In the same village were Koko’s two older sons, Simanka and Mtita, who were now married elders. They both drank heavily in nearby Nguu villages and beat their wives regularly. Simanka was the senior elder of the family, but his unpredictable anger lost him any respect, driving him further to drink. He begrudged the help given by his herdboy son to Mtita, whose children were still too young for herding. Koko’s daughter Kallella was the natural mother of Legisa and also the junior wife of Sakira, who was a frail but mentally active member of the oldest surviving age-set; and they had moved to live in a nearby village, because they were quite poor and had no grown son to tend their small herd. Manketi helped them also. The development of this family cluster hinged on disputes between the elders, which were mediated especially by their wives, supported by Koko. On one occasion, a row flared up between Simanka and Sakira, and their wives took the 46

POWER AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE

Figure 3.2 Koko’s family.

initiative of moving into each other’s hut until the elders made peace. On another occasion, the friction between Simanka and Mtita led to a drunken brawl that would have split the village but for the intervention of their wives, who summoned respected elders to re-establish harmony. However, tension between them remained, and eventually the village split, with Mtita and his wife moving to live close to his sister Kallella and brother-in-law Sakira.When Manketi married, he too left Simanka and moved with Koko and Legisa to set up a separate village. In this account, it was the solidarity of the women that preserved unity within the family. Differences between them might flare up, but these tended to be as quickly forgotten, and concern for the welfare of their children was paramount. The women would display a united front in response to unreasonable behaviour by their husbands and between their husbands. Rising above the turmoil of domestic violence was the widow, Koko. She was also highly regarded in the area as a midwife and herbalist, and she had an encyclopaedic fund of the sort of knowledge in which women specialized, ranging from family histories to the details of other women’s affairs that were kept secret from the elders. Her experience, shrewdness, and open hospitality appear to have been the key to her focal position. She had frequent visitors from her network of kin of either sex, and especially from age mates of her moran sons.With no manyat, the Parakuyu moran would visit the huts of their dispersed ‘mothers’, out of sight of the elders. Koko’s two moran sons came and went, but even in their absence, other moran were frequent visitors to her hut, and they were attracted by her grand-daughters, who took turns to live with her. During the evenings, Koko would prepare food for the moran while they recounted their news and appreciated her wit and advice, discreetly avoiding allusions to their illicit love affairs. During the day, her hut was a popular venue for the other women, or they would visit the Nguu market together, or sit outside the village, while their children played nearby. 47

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

On the male side, Manketi is portrayed as a typical morani, trusted by his mother and sister, whom he loyally supported, and closely involved with his age-peers. However, all the other men were quite isolated in different ways. Legisa provided a link with the outside world, but the gulf between his modern lifestyle and traditional Parakuyu expectations became apparent when he came home with a sophisticated Parakuyu girlfriend. He then had difficulty in reconciling urbane ideals of marriage with local traditions of conformity and sexual segregation. His girlfriend remained isolated from other women, eventually deserting him for other men, and then she disappeared altogether. The two older brothers were caught up in a vicious circle with their wives, which reinforced their drinking habits. Both of Simanka’s wives had moran lovers, and his unpredictable anger exposed him to ridicule and a wall of silence among the women. Mtita found it hard to adjust to his new status as an elder. When drunk, he would nostalgically sing songs of his own faded moranhood; but it was his wife’s lover who was a true morani of the next age-set, compensating her for the beatings that had led her to run away on three occasions. In the second village, Sakira’s first wife had accused him of incest with a daughter, leading to a women’s mobbing, which had stained his reputation.This gave her a pretext for moving away with her adult married sons to live elsewhere. Meanwhile, Kallella segregated him from their daughters by building him a hut of his own.There was no longer any question of his dominating Kallella physically: as Parakuyu would say of a man of his age:‘Now he starts being afraid of her’. As head of the household, he still had the final say on certain issues, but it was she who controlled the small amount of money he could spend on drinking. She had considerable influence in his decision to end the engagement of their daughter, Nadongala, offering her instead to a morani on condition that they would live nearby. Kallella was passing through a strained period of her life; and she could be impatient and even aggressive with her children. However, she was also resourceful and highly regarded among the other women and especially close to her mother. In this way, she seemed to be cultivating her own family network as an investment in a future role comparable to Koko’s at present. The united front displayed by women in this case study matches the sheer brute strength of men. It also has a certain affinity with the solidarity among moran and their jaded view of the selfish hypocrisy of elderhood. Moran share together the secrets of their clandestine affairs involving young wives. However, there is an element of gaming in their relationship as lovers rather than lasting passion. They despise married women in general, and women do not expect married moran to be different from any elder: Nadongala had few illusions concerning her forthcoming marriage to a morani. When moran sneak into the village at night or young wives sneak into the bush by day, there is little sympathy for the culprit on either side who is found out, for this gratuitously stirs the elders’ paranoia. At first sight, it is hard to reconcile male and female interpretations of village life. Yet Maasai elders would have little difficulty in accepting most aspects of 48

POWER AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE

von Mitzlaff ’s analysis.They know about marital infidelity and have equally sceptical views about romantic love.They acknowledge the strength of mutual support among women and the pivotal role of those with acumen and long experience. They are aware of the increasing strains between brothers who continue to live together and even come to blows; and for this reason, brothers are expected to separate.They recognize that some elders grow old with even less dignity than Sakira: beyond the natural frailty of old age, there may be a selfish streak and a foolish stubbornness that is faintly ridiculous and robs them of respect.They roundly criticize chronic drinkers who have squandered their herds and brought hardship to their families. But in this example, the two older brothers seemed to accept their responsibilities, taking turns to look after their cattle, and lending cattle to their mother for extra milk. Maasai elders would also argue that in beating their wives, they are ‘looking after’ them as they ‘look after’ their herds, inducing their compliance rather neglecting them, just as mothers such as Kallella ‘care’ in this way for their children. They would add that there is a more convivial side to the relations between sexes in the privacy of a woman’s hut; and Koko’s success as a popular hostess is a common experience among mature wives and widows who have gained the confidence of visitors and share in their gossip, with or without their husbands.2 In these respects, elders would see no essential contradiction between the two views: neither sex is beyond criticism and there is an area of accommodation. Nevertheless, the selfish isolation of elders in this example coupled with the initiative retained by women is strikingly discordant with the Maasai elders’ perception of their society. In this respect, their lofty ideals appear to be as invisible in the women’s model as the women’s ability to manage is in the elders’. A significant feature is the apparent absence of a concerted body of opinion formulated by the elders from seven other neighbouring Parakuyu villages (and another twenty-two villages within an hour’s walk). In the case of the friction between the brothers Simanka and Mtita, Maasai elders would stress the influence of men rather than women in resolving disputes and ask: ‘Why did other elders of Medoti age-set allow this to continue?’. They would also question the active role of women in marriage-broking except in quite exceptional circumstances, discounting Kallella’s influence over Sakira regarding their daughter Nadongala’s marriage, and ignoring Koko’s irritation that she was not consulted over Simanka’s second marriage. Women simply do not have the understanding or knowledge to arrange a good marriage, they argue; and this premise, underpinning the power of elders, is instilled into Maasai women from a very early age and is not questioned. The extent to which elders appear to be marginalized in this example could suggest that their domination over women has been undermined by recent change in this part of East Africa, and notably by the influence of alcohol. However, a general consensus among some feminist writers points in quite the opposite direction, arguing that economic change has actually increased the ability of Maasai elders to override their wives’ traditional rights in household produce, even snatching from them the cash that they have acquired through legitimate trading. This poses an alternative model that stresses growing male abuse rather than female 49

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

ascendancy.Yet the evidence for this is sparse: while certain women may claim a loss of earlier rights, this appears rhetorical and it is certainly not supported by the thrust of earlier reports.3 More to the point, these accounts are interwoven with claims and counterclaims between the sexes, echoing present antipathies as in von Mitzlaff ’s village. In other words, a grey area of unresolved dispute and rhetoric could be a long-standing characteristic of the relationship between elders and women; and economic change may not have significantly affected this. The mix of domination and passive response in village life shifts with context and is never precise.Women’s ridicule of elders is matched by the elders’ dismissive contempt towards women in general.Wives expect husbands in general to be mean; and elders correspondingly find the problem of controlling their wives intractable.There is a presumption of domestic strife, even before a marriage takes place. However, these are public stances, and some degree of accommodation and concord is inevitable within the privacy of the homestead. Pastoralism is a family enterprise that cuts across the divisions of age and gender; and the hut is at the heart of this endeavour.Those who do not take this seriously are more likely to drop out sooner or later – as paupers, drunkards, or run-away wives. Domestic harmony hinges as much on a wife’s ingrained loyalty to this vision as on the husband’s ultimate concern for the growth of his household (cf. Chieni and Spencer 1993: 167).This creates an ambivalent mixture of attitudes towards any husband who may be insensitive in managing domestic affairs, and yet is devoted to the welfare of his family and herd and well respected within the community at large. When other elders visit his homestead, the more pressing he is in his hospitality, the more distinctive the role of his wife as the provider in her own hut.The more sociable the visit, the more likely it is that she will be drawn into the conviviality.The convention that the husband should vacate his hut for visiting age mates overnight extends her opportunities for enhancing her popularity; and this would have been the background to Koko’s reputation and success. In private there may be aggravation between the sexes, and in public there may be scorn; but the resilience of the family unit through thick and thin has to override this gulf, or the enterprise will fail.

Moranhood and the hazards of the bush Once the cattle have returned home in the evening and as night closes in, the family gateways are blocked, completing the thorn fence surrounding the village, which becomes a stockade, fortified against the outside world.The general association of women with the village becomes a confinement at night.This is couched in terms of their responsibility for the family and herd at this time; but popular belief also draws attention to their position as dependants (‘children’) and magnifies the danger of the bush at night, when unknown evils may be working their mischief under cover of darkness. Men are free to brave these dangers if they wish, but women are not expected to dare do so without an escort; and their confinement is total for mothers who have a newly born or initiated child. The resolution of the paradox that the village is a stereotype of order and yet can appear ungovernable 50

POWER AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE

is the difference between day-time and night-time.At night, the women disperse to their separate huts and tend their stock, and this, coupled with the presence of most household heads, reasserts the ideal: the village stockade, huts, and stock corrals fulfil the purpose for which they were built. It is the bush that is ungovernable. A general concern with the threats from the bush at night evaporates in the morning as the gateways are unblocked and the herds disperse to graze. Social life then opens out from the village, merging with neighbouring villages into a wider community and the region beyond. By day, the bush is not without its dangers, but it is also life-giving. Each family head devises his own daily strategy for herding, which is typically undertaken by boys or else by any member of the family who is available. Women may leave the village to collect firewood, or to fetch water further afield, and these days to buy other essential goods from a local shop.They are protected by a convention throughout the region that respects their persons because of their involvement in reproducing and feeding their families. However, away from her village, a woman may still be accosted by a suspicious elder, ready to escort her home if she has no good excuse. The sharp division between the sexes corresponds to two very different forms of upbringing. Girls are under pressure to learn women’s skills and a sense of respect, preparing them for an early marriage. Boys are under less pressure to acquire respect, and there is less concern over their appearance. An aspect of the gerontocratic premise of Maasai society is to denigrate boys as a matter of principle and especially any group of boys, who are assumed to be shirking their herding duties. Popular idiom would agree with the English country saying that ‘One boy’s a boy; two boys be half a boy, and three boys be no boy at all’.4 Yet the pressure on boys to acquire herding skills can be intense within the family; and the sharpness of their eyes and wits is also recognized. As individuals, boys are trained to take over responsibility for the family herd, and this is a rigorous training for adulthood. Indeed, boys are the heroes of some of the best-known folk stories told to children. The myth of the founder of the Loonkidongi dynasty of Prophets concerns a mysterious boy, Kidongoi, who was found in the bush by a party of Maasai moran. They adopted him as their lackey, and were baffled by his ability to find water and evade the heavy tasks they set him. Kidongoi later became a great Prophet, and this first encounter is recalled to explain the close association between the bush, the moran, and their Prophets (Chapter 5). In another myth, the Maasai were dominated by a tribe who made impossible demands on them; and it was a boy who suggested ways in which the Maasai elders could trick their oppressors, and then he himself attacked and killed their giant chief. In each myth, as the Maasai moved into their present area, their destiny was transformed by the abilities of a boy, a character who is given little credit in the normal run of daily life. In a sample of thirtynine stories, that are told to children and tend to evoke the dangers and eerie secrets of the bush, the heroes are often boys (or small animals), outwitting more powerful adversaries, and killing devouring monsters and even wicked parents (Table 3.1). The sequel to these episodes is sometimes that the boys then become moran, having demonstrated their ability to overcome these dangers; while in other instances, the 51

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

Table 3.1 Recurrent themes in thirty-nine Maasai children’s stories Themes

Outwit more powerful adversaries Kill monsters Kill wicked (step-) parents Kill enemies of the Maasai Face ridicule Face punishment

Principal characters Small Boys animals

Moran

Elders

Women

Girls

9 1 — — 1 1

3 5 — 3 — 3

1 — — — 4 3

2 — — — 1 5

2 — — — — 1

6 4 3 — — —

episode marks the attainment of moranhood. Either way, the heroic behaviour of these boys echoes the paramount challenge facing initiates, that they should not flinch or ‘run away’ from the ordeal of circumcision.5 The dangers of the bush in these stories may have been contrived up to a point to warn children not to stray too far from the village, rather as Maasai elders may emphasize these dangers to reinforce the confinement of their women; and indeed, as earlier entrepreneurs exaggerated the fierce image of Maasai moran and the dangers of the bush to discourage rival traders, and their successors in safer times have done so to encourage tourists. Beyond the safety of the village, the bush opens out into the unknown; and the charm of moranhood from all points of view, even beyond Maasai society, is their oneness with the wild. As they emerge into moranhood, youths become associated with the defence of the herds at a more inclusive level.The development of each manyata has been outlined in the previous chapter and the mystical dangers of the bush are discussed in the next.The relevant issue here is the way in which the relationship between the manyata and the elders’ villages colours the popular image of the bush. In their system of defence, each tribal section is divided into three or more territories, depending on its size, and each territory extends about fifteen miles around a manyata, which is set apart from the scattered ‘villages of elders’ and is organized as an immovable self-contained enterprise. The manyata is the pivotal point of a network of strategic information passed among moran, who are normally dispersed in small groups, engaged in various activities, but never out of touch. Even at their meat feasts in remote forest areas, where small groups may be priming themselves for warriorhood at any time, their whereabouts are known to the manyata. It is these forest feasts that evoke the seriousness of the role of moran.They claim to build up their physical strength through meat and their assertiveness by lacing their soups with roots that stimulate their anger. It is as angry young men that they feel poised to confront any threat to the herds or their pride.These forest feasts and the manyata are regarded as complementary aspects of moran activity. In the forest, the moran identify themselves with traditional ideals of warriorhood. Whereas the manyata is the focus of dancing and ‘play’ with girls, and the idiom of 52

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displaying their role as warriors tends to give way to conviviality – but only so long as this does not detract from their other duties. All moran, wherever they may be, are expected to rally to any threat to the herds, and they must attend any meeting convened to resolve some issue democratically at the manyata. Compared with the stockades that surround the elders’ villages, it is sometimes boasted that a manyata has only a flimsy thorn fence, because the moran are always vigilant. They dance through the night rather than sleep, aware of the dangers of predators around them at all times. By day, the familiar sight of moran parading through the bush is a reassuring sign that they are going about their business and within reach of the herds. This may lead them also to the elders’ villages, where they share milk together as guests of non-manyata moran and of girls who are not at the manyata. When these visits build up into a dance, the moran may exercise their privilege to commandeer the central corral of the village for their ‘play’, effectively converting it to an outpost of the manyata. This practice has a certain affinity with the Samburu gazelle model as a metaphor of moranhood (Chapter 2), since the central corral is used at night to keep immature bulls of the village away from the reigning bulls and breeding herds (Figure 3.1(b)), rather as the moran themselves are segregated from family life.Within the village where they are dancing and also within their manyata territory, the moran display a prominent position at the centre, separated from others and parading their special role. This may be expressed in terms of a broad set of parallels. central corral : surrounding compounds :: manyata village : dispersed elders’ villages :: immature bulls : breeding bulls & herds :: segregated moran : elders & their families

When moran visit a village, their talk and their songs are said to be imbued with the freshness of the bush. In segregating themselves, they contrast this empathy with the fetid atmosphere of the village and especially the foul smell that clings to the soiled garments of young mothers, and by extension to married women in general because they share in the care of infants. Even a piece of meat that has merely been seen by a married woman is held to be contaminated, and no morani should eat it. Moran regard themselves as supremely fit and clean; and they lace their forest soups also with purgative roots, cleansing their bodies of any inner filth. In this state (and encouraged by the elders), they claim that they can even smell out those moran who have compromised their purity by seducing young wives.6 The ideological purity of moranhood is just one aspect of a more complex set of relations that brings the moran from the bush to the villages of elders.The persistence of the manyata system into relatively safe times, and indeed of the whole institution of moranhood, may be coupled with the elders’ concern over moran adultery, which has been no less persistent. Moran and wives are meant to avoid one another; and yet a significant part in the adulation of moran is played by Maasai women of all ages, and moran play up to this. Joseph Thomson’s early account of internecine fighting among the Maasai may seem fanciful, with women 53

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from both sides spurring on moran gladiators. However, there is a clear hint of this in the more authentic accounts of successful lion hunts.As moran parade the lionskin as a trophy from village to village, they are mobbed by crowds of admiring women, wearing their best finery for the occasion, and draping their beads around the necks of the victors and thrusting fistfuls of grass into their garments.7 Different facets of this relationship are associated with girls as the semi-chaperoned playthings of moran, with older women as the doting ‘mothers-of-moran’, and with younger married women who are suspected of being their illicit lovers – in the village or the bush – wherever the opportunity presents itself. The boundary between truth and fantasy in these extramarital affairs is unknowable, but the popular image depicts elders as disgruntled cuckolds who have lost control over moran as well as over their young wives. For them, it is not the bush as such that poses a constant threat, as the boundary between village and bush, for this cannot be resolved by a mere stockade. Corresponding to the hypocrisy of elderhood as popularly perceived by moran and women – of greedy old men who no longer place community interest above self-indulgence – the hypocrisy of moranhood is widely recognized as one of jeopardizing their group-indulgent purity by seducing young wives.The association of the moran with the bush can be viewed as the counterpart of the general confinement of women to the vicinity of the village and an aspect of the avoidance between them, engineered and perpetuated by the elders to restrict the opportunities for liaison. This separation lies at the heart of the elders’ regime, and its critical weakness is revealed by their deep mistrust of wives and moran.The moran ostensibly watch over their territory to guard it, while suspicious elders watch the moran and guard their wives. Even an unfamiliar footprint in the dust near a village can rouse their concern.The manyata system has survived because elders do not want to give moran easier access to their villages, and they encourage their sons as herdboys to aspire to moranhood and the glamour of a flamboyant association with the otherness of the bush, independent of the family and village. Within the defensive shield provided by the moran during the day and the village stockade at night, there is normally an optimistic sense of confidence that the perils of the bush can be contained, and it is its life-giving properties that are stressed. This may be tempered in times of misfortune by vague beliefs in malevolent forces associated with the bush. These lie beyond the abilities of the moran and manifest themselves by creating havoc. Women are especially vulnerable to such beliefs, and their anxiety over unknown forces becomes intense where their fertility is concerned. From time to time and for no apparent reason, they may share a growing sense that their unborn children are threatened by some malignant power that infests the region, and panic spreads like an epidemic.This power may remain undefined, or sometimes there is a vague belief in sorcery, while sporadically in the south-east, the notion of spirit possession has infiltrated from non-Maasai neighbours. As the women’s apprehensiveness feeds on itself, it gains credibility, and they may leave their homes for some days in growing numbers, especially during the luxury of a wet season, when their limited role is taken for granted in the flurry of activity among 54

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elders. The women parade and dance from village to village, invoking God as the more benevolent life-giving aspect of the bush. Upturning the normal social order, they sing obscenities and ridicule the elders, who take care to keep their distance.At any village, they may coerce an elder for gifts in return for their potent blessing on his household. In this ritual of rebellion, the women claim to be like moran: intrepid and unchallenged, as they themselves challenge the malignant forces of the bush, and any elder or morani in their path. They see their charmed role in protecting and increasing their children as the counterpart of the moran in relation to Maasai herds, ensuring the continuity of life throughout the area. By breaking out of the isolated village routine through a concerted effort, uniting across a whole area, and reuniting with distant friends, they are caught up in a rich experience that is more powerful than the force that threatens them. In adopting the metaphor of moranhood, parading through the bush and challenging the world at large, their anxieties evaporate and they assert their vital role with growing confidence. The virility of the moran and the fertility of women in different ways pose a threat to the ultimate authority of the elders. But the notion persists that it is the elders who are the ultimate safeguard against the forces of chaos and misfortune through their control of ritual. After each episode of uprising and dancing by the women, the elders give their stamp of approval with a final blessing, restoring their ritual authority and saving face by arguing that they all share a vital interest in their wives’ fertility.The elders express exasperation at their wives’ inscrutable behaviour, but there is also a prevailing wisdom that the ambiguous forces of the bush are real enough and have a powerful relevance through women. If this stops short of recognizing that these outbursts are created by the ambiguities of Maasai society and tensions within the family, then at least it expresses an awareness of emotional forces beyond the elders’ control with becoming humility.

Tribal sections and the boundaries of trust The perversities of Maasai women and moran stop short of questioning the overriding authority of elders, especially when they collect together to discuss matters of concern.Whether these are smaller gatherings on local issues or larger and more inclusive assemblies, those who attend assume the authority to represent the wider community as members of an age-set and tribal section, responding to each situation as it arises. The boundaries of the tribal section are normally sufficient to accommodate the nomadic movements of individual families, giving members a broad experience of a wide area that may extend across several manyata territories. This breaks down any transient sense of local community, creating a wider sense of unity and belonging that encompasses a network of relations across the tribal section as a whole. They have their own ritual procedures, festivals, and interpretations of age-set protocol that may diverge from other Maasai.This feeling that the tribal section is their home corresponds to a sense of alienation across its boundaries. Moran would not steal cattle from herds within their own tribal section, for instance, whereas cattle 55

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theft, raiding, and counter-raiding across the boundary is always a possibility, and hence so is fighting and homicide. Regardless of increasing trade and communication with distant townships, the rivalries between tribal sections remain and so does the sensitivity of the boundaries that separate them. A variation to this pattern occurs when a persistent drought or misfortune leads a family to migrate with their herds across the boundary into a neighbouring tribal section (Figure 3.1(c)). They should be welcomed as Maasai, it is argued, even in deteriorating conditions, for all Maasai share a single land, and with the next drought or misfortune the net flow of families and herds could be reversed. The immigrants should be well intentioned and are expected to return across the border when conditions improve. Occasionally, they linger on and adapt to their new surroundings. Bonds of friendship may then be formed and also new loyalties, especially among impressionable herdboys. This may become a critical issue at a time when a new set of moran are forming their manyat.Their scope for building up their strength is threatened by emigration from their area. By convention, sorties of moran may mount ritualized raids into neighbouring tribal sections at this point to snatch back age mates of emigrant families and their mothers. In this way, the boundaries between tribal sections are periodically demarcated by the activities of moran on both sides, and on no other occasion. These raids should not be opposed, since it is recognized that the high feelings are justified and that potential rivalries between neighbouring tribal sections can too easily build up as high-spirited sorties intrude in both directions. Within the tribal section, there may also be rivalry between the different manyat at this point in the age cycle, but the firestick patrons make sure that there are no incursions into neighbouring territories and that provocative raiding is limited to the external boundaries.As a community of elders, they too wish to stem the flow of emigration from their tribal section, but they are not concerned with the nomadic flux that cuts across their own manyata territories. Not all families are returned in this way. Some may have no moran sons and others may by now be too well established in their adopted tribal section.This leads to a certain dispersal of the population and shifting loyalties in the long term. As a family’s return is delayed indefinitely, so intermarriage with their hosts becomes more likely, and the new bonds are further strengthened. However, there may be an extended period when it is uncertain whether they will stay or return, calling into question their true loyalties and isolating them among their hosts. Case 5. Marasiwa migrated from Matapato section to Kisonko during a drought, and then became increasingly settled in this area. He was wealthy and had a large family, but so long as his future intentions were unclear, he was unable to negotiate marriages for his sons. Matapato elders were reluctant to give away their daughters until they knew he would return; and Kisonko elders were reluctant to do so until it was quite clear that he would definitely stay. This prompted the eventual return of the family to Matapato. In another instance, a family was able to migrate from Matapato and settle in Kisonko 56

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more easily. They had been driven to migrate by a series of misfortunes that were attributed to sorcery, and their firm intention to stay in Kisonko was widely accepted. The risks of emigration are even more striking in the example of a third family who lost their foothold in their original tribal section, and drifted across the Maasai area until they were in danger of dropping out altogether. Case 6. Kikwai and his brother were members of a well-established family of Loita section. As young elders they lost most of their stock during a drought, and then their father died. They decided to migrate eastwards to Loodokilani where a particularly wealthy elder had been a trusted friend of their father and would help them. It was a logical move and was not opposed by their Loita age mates. After considerable help from this elder in rebuilding their herds, Kikwai again lost most of his stock and migrated further eastwards to Matapato where conditions were easier. Because he had no substantial ties with Loodokilani, no attempt was made to prevent him, and he settled down in Matapato. His oldest son voluntarily joined a manyata there, while his other sons hired themselves as herdboys to richer families. In due course, still with only a handful of stock, Kikwai moved southwards to Kisonko, hoping to improve his fortunes. Neither Matapato nor Kisonko moran made any attempt to recruit the remainder of his sons to their manyat, and they were forced again to look for work. In 1977, Kikwai’s four sons were dispersed: one with his father in Kisonko, one in Matapato, one working in Nairobi, and one who had returned to Loodokilani. The extent to which their families might become fully established in each of these tribal sections in due course would depend on their ability to build up their herds and remain within the local pastoral economy for perhaps a generation. Only the son who had returned to Loodokilani seemed likely to succeed, through his forceful personality. No one suggested that the other sons were unworthy or wastrels, and with their father’s help, the older sons each obtained a non-Maasai wife, but they lived as paupers. Because their future was uncertain, other Maasai had less incentive to give them stock or their daughters as further wives; and with no one to turn to, they remained weak and prone to any crisis. Because they had no principal tribal section to turn to for help, they were driven by circumstance to the margins of Maasai society. The Maasai are also united by a single age-set system. The ideal of age-set unity beyond the tribal section extends from the principle of sharing with any age mate and offering hospitality, to the right to veto the marriage of any ‘daughter’ of the age-set, implying the threat of a curse.Within the tribal section, this veto is a routine procedure for any elder who has been offended by a suitor, and he would be expected to soften his formal position by giving fair warning beforehand and reducing the standard fine of nine heifers to a token of just one heifer, a blanket, and some smaller items.This moderation would enhance his reputation among his age mates 57

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and earn the apology and gratitude of the suitor. Across the boundaries between tribal sections, however, aggravation may run high with little concern for nicety or reputation, and an elder with a grudge may feel justified in hardening his position. Case 7. Saidimu, an elder of Loitokitok section, had been slighted by an Arusha Maasai who was about to marry a ‘daughter’ of his age-set nearby. He felt under no obligation to be moderate, for the Arushai was an outsider and a non-pastoral farmer (il-meek). Saidimu waited until the day when the suitor was to lead away his bride, and then intervened to prevent the marriage from going any further. At first he opposed it altogether, then he agreed that he would accept nine heifers as a concession. After a show of contrition and a personal appeal by the suitor, Saidimu reduced this to five heifers. Other Loitokitok elders were not concerned with the nature of his grudge, and nor they did they try to persuade him to lower his demand further. They agreed that if the Arusha wanted to marry Loitokitok girls, then they should avoid provocation in the first place. In another example, a grievance was raised at an even later stage in the marriage and involved no less than three tribal sections – Loodokilani, Matapato, and Purko – but also a greater degree of moderation as a gesture towards Maasai and age-set unity. Case 8. A Loodokilani elder, Koika, became involved in a border skirmish with some Matapato boys and beat one of them viciously. The boy’s father, Sitatian, made enquiries and learned that Koika had married the daughter of an age mate of the Purko section. He went straight to Koika’s village to lead her away as a ‘daughter’ of his age-set. He did not know either her or her father personally, but she still followed him without question and no one else intervened. On arriving with her at his home in Matapato, Sitatian indicated to his age mates that he would be satisfied with less than the full payment of nine cattle, since Matapato and Loodokilani have always been close allies. He pointed out that Koika also happened to be a ‘son’ of their age-set and he could have cursed him directly, but he preferred the less drastic indirect course through one of their ‘daughters’ as an act of good will. Koika was informed and he promptly brought along a heifer and some smaller gifts. In return he was blessed and allowed to lead his wife back to Loodokilani.

The ritualization of behaviour and the uncertain unity of all Maasai The difficulties of Marasiwa and Kikwai in obtaining wives and the indifference of Saidimu in the above examples illustrate the general bias against marrying daughters to suitors from other tribal sections. A distant marriage lessens the chance of 58

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creating a bond that might be of some future use. However, it is also approved in principle. There is an appeal to Maasai unity in seeking a bride from some other tribal section and a touch of altruistic pride and even a display of strength in her father’s decision to accept this suitor above all others.This may display a friendship arising from an earlier encounter between them or through the suitor’s father or some other elder acting as broker.Whatever the link, the marriage transcends the mistrust across the boundaries between tribal sections, and both parties share the esteem of forging a wider diplomatic bond. This unity is especially stressed with regard to the age system and is maintained through the performance of two festivals that synchronize the age-set cycle throughout the Maasai area. The first occurs when firestick patrons kindle the fire that brings a new age-set to life before any circumcisions can take place.This festival is performed among the Keekonyukie Maasai in the north, and it involves boys in a competition to seize an ox by its horns.Versions of this festival may be mounted among some other tribal section further south, but only after the Keekonyukie have taken the lead. Some years after the period of moranhood, which lasts a complete age-set cycle, the second festival is performed by the Kisonko Maasai in the south as a prelude to full elderhood. This is olngesher, the ‘unification’ festival that unites all moran into a single named age-set – encompassing right-hand and left-hand age-groups of all Maasai tribal sections. Those further north mount their own versions of this festival, but again only after the Kisonko in the south have given the age-set its name at their olngesher. Thus at different points in the development of an age-set, from its inauguration to its unification, there are two local festivals. At one point, anticipating the cycle of moranhood, the Maasai in all other parts look towards the north for one cue; and about twenty-three years later (i.e. about one-and-a-half loops of their ritual cycle), they look towards the south for the other cue. Beyond local variations in age-set custom between tribal sections, there is this wider convention that patterns the succession of age-sets and a sense of being Maasai within a larger scheme of time and of space.The age system creates a sense of structured time, geared to their awareness of the passage through life, but it is also linked to an orientation in space that unifies them as a people.This echoes the oral tradition that the Maasai originally migrated from the north, spearheaded by moran as they extended the southward thrust. Oral history and the cyclical recurrence of their age system combine to provide a symbolic sense of direction, extending beyond the tribal section to the full measure of Maasai habitation, from north to south.8 Beyond this proclamation of unity, the relation between tribal sections is characterized by ambiguity.This is reflected in alternative terms for ‘age-set’, ol-aji and ol-poror, whose usage tends to vary with context. Ol-poror invokes the close fellowship of the peer group, idealized as the bonds formed during moranhood at the same manyata. Ol-aji invokes the sterner expectations of the age-set with the ultimate threat of a curse following any breach. It is as a representative of the age-set that an individual has the power in theory to curse an age mate, and his requests are hard to refuse, for they invoke the ideal of age-set sharing. If the age mate is a relative stranger, then 59

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it is the compulsion – even compulsiveness – of this ideal that is stressed (ol-aji) rather than any spontaneous trust and generosity between close friends (ol-poror).Within any tribal section, an elder’s age mates vary between these two types, depending partly on the strength of their friendship and partly on the call of the occasion to show respect. Between tribal sections, all age mates are of ol-aji, and any facade of friendship is hedged by the compulsive formalities of the age-set bond. A visiting age mate from another tribal section should be scrupulously undemanding and the host should be almost obsessively generous. The ideal of age-set unity is marred by the sombre awareness of powerful and destructive forces when any resentment is aroused. There is always the possibility of an age-set curse implicating their children and no guarantee that the innocent on either side will not suffer.The sinister aspect of an age mate who is also a stranger is that his view of what is reasonable may be seen as dangerously demanding. Another characterization of strangers among the Maasai is that they may have ‘eyes’ whose glance can harm others through their involuntary greed. Unlike sorcery, there is no conscious malice, and those with ‘eyes’ can avert harm by spitting, an action that invokes a blessing. Within each local community, those with ‘eyes’ are well known and spit as often as necessary. But strangers are not known locally and those with ‘eyes’ may wish to conceal the fact. Small children are therefore warned to keep away from strangers, and others at risk take precautions. The Maasai claim to be united as a people, but the Maasai who is a stranger and may or may not have ‘eyes’ characterizes the ambivalence of that unity.9 Faced with mistrust from age mates on the one hand and suspicion from the community at large on the other, a stranger moving to a new area is expected to seek support from members of his clan in the first instance; and he can expect a genuine welcome from them. Clans and clan affiliations are dispersed throughout Maasai land, and in earlier times, when whole tribal sections could be scattered beyond the point of recovery, the ideal of a common set of clans offered fugitives a clear route to the future. While clanship among the Maasai appears to have less significance than in the past with a more piecemeal concern for clan exogamy, it retains a value by default where there are no closer kinsmen: it invokes trust and friendship, relating back in principle to some common ancestor. This was also implied after a local homicide, when the clansmen of the killer would help to raise the blood-cattle and this could extend to a token gift from those living in a neighbouring tribal section as a reminder of the wider Pan-Maasai role of clanship in situations of crisis. Thus, traversing the boundaries between tribal sections is typified by a certain ritualization of behaviour. Cross-cutting clanship is accentuated in times of crisis.Ageset obligations are accentuated. Moran, recruiting for their manyat, perform ritualized raids with tightly prescribed rules.The ‘eyes’ of strangers are avoided.This ritualized aspect is not specific to the boundary as such. All these activities may occur within the tribal section, but there is an added formality and constraint when they extend across boundaries. Similarly, ritual delegations may cross these boundaries with impunity, ranging from initiate boys processing through the bush, to women 60

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performing their fertility dances, to elders or moran visiting their Prophet.They must not be armed, and they should be treated with respect and generous hospitality wherever they go, for their gratitude amounts to a potent blessing and their resentment to a deadly curse.Their inviolate position is hedged with concern for mystical misfortune, bound up with the dangers of the bush and the need to be inside a village before the cattle return for the night. Such delegations, in other words, invoke the communitas of all Maasai, transcending the parochial boundaries between tribal sections in situations where more fundamental forces are called into play. Under the cloak of ritual, the border between two tribal sections may even shift or become blurred for the occasion. Case 9. Lepunian evaded trouble with the Tanzanian authorities by migrating from Kisonko section to Matapato, just inside Kenya. One of his initial acts was to celebrate the initiation of two of his children, pressing invitations to the feast on his Matapato hosts, and especially his age mates and clansmen. Nevertheless, it was a Kisonko occasion, coloured by certain Kisonko practices and by an influx of Kisonko guests from Tanzania, almost giving the impression that the border itself had shifted for the period of the festivity.The point that was stressed was that this was neither a Kisonko nor a Matapato affair, but Maasai, strengthening Lepunian’s position and the accommodation between the two tribal sections along the international frontier. The ritualized ambivalence of Maasai unity between tribal sections is brought out in the following example. Case 10. Masiani migrated as a pauper from Matapato to Loodokilani, which lies in a hotter zone where the terrain is especially suitable for building up flocks of small stock. These two tribal sections have a tradition of friendship, and soon after Masiani’s arrival, a ritual delegation of Loodokilani elders of his age-set stopped overnight at his village. Because of his newness in the area and also the ritual overtones of the occasion, they represented his age-set in a very formal sense (ol-aji): it was both an honour but also a stern duty to host them lavishly. Masiani slaughtered a particularly fine animal that he could hardly afford from his small flock to feed them.They then blessed him and assured him that he would make many friends in Loodokilani and his stock would multiply. When this occurred in due course (according to his narrative), Masiani became popular because of his generosity to his age mates (implicitly now his ol-poror). However, he also maintained his links with Matapato during his prolonged stay, and he suspected that this was why he never managed to obtain a Loodokilani bride, although he had given away one of his own daughters there. Subsequently, he was involved in a serious dispute that brought his divided loyalties to a head.The relationship with his Loodokilani age mates became ol-aji once again. They told him that he had outstayed his welcome, and he was expelled with the stock phrase:‘Go back to your own land’ (Shomo en-kop inyi). 61

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The term ‘land’ (s. en-kop) in this context refers to the territorial tribal sections to which someone belongs; and in this sense, it is opposed to the plural (in-kuapi) which refers to other lands and implies the mistrust for ‘those of other lands’ (iloonkuapi – other tribal sections). Like the opposition between ol-poror and ol-aji, attitudes and hence usage may vary with context. The traditional friendship between Matapato and Loodokilani sections may be reaffirmed by denying that they are iloonkuapi, as in Case 8 for instance. This friendship is again affirmed by Masiani at the beginning of Case 10, emphasizing that from a Matapato point of view, the Loodokilani are not of ‘other lands’. By the end his stay, however, the relationship becomes strained and his loyalties are called into question. He is then told: ‘Go back to your own land’, emphasizing that he is now an outsider: ‘of other lands’, not ‘ours’. The choice between these terms may also vary over time. Thus, the Purko and Damat sections were previously close allies, but following an increase in raiding between them in the 1970s, they stressed that they were now ‘of other lands’ to one another. Belonging to ‘other lands’ highlights the ‘otherness’ mixed with a degree of mistrust and even fear. The popular image of a sorcerer who can bring havoc to any age-set festival is a psychopath from an unfriendly Maasai tribal section: he epitomizes iloonkuapi. ‘Those of other lands’ are Maasai, and not true enemies who could be raided with impunity in the past; but there is an element of uncertainty in dealing with them and mistrust for the stranger who belongs and yet does not belong.

Wakuafi or Iloikop? This usage appears to be at the root of a general misunderstanding concerning the identity of Maa-speakers that were variously referred to as ‘Wakuafi’, ‘Kwavi’, or ‘Iloikop’. The coastal missionary, Ludwig Krapf (1854) was the first writer to record a distinction between the Maasai and their ‘mortal enemies’ the Wakuafi, who shared the same language and customs.The ‘dreadful Wakuafi’ terrorized the weaker tribes of the hinterland, but were held in check by the ‘equally savage’ Maasai. Krapf suggested that Wakuafi was probably a Swahili corruption of the Maasai term Eloikob (or later Iloikop), those of the country (engob or en-kop), its possessors who had been there from the beginning.10 As knowledge of the interior accumulated, other ‘Wakuafi’ groups were reported, including some associated with agriculture, which was shunned by the pastoral Maasai.The term ‘Iloikop’ now became translated by other writers as ‘the people of the soil’, emphasizing cultivation rather than herding. This led broadly to two historical models.The most popular, typified by Joseph Thomson’s account (1885), held that Maasai and Wakuafi were two rival forces in the region, locked in mortal combat with the Maasai gaining the winning edge. A more evolutionary view was propounded by Harry Johnston (1886), suggesting that once the pastoral Maasai had expanded against their enemies to the ecological limit, they turned on one another, and those who were defeated found refuge in agriculture. In this way, the Maasai of one generation became Kwavi (Wakuafi) in the next, and 62

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eventually, after the infighting had run its course, they would all live peacefully as agriculturalists.11 The point at issue here is not a choice between these two views, but the basic misunderstanding of the terms ‘Wakuafi’ and ‘Iloikop’. First, one may note that the pastoral Maasai have a term that embodies their contempt for all agriculturalists: they are il-meek (cf. Case 7). This contempt appears to have been shared by the ‘Wakuafi’ that Krapf met on the coast: ‘they entertain such an aversion to agriculture that even slaves cannot be induced to till the ground’.12 This hardly suggests that Wakuafi/Iloikop is equivalent to il-meek, and certainly the terms have no association in the Maasai language. The term iloonkuapi, on the other hand, has a widespread usage as a generic term for other Maasai tribal sections.When uttered, the similarity of this to Wakuafi suggests that it was not so much the word, as its meaning that was corrupted by the Swahili and early writers, leading to a general confusion over the identity of the ‘Wakuafi’. To unravel this confusion, the distinction between the Maasai singular en-kop and the plural in-kuapi is vital (cf. Iloikop and Wakuafi). Krapf touched on a relevant lead when he associated Eloikob [Iloikop] with the Maasai terms enna kob [ena kop] ‘this land’ and engoban [en-kop ang] ‘our land’.This usage refers to the tribal section to which a man belongs, as when Masiani was told to ‘Go back to your own land’ in Case 10.13 The general term, ol-osho (pl. il-oshon), may be used in other contexts, but this lacks the emotive strength of the alternative term, en-kop. Krapf ’s whole argument (and later confusions) might have taken a different course had he also noted the converse plural usage, iloonkuapi, expressing mistrust for ‘those of other lands’ – as opposed to those who are ‘of our land’ (i.e. of our own tribal section). In other words, the vernacular singular en-kop is not the true source of Wakuafi as Krapf suggested, but rather its opposite. Correspondingly, the plural iloonkuapi is not an absolute label for particular groups (the Wakuafi ), but a relative term.Where Maasai of one tribal section regard those of another as iloonkuapi, this is reciprocated. Krapf ’s informant was a Maa-speaking captive on the coast, and it was from this man that he gathered that the marauders in the hinterland were ‘Wakuafi’. But if the informant actually indicated that they were iloonkuapi as seems likely, then this was not necessarily to emphasize that they were peripheral Maasai (‘Wakuafi’ as distinct from true Maasai). It could have been to reassure his Swahili masters and Krapf that the marauders were not his close friends either: they were Maasai, but not of ‘his land’.

Conclusion: performance and the arena of space The stereotypes of the Maasai hut and village correspond to a clear set of expectations, stemming from the power structure within the family and the nature of social relations among the Maasai. When a child is curtly told to leave the hut so that elders or moran may enter, this is offset by a considerable indulgence towards 63

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playing with other children and sleeping elsewhere in the village.The child’s growing experience is not one of restriction to a particular hut or mother, but of belonging to a community of peers that extends to other huts of the family and the village beyond, and accommodating chance visitors as a matter of course.The social milieu changes with each migration and the family may divide or recombine, but the rules persist. This experience gives the child a clear orientation that is carried over with each move as the landscape takes shape. Compared with the relative smallness and isolation of Maasai villages, the scope for being ‘at home’ in any part of the tribal section is boundless; and children – boys especially – extend their experience to the uninhabited spaces as they become involved in herding. With no concept of land ownership outside the village, the Maasai identify themselves with the common land that they know so well and share for grazing. Their nomadism fosters a uniform dialect and custom rather than a progressive shift of idiom from one village to the next. However, this lack of variety across familiar tracts corresponds to more striking distinctions at the borders of normal nomadism, that is, across the boundaries between tribal sections, where there tends to be a sharp awareness of differences of dialect and ways of behaving. Strangers from across these borders are strange in their manner also. The sense of identity is broken by these boundaries, but there remains a more formal sense of being Maasai, expressed by the ambivalent regard for those from other parts – iloonkuapi – and especially if they are age mates. In the exchange of greetings, any stranger approaching a village is expected to make enquiries, mapping out the various huts and who they belong to in his mind. He should identify those of his age mates and clan ‘brothers’, whom he has a right to approach, and those of his ‘daughters’, whom he should avoid. Within these rules, he too has considerable scope for visiting anywhere among Maasai, but he remains a stranger. Beyond the boundaries of the Maasai proper, even with other Maa-speakers, the age system is not shared and the relationship is undefined and distant. There may be ad hoc relations at a personal level: paupers may cross these borders searching for work and some intermarriage does occur. In the past, the moran of certain tribal sections would even hire themselves out as mercenaries. But there is no recognized way of accommodating to non-Maasai and the sense of a homeland stops at these borders: the space beyond is opaque. Thus, the notion of belonging to a Maasai community up to the level of the tribal section arises from the sense of space that has built up from early experience, before the child has gained any sense of time beyond the daily and seasonal cycles. Women are not expected to extend their understanding further: they are ‘children’. For men, there is a sense of belonging to a wider community, embracing all tribal sections of the Maasai proper, and this is only acquired as they mature through the extended cycles that define age and the implications of their shared age system. Corresponding to the divisions of their land, there are ceremonial gatherings at each level, characterized by arresting performances.The Maasai have a keen sense of theatre, and the nodes of ritual climax that punctuate their existence, noted in Chapter 2, are also nodes in space. They point to patches in the empty bushland 64

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that were once converted to villages or manyat, and became the scene of memorable performances, and then reverted to bush.These sites remain coloured by the memory of celebration, saga, and anecdote, forming the background to each new event.These range from local celebrations marked by a small feast and dancing, to elaborate festivals, and even to ritualized raids, proclaiming the autonomy of each new age-group of moran and highlighting the sensitivity of boundaries. Performance commands attention, expanding the arena to the wider circle of onlookers and endowing space with meaning. Successful performance is allimportant, for it sets the seal on any occasion and disseminates an absolute truth, overriding the differences of opinion that tend to surface in debate beforehand. It is self-fulfilling. The bush has a central place in this image of the landscape, and closely associated with the bush, the moran are the most distinctive feature of Maasai society. They are characteristically the centre of performance and display. They are conspicuous by their presence wherever they are, just as they are conspicuous by their absence at other times, when elders can never be quite certain what they are up to.They are distinguished from elders and boys by their flamboyant appearance and panache. Through ‘dance’ – a term that signifies singing also – there is a popular awareness of community issues, dominating the space within reach. At night, the sound of the songs of moran may at times appear contrapuntal against the songs of boys, who muster their numbers and dance through the bush after the day’s herding. The boys’ songs anticipate initiation, fostering a growing awareness that the moran are ageing and the time for new circumcisions is approaching. Similarly, women may wrest the initiative through their day dances at local celebrations, and these may build up to periodic outbursts of fully blown ritual rebellion against the elders, as they desert their homes for days at a time and manhandle any man in their path.These are occasions when women revile the elders in their songs as they pray for children, moran assert their physical primacy with hidden innuendoes, and boys provide a counter-theme that grows with the timbre of their performance. The singing carries further than the visual display of dancing, and the nuances of the songs are widely understood.14 Songs and dances broadcast the limitations of the elders’ control, but only up to a point. A term for ‘to dance’ (and sing) also means ‘to play’ (a-iguran), trivializing dance in popular idiom. At any festive gathering, this element of ‘play’ may colour the occasion at certain points. However, only elders claim the knowledge or skill to stage-manage the ritual spectacle in which the dancing is just one aspect of a larger performance. The heightened awareness of the event is also expressed in terms of the mystical threat of misfortune emanating from the bush, which is especially marked on such occasions. In the final resort, space is infinite, and the commanding presence of elders at critical points emphasizes their ability to mediate with the cosmos beyond. As a collectivity, they are felt to be closer to grappling with this vast unknown than any other sector of Maasai society.They are the front line of defence against these mystical forces, and their understanding of these is reassuring, but it also gives their authority an ambivalent and even sinister ring. 65

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Notes 1 Mitzlaff 1988: 40–70.The Parakuyu have their own independent system of age-sets, but they regard themselves as ‘Maasai’, and indeed they have a social organization that is very similar to their Maasai neighbours of Kisonko (Chapter 8, and Hurskainen 1984). 2 See Matapato: 14, 52, 114, 200–7, 236–9, 247–50; Mitzlaff 1988: 43, 52. 3 Talle 1988: 11, 66–7, 75, 224–5, 248, 267; Rigby 1996: 83–4 (citing Kipury 1989); Hodgson 2001: 22–36, 68, 193–4, 222–4. For an elaboration of views on the earlier status of Maasai women, see pp. 226–8. 4 Cited by Flora Thompson (1945: 182). However, the Maasai also have a saying which concedes that: ‘Boys give no trouble and are sweet, like your own tribal section’ [unlike girls and women]. 5 Matapato: 70–4; cf. Samburu: 103–6, 254–5.The themes for Table 3.1 are taken from published stories, of which fourteen have been recorded by more than one author.Twentyfive of these are from Kipury (1983: 26–121), nineteen from Hollis (1905: 103–237, 271–2), eight from Merker (1904: 213–20), and three from Sankan (1971: 67–9). 6 An earlier outline of this general belief was presented in a paper on Samburu conceptions of health and disease, noting the extent to which illness was perceived as an inner filth that had to be expurgated (Spencer 1959b).The broad pattern among the Matapato Maasai were very similar, although the details of roots and barks and their uses were somewhat different. This concept of pollution extends to the dirt associated with the work of blacksmiths, especially in the past, and this is the reason given by Maasai for treating blacksmiths as a despised caste whom they would protect but not marry. In elaborating the topic, John Galaty (1979) has extended this notion of pollution to Dorobo hunter–gatherers and Loonkidongi diviners also. However, while Maasai scorn Dorobo and are apprehensive of Loonkidongi (see Chapter 5), they do marry women of these groups, and there is no suggestion of pollution comparable with blacksmiths.Altogether, Galaty’s analysis of the symbolism of ‘primordial substances’ does not appear to be derived from Maasai categories of thought or expression. 7 Thomson 1885: 347–8, 416; Matapato: 116–17; Saitoti 1986: 43–8. 8 Different cardinal directions have relevance for orientation at major festivals, for instance, or for laying out corpses. However, these details appear to vary between tribal sections with no overall pattern apart from the widespread tradition that the Maasai migrated from the north. 9 For fuller details of the belief in people with ‘eyes’, see Matapato: 43–4. 10 Krapf 1854: 4, 6–7. Later, Krapf and other early writers suggested that Iloikop referred to all Maa-speaking peoples (Erhardt 1857: 57; Krapf 1860: 358; New 1873: 468–9). The Chamus use the term in this sense; although the more usual term used elsewhere is Maa. The Samburu refer to themselves and the Maasai language as Iloikop, but deny that this has any bearing on ‘homicide’, which is an alternative meaning for this term (Nomads: 109n). Jacobs (1963: 1) suggests that the Arusha also use this term for themselves, but this is not corroborated by either Gulliver (1963: 14) or Spear (1993: 123); and it has also been suggested that Iloikop is a Maasai term for Parakuyu (Beidelman 1960: 246). For a useful survey of the extensive literature on these terms, see Berntsen 1980. 11 Thomson 1885: 63, 240–3; Johnston 1886: 312–13, 405–7. Eliot (1905a: xi) in effect reverses Johnston’s model, suggesting that Maasai pastoralism is more recent than agriculture. However, it was Johnston’s model, prompted by a settled Maasai, that appears to have anticipated (or influenced) later policy makers; and settlement came to be viewed as the only realistic future for the Maasai. 12 Krapf 1854: 11. 13 Krapf 1854: 7, 57, 82. 14 Spencer 1985a: 140–2, 157–61; 1996: 184–91.

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Maasai enthusiasm over their traditions is tempered by a marked reticence concerning forces that lie beyond their grasp; and they avoid the topic of death above all. No one can know what happens after death, but the clear presumption is – nothing.There is no belief in afterlife or any realm of ancestral spirits.At most, there is the hope of perpetuating the family.Through children, parents leave behind an imprint that survives their own mortality and the wake of fading memories. Old people with their family around them can die a good death only in the sense that it is inevitable and that a bad death has been avoided. Men and women die, age-sets grow old and are forgotten, but there is continuity through the chain of succession, and the age system has a certain affinity with the family in this respect. Following a death, the disposal of the body is notable for its simplicity, with a minimum of ritual as the corpse is discreetly laid to rest in the bush, or normally buried these days as a token of mission-inspired respect.1 At such times especially, it is vital that the correct procedure is followed, or the contamination of death could spread misfortune. Towering over the denial of any afterlife is this concern over impending misfortune. Childbirth, on the other hand, is an unparalleled stake in the future and is preeminently a propitious occasion. It is the quintessence of the women’s domain, endowing them with a unique sanctity that rises above other aspects of their sexuality and lifestyle. The close association between women and small children in daily life holds an enchantment that is highlighted during pregnancy and reaches a climax at the time of birth. The mother is then in her hut, surrounded by other women, singing and praying.Wherever this charm of life originated, it is a gift from God, who is felt to be very close, in contrast to the general absence of God at times of death. These beliefs provide a curious inversion of the premise that respect and the ability to invoke God accumulate with age among men. At the extremes of life, beyond the untamed ignorance of children and the charisma of great age, there is a sense of awe, concerned with God’s creative power through birth on the one hand, and a nihilistic view of death on the other.The emphasis is on replenishing the living present, rather than on any credible prospect of life beyond death.At the same time, the Maasai accept that misfortune is as much a fact of life as life itself, and their concept of misfortune permeates their cosmology and beliefs. 67

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Mystical forces and the propitious role of ritual Within the natural order, it is held that there are hidden dangers that will bring misfortune to anyone who behaves without care.This must in the final analysis be willed by God, but it involves mystical forces that are beyond human comprehension. Some objects are clearly unpropitious and to be avoided, such as carrion birds and hyenas, or the personal ornaments of someone who has died an unnatural death. Other objects may be adapted for daily use with a certain freedom in the way they are handled, but this is within limits set by custom, and as the formality of the occasion increases, so does the concern for handling objects correctly. Ritual covers any form of prescribed behaviour, and inept mishandling could bring misfortune. This may be accidental, giving rise to anxiety; but any deliberate attempt to bring harm through some unpropitious act amounts to sorcery.The concept of ritual correctness among the Maasai is the reverse of sorcery. It is the performance of time-honoured acts that are thought to avert misfortune according to context: they are propitious (e-sunya). Repeating certain ritual acts 2 or 4 times is propitious because these are propitious numbers. Certain oxen are preferred for sacrifice because they have propitious markings, and the cuts will be handled in a propitious way. Ritual delegations are propitious as they go about their business, unarmed and unruffled, avoiding iron objects. Laying a corpse in the shade of a ‘cool’ thornless tree is propitious. Failing to take these precautions is unpropitious (e-tolo) and misfortune may follow. Certain men are also thought to be propitious, because they have no physical or moral blemish, and come from an unblemished family of pure Maasai descent. Such men are ideally suited for leading roles in major ceremonies. Other men may have built up large herds or families and are lucky (e-munyak), but they are not necessarily propitious, just as propitious men are not necessarily wealthy. A propitious morani chosen to be the ritual leader for his age group is even expected to be unlucky. Again, an ox that brings ‘luck’ to its owner, causing his herds to build up, is not necessarily propitious from a ritual point of view, and to sacrifice it would end his luck. To be propitious is to be closer to God, like a newborn child. It brings a sense of blessing to the community, although no one can know what its future may hold.2 By their very nature, ceremonial occasions are regarded as propitious and aim above all to keep the mystical forces of misfortune at bay as far as possible. However, what is proper is never quite certain, and the concern over correctness has to be viewed against the possibility of mischance. Any breach leads to anxious attempts to avert harm through appropriate ritual. Conversely, any serious misfortune may lead to anxious speculation in a search for some ritual oversight or unnatural event. Any formula for success is seen at best as partial, and the Maasai accept that there are variations in ritual detail between groups.These may concern minor differences between tribal sections regarding the ceremonial aspects of their age system, or variations in family custom regarding the ritual handling of birth and initiation to minimize the element of risk. Most Maasai lineages, for instance, circumcise their

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sons just outside the father’s gateway at dawn, but a few perform this inside the village, or in the heat of the day, or only on a particular day of the lunar month. It is generally assumed that these divergent practices stem from earlier attempts to reverse the misfortune of a series of deaths following circumcision, although the details are no longer remembered.3 It is the established practices rather than the explanations that matter, and if certain alternative forms have suited particular groups, then this is their justification. The interpretation of tradition inevitably shifts with change, and there may be certain innovations that seem to have worked well on balance and become standard practice. However, to innovate in any circumstances is to take a risk, and the greater the novelty the greater is felt to be the danger. An intriguing example of the process of ritual adaptation concerns a major shift in initiation practice among the Uasinkishu Maasai. The Uasinkishu previously dominated the north-western flank of Maasai influence, but they were scattered during the internecine wars of the nineteenth century and then cut off from the mainstream of Maasai recovery during the early colonial period. Meanwhile, they had developed ambiguous links with peoples among whom they were dispersed, notably Kalenjin-speakers such as the Nandi, while retaining an uncertain Maasai identity.4 Case 11. When the Uasinkishu were relocated in the official Maasai District in 1935, they were still too disorganized to hold their major age ceremonies, and this disarray was exploited by those who invited Kalenjin affines into the area as clients (Waller 1984: 263–4, 282–3). It was in this climate of uncertainty and following a series of deaths when Nyangusi age-set were initiated (c.1942) that some Uasinkishu families were advised to adopt Kalenjin initiation practices, possibly by a Kalenjin diviner. While aspects of the Kalenjin warrior system had been influenced by the Maasai, their initiation practices seem almost deliberately geared to emphasize features that contrast with the Maasai pattern. Certainly, the Uasinkishu were aware of the stark differences. Instead of having their cloths and bodies blackened with charcoal, as among other Maasai, initiates’ faces and entire bodies had to be covered with chalk. Instead of being initiated singly just outside or inside their father’s village, these boys had to be initiated in groups in the bush. Instead of having to return each night to a village before the cattle returned to avoid serious misfortune, they had to remain isolated in a remote part of the bush. Instead of being sponsored by the firestick patrons’ age-set, two above their own, they were to be instructed by the next most senior age-set, whom they would replace as moran. In this alternative pattern, perhaps ten or even twenty boys might be initiated in a locality on a particular day, and their instructors of the next ageset would build a large hut for them in the dense bush, screened from view by a thick fence of branches. There, the initiates lived for perhaps six or eight months, unaccompanied by adults, apart from visits from their instructors who 69

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brought ample supplies of milk and meat. During the day, these white/bush/‘Kalenjin’ initiates would shoot birds for their headdresses with bows and arrows, like their true Maasai counterparts, and they would visit their peers at other white/bush initiation huts elsewhere. However, at no time could they visit a village or witness a black/village/Maasai circumcision. During this period, elders who had not themselves been ‘white’ initiates and all women had to keep away from the areas where the ‘white’ initiates were likely to be.These initiates had licence to shoot arrows at any women they met, but not at girls; whereas the ‘black’ initiates could threaten any girl with an arrow blunted with honey-wax in exchange for a beaded finger ring.The two sets of initiates ‘black’ and ‘white’ travelled during the daytime in separate small bands and sang different songs. If they happened by chance to meet in the bush, then there was no hostility or avoidance between them, and they might relax together for a while. But just as the ‘white’ initiates must not visit the villages, so the ‘black’ initiates must not visit the bush initiation huts; and at night in order to eat and sleep they must of course separate. In this way, the celebration of initiations in the village was an all-black affair and the celebration of initiations in the bush-huts was an all-white affair. Both groups were under stringent ritual restrictions to avoid misfortune, and other Uasinkishu had to avoid infringing these restrictions. At the end of this extended period of seclusion, all members of a bush hut who had previously been circumcised on the same day were now led to their homes to be shaved on the same day. Meanwhile, they had matured physically, their hair had grown long, and even their own mothers could not recognize them. The close maternal link, that had been maintained by the ‘black’ initiates, had been broken for the ‘white’ initiates. At this point, control over the ‘white’ initiates passed from the preceding age-set to their firestick patrons. The bands of initiates,‘black’ and ‘white’, now merged together as moran with no further distinction between the two, apart from the close friendships that had been formed within each band during the period of initiation. The first ‘white’ initiates in Uasinkishu were of the Nyangusi age-set. Because of the apparent success of this switch in custom, other families then adopted this pattern to avert misfortune, and as confidence grew, it became a major trend dividing Uasinkishu families into two parallel sets of practice: ‘black’ Maasai and ‘white’ Kalenjin. Some elders were unconvinced of the wisdom of switching practice so readily and suggested that a number of less cautious fathers had approved of the shift because it kept their lay-about sons away from their wives and villages and instilled discipline at a time when the manyata system was in decline. Others implied that this was becoming a Uasinkishu practice, distinguishing them from the dominant Purko at a time when ‘black’ Purko initiates were visiting their area and demanding hospitality. Uasinkishu politics has been characterized by factionalism (Waller 1984). But the thrust of this movement was described to me in terms of averting misfortune at a time when they identified with the Maasai in their traditions and yet were 70

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closer to Kalenjin influence in the process of change.A prominent Kalenjin feature that was absent from this account concerns the esoteric secrets that true ‘white’ Kalenjin initiates learnt from their instructors during their seclusion. Significantly among the Uasinkishu, the groups of ‘black’ and ‘white’ initiates merged into one as they become moran, with an emphasis on age equality rather than on secrets held by one side and not the other. Compared with the Kalenjin, Maasai beliefs are altogether more open, and the only premise of hidden knowledge concerns the elders’ monopoly of true wisdom, but elders hold no secrets as such. However, the Maasai do express an awareness of esoteric secrecy in another context, and this again relates to their concern over ritual innovation and misfortune, revealing their fear of sorcery. Elders readily discuss the ritual ramifications of the Maasai way of life, and argue about them at length. However, they disclaim any knowledge of the techniques or ways of sorcerers and dissociate themselves utterly from any interest in this area, expressing disgust rather than curiosity.They regard the sheer malignancy of anyone who deliberately sets out to manipulate unpropitious forces in order to harm others as totally incomprehensible.The ways of a sorcerer are too devious for any normal person to fathom who they are, what they are up to, or how they do it. From time to time, misfortune may coincide with family tensions, suggesting sorcery by a jealous brother or co-wife, or perhaps by some knowing but unknown person who is motivated by malice.This is normally an area of innuendo and suspicion rather than accusation, and the veiled hints are often dismissed by others who shrug away the evidence. However, some rumours persist, and the shadowy existence of such embittered beings is not doubted. This image is especially pernicious at a time of ritual festival when the harm could be most devastating. It is at such times that sharing and gregarious good will are stressed within the circle of feasting age mates; while the sorcerer is perceived as some malevolent pervert, bent on sabotaging the festival, and creeping through the bush like some monster in a children’s story. To the extent that beliefs in the threat of mystical forces may be viewed as projections of the jealousies and grudges of social life, the stereotype of the sorcerer suggests a grotesque caricature of the self-indulgent and hypocritical side of elderhood.This is a very public target in the women’s songs, a popular view of elderhood among moran, and a topic of discreet gossip among the elders themselves.They are all more familiar with the ways and weaknesses of the sorcerer than they care to admit.

Prayer, sacrifice, and the cosmic manifestations of God Maasai self-awareness assumes God’s protection. This needs no further proof beyond the persistence of their way of life. In general conversation, to emphasize that God is everywhere, elders may make an upward gesture, as if to enhance their limited earth-bound view of space; and this is also expressed when wives toss the first drops of each milking towards the rising or setting sun and then in other directions as an offering to God.The term for God, Nkai, may also refer to the sky or to rain, manifesting God’s life-giving quality. Nowhere is their dependence on 71

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God more apparent than in the arbitrary gift of rainfall, which is so essential to their pastoral economy above all.They are aware of a broad pattern of seasons, but the actual rainfall in any month or from one month to the next is quite unpredictable (Figure 4.1).5 The only feature that is relatively certain is the extended period of summer drought. The tail end of the spring rains (in-kokua) coincides with the disappearance from the evening sky of the Plaiades cluster of stars (also in-kokua); and no major ceremonies or festivals should be mounted until the cluster has reappeared at dawn, for it is believed that God cannot hear their prayers. For similar reasons, major ceremonies should only take place on specific days during the propitious phase of the lunar month (see Chapter 6). There is an unshakable faith in these broad principles, but little consistent elaboration. No one can seriously claim an esoteric knowledge of the unknowable, they insist: ‘Only God knows’. Maasai are confident that their tradition has served them well, but this is in the context of an enigmatic order of things that can only be dimly perceived. Even myths of origin may be dismissed as just myths. God is the hidden figure of Providence, the guiding hand behind the unfolding of events, and the supreme agent in the operation of mystical forces. This uncertainty is cushioned by the awareness that older men understand tradition and have the ability to invoke God’s protection, notably when they lead the blessings at an elders’ debate.The notion of God coming close to women through the natural process of childbirth has its ritual counterpart in ceremonial activities organized by men.This is most succinctly expressed at times when a ritual delegation (o-lamal) is mounted with a specific task that must be both peaceful and reasonable. Typically, a delegation would involve between 4 and 10 men, wearing traditional women’s shoulder aprons and spiral earrings, as older men once did to emphasize their propitious sanctity. Ritual delegations should be tranquil and any request that they make has coercive implications, for God is close and even mere irritation at some refusal could bring misfortune. They should be given generous hospitality on their journey, bringing a blessing on their hosts; and they can expect

Figure 4.1 The variable profile of annual rainfall (Kajiado).

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a reasonable response at the end of their mission. In this way, delegations to a distant Prophet should be allowed through hostile parts of Maasai and bad feelings should be put to one side. Again, a morani who finds his marriage prospects blocked by a particularly obdurate elder may persuade his age mates to mount a ritual delegation to break the deadlock. However, the age mates would only agree to do so if he is clearly a worthy suitor and the victim of malice; and the elder might only agree after his own age mates have persuaded him to yield to pressure. Then spontaneous groups representing other age-sets and women in general might be mobilized in succession to use their coercive power to reduce the standard fine of nine heifers step-by-step to a single heifer in a show of good will.The impasse between individuals then becomes a concord within the community at large that is blessed by the presence of God, enhancing the prospects of the heifer’s fertility. It is the tranquil and compelling nature of the delegation that is stressed.6 Groups of initiates after their circumcision or of women during their fertility dances have a similar coercive power when they stop at any elder’s village, and they should not be refused any reasonable request. These occasions pose an additional anxiety for the elders that ‘children’ do not understand the forces within their collective grasp and their expectations of what is reasonable may be excessive. Rather than provoke an angry confrontation that could bring misfortune, elders urge one another to accede to the request, arguing that God’s presence will reward unstinted generosity with unlimited good fortune for their families and herds. Compliance is again a price the elders have to pay for their heavy-handed regime, but they persuade one another to regard this also as an investment. Ritual delegations are generally linked to preparations for some ceremonial festival, and it is at these above all that God is held to be close.These are typically events that mark the upgrading of moran, notably at their eunoto festival when they are formally established as senior (‘great’) moran and at their olngesher festival when the two sides of the age-set are formally united as elders in the fullest sense. The ritual climax of a major age-set festival involves consecrating an ox to make it ‘great’, and then sacrificing it by suffocation.The firestick patrons take care that the breath of the dying animal does not escape and that it does not vomit its cud, for this would ‘return the grass to the ground and spoil the sacrifice’. Beer is collected in the animal’s hide and tossed into the air so that it spatters widely over the ground like a shower of rain while the patrons invoke God.They then endow the moran with ‘life’ by anointing them in turn with the ultra-prestigious brisket fat and offering them a taste of other prescribed cuts, leading with a composite of the heart, lungs and diaphragm as the seat of the animal’s life.7 This culminates in the final blessing by the patrons, spraying mouthfuls of beer over the moran. At some point after an elder has performed olngesher with his age-set, but before he can preside over the initiation of any of his children, he provides a fine ox for sacrifice. This is his personal Great Ox festival (loolbaa). The emphasis is on the serenity of the occasion as the celebrant sits in vigil with an age-mate, avoiding any hint of aggravation, and the other elders stress their unity by sharing the meat together instead of grouping themselves into separate age-sets. Then the firestick 73

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patrons present anoint the celebrant and offer him a prescribed cut, cleansing him figuratively of all his misdeeds up to this point and bringing him closer to God. In terms of religious belief, there is no notion of an offering to God at these festivals, but rather the reverse.The ideal of life itself seems to be reaffirmed by the sacrifice as a gift from God. Rain is simulated in the patrons’ invocation and blessing, and the precautions taken to prevent cud being spilled echo the natural process of sustenance: God provides rain, that feeds the grass, that nurtures the cattle, that sustain Maasai. God is the giver of life through this food chain, which is condensed and intensified through consecrating the animal and offering its life for ritual consumption by the moran. Similarly, Maasai prayers allude metaphorically to the persistence of life and growth in the natural world around them; and the elders invoke God to bring those whom they bless into this life-giving scheme.There is no suggestion that the sacrifice is a token of thanks, reversing this process or some form of piacular offering from Man to God. Rather, it seems to be an intensification of the ideal position of Maasai in relation to their herds and their country. Just as God gave cattle to the Maasai in myth, so God reaffirms the bestowal of ‘life’ and ‘greatness’ through the sacrifice. Each tribal section has a Prophet whom they consult on the choice of a propitious ox for sacrifice. Occasionally, he may advise a special festival and sacrifice at the height of a period of drought or epidemic, with a view to reversing the misfortune. A variation of this occurs when a local rumour of infertility builds up to a panic among anxious women.The Prophet may then recommend a ‘women’s festival’ that involves the sacrifice of a pregnant heifer.This is organized by the elders, who anoint the women with the foetal fluid (and not the brisket fat). In this way, the fertility of the heifer is transferred to the women through sacrifice, rather as the ‘greatness’ of the eunoto ox is transferred to the moran through the anointment of the fat. The notion again concerns a gift flowing from God that overcomes the affliction, rather than an offering to God of something that ultimately belongs to God anyway.8 In their prayers, elders may invoke God ‘in the sky and in the ground’ (te nkai o te nkop) or ‘God above and below’, and they suggest that this is an idiomatic way of acknowledging that God is everywhere.When they toss beer at a sacrifice, it falls like rain, invoking both aspects of God, and also when wives toss the first drops of milking.The flame of the firestick patrons’ ritual fire is kindled on the ground and the smoke rises to the sky, bringing these two aspects together.The ritually important wild-fig tree grows majestically from the ground, reaching upwards towards the sky. Cosmic phenomena provide a glimpse of the sheer power of God, for instance, when the volcano Oldoinyo Lenkai (the Mountain of God) rumbles and emits smoke upwards from deep inside the earth. Again, one elder suggested that the rising or setting sun and red sky are lit up by God below (the ground).9 This power is encountered most dramatically during the height of a thunderstorm, which is picturesquely described as a fierce argument between the two aspects of God, concerned with taking or saving the life of a person. Apart from thunder, elders shrug off the possibility that the two aspects of God may contend with one another: there is only one God, and again ‘Only God 74

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knows’. However, God is certainly unpredictable: normally protective and life giving, but sometimes with a more awesome aspect, withholding and punishing at random. This ambivalence towards the mix of fortune and misfortune is reflected in the notion of more than one God recorded by some earlier writers.10 Analytically, it is useful to elaborate this distinction by identifying instead the aspect of God that is explicitly associated with the moral order of Maasai beliefs.This contrasts with the more amoral and opaque aspect that is associated with the stark randomness of misfortune.

Transgressions of the moral order and the power of the curse The moral aspect of God is linked to the protection of Maasai through prayers and blessings, and also to mystical punishment for misdeeds. The harshest fate looms over anyone who is in a state of irredeemable sin, engooki. There is held to be no redemption for someone who takes the life of a vulnerable being close to God, especially the unborn and the very young, or who allows an ageing parent to die through neglect. It is held that misfortune will blight any man in a state of irredeemable sin, extending to his family and cattle, even after his death, until his whole line dies out. Meanwhile, others will avoid him, and his children will have difficulty in marrying, except into families with a similar stigma. The fate of an elder who died young or whose family has had a run of bad luck may be popularly linked to some trivial episode in his life that has since taken on semi-mythical overtones. In retrospect, it may be a moot point whether his parent died of neglect or would have died anyway; or had he perhaps killed a pregnant woman in the confusion of a raid? Was she really pregnant? Was she killed? Who was responsible? In the wake of a major misfortune, patterns appear to emerge as interpretations establish the significance of events in the unfolding of Providence.To have engooki is altogether more sinister than some inadvertent brush with the unpropitious, for the violation of the gift of life cannot be eradicated. Similar beliefs attach to women who abuse their fertility. However, the stereotype of the irredeemable sinner tends to be male, for women as dependants are assumed to have less scope for transgression on this scale. A less serious offence involves some show of disrespect towards a senior elder, typically by a morani who has ‘stolen’ a goat or (seduced) a wife.This may provoke a curse, an invocation to God to punish the offender.Where this is based on mere suspicion, God is the all-knowing arbiter, and the course of events – of misfortune or otherwise – will reveal the degree of guilt. It is the threat of a firestick patrons’ curse that holds the moran in rein. The following incident was recalled by the patrons with melodramatic embellishment at a routine harangue of Purko moran. Case 12. Several moran were accused of stealing a cow, and the firestick patrons threatened them with a conditional curse (ol-momai ).11 This led all but one of the moran to confess and compensate their victim. The remaining morani, however, insisted on his innocence, and he agreed to drink a gourd of 75

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milk mixed with blood and certain herbs after it had been cursed. He was assured that if he drank the mixture and lived, then he would have proved his innocence and the patrons would bless him. Otherwise, he would die. He persistently denied his guilt, and later he died.The other moran all prospered. An explicit curse by a senior elder is relatively rare, but even his unvoiced sense of resentment is regarded as dangerous – and even if his victim is innocent in the final analysis. Unresolved anger poses an element of risk, and the only safe course for anyone who may have caused offence is to dispel the anger with a gift. This will be confirmed with a blessing, annulling any curse. Meanwhile, there is a certain urgency to make reparation before misfortune strikes. Worse still, the offended elder could die first, and his curse could never be eradicated. The victim then would enter a state of irredeemable sin.The danger of neglecting ageing parents is precisely that they may feel embittered when they die and this will have the effect of an irredeemable curse. When the Maasai describe the more sensitive relationships involving respect, they tend to emphasize the destructive power of the curse, however rare, rather than the life-giving power of blessings, which are readily given. The essence of cursing and blessing is the control of emotion rather than its indulgence, and it is held that only elders learn how to deal with their anger to acquire this power. Moran cannot curse individually because their anger stems from warrior ideals that incite them towards violence. Women have no control over their emotions, and this makes their anger more unpredictable when they have a genuine grievance, for they do not know how to direct or overcome their sense of destructiveness; they cannot translate it into a curse.The curse is a terrible weapon, and for this reason elders should avoid resorting to it too readily, for this could be viewed as an abuse of their power, akin to sorcery.When firestick patrons harangue moran to overawe them, they parade their ability to curse, uttering threats, but ultimately they hold themselves back. More terrible than the curse of a firestick patron is the curse of an age-set against one of its members, for the age-set gives unstinted support and demands unstinted loyalty, based on idyllic bonds formed during moranhood.The meticulous concern with which elders offer all forms of hospitality to their age mates is expressed in terms of the care needed to avoid this curse. The age-set curse is a final resort against any incorrigible renegade who cannot be brought to his senses by the slaughter of a fine ox. It is a sentence of total exclusion. Beyond the age-set, a more measured response by just one elder with a grudge is to wait until the offender wishes to marry a ‘daughter’, and then to block his marriage by merely threatening to curse her future children, as in Case 7. This course is open to a wider range of elders and is relatively harmless. In the face of this indirect threat, even if it rests on shaky evidence, the bride’s father would delay the marriage until the suitor has made reparations to secure blessings, with some remission to emphasize goodwill on both sides. In a scale of transgressions, the indirect threat of a curse is commonplace, an explicit or implied curse is rather infrequent, and an irredeemable state of sin is both rare and terrible. 76

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In principle, a curse is held to have an effect only on someone who has offended knowingly. In the same vein, an unpropitious action becomes really dangerous when it is performed by someone who should know better. Children and also non-Maasai can unwittingly breach the propitious conventions and even be cursed, apparently with a degree of impunity. However, there is always a degree of risk, and once they have been corrected, any repetition is more likely to bring misfortune. Knowledge of some breach, in other words, is felt to play a part in releasing the forces of misfortune. Maasai equate their tolerance for genuine ignorance with the existence of different customs and different avoidances among other peoples, based on their different forms of knowledge and understanding. Nuances in family custom have a similar significance.

The limits of reasonableness In describing the operation of the curse, Maasai elders emphasize their restraint. A curse is avoided where possible by going no further than a threat, as in a marriage veto, or better still by declaring an intention not to curse as a conciliatory gesture that wins popular approval (Case 8).The emphasis is on the reasonableness of worthy men (i-lewa) and on the justification of a curse only within reason. It would be unreasonable to curse someone who has acted in good faith and with no intention of causing offence.Again, it would be unreasonable to curse a small child or someone whose moral sense is impaired, in fact anyone who knows no better, for their behaviour can only be innocent. For a curse to be reasonable and effective, the victim must have some moral awareness of guilt. Yet it can hardly be claimed that the curse is reasonable in its outcome.There is a nightmarish quality in this belief that casts a shadow over the whole argument of reasonableness. Elders are portrayed as worthy, and yet they claim the power to inflict mystical punishment that is out of all proportion to the wrong done.A young man who has been cursed for some thoughtless discourtesy in the heat of the moment is as much at risk as one who has committed an altogether more flagrant offence. In such circumstances, elders argue that punishment is in the hands of God, whose logic is unfathomable. Of the possible causes of severe and unexpected misfortune, a curse seems to be the preferred explanation if the victim is thought to have caused offence. In the anxiety of the moment, even a trivial episode that might otherwise have been shrugged off becomes significant. Once the misdemeanour has impressed the public imagination, the details become embroidered; and as it grows in stature, the link with the misfortune gains credibility and enters the repertoire of popular belief. Post hoc reasoning hardens into proof. In this way, random misfortunes are held to provide a glimpse into forces beyond the elders’ direct control, buttressing the moral order with moral explanations. This suggests some collusion between the elders and God. God is inscrutable, of course, but inasmuch as the perception of God is endowed with human attributes, they are those of extreme old age, rather than gender or form. Knowledge, ritual authority, and understanding grow with long experience, enhancing respect for the 77

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most senior elders. But this is magnified beyond human comprehension in the image of an all-powerful unknowable God, who has always existed and has infinite knowledge and understanding. Somewhere between respect for the wisdom of old men and awe of a supreme being, there is an unqualified reverence for any assembly of elders. Such gatherings take place away from any village, and typically in the shade of a tree.They have a greater collective experience than any individual and a broader grasp of community affairs as they debate some pressing issue and fashion an emerging consensus of views. Beyond the mundane and political aspects that characterize their debates, the gatherings are coloured by the towering belief in their collective power to bless and to curse. No elder would dare to ignore any decision of the assembly or absent himself if summoned, for this would be to defy his own age mates and firestick patrons. The debate is rounded off with a prayer led by the oldest men present, invoking God’s blessing and ratifying their decision at the highest level. Thus, the belief that women are close to God through their child-bearing is centred on the hut and village; and it has its counterpart in the charisma associated with any gathering of elders in the bush nearby, where they claim an empathy with God and the power to protect or to harm. Analysing this cluster of beliefs may be approached from opposite directions.The first is to view this as a gerontocratic device employed by ageing men, whose selfesteem and sense of integrity have been battered by the disrespect of troublesome wives and adulterous young men. The belief enables them to nurture a general respect for elders as they age through an affinity with God. However, this cynical view does not address the emotional depth of these beliefs.An alternative approach is to consider the contradictions in the process of moulding children into this regime. This touches on the extent to which adult beliefs with their nightmarish overtones may be seen as projections that arise out of childhood experience.

The experience of misfortune in childhood Psychological theories concerning personality development are beyond the scope of the present work, but some telling aspects of Maasai upbringing have a bearing on this topic.These theories have tended to focus on the ambivalence of relations with parents, which are necessarily asymmetrical, rather than on the developing bonds of shared experience among siblings and peers as equals.Yet, it is precisely these that are very marked in age-organized societies such as the Maasai, where the thrust of accountability among adult males is towards age mates. The Maasai show a general indulgence towards children and delight in their play and laughter. Women fondle each other’s infants; and from the time of weaning, they continue to share in their care when children are sent to sleep elsewhere to suit the convenience of adults. The flexibility of sleeping arrangements, coupled with their nomadic lifestyle, provides a robust milieu for growing children that extends beyond the immediate family. They are thrust into the company of their peers with whom they can readily identify, while their mother is seldom far away. 78

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As children grow, the general impression is of close rapport with the mother, extending to an occasional smack as they begin to acquire a will of their own. Meanwhile, the father is held up as the figure of authority. He may be indulgent when it suits him, but he also demands unquestioning obedience. Even as adults, his sons are expected to ‘run away’ from his anger, backing down as an act of submission rather than returning his gaze in defiance, or he would curse them. The family as a corporate entity is bound together by irreducible relations of ‘status’ in the sense coined by Henry Maine.12 It is not just that the father is the indisputable head with the power to curse his children, but also that if he himself is cursed, his impending misfortune will dog these children too, and his state of irredeemable sin will stigmatize them over the generations. Children are brought up to accept that their whole being is bound up with the family and subordinated to the will of the father. Like wives and cattle, they are his property, underpinning his power to arrange their marriages. For each daughter, marriage is her whole future. For each son, marriage is merely a further step in the growth of the extended household of the father, who retains ultimate rights in all the family stock until his death.The emphasis on the absolute authority of a father, to manage his family as the figurehead, is coupled with the claim that this also involves a responsibility that he alone is capable of bearing. Grown sons may find this irksome, but they also acknowledge the strength of his protection.Without him, they would be exposed to the demands of older men, notably senior agnates.When he dies, they claim to put aside any feelings of hostility and mourn the irreparable loss of his protection.They are now responsible for themselves and utterly exposed. Within the protective cocoon of the family, children should respect the father for his authority, fearing his anger and above all his curse.As they mature, they may be critically aware of his arbitrary behaviour and may question the wisdom of his judgement among themselves, but his position as an elder with a voice within the collectivity of elders is a guarantee of ultimate respect. As a body and especially in their formal gatherings, as we have seen, the elders at large generate an aura of infallibility, next only to God. Elders are vulnerable when they are exposed to the ridicule of their wives as individuals, but the principle of elderhood is firmly maintained. Godfrey Lienhardt has drawn a similar parallel in his study of Dinka religion where the fatherlike qualities of God (Divinity) are made quite explicit: Divinity is seen as both a protective and a punitive being, manifested in the unpredictable forces of nature, and the ultimate arbiter in an elusive moral order.13 Lienhardt touches briefly on the child’s introduction to Dinka society in which each wife has her own hearth where she feeds her children, while the men gather around a central fire in the cattle yard.This separation provides children with ‘their first practical lessons in the principles of Dinka social organization’.14 A similar situation obtains among the Maasai, substituting the irregular gatherings of elders at some distance from the village for the Dinka’s central fire. However, the point to add is that the Maasai gatherings are more awe-inspiring and more Godlike than the individual father (or husband), rising above human frailties. 79

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In the day-to-day course of community affairs, the collective authority of the elders is inviolate.Women steer clear of their gatherings; and they warn their children to keep away or they may be cursed, and to leave the hut whenever elders wish to enter. From this point of view, the ‘practical lessons’ of a child’s upbringing extends from some basic principles of Maasai social organization to the patriarchal authority of the father, merging into the power vested in the gatherings of elders. It is the elders at large who are the ultimate guarantee of protection, and in the final resort they are the instigators of a deadly curse against any wrongdoer. Within the family, disciplining may extend to the threat of the father’s curse. Mothers claimed they would not dare or know how to curse their own children, but some admitted that in moments of exasperation, they would threaten to ask the father to utter his curse, and they were quite adamant. Children had to learn respect, and fathers would pretend to flick some dry soil at them or a nodule of chewed tobacco, as if to curse. Some parents denied they would ever resort to such threats, but even they accepted that a father does have the ultimate right to use his curse. Others – elders and wives – were more vehement, arguing that disobedient children learn to behave once a sibling has been killed by the father’s anger.15 It can only be a matter of surmise how far Maasai children equate the power of elders with the unpredictable forces of nature and the life and death of individuals.As in other parts of rural Africa, child mortality is particularly high in their early years; and the loss of a sibling or peer is a common experience. Adults emphasize the rareness of the curse and the variety of non-mystical explanations for early deaths, which may be ‘just [the will of ] God’: after all, young children are protected from any curse by their innocence. However, children are threatened from time to time with the spectre of the father’s curse, and this merges into the terrible power of elders’ gathering, which inspires awe.Their growing experience is closely shared with their peers, and the death of a companion presents them all with a recurrent reminder of the fragility of life. It provides scope for ambivalent views that echo the ambiguity of their upbringing. On the one hand, there is the reassuring indulgence and close companionship that characterizes their childhood; and local gatherings of elders – their fathers – are held to provide an absolute protection. On the other hand, there are the stern parental warnings following misbehaviour and the tragic experience of sporadic deaths among their peers. If the elders are so powerful, the children might argue, why did they allow death to occur? Or could it have been their will? In other words, does this projection of paternal/elder power onto the image of God extend to the ambiguities surrounding recurrent death among children as peers? Are the threats and rumours of the father’s ability to curse made more real through the children’s experience of death in their midst? Is the nightmarish downside of Maasai belief a projection of terrifying possibilities that are raised in the course of their upbringing and perhaps shared among their peers? It is not the ability of fathers or elders at large to bring death through their curse that is in doubt among children: this is an aspect of their inculcation.The speculative argument here concerns the extent to which the children amplify this theme, imagining in their anxiety that the death of a peer could have been willed by the 80

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elders, even for trivial reasons.To the extent that this is so, the children would have an ambivalent image of elderhood that is quite similar to the elders’ image of God: powerful, all knowing, and benignly protective; but also immoderate and arbitrary in punishing misbehaviour.To this extent, the concept of an inscrutable God may be regarded as a projection of childhood experience, reflecting the dominant gerontocratic premise that pervades thought, and feeling among Maasai.

Diverging models of accountability among the Samburu and Maasai The relevance of the Samburu for this chapter was prompted by one of my most perceptive informants among the Purko Maasai, with the parry: ‘Why do you ask us about our religion when you have already been among the Samburu? They know more about God than we do.’This was a variation on the standard claim that the ways of God are inscrutable, and it also seemed to confirm my impression that the greater readiness of the Samburu to discuss the nature of mystical forces could offer an oblique insight into Maasai religion. It is useful to regard the Samburu as just one more quasi-section of the Maasai cluster, although they are ritually autonomous and have some significant differences in their social organization. These principally concern the stronger bonds of clanship that form the basis of community life. Samburu clans are dispersed, but tend to be locally concentrated in village clusters. In the process of nomadism, a family may move to another area, but their new neighbours are normally of the same clan, except as a temporary expedient. Within the local community, a concern for clan reputation prompts elders to intervene in each other’s domestic affairs, stifling selfinterested impulses and promoting an essentially conformist society. It follows that marriage is the only really significant feature that links exogamous Samburu clans, and tensions between husband and wife within the family tend to reflect endemic tensions between these clans.The wife’s brother is an outsider who is held to have a particularly potent curse over his sister’s children. He is popularly portrayed as an unconstrained scrounger, constantly demanding cattle that cannot easily be refused, because of his curse.Yet, in the final resort, he too stands to be constrained by his own clansmen. Case 13. Kudate was greedy and would beg incessantly from other Samburu elders who had married his clan sisters. In such circumstances, refusal was held to be justified within reason for his demands were unreasonable. However, three of his sisters’ children died, and this was attributed to his curse. When Kudate too died, it was held to be the result of the curse of his own clansmen as responsible wife-givers and mothers’ brothers. They were concerned to maintain the eligibility of their daughters for marriage. As compared with the Maasai, the closer accountability of Samburu elders appears to constrain them to be more reasonable as husbands and fathers, and the possibility of 81

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a father’s curse is generally discounted as quite incomprehensible. Nevertheless, one example of such a curse was collected, illustrating again post hoc reasoning and an ambivalent view of fatherhood, even among the Samburu. Case 14. Kilepi, a lively Samburu boy of about nine years, came from a poor family and was sent by his father to find work in a nearby township. He found some openings in casual employment, including from myself on a trip to the Elmolo and Rendille country for about two months. However, he had difficulty in saving his meagre earnings and this was made harder by the incessant begging of his adult kin, whom he dare not refuse. Shortly after he returned home, Kilepi was killed in an accidental fall. His death was later said to have been a result of his father’s curse for lying and refusing to hand over his wages. Among the Maasai proper, bonds of clanship have less significance.The local community network is dominated by age-set loyalties, while ties of kinship and affinity vary with circumstance; and clanship is relevant by default in the absence of other bonds. Even the conventions of clan exogamy are not binding. The lesser concern for reputation among Maasai clans allows more scope for individualism and competitiveness, and even a degree of eccentricity among some older men. A father’s wilfulness in the way he conducts his domestic affairs is condoned by his clansmen and age-mates unless one of his mature wives or sons has the temerity to make a direct and very reasonable appeal to them as a last resort. Meanwhile, ageset loyalty underpins the father’s freedom from interference within his own household, and his sons should continue to ‘run away’ from his anger. Compared with the Samburu, tension between Maasai fathers and their senior sons may be exacerbated by the possibility of earlier marriage, which reduces the age difference between them, exposing these sons to more prolonged restrictions on their independence, even as elders (Table 2.2).16 Tensions and rivalry may also dog the extended family. If an elder dies before his sons are initiated into moranhood, his role is assumed by one of his brothers or some other close agnate as guardian uncle. Unlike the dead father, who at least has a direct interest in his own family, the guardian has quite other interests and is seen as a sinister figure. He is less constrained from resorting to his curse, and he is popularly felt to have designs on his dead brother’s herd for his own personal use. It is against this background that the image of the father’s brother in popular fantasy merges into the stereotype of an ogre-like sorcerer. Among the Samburu, on the other hand, if a guardian uncle is seen to exploit his situation, clan loyalty would prompt other clan elders to intervene at an early stage. The Samburu figure of concern is not an insidious father’s brother, but the grasping mother’s brother, who is generally avoided. Differences between the Maasai and Samburu concerning the significance of clanship correlate more generally with a shift of ambivalence within the extended family. Fathers and fathers’ brothers are more constrained by the clan among the Samburu, while mothers’ brothers are outsiders by definition. The nomadic lifestyle of both societies reinforces the wider networks of association, underpinning the dispersed unity of the corporate clan among the Samburu, 82

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on the one hand, and the territorial unity of the tribal section among the Maasai, on the other. Correspondingly, whereas the Samburu age system is organized ceremonially by individual clans, even though they are dispersed, the Maasai age system is organized territorially at the level of the tribal section. Age-set loyalty, which is of the essence among the Maasai, is tempered by clan loyalty among the Samburu.17 These loyalties involve trust in the give-and-take of daily life; but they are also constraining and tend towards an apprehensive sense of duty with no give-or-take at the extremes. The extreme involves age-mates from other tribal sections among the Maasai (loolaji); while among the Samburu, it involves links of pseudo-kinship between certain clans, invoking a pact of bond-brotherhood with strict ritual avoidances (aramenye). In each instance, there is concern for exploitation resting on a belief in serious misfortune if offence is caused; and this encourages a mutual avoidance because no request should be refused.18 The Maasai are the less conformist society, but they do have an age system that demands strict loyalty and sharing in matters that lie beyond the family. This divergence in the ethos of the two societies within the Maa-speaking milieu extends to the heart of the family, and it raises questions concerning the comparability of their religious outlooks and the significance of my Purko informant’s comments on the broader range of religious knowledge among the Samburu.

The ambivalence of ritual knowledge among the Samburu and Maasai The Samburu, have a simpler array of ceremony than the Maasai, but they appear to have a more extended range of ritual restrictions and are more reluctant to shrug off the risks of ritual impropriety in their daily lives.The greater emphasis on conformity corresponds to less freedom to ignore ritual avoidances for the sake of convenience. They display a particular concern for the misfortune surrounding anomalous births, such as children of ‘incestuous’ unions that breach clan exogamy or of any ‘ghost marriage’ – of a woman who has been ‘married’ to a dead man to provide him with an heir.Those who arrange ghost marriages argue that it is the only propitious course; but there remains the stigma of an unnatural arrangement in unpropitious circumstances. Only the stigmatized children of other ghost marriages would be expected to marry into such a family. Again, first-born twins would be killed at birth and so would the offspring of an uncircumcised girl (or it would be aborted), for it is held that if such unpropitious children were allowed to live, they could bring mystical misfortune to their siblings through an inherent jealousy. Case 15. Lompirai’s mother had been a member of a large and wealthy family that began to die out. According to other Samburu, she had been uncircumcised at the time of his birth, but as he had survived the attempt at abortion, it was accepted that he was destined to live.As a child, his ill-begotten 83

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presence led to the death of all his kin, and he inherited all the wealth as the sole survivor. From this point, there appeared to be no danger of further misfortune, for he and his descendants were immune. At the time of my study, Lompirai was a wealthy old man of Terito age-set with two wives and four adult sons.Three other sons had been killed, one by an elephant and two in raids, but these deaths were firmly held to be incidental to Lompirai’s unpropitious past. Among the Maasai there is an altogether more relaxed attitude towards such anomalies. Clan exogamy is frequently breached; ghost marriage is regarded as a celebration of the dead man’s standing among his peers who arranged it; and many families are prepared to marry a girl who has become pregnant before circumcision, arguing that she has proved her fertility.19 They are concerned with ritual correctness up to a point, especially where sorcery might be involved, but their approach to ritual avoidances can be casual when it suits them. It is in their attitudes towards sorcery that the two societies diverge strikingly. Maasai elders discuss nuances of ritual protocol avidly, and argue about these without inhibition.They are more articulate than the Samburu over a very wide range of issues, and discussion generally flows easily, except on the topic of unpropitiousness.The Samburu are prepared to discuss this topic more openly, whereas the Maasai tend to be reticent, avoiding any hint that their knowledge encompasses an insight into sorcery or even a curiosity. These are secrets of a perverted power that no one should want to know or share. Maasai are concerned with sorcery as a widespread threat, and any individual may suspect sorcery as the cause of his misfortune. However, direct allegations are rare, for they have an affinity with sorcery in disrupting the local community and implying an understanding of the ways that sorcerers work. A more prudent course is to seek help from a diviner (ol-oiboni), placing the onus of understanding on him and inviting alternative explanations. The diviner will make a diagnosis and suggest a remedy, but he will normally stop short of pinning the blame on particular persons. This perpetuates the belief in sorcery, while suspicions concerning the identity of sorcerers remain shrouded. Among the Samburu, with a more conformist ethos, there appears to be less concern over sorcery.20 Misfortune is more usually attributed to unpropitious encounters that are often self-inflicted through negligence or ignorance. Correspondingly, diviners are scarcer among the Samburu, who feel them to be less powerful and controversial than those among the Maasai, and they expect them to discern other causes of misfortune besides sorcery. Some Samburu are quite sceptical of their abilities, but if some unpropitious influence is suspected and there happens to be a diviner in the locality, then he may be consulted. Besides diviners, Samburu who are troubled by misfortune can turn for advice elsewhere. In addition to popular ritual remedies that are common knowledge, there are also certain experts (il-kursai ) who are adept in particular forms of esoteric understanding. During my fieldwork, one elder specialized in the local significance of cloud patterns, and another in the shifting configurations of planets 84

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and comet tails. Others specialized in omens that had significance for particular individuals or families, ranging from the behaviour or markings of their cattle to the entrails of a slaughtered animal. Case 16. Lesoome had a reputation among Samburu for understanding the baying of hyenas, whose nefarious habits are popularly held to be like sorcery, contaminating any ritual object they can get hold of and bringing misfortune to the owner. Lesoome maintained that hyenas also have powers to divine the weather, and their nighttime howls enabled him to forecast rain. It was said that he once warned his neighbours that he had heard a hyena proclaim that it wanted to eat a really wealthy old man with a lot of children. One elder, who fitted this description, took no notice and died. On another occasion, he warned an elder that a particular hyena wanted to feast on him. The victim prudently left the area to visit friends, and was followed by the hyena wherever he went. He eventually returned home, and there he died. Following normal practice, both corpses were laid to rest in the bush, where they were devoured by hyenas at night. The skills of these esoteric experts are widely recognized, but the Samburu also have an ambivalent attitude towards them, suggesting that this sort of knowledge is not invariably beneficial. An unpropitious ox brings only minor harm while the owner remains in ignorance; but once he knows and wants to slaughter the animal or give it away, then it becomes angry and can wreak havoc among the entire herd. For this reason, it is generally felt that esoteric experts who know about cattle are at risk from their own unpropitious beasts, because they know too much. Their knowledge is held to be useful in identifying propitious beasts which should be nurtured, but they seldom become rich themselves. In general, wealthy Samburu emphatically do not want a diagnosis of their herd from these experts, unless they suffer an inexplicable run of bad luck. For different reasons, both societies shun esoteric knowledge: the Samburu as a matter of personal concern, because it can unleash unpropitious forces that bring misfortune; and the Maasai as a matter of reputation, because it is the recourse of a knowing malcontent who can provoke misfortune through sorcery.

Guardian spirits and the Samburu Like the Maasai, the Samburu often speak of God as a supreme being who is everywhere and in everything. However, they also elaborate this by suggesting that God (s. Nkai) is composed of a domain of guardian spirits (pl. nkaitin) that watch over the physical world as the agents of mystical protection and misfortune. They say: ‘There is no thing that does not have its own guardian spirit (nkai enye).’ This extends beyond individual humans to collectivities such as clans or herds, and to each beast, hill, tree, and every identifiable thing of substance. This cosmology takes the Maasai concern over unpropitious forces a step further. At a celestial level, ritual practices associated with natural cycles involve the 85

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(guardian) spirits of the sun, moon, and stars.When the red planet Mars is visible, its spirit is friendly towards the (reddish) moran but hostile towards elders, who should not look at it directly or place their staves on top of any hut they visit, as they would normally.The spirits of common objects are intimately bound up with ritual avoidances and the danger of misfortune. The spirit of the leather corset worn by a mother could bring infertility if she throws it away before it is worn out or to any other woman who puts it on. A range of avoidances are associated with the spirit of a hut. If one of the principal struts of the framework breaks, or a donkey enters the hut, or a sleeping hide is kept after being mauled by a hyena, or a herdsman returns to a home without a fire, or milk from the herd is poured with the wrong hand, then any of these mishaps could bring misfortune to the family, for the spirit of the hut has been offended. Other guardian spirits could be involved, such as those of the hyena, the donkey, the sleeping hide, or the herd. There is no suggestion that these various spirits are in contention with one another as a result of the ritual lapse.The unity of God remains paramount, but the correct order of things in relation to the spirit world have been disrupted. Reparation is necessary to avoid retribution, typically by killing a sheep for its fat or a goat for its chime and sprinkling the fat or chime on any object that might have been contaminated.The act of killing and sprinkling aims to bring the offended spirits back into harmony, and this extends to the guardian spirit of the slaughtered beast, for sheep and goats from birth are closely associated with the domain of the hut. The guardian spirits of cattle uphold the propriety of marriage payments. A woman should avoid milk from the cattle of her bride wealth, for instance, or the spirit of these cattle could poison her for not keeping her status as a wife quite separate from her status as a daughter. By the same logic, it is argued that divorce should be avoided once a wife has conceived, for the spirit of any returned bride wealth could bring infertility to the ex-husband and his family by poisoning the milk from these cattle. A similar logic was used in the following example. Case 17. Parmari and his brother were senior members of a large and wealthy Samburu family, but they had few children of their own. When one of Parmari’s wives became ill, it was recalled that his father had once borrowed a milch-cow from a member of her clan and had then concealed its calf, keeping it in his own herd. It was therefore assumed that the wife had been poisoned by the milk of cattle belonging to her brothers. There was no suggestion of any curse, but it was thought that the spirits of the offspring of this stolen calf were responsible for spreading misfortune. Parmari and his brother identified twenty-nine surviving offspring and offered them to their rightful owners, who returned four as a propitious gesture of good will. However, this did not end their bad luck, and the wife died. It was a moot point whether they should perhaps have refused the counter-gift. The notion of potent guardian spirits extends also to humans. Like unpropitious cattle, ill-begotten children are dangerous because they have malignant guardian spirits that foster ill will and wreak havoc (Case 15).The spirits of immigrants from 86

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Turkana are thought to endow them with ‘eyes’ that can ‘see’ inside people or cattle and bring harm. Immigrants from Rendille clans retain their totemic associations that give them powerful blessings and curses, invoking the spirits of these totems. Blacksmiths have a similar power through the spirits of their tools.The same principle also accounts for differences in local custom and variations between families in the ritual handling of birth and initiation. Although there is only one God, different peoples and lineages have their own guardian spirits with different expectations and characteristics.21 The Samburu draw a distinction between different types of ritual skill.The ability of esoteric experts to interpret natural omens is held to be similar to any other form of specialist knowledge; it is accumulated through experience and passed down to their sons, without involving their guardian spirits.True diviners, on the other hand, are assumed to have an uncanny ability to interpret signs that lie beyond human knowledge and experience because they have a closer rapport with their own guardian spirits and those of their oracles, through the configurations thrown up by these oracles. Samburu view the past successes of the Maasai as proof that their diviners and Prophets were closer still to the spirit world, endowing them with even more power and otherness. The guardian spirits help these diviners to help their clients. However, they also despise rather than help any diviner who perverts his skills in an act of sorcery; and in this instance, the danger stems from the malevolence of the sorcerer himself, and not of his guardian spirit. The suggestion that guardian spirits may despise their human protégés has a particular relevance for the Samburu perception of the curse, which again is more elaborate than among the Maasai, although basically similar.22 If a Samburu morani offends an elder and is cursed, for instance, then it is held that the elder’s guardian spirit is poised to inflict punishment: the elder’s sensation of anger becomes amplified into the avenging fury of a castigating spirit. At the same time, the guardian spirit of the morani is thought to withdraw protection, rejecting him in contempt: the spirit ‘throws him away’ (e-iturraa). The morani should offer the elder a placatory gift to restore proper relations between them and with the guardian spirits. When the elder accepts this gift, his blessing is an invocation to his own spirit to protect rather than harm the morani, whose guardian spirit now restores protection. Having been exposed to severe danger, the morani is now doubly protected. On more routine ritual occasions, when elders pronounce their blessing, it is this double protection that is implied. More unusually, if the firestick patrons at large are outraged by the behaviour of the moran generally, then it is the guardian spirits of the two age-sets that will be involved and reparation will have to be made and distributed on a collective scale. Every person and corporate body is held to have a unique relationship with his, her, or their guardian spirit, accountable on moral issues and dependent for protection against the world at large. In this way, Cases 13 and 14, involving deaths among the Samburu, would have been perceived as punishments for wrongdoing by a castigating spirit against an unprotected victim. By the same logic, when a morani survived an affray after being speared in seven places, this was held to demonstrate the effective protection 87

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of his guardian spirit, because he was wholly innocent of any wrong. Like the Maasai God, the Samburu guardian spirits are all-knowing and if no offence has been committed, then an innocent victim remains protected.The curse, they say, is like arrow-poison: if the skin is not cut (no offence has been committed) then it will have no effect. The belief in a united spirit world projects the ideal view of conformity, where everything has its appropriate place, extending from relations between humans, to objects that have ritual significance, and to the natural world at large.This view may be modified to suit the occasion, perhaps where some moral dilemma is involved, suggesting a temporary ruffling of relations between spirits. In the fine balance of judging human behaviour, guardian spirits are not always seen to agree on the justification for some curse; or it may be that the protection of a person’s guardian spirit prevails over the malignant spirit of some unpropitious object. This type of argument could be offered to explain close brushes with fate, typified by those who survive a critical illness or a dangerous encounter in the bush. Similarly, thunder may be perceived as a quarrel between spirits, echoing the Maasai suggestion of two Gods, or it may be an expression of anger against some human misdoing. Most dramatically, when an elder was killed by lightning, this inspired widespread awe, and it was recalled that he had refused a reasonable request for a gift, placing himself at risk. For the Samburu, a violent storm has no parallel for sheer spectacle and there is no clearer manifestation of the omnipotence of an angry spirit world. On another occasion, a village was abandoned in the middle of the night, after a rhinoceros had broken through the stockade and killed a morani. It was then argued that this morani had taken a leading part in an unprecedented affray that had turned against some firestick patrons. The decisiveness of the outcome was again seen as a chilling demonstration of the anger of the spirit world, involving the spirit of the dead morani passively, of the whole age-set of firestick patrons actively, and of the rhinoceros as their agent.23

Castigation, abandonment, and parental images of God While the Maasai tend to dismiss any elaboration of their own belief in just one unknowable God, they have various idiomatic expressions that suggest a more pluralistic understanding. Like the Samburu, they may say that a man has ‘his god/spirit’ (nkai enye) after surviving a dangerous encounter with the unexpected, and this is also said figuratively of wastrels and deranged people. But the Maasai argue that this expression reflects the unpredictable variety of God as a figure of Providence, and not a domain of spirits.24 Again, they deny that their prayers to ‘God above and God below’ could imply the existence of more than one God, and they similarly play down any popular notion of thunder as a quarrel.These are just seen as ways of expressing their limited earthbound view of God, who encompasses the cosmos at large. The possibility that the Maasai may have shifted from a more animist form of religion to a monotheistic one can only be a matter of surmise.The Samburu see 88

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no contradiction in holding to both views. Whether it is God or a domain of guardian spirits who protect, castigate, or abandon according to context, has little relevance to daily life.At the level of practical religion, the nuances of belief in both societies are less important than general expectations concerning ritual behaviour. They have very similar attitudes towards the curse, both as a prerogative of seniority and as a cause of misfortune. The concept of moral isolation for those who have been cursed is identical. Age-set bonds are stronger among the Maasai and bonds of clanship are stronger among the Samburu; and both are hedged with sensitive avoidances – of distant age-mates among the Maasai and bond-brothers (pseudoclansmen) among the Samburu. On balance, the Samburu, living in clan communities, are the more conformist society, because clan reputation is at stake.Whereas age-sets among the Maasai are not competing with one another on level ground, and are therefore constraining in a different way, concerned with loyalty rather than reputation.The greater individual freedom enjoyed by Maasai elders is offset by a cluster of constraints in other respects. These range from more sensitivity on the issue of sorcery and general denial of insights into mystical forces, to assertions of age-set loyalty above all. But these are still largely matters of degree. Putting to one side the very real differences between these two societies, it seems feasible to suggest as a working assumption that the Samburu elaboration of their view of God reflects diffuse feelings shared by the Maasai also. The emotions projected onto the domain of guardian spirits by the Samburu express a castigating force arising out of justified anger, on the one hand, and a sense of protection giving way to total abandonment in a hostile world, on the other.The parallel between these facets of God and the role of parents in the socialization of children is striking, and this takes the previous argument concerning the projection of childhood experience a step further. The mother has a subservient role in both societies, bringing her closer to her children. She nurtures them, but must yield to the father’s will as she progressively abandons close contact with them: weaning them, turning them out of the hut to play or sleep elsewhere, and at some point turning her attention to the next child.25 Her principal sanction against a disobedient infant is to withdraw her indulgence, then as it grows, she may smack the child impatiently, and as a further measure threaten to involve the father.The father is both venerated for his protectiveness and feared for his anger. He can beat his sons, and unlike the Samburu, his curse is quite conceivable among the Maasai, where there is more tension within the family, because fathers are less constrained and often closer in age to their oldest sons. However, Case 14 indicates that even Samburu fathers may be credited with a powerful curse. Beyond this, the father’s power is underpinned by the awe-inspiring charisma of elderhood in both societies. The close bond with the mother persists throughout moranhood, notably among the Maasai, where manyata mothers build their huts, feed the moran, house them, and share vicariously in the camaraderie of the manyata, away from the heavy-handed control of elders. However, it is new parental images that are recreated by proxy at this time. At a more intimate level, the idyllic loyalties of 89

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moranhood are both nurturing and constraining within the developing bonds of the age-set (m. ol-aji, cf. f. enk-aji, hut). Disobedience to the manyata is punished by the confiscation of an ox for a feast – an age-set smack – for moran do not curse. At a higher level, the paternalistic spectre of the firestick patrons’ curse intrudes when the moran overstep the strict boundaries of their freedom, keeping their exuberance in check.The warm manyata regime is hedged around with the loftier regime imposed by firestick patrons from a distance. The division of parental roles between mother and father appears to have a resonance with the distinction that the Samburu make between the protective guardian spirit, who may be driven to abandon its charge, on the one hand, and the more distant spirits of those whose potent blessing or curse may protect or castigate, on the other. Similarly, it may correspond to earlier beliefs in a close protective black God and a more distant angry red God. The Maasai claim that they cannot know the human attributes of God, and in this sense God is sexless. However, as the supreme parental figure God does appear to have maternal and paternal aspects. Of the two aspects of God, it is the protective side that predominates in both societies. Unexpected misfortunes and gerontocratic rhetoric may suggest the threat of punishment by a castigating God; but even though the firestick patrons brandish their power to curse, they avoid using it except in quite exceptional circumstances, and they emphasize instead their good-will, invoking peace and the gift of life.26 Correspondingly, prayers and sacrifices are not performed with a view to placating an angry or castigating God, but are invocations for maintaining protection and indulgence.To this extent, prayers and blessings appear to concern the possibility of abandonment rather than of impending punishment. Myths provide a slippery surface for examining Maa religion because no one takes them too seriously, and because of the ease with which they appear to have been borrowed and loosely adapted: variations of the same stories appear throughout Eastern Africa and often suggest missionary influence.Yet, one may note the recurring theme of abandonment by a benign God, rather than castigation by an angry God. A typical Samburu version of the myth of origin is as follows. At one time, God lived on earth with a man, an elephant, and a cow.The man dug a water hole which was then fouled by the elephant. He complained to God, who told the elephant to leave the water hole alone and told the man to leave the elephant alone. The elephant fouled the water hole on two further occasions, and the man then killed it. That night, when the man was asleep, God climbed into the sky and left him on earth alone with the cow. Here one has a disobedience followed by rejection, and the man is abandoned to fend for himself. In a range of Maasai myths recorded by various authors, God gave cattle to the first Maasai, lowering them on a leather strap, until it was cut by God for some disobedience (or by a resentful Dorobo hunter-gatherer), severing the close relationship between sky and earth, and hence between God and the 90

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Maasai.27 Just as the Samburu version has a certain resonance with sibling rivalries followed by the withdrawal of parental (maternal?) support, so these various Maasai versions point in the same direction, with God as an abandoning rather than castigating figure (and symbolically perhaps with a strong umbilical connection). But beyond these myths is the fact of unpredictable misfortune and the belief in a more castigating aspect of God that hangs like a pall in its wake, colouring the apprehensiveness of elders and children alike. I have suggested elsewhere that the process involved in the dancing of Samburu moran may be seen as a form of regression towards childhood, reflecting the developing relationship between peers.28 Here, I am suggesting that the religious interpretation of misfortune in both societies may be seen as regressive in a different sense, in so far as it appears to involve deep-seated and ambivalent attitudes towards parents. Without attempting to delve too deeply into psychological explanations for established beliefs, there is a metaphorical pattern that suggests some fundamental sensitivities, formed in early life, which may account for the persistence and force of these beliefs.

Conclusion: the benign God and the spectre of misfortune Maasai elders describe the minutiae of their elaborate ceremonial activities with enthusiasm, while insisting that any deeper significance is something that ‘only God knows’.When they prepare for some sacrificial festival, for instance, their discussions concern correct procedures rather than interpretations; and they only search beyond this when faced with an unprecedented situation that suggests the need for some neat adaptation to bring the novelty within the pattern of the routine.This recalls W. Robertson Smith’s observation that ‘ancient religions’ were for the most part concerned with institutions and accurate ritual performance, and not with vague meanings or diverse explanations that might attach to them.29 Maasai elders would argue that any meaning is only fathomable within an unknowable and unquestionable divine order.They would also link Smith’s observation on the dangers stemming from ritually charged objects with their own overarching belief in the threat of misfortune following any ritual gaff.This does not offer any symbolic explanation for the ritual prescriptions as such, but the elders’ concern for ritual finesse needs no further explanation. The threat of misfortune is the meaning and it is stark rather than vague. The benefit for the elders in maintaining this stance is self-evident.They justify their authority in terms of their collective experience, which gives them an unrivalled wisdom and glimmers of insight into hidden patterns. On any formal occasion, the theatrical display of their blessing demands respect and draws attention to their alternative power to curse. The sacrificial festivals associated with age-set development are pre-eminently collective occasions that emphasize the ritual underpinning of social order. But they also serve to bring the elders’ simmering grievances to a head, confronting vulnerable younger men – and women. The power claimed by the elders is that God responds to their invocations and even 91

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feelings, extending an aura of protection, or inflicting deserved misfortune. Their threat of mystical punishment bears the piquish stamp of gerontocratic rule: the assertion of moral authority by older men with failing bodies.30 Beyond this contrived parade of mystical power, elders also have a notion of impersonal forces that bear on the dimly perceived cosmic order. Maasai optimism is expressed in terms of a God who is generally protective most of the time and so long as they adhere to tradition, but not when they blunder beyond the vaguely defined limits of this order. They see ritual knowledge at best as an imprecise understanding that can help limit misfortune. Beyond the moral order, the apparent randomness of mischance is not to be explained by laws of statistical probability that are merely incomprehensible, but by divine laws that are unknowable. This reveals a dichotomy in beliefs, distinguishing between supernatural forces that are associated with morality and those that are not socially relevant but are dangerous nevertheless. The moral aspects concern respect where it is due. The amoral aspects are associated with God in a more impersonal and unknowable sense. A further distinction can be drawn with regard to the purpose of ritual behaviour: whether it aims at perpetuating well-being or averting misfortune and affliction. This is the distinction that Hubert and Mauss made between rites of ‘sacralization’ and ‘desacralization’, and de Heusch between ‘conjunctive’ and ‘disjunctive’ sacrifices. These two dichotomies combine to provide a four-fold framework for categorizing Maasai ritual activity, as shown in Table 4.1.31 The most sacred aspects of Maasai ceremonies are concerned with invoking God’s protection, and are concentrated in the upper-left segment of this diagram. At a major festival, the sacrifice is not intended as a piacular offering so much as

Table 4.1 Categories of Maasai ritual behaviour (after Beattie 1980) Ritual focus

Ritual Aim: To ensure well-being

To avert misfortune

Moral aspects (Personal and specific)

Amoral aspects (Impersonal and diffuse)

1. Sacrifices Prayers Routine blessings Display of respect at all times 3. Restitutive blessings

2. Propitious ritual choices for sacrificial festivals advised by the Prophet Ritual conformity per se

Confiscation of an ox for an age-set feast as esoogo punishment Women’s mobbing

92

4. Installation of age-set ritual leaders Rituals of affliction prescribed by diviners for families or by Prophet for tribal section Women’s fertility gatherings

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an attempt to recreate the ideal relationship with a benign protective God who gives life and yet allows it to be threatened. It is reinforcing the gift of life through sacrifice against the possibility of being abandoned and unprotected that is expressed, rather than a counter-gift of atonement against the threat of punishment.The ethos of Maasai culture, seemingly reaching back to childhood, emphasizes trust in a benign social environment, and this segment echoes what is regarded as the normal state of grace. It contrasts with the lower-left segment, which involves rituals that placate the elders, resolving any possible curse and implicating a notion of atonement. Here, God is perceived as a more castigating being, underpinning the gerontocratic regime. This segment is also relevant to punishment by confiscating an ox for feasting within an age-set or among a mob of vengeful women, for this is held to divert the destructiveness of their anger from dangerous mystical consequences. The left-hand side of the diagram is also applicable to the Samburu, whose elders are equally adept at parading their power, even though they are more conformist than the Maasai and mount their festivals on a less lavish scale. However, the Samburu have a more articulate conception of the characteristics of God, and this provides a clue for possible links with the childhood experience of arbitrary misfortune and a child’s growing sense of providence.The two aspects of parenthood – indulgent and punitive – seem to be reflected in these beliefs and correspond broadly with ambiguous maternal and paternal roles. On the one hand, God is intimately protective although capable of withdrawing support in the final resort (upper-left); on the other hand, God offers a more hard-edged form of protection that is tinged with the capricious threat of castigation (lower-left). God has no gender, but the two aspects display complementary parental images. While the left-hand side of this diagram is essentially controlled by the elders (or by women usurping the central arena), the right-hand side requires expert advice. The upper-right segment is concerned with the emphasis on ritual conformity for its own sake, extending to customary practices at large that it would be dangerous to ignore. The lower-right segment applies to rituals of affliction prescribed by a diviner or when a family is advised to modify its ritual practices following a series of deaths among infants or initiates, with a view to changing its luck.This segment counteracts malicious forces, typified by the notion of sorcery, and in the earlier literature by the ‘red God’, as opposed to the benign ‘black God’ in the upper-left segment. As compared with the Samburu, the more competitive aspect of Maasai society is reflected in their general concern over sorcery. Faced with misfortune, the Maasai are quite likely to assume the deliberate intent of some malefactor. Accusations are rare, but ill-defined suspicions may be aroused by any untimely illness or death. It is especially at their sacrificial festivals that an undercurrent of foreboding breaks the surface. While these are conducted in the spirit of a celebration, they also mark stressful periods of transition within the age system for men or of doubt regarding their fertility among women. Beyond the celebration, there is the possibility of some evil presence that is poised to upturn the occasion. 93

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At these times especially, there is an emphasis on correct performance and stringent precautions are taken against the shadowy figure of some perverted malcontent who may be lurking somewhere in the bush, harbouring a grudge against the community at large and bent on undermining their performance. No one knows who the sorcerer is, or his age-mates could curse him to death. But as a construct of the competitive side of Maasai society, his image cuts a more familiar figure than would normally be admitted. He displays the selfish streak of unconstrained power that moran and women associate with patriarchal elderhood, and elders too are critically aware among themselves. Moran would never be suspected, and women only rarely and to gratify some petty spite.Within the family, each elder is relatively free to override his wives’ expectations and to favour certain sons as he sees fit, and sons inherit some of this power over their younger brothers.32 The sorcerer lurking in the bush, in other words, may be viewed as a manifestation of an unseemly aspect of elderhood that has no place in the ritual gathering at a festival, where the emphasis is on age-set sharing rather than selfinterest.Very broadly, one might say that the attributes of a sorcerer are the exact opposite of those of an ideal age-mate.Through their experience of age-set discipline, elders claim to know how to control the destructive potency of their anger and this legitimizes their curse. This is inverted in the destructive potency of the lusts and jealousies of the sorcerer with his devices.To coin a Freudian metaphor, the image of the elders as a body in concert with the benign (black) God is a popular representation of the Maasai super-ego, while the lurking shadow of the sorcerer with untamed lusts appears to be a tacit representation of the id. In claiming not to know who the sorcerers are or to understand their ways, Maasai elders present themselves as high-minded conformers who set limits to their competitiveness, but their thoughts on the supernatural are tarred by a grotesque caricature of themselves. Following misfortune and depending on the degree of anxiety, the Maasai may choose to take their concern to a diviner. There is some evidence that there may previously have been a greater variety of expertise to whom they could turn, as among the Samburu.33 However, Maasai oral traditions trace the emergence of just one lineage who dominate this esoteric niche.They are the Loonkidongi, who are dispersed among the Maasai as diviners, and the most prominent members also hold court as Prophets. Each tribal section has its own Prophet to whom elders turn for advice on certain aspects of their sacrificial festivals. Elders stage-manage the principal activities at these festivals, which they claim to control (e-itore: upperleft). However, advice on propitious aspects of the sacrifice (upper-right) and precautions against sorcery (lower-right) lie within the Prophet’s domain, which he claims to control (e-itore). Ordinary Maasai look up to him as an infallible ‘father’, protecting them as a ritual guardian, a ‘godfather’. It is because Loonkidongi Prophets know how to handle sorcery that they are regarded with awe and comprise a class apart. They are successful because they are adept sorcerers above all others.The nature of their protection and expertise is considered in the next two chapters. 94

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Notes 1 Matapato: 240–1. 2 See Matapato: 145, 167–9, 213–14, 262. An elder who is both propitious and lucky may be referred to as o-reteti, a term that is also applied to the ultra-propitious wild fig tree. More rarely, certain families and maladjusted individuals are avoided in marriage because they are held to be inherently unpropitious, and these are known as i-sarkin (s. o-sarkioni). 3 Cf. Nomads: 82–3; Matapato: 42, 71. Certain family customs associated with childbirth may be handed down from mother to daughter if the pattern of misfortune is held to have followed the maternal line in the past. 4 Waller (1984) has compiled a detailed account of Uasinkishu fragmentation since the nineteenth century, their historical links with Kalenjin, and the nature of their factionalism in a border region. This provides the backdrop for a fuller understanding of this case example. Before my visit to Uasinkishu, Siria elders drew my attention to the innovation of ‘white’ Kalenjin initiations there also. For details of ‘black’ circumcisions typical of the Maasai generally, see Matapato: 70–7. 5 Figure 4.1 represents a seasonal pattern that is shared over a wide region, although this conceals local variation at any time. The median rainfall is the most typical, and hence an indication of what the Maasai in the relatively benign Kajiado area may reasonably expect for any month. However, there is a 50 per cent chance that the actual rainfall will lie beyond the interquartile range (shaded).This variation does not appear to follow any pattern: if the rainfall over a particular month is heavier/lighter than the median, then the data suggest only a 53 per cent chance that it will be heavier/lighter in the following month. 6 For a fuller account of the ideology surrounding ritual delegations in contrast to armed posses and with further examples, see Matapato: 213–14. 7 Matapato: 140–2, 170 n.5; cf. Ken Ball (1966) in Priest 1990: 199. Ball equates the spirit of the sacrificed animal with its breath; whereas Mol (1978: 81, 149) equates the spirit with the heart.The Maasai do not clearly distinguish between the functions of the lungs and heart. 8 That a non-piacular view of sacrifice is more widely shared among pastoralists of this region seems borne out by work among the Karimojong by Bruno Novelli (1999: 28–9, 52–6). The Karimojong belong to the same language group as the Maa-speaking peoples, and Novelli records a similar notion of God providing rain, and hence grass, cattle, and life as a chain of gifts. However, unlike the Maasai during a sacrifice, the explicit notion of a gift concerns the choicest cuts of meat that are given by younger men to the oldest men, sitting under a tree. Chyme (‘grass’) is smeared on their bodies and on the tree, and they pray to God who descends to the highest branches. As they eat the meat and pray for God’s benign protection, the senior elders’ experience of well-being serves through their intercession as a blessing on the Karimojong as a whole. In Maasai age-set sacrifices, it is firestick patrons who give special cuts of meat to their juniors, handing on God’s blessing of life, before the meat is shared among all sectors of the community. Matapato: 141–2, 252–69; cf. Dyson-Hudson 1966: 213–15. 9 The notion of God below being responsible for the redness of the rising and setting sun is evocative of earlier works on the Maasai that cited a ‘red God’ and a ‘black God’. See note 10. 10 Hollis (1905: 264) described thunderstorms as a quarrel between a ‘malicious’ (malmali: negligent?) red God, who is further away and withholds rain, and a protective black God, who wishes to provide rain and prevent the other from killing people (cf. Hobley 1910: 121). Merker (1904: 198) described a similar duality through two children of God: the daughter brings rain indicating God’s pleasure with mankind; and the son proclaims God’s anger through thunder and lightning. Hinde (1901: 100, and a less reliable source) also associated the distant red God (and a blue God) with anger and prolonged drought,

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11

12 13 14 15 16

17

18 19 20 21 22

23 24

and the close black God with life-giving rain. ‘Black God’ is still a term used for ‘God above’ who brings rain-clouds and rain (cf. Olsson 1982 iii: 14–16; Merker 1904: 197). A number of scattered clues suggest an earlier link between the ‘red God’ and the sun. (a) Hollis cited the red God as withholding rain and killing people. (b) The Samburu term for drought and the Maasai term for sun are both enkolong. (c) The Maasai believe that the full moon, which rises as the sun is setting, is extremely unpropitious:‘it is as red as blood’ (p. 136). (d) The Maasai term for a red sky could also be translated as red God (cf. Merker 1904: 197).That is, (malicious) red God  drought  (unremitting) sunshine  (unpropitious) red setting sun. However, my Maasai informants (like Merker’s) would not be drawn on this issue. References to the ‘red God’ by Mol (1978: 75) and Priest (1990: 116) appear to be drawn from Hollis. While the Maasai readily explain the principles of the conditional curse (ol-momai ), examples appear to be comparatively rare.The term is extended to forced marriages that would lead to misfortune if they were revoked (Matapato: 30, 38n), and also to earlier truces with non-Maasai that have a similarity with bond-brotherhood among the Samburu and Chamus (Samburu: 80; Pastoral Continuum: 160–2). Maine 1861: 170. Lienhardt 1961: 39, 42, 44, 48–9, 53–4. In Dinka myths of origin as in Maasai, God withdrew protection for a comparatively trivial offence (see p. 90). Lienhardt 1961: 4–5. Matapato: 48. The Samburu age system is more rigorous than the Maasai in prohibiting early marriage among moran, and moranhood itself is delayed by the late initiation of older sons whose fathers are still firestick patrons (see p. 27). It follows that few Samburu elders are aged less than 65 years when their oldest sons marry (Samburu: 89, 149–50, 320 (clan census) Matapato: 77n, 80–1, 250). The comparison between Samburu clanship and the territorial basis of Maasai organization is consistent with the different uses of the term ‘section’ adopted by the administration (Nomads: 72 and 72n). It is possible, however, to envisage a Samburu–Maasai continuum in which certain groups tend towards the middle of the range.These would include the Samburu living around Mt Ngiro, where there is a web of intermarriage among the Masula and a more stable sense of community; and also those Maasai whose clansmen are a sparse minority in the area where they live, and mobilize together for political support when their reputation is threatened (Samburu: 287–90; Matapato: 237). See p. 59; Matapato: 48, 189–90; Samburu: 78–80 Pastoral Continuum: 161–2. Samburu: 112, 185; Nomads: 83, 102, 108–9; Matapato: 114, 194, 243. Samburu: 185, 188–90; Matapato: 249–50; Spencer 1991: 337. Nomads: 116–18; cf. Matapato: 43–4. When writing Matapato, I did not attempt to examine the curse or its indirect threat in as much detail as in Samburu (pp. 184–206), because the Maasai concept and usage was so similar in most respects. However, there is a semantic shift in the term engooki. In Samburu usage, this refers to the state of those who are at risk from a curse, whether their position is irredeemable or can be redeemed by making reparation. In Maasai usage, the term is limited to the irredeemable state and has a more sinister ring (see p. 75). Samburu: 272. Two separate sources suggest belief in spirits among the Maasai. Merker (1904: 196) notes the existence of guardian spirits, although his elaboration is quite different from the Samburu version. Merker’s work is a quite exceptionally reliable account apart from the topic of religion, and the source of his information on this aspect has been a matter of speculation and doubt (see Chapter 9). Second,Arvi Hurskainen has provided a comprehensive survey of spirit possession among Maasai women in Tanzania, treating this as an ‘epidemic’ that extended beyond the Maasai area and was inspired and treated by

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25

26 27 28 29 30

31

32 33

non-Maasai healers (Hurskainen 1989 and nd.); cf. Peterson (1971), and Ball, K. (1986) in Priest (1990: 194–203). There is no suggestion that the notion of invading spirits is indigenous or endemic among the Maasai women; however, it is evident that the episodes noted by these authors bear clear similarities to the anxieties and responses of Maasai women in their more traditional fertility gatherings (see pp. 54–5; Matapato: 200–4). Samburu: 214–15; Nomads: 81–5; Matapato: 47–9. The pattern of weaning among the Samburu (Nomads: 81) is identical for the Maasai. However, the greater constraint placed on the Samburu father by his clansmen could be a relevant influence on the growing child, and his unwillingness to resort to his curse was emphasized (Samburu: 41, 150). Case 14 was an anomalous exception. Samburu: 267–8; Matapato: 149. Hollis 1905: 266–72; Olsson 1982 ii: 6, 7; cf. Merker 1904: 262. Samburu: 125–6; Spencer 1985a: 155. Smith 1997 (1888–9): 18–19; Samburu: 233–75, 307. Nancy Jay (1992) has drawn attention to the significance of religions based on sacrifice as a means of exploitation by males in kin-based societies. Here, the point to note is that it is not so much male domination and the patrilineal system that are perpetuated through Maasai religious practices as gerontocracy and the age system: exploitation is not just a matter of gender, but also of age. Hubert and Mauss 1964 (1898): 52, 57; de Heusch 1985: 213. This scheme follows a framework proposed by John Beattie (1980: 38–43), broadening its relevance beyond any narrower definition of sacrifice, and substituting the moral–amoral dimension for his personal–impersonal distinction between types of mystical force. Matapato: 55, 198–9, 228–36, 247–51. Thus, the Kiboron lineage among the Maasai was noted by early writers for their ability as ritual experts. (Krapf 1854: 14; Merker 1904: 22, 52, 143, 202; Hollis 1905: 260n. Cf. Berntsen 1977: 26–7.)

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5 THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

Among the Maa-speaking families and patrilineages that claim extraordinary skills, the Loonkidongi are the most prominent, and have come to dominate this esoteric niche among the Maasai proper.According to myth, their dynasty stretches back to Kidongoi, a boy with uncanny powers of divination who came down from the sky, and was found by some Maasai moran and adopted into the Laisir clan. Kidongoi’s descendants claim to have inherited some of his power, and although this has progressively attenuated over the generations, they retain the ability to discern things that are hidden from the sight of ordinary Maasai. The Loonkidongi are diviners (il-oibonok – those who divine), based on their skill in manipulating oracles. They are literally ‘those of the oracles’, Il-oo-nkidongi. The Loonkidongi are well established in the area, although they maintain their own identity and practices, including separate festivals; and their villages tend to be clustered in the boundary areas between tribal sections. They do not mix easily with their non-Loonkidongi neighbours, and use the term ‘Maasai’ to refer to these neighbours rather than themselves. The Maasai respond with a thoroughly ambivalent view of the Loonkidongi, mistrusting them for their rapport with the unknown, while seeking their help to overcome the threat of misfortune. Looming over the relationship is the memory of the strategic role of Loonkidongi Prophets in Maasai domination over the region in the nineteenth century.The power of the Prophets lapsed with the establishment of colonial administration in the area, but the Loonkidongi are still indispensable to Maasai ritual activity, and the Maasai are indispensable clients. Regardless of their separateness, the Loonkidongi have to be seen as a Maasai phenomenon.

The practice of divination Every Loonkidongi elder is expected to learn the skills of divining when he settles down from moranhood, ideally from his father. First, the father should use his own oracle to identify a propitious ox, and the son should negotiate to acquire this from its owner in exchange for a heifer.The ox is then slaughtered for its hide and right horn-shell. Consulting his own oracle again to check on matters of detail, the father then transforms the horn-shell and hide into a new oracle for his son. 98

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He does this by placing all his own divining paraphernalia – his oracle, pebbles, and collection of medicines – on the new hide, and blesses it with pinches of medicine. In this way, the transmission of skill within the dynasty is paralleled by the ritual transmission of oracular power ultimately from Kidongoi’s original oracle. For his part, the son collects 200 or more round pebbles and keeps them inside the hornshell.Throughout his life, he may add further pebbles or other objects that take his fancy, and discard those he has come to mistrust – those that appear to have been involved when his oracle has given bad advice. In the course of divination, he comes to know each of his pebbles and some of these especially become his personal favourites, associated with his more successful consultations. The technique of divination and interpreting the throw of pebbles from his oracle is outlined in the next chapter. The novice diviner is now in a position to learn his craft through constant practice, divining on his own behalf and familiarizing himself with the techniques and with his pebbles. He may consult his oracle on any decision he has to take, no matter how trivial, provided that there is no single logical preference. At first, the advice of his oracle may seem almost random nonsense, and this is assumed to be because of his own inexperience or because of the presence of certain rogue pebbles in his collection. His immediate aim is to perfect the procedure and isolate the rogues. He is offered casual advice by his father and other experienced Loonkidongi on the precise way to frame his questions and on the interpretation of various configurations of pebbles, and he gradually assimilates this advice with his own impressions and experience. If he becomes ill or suspects sorcery, then he should seek treatment from a fellow Loonkidongi, since he is not expected to cope by himself in such circumstances. If he is in doubt over any problem, he can always ask his oracle whether he should take his problem to another diviner. He does not conceal that he is now a practising diviner. His oracle is a proud possession, fully displayed every time he consults it. He has to be seen to practise and to be effective in small ways in order to acquire credibility. His aim is to induce the Maasai to come to him as clients. Some novices never quite reach this point and are said to spend their whole lives consulting their oracle on their own behalf, waiting for their first client, and refusing to admit failure in public by putting their oracle to one side.They solemnly set up their paraphernalia each time, while others may wonder with amusement how they can have faith in their own skills when no-one else has shown any. Other novices may eventually attract the occasional client, bringing in a small fee. However meagre his clientele, the novice diviner continues to maintain that he only needs a stroke of good fortune to build up his reputation and attract a lucrative trade. Once he has sufficient practice, he firmly denies that he might be less skilled than the most successful Prophet or that his technique is any different. It is their skills that make the Loonkidongi superior to other Maasai in their own estimate, and this self-regard is confirmed by the extent to which ordinary Maasai seek their advice. An oracle is regarded as a tool to be handled correctly, rather than as a living being with any moral sense. It will respond with equal directness to the worthy 99

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diviner and the sorcerer, and even to someone who is not its owner. If it is consulted at night or in the full heat of the day, or if some other part of the ritual of consultation is mishandled, it will be confusing and inconsistent, or, as they say, ‘it is silent’. The oracle should then be left alone for a period. Any confusion in the answers reflects the ineptness of the operator and not of the technique. It is axiomatic that an oracle may be stubborn, but it cannot lie. If it persists in giving the same unlikely answer to the repeated question, then it must be right. If its advice does not have the desired effect, it is the diviner’s fault. If the advice amounts to sorcery, it is the diviner whose question was that of a sorcerer, while the oracle remains morally neutral. The notion of the oracle as an instrument is sometimes emphasized by comparing it with a temperamental portable radio that can be tuned by an adept operator to give valuable information at certain times of the day. But the Loonkidongi point out that only they know how to make replacement oracles when these become lost or broken, unlike strangers with their radios, and these oracles never need new batteries. Some diviners construct a second oracle, using a gourd instead of a horn-shell.This is altogether more portable if they wish to offer their services among the Maasai as itinerant diviners. In addition to the technique of consulting his oracle, the novice also has to learn the magical properties of a range of powdered substances. He collects these for himself from the rind of various roots, and from charcoal and certain natural deposits such as chalk. Each is known by sight and by taste, and they are held to be invariable and a part of the gear of every Loonkidongi diviner. Most are beneficial ‘medicines’ (in-tasimi ), any of which may be prescribed by the oracle for use in some ritual procedure.After the diviner has collected these, they are dried and then pounded by his senior wife and stored separately in thirty or forty small gourds. It is this wife who is directed to dispense these medicines in small packages for each client. Certain other powders are sorcerer’s ‘poisons’ (i-setani or il-oingok), and his wife must never handle these.They would only be used in quite extraordinary circumstances, but should nevertheless be kept in stock and the diviner must prepare them himself in the bush. The Loonkidongi emphasize that the possession of ‘poisons’ does not imply that they are sorcerers or ever even use them; they point out that someone with a gun in his home is better protected than someone without, but this does not make him a murderer.This stock of powders should always be maintained, for no diviner can know what call may be made on his services or what his oracle may prescribe. When he is darkly said to be away from home visiting the bush, this is to imply that he is scouring some remote part to replenish his stock of ‘medicines’ and may hint at the success of his practice that his supplies should have run low. Finally, the diviner must be familiar with a variety of minor ceremonies suitable for different problems. An aspect of a consultation is to find out from his oracle which ceremony is to be used, in combination with which medicines, and in what way. Sometimes the oracle may direct the diviner to conduct the ceremony himself in the client’s village. The client is expected to pay the fee – possibly a goat – when the remedy has had its desired effect; and the diviner is expected to 100

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be undemanding on this point or he might lose the client. If there is disagreement, then few Maasai would care to argue the point. It is always more prudent simply to pay up and to approach another diviner on the next occasion. Advice sought by Maasai may simply be a request for information: to indicate the whereabouts of a lost child or cow, or the cause of a recent misfortune.Where there is some remedy, this may follow two courses, curative and preventive.The first is to ‘put right’ (a-itobir) some inner disability, such as an illness or a child’s habit of wandering off and losing itself, or to counteract suspected sorcery. In this sense, the remedy is seen to be similar to Western medicines, although on the whole less effective in matters of illness.The second course is to ‘bind’ (a-een), that is to inhibit some adverse force from a distance, and this is regarded as a mild form of sorcery. When cattle are missing, they can be protected by ‘binding’ the predatory senses of their enemies and also by ‘binding’ the cattle themselves to prevent them straying further. A suspected sorcerer is ‘bound’ in order to soften his malevolence and divert his malignant powers. In the past, the vigilance of enemies was ‘bound’, giving Maasai raiders an added advantage. More recently after a homicide, murderers have sought out diviners to ‘bind’ the police so as to soften the punishment or even evade it altogether. Both courses are brought to bear when members of an age-set seek medicine from a diviner that will enhance their own powers of debating on the one hand, and ‘bind’ the debating skills of a rival age-set on the other. The Loonkidongi monopoly over their skill is jealously guarded.The Maasai are not expected to show any interest in acquiring this knowledge, since this would make them prime suspects for sorcery. If anyone does try to imitate them, the Loonkidongi claim they would inflict punishment long before he could master the technique. Case 18. Shuti, a Maasai of Talala age-set, is said to have lived among some Loonkidongi and to have picked up the essentials of divining. He then returned to live among his own people and made himself an oracle.When he later became blind, this was attributed to a Loonkidongi who had seen him practising and cast a spell on him. Filching the technique was as foolish as stealing cattle and with far greater risk, it was said, for with their ability to ‘see’ the Loonkidongi were bound to find out, and rather aptly they deprived him of his sight. In another instance, it is said to have been a Loonkidongi elder who was ensorcelled by his kinsmen for helping a Maasai to develop this skill. It was with such cases in mind that two Loonkidongi diviners, one at Olterben and the other at Oltarkwei, openly answered all my questions on the techniques of divination, but they warned me not to try them out for myself. So long as I did not try to cultivate the skill, there was nothing to hide, for it is displayed to Maasai at each consultation. Only the actual questions whispered to the oracle must be kept secret; and because the significance of a configuration of stones is linked to the nature of the question, only the diviner is in a position to discern their true significance. 101

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The reputation of the Loonkidongi The Loonkidongi are highly sensitive to any suggestion that they resort to sorcery, pointing out that they cure a range of misfortunes besides those caused by sorcery; and they emphasize a number of parallels between their powers and the Maasai elders’ power to curse. First, a Maasai elder’s tobacco tube, ol-kidong (m), through which he is formally endowed with the power to bless and to curse, is matched by the oracle en-kidong (f ), which gives its Loonkidongi owner access to ‘medicines’ and ‘poisons’. Second, when a Maasai elder utters his curse, he may flick away a lump of chewed tobacco, whereas a diviner would flick away one of his pebbles. Third, the Loonkidongi have an equivalent to the Maasai conditional curse (ol-momai ) – a conditional spell – in which a suspect is invited to step over the horn of a Thomson’s gazelle treated with magical substances. Finally, they point out that if a Maasai elder resorts to his curse too often, its effect will diminish, and similarly that a Loonkidongi who becomes a compulsive sorcerer will gradually lose his ability to control his oracle, and it will become ‘silent’. Sorcery, like the curse, is regarded as a weapon in their armoury, but only as a final resort. The whole problem of sorcery is popularly associated with the general concern over wastrels (il-wishiwish): those who drift aimlessly through life with no sense of responsibility.1 Wastrels are regarded with disgust; and because they are insensitive to public opinion, it is felt that they most likely resort to sorcery in sheer pique. The Maasai see no pattern in this, pointing out that any family may have a wastrel, tarnishing its good name, even a Loonkidongi family. However, Loonkidongi wastrels are especially dangerous, partly because they have direct access to sorcery, and even worse because they can sell spells with ‘poisons’ to Maasai wastrels who would then become sorcerers. The contempt for the Loonkidongi quacks (il-goiatik), who have failed to build up a personal clientele, is tinged with apprehension, for it is precisely such men who may feel slighted and could be tempted in this way. For their part, the Loonkidongi point out that an ineffectual diviner who cannot even operate his oracle would also be an ineffectual sorcerer, and they insist that only the Maasai have wastrels. The sensitivity of the Loonkidongi to Maasai allegations is reflected in a display of cool dignity. In maintaining an ethos of aloof superiority, the Loonkidongi avoid Maasai villages, where respect is held to be lax, especially among the young.They are proud of the strict standards with which their daughters are raised to bring credit to their family as wives, and their sons are brought up to be devoted herdboys and restrained moran. Unlike the Maasai, Loonkidongi elders never relax their food avoidances with their daughters or allow their wives to join women’s dances expressing hostility against the elders. Yet, the controversial reputation of the Loonkidongi still prevails among the Maasai, who may refer to them as ‘ogres’ (in-kukuuni ).They have an uncanny rapport with the bush, associated with dangers and unpredictable misfortunes that undermine the normal order of Maasai society. As diviners, they profit from the afflictions of their clients and they understand the ways of the sorcerer, who is

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popularly perceived as a solitary figure creeping through the bush, with a hidden knowledge and in pursuit of his own inscrutable ends. A Loonkidongi diviner too is a specialist in this area, and he too undertakes solitary errands into the bush, searching for plants with magical properties, which to the Maasai with their own rich bush-lore are just ordinary shrubs, and he comes across special pebbles for his collection which look just like ordinary stones. There is no limit in the extent to which a successful diviner can build up his practice; and this has to be at the expense of other diviners.The Maasai hold that this encourages greed touching on the basic motives of a true sorcerer. Beneath the veneer of self-respect, the Loonkidongi are notorious for jealousy among themselves, competing for larger shares of their niche – like wild animals. In general, the Maasai suggest that the more successful a diviner, the more likely he is to die early or become prematurely senile through the sorcery of a rival. It is in this sense that they say that ‘the Loonkidongi have no brothers’. Even some fathers are said to place a conditional spell on their sons as a precaution against any premature attempt to take over their practice through sorcery. The dispersal of the Loonkidongi throughout Maasailand is a reflection of this rivalry. Each border colony is typically associated with a branch of the Loonkidongi dynasty. Over a period of time as the branch grows, so competition for local Maasai custom increases, relations deteriorate, mutual accusations of sorcery become manifest, and individuals or segments emigrate to found a new colony.2 The alternative is to give up divining altogether, and this is probably more common than is generally admitted. The Loonkidongi express utter contempt towards those individuals or branches that have followed this course within the traditional economy; and they find it inconceivable that any of their own sons would do so, for they would then become just Maasai. The only really uncontroversial diviners are those with moderate and wellestablished practices in an area, often specializing in some affliction, such as common illnesses, children’s complaints, or women’s infertility. Some diviners may live among the Maasai detached from any Loonkidongi colony, and like immigrants from another tribal section, they can become accepted over a period. But the relationship remains uneasy, and each time a local diviner is seen consulting his oracle, it is a reminder of his advantage and of Maasai vulnerability. If he fails to dispel local suspicions or exploits his advantage too readily, he would be told to leave the area by the local Maasai elders. Some only stay briefly in an area before moving on, and tribal sections vary in their response to these itinerant diviners. In some parts they are welcome as genuine practitioners, while in others they are first questioned closely and only a limited number are allowed in at any time. For their part, the Maasai are expected to avoid close association with Loonkidongi.Those who live with them, as in Case 18, or consult them frequently are at risk.The truth behind an elder’s regular visits may simply be that he is overanxious and addicted to seeking Loonkidongi advice on relatively trivial matters. But his excessive reliance is seen as somewhat morbid and certainly weak, even if he legitimately pays for this help.To have gratuitous resort to divination and a wide 103

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range of Loonkidongi ceremonies is to mimic the Loonkidongi. He has associated with potential sorcerers, and the next temptation could be to buy the means to sorcery as an easy way of harming those he dislikes. On some future occasion, he may find himself trapped in a web of suspicion.3 Generally, a visit to a diviner should not be the first resort in a minor crisis. It should be reserved for serious problems that are within the diviner’s sphere of competence, and at such times, a reputable Maasai elder can visit a reputable diviner without hesitation. It is the Loonkidongi reputation as the source of all sorcery that prevails, and the whole dynasty is implicated. As a Maasai ruefully put it: ‘If there were no Loonkidongi, we would not need Loonkidongi.’ Individual diviners may be trusted as well-known local practitioners, but in the final analysis, the considerable size of some of their herds and the fact that they have tended to establish themselves close to reliable water points are seen as signs of their indirect benefit from sorcery. In the myth, it was the boy Kidongoi who originally divined water and gave his descendants a prior claim to these spots; in practice, when a powerful diviner assumes ownership of a water source, other Maasai again prefer not to argue the point. It is by no means certain that the Loonkidongi tend to move to live in the boundary areas between tribal sections. It seems equally possible that these boundaries sometimes adjusted themselves to the presence or absence of the Loonkidongi.

Marriage and the two communities As an exogamous lineage, the Loonkidongi have to rely on the Maasai to provide them with wives, and these will have to learn the skill of dispensing medicines from their (Maasai) mothers-in-law or senior (Maasai) co-wives. Similarly, their daughters are eligible for marriage by the Maasai. The ambivalence of the relationship between the two communities is reflected in the nature of these marriage ties. Less controversial is the marriage of Loonkidongi girls to the Maasai. With their concern for displaying high standards of respect and restraint, the Loonkidongi claim to be undemanding wife-givers.They like to offer the Maasai the prospect of stable marriages with well brought up girls and minimum marriage payments.4 Some Maasai may avoid such marriages on principle, but others may argue that the Loonkidongi concern for their good name will make them restrained fathersin-law and even useful allies in times of misfortune. This ingratiating aspect of their relationship is offset by the demands that Loonkidongi are held to make in search of Maasai girls for wives.When a Maasai seeks to marry a girl, he traces butter up her forehead, and her father often has the choice of several suitors. A Loonkidongi, on the other hand, may doctor the butter with some ‘medicines’ or place a chain round the girl’s neck, and this implies an element of coercion in his suit. If he is refused and she is married to any other man, it is possible that she will be barren.This places her father in a difficult position if he has other plans for this daughter. The Loonkidongi make no secret of their coercive power in this respect and despise any member who does not resort 104

THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

Table 5.1 Polygyny rates among the Loonkidongi and the Matapato Maasai (1977) Community

Loonkidongi Matapato

Distribution of wives per elder (%) 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

45 63

26 26

15 8

6 2

6 *

— *

1 —

1 —

Sample base

Mean

(102) (211)

2.10 1.51

Note * Less than 0.5%.

to it in his marriage suiting. He presses home a personal weakness rather than an advantage and is unlikely to succeed. Two reasons why the Maasai do not like itinerant diviners passing through their area is the belief that they are sizing up their herds on the one hand and their daughters on the other.The Prophet Mbatian was said to have had 200 wives; and since his time, Prophets have continued to accumulate many more wives than other Maasai.5 The prevalence of Loonkidongi polygyny is borne out by Table 5.1, which compares a Maasai sample with a Loonkidongi sample that did not include any Prophets or outstanding diviners. The difference is altogether less than the Maasai popularly assume, but it is still striking. Given this difference in opportunity, the Loonkidongi may display restraint from pushing their advantage too far, or they may provoke violent outrage. Case 19. Koitumet claimed that as a Loonkidongi morani, he had placed a chain round the neck of his present wife when she was still a small child, and pressed his suit no further at that stage.Years later, two attempts by her father to give her away to Maasai suitors miscarried. Koitumet, now an elder, then visited her father and pointed out that he himself had put in a bid years earlier, implying that the coercion of his suit had led to the failure of the others. The father immediately granted the suit. Case 20. Leteken, a Loonkidongi elder placed a chain round the neck of a girl of the Purko Maasai, but was told that she had already been promised elsewhere (a polite refusal). He then hinted at his coercive powers, and the girl’s brother in retaliation threatened to spear him. Leteken persisted and was speared. Formal bloodwealth was paid, and the Purko elders used the occasion to call a meeting with neighbouring Loonkidongi elders to warn them that they would not tolerate such threats, and would take further action if necessary. Since then, the Loonkidongi in Purko have continued to initiate their marriage suits with the gift of a chain, but the Purko elders have remained quite emphatic that they do not accept the implication of coercion in this act or the obligation to concede their daughters. Case 21. A similar example was cited in Loitokitok, where it was said that a Loonkidongi suitor threatened sorcery when he was refused a daughter of 105

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

Leganyo. Leganyo then allowed the marriage to take place, but he also placed a conditional curse (ol-momai ) on all future marriages between his descendants and Loonkidongi. Since then, the Leganyo lineage have argued that it would be an irredeemable sin (e-ngooki ) to violate an ancestor’s curse, and any Loonkidongi suitors will continue to be firmly rejected on these grounds. The second of these cases has become a local legend among the Purko Maasai; and they claim to have good relations with local Loonkidongi diviners precisely because they have shown that they refuse to be cowed by threats of sorcery. In some other parts, Maasai elders claim to forbid any itinerant Loonkidongi to visit their area because they mistrust their intentions towards their girls, but this does not extend to the Loonkidongi who have become well established and respected within their area. *** The Loonkidongi subscribe to the Maasai age system, but with reservation concerning the sharing of sexual rights among age mates. They argue that if they allowed the Maasai to impregnate their wives, then their sons would become ineffective diviners or even wastrels, and the dynasty would lose its potency. This is another reason for living apart from the Maasai: the Loonkidongi reputation for sorcery is matched by the equally notorious reputation of the Maasai for adultery. They do not want the Maasai loitering near their villages and they are not convinced that the Maasai would be deterred by any ‘poisons’ planted around their huts or around their wives’ bodies to trap them. As a final precaution, when a Loonkidongi wife gives birth to a son, a magical preparation mixed with butter is given to the infant to suck. It is held to be innocuous if he is a true Loonkidongi, but it will kill him if he is the son of a Maasai. There is also concern among the Maasai over the adulteries of any visiting Loonkidongi, for their wives would be too frightened of sorcery to resist his advances and when an itinerant diviner leaves the area, it is never quite certain what he may have left behind. He is thought to plant ‘medicines’ after his visit in order to ensure that any son from this liaison will not develop into a successful diviner in competition with the Loonkidongi.Worse still is the possibility that the son will develop into a sorcerer like his begetter. The Maasai too want the Loonkidongi to maintain a discreet distance.

The Prophet and his domain Reputable diviners are expected to be able to handle minor problems with a reasonable degree of skill, but their powers are limited.The solution to the more fundamental problem of coping with a widespread concern over sorcery is the services of a more powerful sorcerer; and this is the role of the Prophet. In the midnineteenth century, Supeet was the most powerful Prophet among the Maasai proper, and today all Loonkidongi claim descent from him. Those that are 106

THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

Figure 5.1 The Loonkidongi dynasty and their domains as perceived in 1977.

recognized as Prophets also claim at least one tribal section as their territorial domain, and sometimes more than one, but never less. The genealogy of the Loonkidongi Prophets in Figure 5.1 represents a broad consensus, pieced together at one point in time. Other names and relationships were suggested, especially among Mbatian’s predecessors, but with little consistency. Even among Loonkidongi, I found that my attempts to elicit an accurate mapping of ancestral links led to some inconclusive argument among themselves, reflecting the underlying volatility of Loonkidongi rule. They presented themselves as a dynasty in 107

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

essence rather than in detail, and it was the principle of dynastic succession that was emphasized beyond all doubt by everyone. In addition to counter-sorcery, which is never too far from his concern, a Prophet is expected to protect those living in his domain from other threats of misfortunes, and their confidence in his power is normally unshakable. If misfortune persists, such as drought or epidemic, then it will be argued that the Prophet has saved them from something worse still, or – with less faith in themselves – that it is they who have bungled by misinterpreting his instructions – even just one crucial detail. A Prophet’s ability to protect is grounded in the notion of his unique knowledge of his domain. The unquestioned acceptance of his position ensures that he is well informed of its affairs. Delegations to him include age-set spokesmen and other leading members of the domain. Casual visitors may call on him with further gossip. More telling still, some of the earliest writers noted the effectiveness of a major Prophet’s network of spies throughout the region.6 Subsequently, in the early days of colonial indirect rule in Kenya, a leading Prophet, Lenana, was able to assert himself into a key position.And today, since Independence, some of the more powerful Loonkidongi have had well-established contacts within the regional and national political arena. Beyond his personal network, a Prophet’s power is believed to reside in his ability to ‘see’ right into any area of his domain and to cast spells on it, even if he does not live there.When he advises his clients on their ritual procedures, he can give a detailed description of the remoter parts of the bushland that he has never actually visited. He can ‘see’ the snares set up by sorcerers, and the hidden opportunities that exist for him in his turn to ‘bind’ these sorcerers and protect his clients.This empathy goes beyond an innate extrasensory ability to ‘see’. Some Prophets are thought to be less adept at ‘seeing’ than others, and even than certain non-Prophets. However, only a Prophet can claim that his domain is his possession and his alone, and it is this that enables him to ‘see’ into it and to empathize. Other Loonkidongi cannot ‘see’ into something that is not theirs, just as any Prophet cannot ‘see’ into other domains that are not his.As one Loonkidongi put it, there may be many men who could be better Presidents than the one we have, but they are not the President. Only a Prophet can discern hidden truths and only in relation to his own domain. Beyond this he cannot ‘see’: he can only consult his oracle like any other Loonkidongi, or cast spells like any other sorcerer, by creeping surreptitiously through the bush and taking the risk of being ‘seen’ by the Prophet who owns this spot. This ability to ‘see’ is associated with the special relationship that a Prophet has with two types of beings within his domain.The first are cattle, who play such an important role in Maasai cosmology and provide the medium for communication with the unknown through sacrifice. In addition to their essentially passive role, cattle are also held to be knowing beasts with their own perception of the bush as they graze. It is this knowing aspect that makes propitious oxen suitable material for Loonkidongi oracles, providing the means of divination and access to this 108

THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

special knowledge during the time of the day when cattle are grazing the bush. The basis for the Prophet’s ability to ‘see’ goes a step further. Associated with each major sacrifice, a herd of cattle is driven to his village in payment for his advice. His personal interest in adding to his herd is taken for granted, but beyond this, the cattle are drawn from all parts of his domain and bring their special knowledge from all parts. It is this that gives the Prophet his unique ability, through the cattle that are now in his herd, and whose milk and flesh are his food.With every delegation and gift of cattle, the rapport with his domain is updated and revitalized. Second, the Prophet’s empathy with his domain is extended through his special relationship with the moran. This is popularly expressed in the myth that it was moran who first discovered and adopted the Loonkidongi hero-ancestor, Kidongoi; and subsequently it was a combination of the insight of Loonkidongi Prophets and the resourcefulness of the moran that gave the Maasai a winning edge over all their neighbours. This success hinged on the relationship between the ‘seeing’ Prophet and the able spokesman for the moran, who played a critical role in memorizing the Prophet’s instructions and ensuring that these were followed exactly. It was the spokesman who was a strategic target for sorcerers and the Prophet would give him special medicines to protect him personally. The bond between the Prophet and the moran may also be displayed on other public occasions. When, for instance, the Kisonko elders decided that their Prophet, Parit, should return from Kenya to give closer protection nearby, it was the Kisonko moran who were mobilized to fetch him in a triumphant procession that was still recalled in popular memory more than fifty years later. Again, following the premature deaths of their Prophet Kimuruai and his son, the Purko elders selected Loopir to succeed him, and the deputation included 100 singing and dancing moran accompanied by only five elders. Like the Prophet, the moran are associated with the bushland and concerned with protecting their area, although at a different level.Their lifestyle gives them a bush sense that is alert to the play of visible forces. They are footloose warriors, travelling to all parts of their manyata territory and maintaining their own intelligence network in its defence. In different ways, both the moran and the Prophet lie outside the milieu of normal village life, and their interests are seen to extend to all parts of the bush where enemies may be concealed. The moran have a special role in delegations to the Prophet for advice before their major festivals.The crucial seance is conducted at night in the Prophet’s hut, where he and some of the firestick patrons of the delegation sit down on one side and drink beer (or even spirits). On the other side are seated a larger number of moran, selected from all the manyat in the tribal section. The moran sing for the Prophet to make him happy, until he is lulled into a trance.Their closeness to their manyata territories infuses their singing, and as the Prophet listens, these songs evoke all that is concealed within his domain, the distribution of propitious oxen among the herds, unpropitious hazards, traps set by sorcerers, and so on.The moran cannot know these things, but their empathy with the bushland is revealed at a deeper level to the Prophet, and this is an essential background for the Prophet’s 109

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

ability to sense what is happening in his domain. Only with their help to make him happy can he ‘see’ what is right and what is wrong with their land. If they fail in this, then he is like an oracle that is ‘silent’.Typically, this is the first time many of the moran have met him and they are overawed in his presence.They shiver with apprehension; and if he shivers too, it is because he has become angry at what he ‘sees’. He then gestures for silence and in oblique terms that no-one else can quite follow, he pronounces his diagnosis. The memory that persists among his visitors tends to recall the atmosphere generated in the seance rather than what was actually said. After the session, the moran go outside to dance and the elders continue to drink and discuss their affairs with the Prophet. A second session takes place the following morning when the Prophet is sober and clear-headed. He consults his oracle in the presence of the morani spokesman and key members of the delegation to prescribe the ritual remedy, and he gives the spokesman packets of ‘medicines’ and crisp instructions.These extend to the exact location of the festival, the choice of the ox for sacrifice, and every other detail relevant to their protection from possible sorcerers.All this advice must remain secret, and only the most reliable delegates who can be trusted to remember it accurately and discreetly would have been selected. No-one else should enquire too closely about the location, or their motives would be suspect. For this is vital information for any sorcerer who wishes to tamper with the festival site beforehand. The balance of responsibility between the elders and the Prophet in performing major festivals is quite explicit (cf.Table 4.1). Maasai elders see the essential structure of a festival in the context of age promotion as primarily their own affair, managed by the firestick patrons and stemming from long-standing Maasai traditions. The Prophet’s advice concerns additional details that are grafted onto this structure as an essential precaution against sorcery. These details are endowed with importance, but they are a side-issue that ensures successful performance.Thus, the Prophet will advise normal Loonkidongi procedure for selecting the festival site and precautions for migrating there, with special concern for all possible precautions against sorcery.7 Like the choice of ritual leader and of the ox for sacrifice, this is an aspect that the Prophet controls, and not the elders. It is within his domain. While the Prophet’s role in the major festivals is clear, his power to divine the unexpected gives him leverage to trespass onto the elders’ domain. Thus, among the Kisonko Maasai, it was their Prophet who advised the right-hand and left-hand of Talala age-set to perform separate olngesher festivals, when this was normally the event that brought the two sides together in a united celebration.Again, it was suggested that the division of the Terito age-set into two sides among the Kisonko was prompted by their Prophet (Case 31). Each of these was couched in terms avoiding misfortune, but the Kisonko elders were also aware that their Prophets doubled the payment for their services by doubling the number of festivals, and they took steps to curtail these intrusions (Chapter 8). The paramount influence of a Prophet over his domain is illustrated in the following example. 110

THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

Case 22. In 1977, the Prophet for Matapato was Simel, who lived permanently on the other side of the Rift Valley, 25 miles from the nearest Matapato border and over 80 miles from the furthest. Some Loonkidongi suggested that Simel was not particularly adept at ‘seeing’, but this view was totally rejected in Matapato. It was maintained that nothing unusual could occur within his domain without his ‘seeing’ it, and that this gave them ample protection. He was a powerful enough sorcerer to protect them from the sorcery of their enemies, and their loyalty to him was beyond question. He was a ‘father’ to them, as his father Sendeu had been, and as his successor would be in due course. Simel did not visit Matapato personally, but one of his sons, Sanjan, was a frequent visitor, travelling as an itinerant diviner. No other Loonkidongi were allowed to be itinerant in the area or both Simel and the Matapato elders would object.When this son visited Matapato, he sometimes brought his own portable oracle, leaving his heavier principal instrument in Loita. At other times, he would stay in the villages of local Loonkidongi, borrowing their divining paraphernalia and the dispensing assistance of their wives. The Matapato brought their concerns to him, and elders generally discussed local anxieties, accepting him as a visiting dignitary with their well-being at heart. But they did not expect him to intervene in local matters that did not concern the Prophet. When Sanjan returned to Loita, he was well primed to update his father on Matapato affairs. Certainly, Matapato elders on their occasional visits to Simel were reassured by his awareness of their problems; and they recalled that when he had been a younger man, he had performed the same itinerant service for his father, Sendeu. Lesser Loonkidongi who lived in Matapato were also under Simel’s ritual patronage. Those who acted as hosts to his itinerant son gained some kudos from each visit. It publicly demonstrated that Simel condoned their small practices and the authenticity of their oracles and their medicines.There could be no question that they were sorcerers, or he would have ferreted them out. He was said to welcome their presence in the area, for Matapato needed local practitioners to whom they could refer minor family ailments. None of them attempted to handle problems that extended beyond a very local level or expected any payment as large as a cow, for these would be to filch Simel’s prerogatives. He would ‘see’ at once and ensorcel the usurper. If any problem was serious enough to merit a delegation, it had to be taken to Simel. One branch of Loonkidongi had special dispensation from Simel to practice in an official capacity. They were the Lolkokwa, descended from an adopted Kikuyu herdboy who had placed a spell on his descendants, depriving them of the ability to ‘see’ or to practise any form of sorcery. Simel allowed this adopted sub-lineage to provide a local diviner for each Matapato manyata of moran to handle their immediate problems.With this dispensation, it was the firestick patrons of each new age-set who selected three of their age mates from Lolkokwa to fulfil this role for the three manyat. Generally, the Lolkokwa were popular among the Matapato because they had a good reputation for 111

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

handling fertility problems among cattle and women.8 But only Simel was expected to give the omniscient protection that the Matapato needed.

Variation in Loonkidongi influence Within his domain, each Loonkidongi Prophet is regarded with awe. The Maasai describe him as their ‘father’, with complete faith in his infallibility. From a distance, he occupies a comparable position to a guardian spirit among the Samburu, giving a vital protection against misfortune, but also with the ability to castigate. What matters is not his ethical position regarding dabbling in sorcery, but his effectiveness for giving protection. There is, however, a considerable variation in the extent of Loonkidongi influence, which is summarized in Table 5.2. This is illustrated by Simel’s control over the three tribal sections that comprised his domain in 1977: Matapato, Loita, and Siria (Map 5.1). In Matapato, his ritual patronage extended to those aspects of the major festivals that were thought to be prone to sorcery, and his advice would only be sought at other times in quite exceptional circumstances. Apart from these, the Matapato elders managed their own affairs, retaining full control over their ceremonies, and they had no particular wish that Simel should live closer to them or attend their festivals in person. Local Loonkidongi moran were welcome as visitors at Matapato manyat, but (unlike Lolkokwa) they were excluded from Matapato festivals as potential sorcerers. In Loita, on the other hand, Simel appeared to have a more intimate involvement. He lived close by, and he personally attended all their major festivals as a ‘father’ of his people to be greeted by all his ‘children’. His very presence, they felt, provided a protection that gave them prestige over their neighbours, who would never dare to interfere with them. Loita spokesmen and other influential elders would regularly visit Simel to report on Loita affairs, and his local Loonkidongi kinsmen (as ‘sons of Sendeu’) shared in the Loita festivals.

Table 5.2 Variation in the tenure of Loonkidongi as Prophets Community or tribal section

Assignation of Prophet

Samburu, Chamus Uasinkishu, Moitanik, and Siria (‘Transmara Maasai’) Kisonko group of sections, including Arusha Other Maasai sections Loonkidongi colonies

Have diviners, but no designated Prophets A non-Loonkidongi diviner is appointed as Prophet for each successive age-group of moran Each firestick alliance of alternate age-sets have their Loonkidongi Prophet (Chapter 8) Each has one Loonkidongi Prophet appointed for life May appoint their own local Prophet with each new age-set, while recognizing the Prophets of the neighbouring Maasai The senior of two Prophets has Loonkidongi connections

Parakuyu

112

THE LOONKIDONGI DIVINERS AND PROPHETS

0 0

N

Miles

50 Kms

100

L – Loopir’s village S – Simel’s village Simel’s domains

IA

oo PU pi R r’s K do O m ai n)

SIR

Nairobi

(L

TANZANIA KENYA

Motor routes to Nairobi

LO

IT A

NI

LA

I OK

OD

S

LO

MA TAP ATO L

KIS

ON

KO

Namanka

Map 5.1 Client tribal sections as the arena of rivalry between two Prophets.

Simel’s control over Siria tended towards the opposite pole.The Siria lived more than 100 miles from Simel’s village, beyond the River Mara, where there were no Loonkidongi colonies. Simel was faced with considerable autonomy and his power was limited to consultation on the selection of the ritual leader at each eunoto festival. This was a residue from an earlier period when the Siria had been close dependants of Loita and had shared in their eunoto. Only in this respect could the Siria now be said to be within Simel’s domain. For other ritual purposes, they had their own families of diviners who were not Loonkidongi. It was from these that the firestick patrons would appoint a diviner with a good reputation to serve as their Prophet for each new right-hand or left-hand age-group of moran (i.e. every seven years or so), protecting them from sorcery, and especially from Loonkidongi. By refusing any diviner a second term of office, jealousy between rivals was held in check, and the Siria elders retained overall control in the final analysis.This was the system adopted by the Uasinkishu and Moitanik, who were ‘Transmara’ neighbours of the Siria and had no links with the Loonkidongi whatever. 113

THE BOUNDARIES OF TIME, SPACE, AND CERTAINTY

A similar system of temporary Prophets seconded by the elders is also maintained by some Loonkidongi colonies, although for the full span of an age-set (about fifteen years).This is seen as an essentially housekeeping role in contrast to the personal power enjoyed by the major Prophets.Within the colony and for his period of office, the incumbent is held to ‘see’, and to oversee their ceremonial activities, and to be as effective in forestalling sorcery as any other Prophet. In this way, it is quite possible for some other major Prophet to live within the regime of a self-governing Loonkidongi colony and under the trusteeship of some other senior and respected kinsman.The major Prophet is omniscient in relation to his own domain elsewhere, but living in his own home, he has to rely on the omniscient integrity of his colleague locally.This system of self-protection is the Loonkidongi response to the Maasai allegation that their colonies are nests of sorcery.They too like to maintain that sorcery is an activity that lies beyond their borders, and that they are protected from internecine rivalry and outside interference. To this they can add that unlike tribal sections, each colony provides its own ritual protection. Further afield, they acknowledge the domains of the major Prophets, enabling them to negotiate journeys further afield. The semi-detached pattern displayed in Matapato appears to be broadly typical of most tribal sections today.9 However, the Prophet’s control reached legendary proportions in precolonial times. Merker described what was probably the Loita stronghold of Simel’s father, Sendeu. The settlement of the Prophet (Hauptlingsdorf ) consists of a large number of adjacent villages, of which several serve him and his innumerable wives as dwellings … No strange man may set foot in the village dwelling of the Prophet or his wives, or appear in its near neighbourhood. Close by are the remaining villages, of which one is set aside for councils and receptions, and in which various elders most in the Prophet’s confidence as assistants and advisors … live with their families, while others are inhabited by [Maasai] warriors, who constitute the defence of the settlement and the bodyguard of the Prophet on his journeys. This description coupled with the reputation of Sendeu’s father Mbatian, as Prophet for the majority of Maasai proper, leads one to infer that earlier Prophets held court at the centre of an incipient pastoralist state, with the Loonkidongi comprising a quasi-royal dynasty. A more qualified inference is that the line of succession was less tidy and that Loonkidongi pre-eminence over other families of diviners only dated back to Mbatian’s father, Supeet, who was reported to be of Gogo descent and initiated a period of Maasai expansion against other Maa-speakers. This is to suggest that the ‘Loonkidongi’ are a product of Maasai success in the nineteenth century, and their genealogy – which is impressively long by Maasai standards – adapted symbolically to match and uphold the status quo.10 114

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Loonkidongi succession as the arena of a contemporary myth The independence of the Transmara Maasai throws the achievements of Loonkidongi Prophets into perspective.Viewing this historically, one may contrast the Maasai proper at the height of their power in the mid-nineteenth century with the Turkana, who were dispersed in an unusually arid area further north. John Lamphear (1992) has shown how the Turkana could dominate their neighbours through the ability of their diviners and war-leaders to draw on an extended network of mutual trust and mobilize an impromptu band of lightly armed warriors. This mushrooming force would inflict lightning strikes and then melt away with their gains, beyond reprisal. Compared with this hit-and-run type of warfare, the Maasai proper lived in a less arid area and raided as heavy battalions. They maintained their fighting strength at all times, sometimes as independent tribal sections, and when necessary as a federation, coordinated by their Prophet. Somewhere along a scale of contrasting organization from the Maasai proper to the Turkana, one may place the outlying Transmara Maasai. These appear to have been less organized than the Maasai proper, but also less prone than the Turkana to desperate guerilla tactics. Richard Waller’s (1984) study of this group may be read as revealing a brand of Maasai society as it might once have existed before the unifying influence of the Loonkidongi Prophets.The Transmara Maasai just managed to survive: the Siria were scattered and the Uasinkishu and Moitanik were riven by the factional rivalries of their diviners. The success of the Loonkidongi has been the astuteness of outstanding Prophets to keep such rivalries in check and ensure an uncontested succession. Each Prophet is expected to nominate his successor from among his sons. Ideally, the ceremony confirming the succession should be performed before the father’s death, but the same procedure is followed if the father dies first. It is marked by a deputation of elders and moran from his domain presenting the Prophet-elect with a herd of cattle and the emblems of his office: a buffalo horn-shell (en-kidonget), a string of blue beads, and a grey fur cape made from tree-hyrax. He is then installed into his role with a ritual ordeal in the bush that is intended to protect him from the sorcery of his rivals in future. It is a ritual that provides sorcerers with their best opportunity to harm him; and on this occasion, his brothers and other rivals eligible for this office are confined to the village, so that they have no opportunity to plant medicines that might usurp his power prematurely. A flimsy hut is built of sticks and grass and the incumbent sits inside, surrounded by a selection of four ‘medicines’ and five ‘poisons’.The hut is then set on fire and he emerges at the last moment after smoke has infiltrated to every part but before the hut is engulfed in flames.This form of initiation is a vivid metaphor of the popular image of a successful Prophet: he sits with his medicines, surrounded by danger, and emerges unscathed.11 There is also a hint of symbolic immunization. After any sacrifice, all uneaten parts of the animal must be burnt in the fire until they are entirely dry and no longer of use to any sorcerer. In a rather similar way, the 115

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Prophet-elect is exposed to fire on his initiation. He is ‘burned’ (kepejore loloiboni ), and he emerges from the ordeal further from the reach of sorcerers. If continuity is broken and there is no obvious heir when the Prophet dies, the initiative lies with the elders of his domain to select a successor. If the domain extends to more than one tribal section, then it may segment as different tribal sections choose different Prophets. They may elect to approach a prominent diviner rather than an existing Prophet.This is to offer him a domain, and he then becomes a Prophet with all the powers that this entails.The elders are then obliged to accept the consequences of their choice, and are not free to reclaim the initiative at any other time.This presents the elders with a dilemma if they are disenchanted with their Prophet, for there is no simple way of deposing him or rejecting his heirs. They are within his domain, and he can ‘see’ and ensorcel them at will. Given the tenacity of this belief, their only course is to transfer allegiance to another powerful Prophet and accept that this must carry considerable risk of untold hardship. Case 23. When the Dareto were moran, a series of misfortunes occurred in Matapato, and the elders blamed this on the negligence and petty malice of their Prophet, Nkaroya. At this time, following Lenana’s death, Sendeu was widely accepted as the most effective Prophet among the Maasai, and the Matapato elders therefore decided to place themselves under Sendeu’s protection.They sent a delegation of forty-nine elders and moran to ask Sendeu to incorporate Matapato into his domain. The most influential spokesman for Twati age-set was a prominent member of this delegation, and he died shortly after their return to Matapato, while still relatively young.This was assumed to be Nkaroya’s parting shot before Sendeu had fully established his protection. Today it is remembered as the price that Matapato paid for ridding themselves of a Prophet that they could no longer trust. The principal problem is felt to lie with the Loonkidongi themselves, for it is they who provoke each other’s ambitions.The rules of patrilineal succession are geared towards competitive selection. A Loonkidongi diviner’s personal oracle is inherited by his oldest son, like any Maasai elder’s stool or tobacco tube. However, a Prophet’s oracle is passed down the generations to the son who is felt to be most competent to inherit the role. The father may leave his choice of successor deliberately vague, watching his sons mature as diviners. He could well pass over his firstborn in favour of a younger son, and then ten years later, he could switch his choice to another even younger son. The son’s age or age-set are not a factor; and with a normally large family to choose from, there tends to be wide scope for selection. After the Prophet’s death, fierce rivalry between brothers may build up to a feud between rival branches of the family.This is popularly conceived in terms of sorcery and counter-sorcery and fed by gossip and rumour among the Maasai. In the literature, it is the rivalry between Mbatian’s sons after his death that has been widely reported, when Lenana usurped a substantial part of Mbatian’s domain 116

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from the legitimate heir, his brother Sendeu.12 For the Maasai, this was just one striking episode in an unraveling saga, which is updated and reinterpreted with every misfortune that appears to fit the general pattern.The death of each Prophet is seen as the next step in the dynastic feud. It is a pattern that persists, with Prophets and ambitious diviners perceived as the principal actors in a contemporary myth that is staged between Loonkidongi villages and colonies, while other Maasai and lesser diviners are just onlookers, perpetuating this myth. Only one version of this myth is recorded here. It is the view held in Matapato, whose area includes the Oldoinyo Orok mountain, where Mbatian is said to have been living when he went mad and died. Case 24. Mbatian was said to have lost his reason through the sorcery of his jealous half-brother, Mako. Then, on his deathbed, he laid a spell on Mako, which not only killed him but also deprived his descendants of the ability to ‘see’ and much of their skill as diviners. In the confusion of a serious cattle epidemic that decimated Maasai herds after Mbatian’s death, his sons Sendeu and Lenana vied for succession.This precipitated a civil war, principally between the Loita moran on Sendeu’s behalf and the Purko on Lenana’s, and spreading to other tribal sections. Sendeu lost the war, but retained his domain. Some time later, so it is said, he visited Lenana to make peace; and then seduced Lenana’s wife and placed some ‘poison’ on her thigh. On the next occasion that Lenana had intercourse with her, he succumbed to this sorcery and died. Sendeu lived another twenty-five years, and then Lenana’s son Kimuruai, who had inherited Purko as his domain, is said to have killed Sendeu by sorcery, avenging his father’s death. Kimuruai and his immediate heir died subsequently, and the sons of Sendeu in turn were held to have responded through sorcery. Another of Kimuruai’s sons, Loopir, then became the Prophet for Purko and was expected sooner or later to avenge his father and brother.The sons of Sendeu therefore agreed a pact of peace among themselves in order to be better able to face this threat from Loopir. The sons of Lenana were less united over the succession to the powerful and lucrative role of Prophet for all Purko. Kimuruai mistrusted his own brothers, and suggested to his Purko clients that that he should move to live among them, giving them better protection from Sendeu and the Loita Maasai generally.This was firmly rejected by the Purko elders.They did not doubt the effectiveness or integrity of their Prophet, but argued that if he came to live among them, then his sons would bring sorcery into the area through their internecine feuding, just as the sons of Parit had done in the Monduli area of Kisonko. This is another example of the Purko tradition of holding the Loonkidongi in check (cf. Case 20). After Kimuruai’s death, his successor, Loopir, felt no more secure against the jealousy of his cousins who also lived at Lemarkat, and repeated this proposal to live closer to his Purko clients. He too was refused. Loopir then decided to move to the safety of the border area dividing the Kisonko in Tanzania from the Loodokilani and Matapato in 117

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Kenya.With his contentious background, Loopir’s presence in the area was at first unsettling. The Loodokilani accused him of causing the deaths of four people through his sorcery, and raised a posse of moran and elders to force him to move on. Then, soon after he settled in the Meto hills on the Matapato–Kisonko border, the Matapato elders too sent a posse and he was forced to retreat to the further side of the hills in Kisonko. Over time, he was able to consolidate his links in the area as a reliable diviner, and negotiated his return to establish his own village on the Matapato border. Loopir’s migration southwards had taken him further from his Purko domain, without impairing his ability to oversee their welfare. However, living in the Meto hills also brought him close to Matapato, which was part of Simel’s domain. Loopir therefore had to take care not to trespass. He had left a wife behind at Lemarkat, and it was said that when he wished to visit his family there, he could not risk walking though Matapato where he would fall an easy victim to Simel’s sorcery, but had to pass along the border with Kisonko.When he reached the official Kenya–Tanzania border post at Namanka, he could safely traverse a short stretch of Matapato by bus or car along the motor road. So long as he remained off the ground, he did not actually trespass on Simel’s domain. At Ilbisil, just beyond the northern border of Matapato, it was safe for him to alight. Simel was less immediately restricted in his freedom, but all the major roads from where he lived passed through Purko, Loopir’s extensive domain, and along this stretch, Simel had to take similar precautions. Neither the Prophet nor his sons could journey to Nairobi, for instance, without running the gauntlet along a stretch of hostile territory. When a Purko deputation wished to visit Loopir at his Meto home, often with a gift of cattle driven by moran, they had direct access through Matapato, where they would be respected and protected against sorcery in their own right as a ritual delegation. No one in Matapato was quite certain of the nature of the risks they faced. In his Loita home, Simel was assumed to be ‘watching’ this transit for any opportunity to lay a trap for Loopir, while Loopir was canny enough to forestall any such tricks and his delegations were well briefed and protected by his ‘medicines’ and their status as a ritual delegation.The situation appeared to be a stalemate until either of them dropped his guard. At the time of fieldwork, the Matapato did not feel themselves threatened by this rivalry between their immediate neighbour (Loopir) and their Prophet (Simel). After about ten years in the area, Loopir appeared to have established himself with a claim over a local water point that no one was prepared to challenge. He had married off at least one daughter locally, and some Matapato elders would consult him on personal family matters as a local Loonkidongi with a sound reputation for divining in his own right.This did not affect their allegiance to Simel. No one suggested that Loopir might have been responsible for a fainting epidemic among Matapato women at Meto. On that occasion it was a less reputable Loonkidongi who was suspected of trying to discredit Simel, hoping that the Matapato elders would then turn to him.13 118

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Meanwhile, Loopir needed to be on good terms with his neighbours, and so long as the Matapato remained loyal to Simel, they did not see themselves as unduly exposed to the sniping between rivals.They were the onlookers rather than the victims, and the shadow theatre of Loonkidongi feuding was enacted above their heads. A significant feature of this scenario is that the feuding took place beyond the dayto-day life of Maasai society, rather as Loonkidongi activities are beyond normal comprehension. At a more fundamental level, the feuding reflects rivalries between the client tribal sections. As Richard Waller has noted, both published and Maasai accounts tend to emphasize the role of the Prophets in promoting infighting among the Maasai, but this is to overlook the extent to which the weaknesses of the Maasai federation have fostered the power and rivalries of the Prophets.The breakdown of Mbatian’s domain occurred just when the Maasai and their herds were ravaged by epidemic and their society was in disarray, with Loita and Purko in the strongest position for exploiting the weaknesses of their neighbours and ultimately confronting one another.14 Significantly, perhaps, the two most powerful tribal sections, Purko and Kisonko, have shared no common border and maintain a deep regard for one another, and correspondingly there is no suggestion or myth of feuding between their Prophets. And again within Kisonko, the marked pattern of rivalry between age-sets is reflected in the pattern of feuding among the sons of Parit (Chapter 8). It is not just that ‘If there were no Loonkidongi, we would not need Loonkidongi’, as they say, but if there were no Maasai, there would be no Loonkidongi.

Conclusion: the Prophet, his possessions, and the legitimacy of sorcery According to popular belief, the Loonkidongi – and especially their Prophets – have the ability to probe the unknown, adding a further dimension to the collective wisdom associated with Maasai elders and the physical power of the moran. The striking feature is not the Loonkidongi claim to esoteric abilities, but the extent to which they have dominated this niche among the Maasai proper, marginalizing other ritual experts that claimed alternative magical skills. It contrast with the situation further north, among the Samburu for instance, where there is a variety of esoteric expertise and no tradition of powerful Prophets, one is led to assume that this is correlated historically with the migration of the Maasai from the arid north to a strategic area for pastoralism, where they were surrounded by less aggressive agricultural peoples.This would have given them considerable scope for exploitation and a niche for Prophetic leadership.Then, significantly, the pacification of the Maasai region through colonial intervention coincided with the fragmentation of Loonkidongi power.15 However, the reputation of the Loonkidongi persists, and various Prophets are assumed to engage in an arena of conflict that rises above the normal discourse of Maasai existence; and what they are held to ‘see’ and understand endows them with 119

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greatness and power. In elaborating the Loonkidongi myth with each new twist in the dynasty’s fortunes, the Maasai place themselves in the position of spectators so long as their Prophet gives his protection. But the myth has the unnerving quality of intruding into their affairs and turning them into pawns in a struggle, within which they are utterly helpless. It brings sorcery and unexpected misfortune that only the Prophet can remedy. In the previous chapter, the figment of the sorcerer among the Maasai was treated as a gruesome caricature of the selfish excesses of elderhood that lay beyond the confines of their age system: a projection of their other selves that was cast out of their villages and festivals into the darker recesses of the bushland. Compared with the Samburu, where such beliefs are less pronounced, this was associated with a greater opportunity for pursuing self-interest within the Maasai family.Along this scale, Loonkidongi colonies lie further still towards the extreme of self-interest, displaying a facade of respect but tarred with a vicious reputation for fratricidal sorcery. The opposite of the Samburu emphasis on loyalty and deference to clan ‘brothers’ is the claim that ‘the Loonkidongi have no brothers’. As the ultimate source of sorcery, the Loonkidongi fit into this extended pattern, culminating in the Prophet as supreme sorcerer and fratricide.They are a people apart, and yet they are clearly an integral aspect of the Maasai system. The counterpart of fraternal rivalries among ambitious Loonkidongi is the paternalistic structure of the relation between the Prophets and their clients. Within each tribal section, the Maasai claim to love and respect their Prophet for his protection, ‘like a father’, but they also express their fear of being abandoned, which would expose them to the greed of other unscrupulous Loonkidongi.The arbitrary power of the Maasai father over his family is matched by the notion of the Prophet as the supreme ‘father’ over his domain, who punishes any disloyalty by his clients and maintains an arbitrary right to favour any son as his future successor. In this way, the reputation of the Loonkidongi does not represent something that is wholly alien to Maasai. It may be seen again as a projection of the less seemly side of family life, which contrasts with the warm bond expected among age mates. The submission of the Maasai to the power of the Prophet replicates the submission of the younger men, who express their deep respect for their father in terms of fear on the one hand and reverence for his protection on the other.They dread the death of their father, for like the loss of their Prophet, this would leave them prey to grasping men, notably the father’s avaricious brothers. The power of the Loonkidongi, in other words, is consistent with the paternalistic streak of the Maasai society, and any attempt to switch to another Prophet would be regarded as a dangerous rebellion against that power. A characteristic feature of attempts to reconstruct the Loonkidongi dynasty, as in Figure 5.1, is the single line of descent of ancestors from the founder to Supeet before the branching opens out rather like an inverted funnel.16 There appear to be no Loonkidongi descended from brothers or cousins of Supeet. This could imply a progressive merging of the dynasty onto the most successful line. However, with large polygynous families, the divisiveness of fraternal rivalry for a share of 120

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this niche would have created constant pressure to shed ineffective members.This suggests that the less successful lines of Loonkidongi are more likely to have merged with the Maasai over the generations and become forgotten. Living descendants of Supeet deny the possibility of giving up divining to become absorbed as ordinary Maasai, and yet this is precisely what has occurred in some recent branches of the family (e.g. Leseeki’s line), while others are held to have lost the ability to divine effectively as a result of the struggle (e.g. Mako’s line). Most recently, Western education has become accepted as a worthy option for Loonkidongi boys in particular, leading to a career outside the traditional setting: at least they are not wastrels or mere Maasai. Among those Loonkidongi that have missed this opportunity, the less successful diviners face the choice between accepting a dubious reputation as quacks or leaving their colonies and disowning their ancestry.To remain on the periphery is to risk the suspicion that they practice or even sell sorcery. If this suspicion were aroused within a tribal section, they would be hounded by both the Maasai and the all-seeing Prophet.17 An apparent anomaly in these beliefs is the stark contrast between Maasai and Loonkidongi attitudes towards sorcery.The Maasai shun this as the worst form of evil, whereas the Loonkidongi make no apologies for their ability to resort to it in the right circumstances. Up to a point, of course, this reflects the existence of two very different lifestyles creating a system with two classes. The Loonkidongi own the means of divination and sorcery, and they exploit the wilful avoidance of this topic among the Maasai. However, they share a common culture and religion, and the Loonkidongi, for instance, do not claim to have a greater insight into the nature of God or the existence of afterlife than the Maasai, or a different view on cursing. While the curse is held to be legitimate among Maasai elders because a moral principle is involved and they flatly reject any suggestion that they are sorcerers (il-asakutok), specific curses may involve unpropitious gestures that could be classed as ‘sorcery’ in any other context.Thus, when firestick patrons place a curse on a new ritual leader and kindle a fire on the back of a young bull, or when they close the age-set to further recruitment by killing or maiming a bird as they pronounce their conditional curse on any surreptitious circumcisions, the stress is on their ability ‘to curse’ (a-dek), but sometimes the alternative term ‘to ensorcel’ (a-sakut) is used, emphasizing the sinister aspect of their power.18 A sharp distinction between cursing and sorcery is maintained, but the terms used for casting the two types of spell are less clear-cut. Again, corresponding to an elder’s curse of throwing a lump of chewed tobacco to the ground or a ritual leader’s curse of throwing away a blue bead from his necklace, an angry Loonkidongi father may threaten to throw away a stone from his oracle, and it is a moot point whether this is a curse or sorcery.This merging is especially evident in situations where a conditional curse is pronounced (ol-momai).Threatening a guilty moran in Case 12, for instance, may be compared with conditional sorcery that aims to kill any Loonkidongi infant begotten by a Maasai: both involve drinking or sucking a ‘poisonous’ concoction. It is the context and public nature of the occasion, making it fully accountable, that distinguishes a curse from a heinous act of sorcery. 121

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A key issue here is the Maasai concept of property. The principle that gives a father the power to bless or curse his children is that they are his property in a very forceful sense, and they owe him respect.They are his ‘possessions’ (i-maali), like the ‘dewlaps’ that belong to cattle. Similarly, the power of a Prophet is that his domain is his possession as against the world at large, and this legitimizes his right to cast spells over anything within it. Just as the father claims absolute rights, giving him the power to bless and to curse, so the Prophet claims an absolute right that gives him the power to ‘see’ and legitimizes his use of sorcery in order to protect his clients. It is his ability to abuse that right that is feared, because it is absolute – until some more powerful diviner can wrest it from him by wreaking havoc with the aim of usurping his role as Prophet.

Notes 1 See Matapato: 52, 249–50. 2 Rivalries between branches of the Loonkidongi dynasty are given to explain the dwindling of the prominent colony at Ngong (Enchoremuny on the northern border of Keekonyukie).The sons of Nkaroya settled at Loolkisalie (three large villages on the border between Keekonyukie and Loodokilani). The sons of Mako moved to Pusimoru (about ten villages on the border between Loita and Purko in Tanzania).There were also migrations from the colony at Morijo (Oltarkwei, between Loita and Purko in Kenya) to form new colonies at Olterben (between Matapato and Kisonko) and Lepolos (between Matapato and Dalalekutuk). My principal Loonkidongi informants were at Olterben (sons of Mbatian’s son, Leshinka) and Oltarkwei (sons of Neelyang). 3 Cf. Matapato, Case 49. 4 According to Merker (1904: 45) the bridewealth paid for the daughters of Loonkidongi is restricted to a few animals although it is normally higher than average wealthy and influential Maasai families.This was denied by my own informants who emphasized that the formal bridewealth payment is standardized throughout the Maasai area. However, they also pointed out that the Loonkidongi had other ready means of augmenting their herds and that their concern for their reputation lessened their requests for further cattle compared with Maasai (cf. Matapato: 26–8; Samburu: 35, 36, 50). 5 Merker 1904: 21; Fosbrooke 1948: 21. Data for the Loonkidongi sample in Table 5.1 was collected in Olterben and Oltarkwei. 6 Hinde 1901: 31; Merker 1904: 19. 7 When the Loonkidongi migrate, the process is shrouded in mystery to counteract sorcery. A diviner will first consult his oracle on the choice between alternative sites and on the advisability of migrating at all. On the day of migration, all those involved trace chalk mixed with medicines across their brows, and the location for the new village remains a secret until they have actually arrived.Then, while the wives build their huts, the elders kindle a fire of wild olive wood in the centre of the new village and into this fire they sprinkle medicines that have been selected beforehand by one of their oracles. Each wife should take a brand from this fire for her own hearth, and the main fire must not go out before the cattle return in the evening. Non-Loonkidongi Maasai do not normally take these precautions; or if someone does, it is because he is anxious and has consulted a diviner about his migration. However, when a large festival is to be held, the Prophet is consulted and Loonkidongi procedure is followed for the migration. Cf. Matapato, Case 31, episode 4. 8 The presence of non-Loonkidongi diviners, notably with Kikuyu connections, has been reported elsewhere among the Maasai (e.g. Fosbrooke 1948: 14, 17; Johnsen 1997: 212; cf. Berntsen 1977: 25–6). These are tolerated by the Loonkidongi Prophets and even

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9

10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18

adopted because they are wholly benign with no understanding of sorcery. A Matapato version of the Loonkidongi myth of origin legitimizes the position of some lesser families, suggesting that two other boys accompanied Kidongoi when he was adopted by the moran into the Laisir clan.These were Lekidoku, who was adopted into the Tarosero clan and became the ancestor of laisi (Nomads: 116–17); and Kishaali, who was adopted into Makesen clan and became the ancestor of the Kiboron (see p. 97, n. 33). The power of the Kisonko Prophet at Monduli over his domains appears to resemble that of Simel.The semidetached aspect of the Matapato Prophet applies to the Kisonko of Loitokitok (Chapter 8). The close and cordial aspect of the Loita model appears to apply to the Kisonko living in the Monduli area (Ndagala 1992: 98). While the Siria model may have affinities with the Serenket Maasai, Nina Johnsen’s work in this area notes the decline of Loonkidongi influence and the emergence of a Kikuyu family of diviners, who are seeking to gain independence from the Prophet at Monduli ( Johnsen 1997: 58, 64–5, 198–9, 212, 286; cf. Saitoti 1986: 28). Merker 1904: 21; Farler 1882: 734; Berntsen 1977: 25–6.While the Loonkidongi moran had their own manyat (Sandford 1919: 7), it was the Prophet’s Maasai followers who formed his bodyguard (Merker 1904: 78–9), and appear to have been more trusted. Cf. Merker 1904: 22; Sankan 1971: 40.Another occasion when a Loonkidongi elder ritually breaks out of an enclosure occurs when he ‘passes the fence’ as a prelude to initiating any of his children. I was given the following account of the celebration. A heifer and virgin bull are penned in a corral and when they defecate, their dung must be caught before it touches the ground.The celebrant is then dressed in a ceremonial cape and scroll-earrings, he carries a herding stick, bow, and blunt bleeding-arrows, and he wears an elaborate headpiece that is held in place by a leather cap, including ostrich feathers and a tall pointed mixture of the dung and butter, balanced on top of his head. All members of his family must be present (even an aged parent who has to be carried there), and they and the cattle are all confined to the village and the gateways are closed. The celebrant then passes through a gap in the fence into the bush and back, followed in procession by his sons in strict order of birth (even any infant son who has to be carried). The dung mixture is the focus of elaborate precautions against sorcery throughout, and it is then used to anoint the celebrant, his stool, and his sons. Meanwhile, his guests are given as much beer as possible to make them too drunk to practice any serious sorcery. Cf. Hollis (1905: 294–5) and Sankan (1971: 38–40) for alternative versions. There is contradictory evidence concerning Mbatian’s chosen heir, reflecting alternative versions of Lenana’s and Sendeu’s Maasai followers. In the early literature, Lenana was named by Hinde (1901: 24, 28) and Sandford (1919: 3), and Sendeu was named by Merker (1904: 19) and Hollis (1905: 328). Strong support for Sendeu’s claim is the fact that Farler (1882: 734) identified him as Mbatian’s assistant towards the end of his life, and that after Mbatian’s death, it was Lenana who moved away from the Kisonko stronghold of his predecessors to build up a following among the northern Maasai. Correspondingly, claims that the Loonkidongi originated in Ngong (Enchoremuny in Kenya), appear to derive from Lenana’s attempt to legitimize his position in the north (Hollis 1905: 326; Fosbrooke 1948: 13) – there is no evidence of an earlier Loonkidongi presence north of Kisonko (Berntsen 1977: 28, 32). See Matapato, Case 49. The path along the border followed by Malaso in that example is identical to that followed by Loopir (above), en route for Namanka. Waller 1976: 532–3, 540–1. Waller 1976: 540–51; Berntsen 1977: 25–37; 1979. Cf. Merker 1904: 19; Hollis 1905: 326; Fosbrooke 1948: 11–12; Sankan 1971: 76. Matapato: 222–5. Matapato: 67, 76, 152, 220; and see p. 77 above.The killing or maiming of a bird in certain tribal sections is held to bring a similar fate to any illicit initiate, when he shoots birds for his feather headdress.

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A vital aspect of Loonkidongi divining lies in mastering the system of interpreting their oracles, which is based on the number of pebbles thrown for each question. Within the Maa-speaking milieu generally, when assessing their cattle, their gains and losses, and even on insignificant topics, people are very number conscious. There is a finger language for numbers that is constantly used rhetorically by any speaker, forcing the listener to respond verbally: ‘I went there in how many days?’ (‘3’),‘And stayed how many?’ (‘5’) … In this way, among the conventional responses that punctuate conversation, numbers are the most articulate and visible.1 There is also the notion that numbers have a ritual significance as surface manifestations of hidden truths. Thus, certain propitious figures recur in the repetition of detail in ritualized performances, in enumerating formal gifts, and again when recalling events as though these reveal the hand of Providence. The manipulation of these patterns is directly comparable with the handling of other symbolic phenomena. Numbers intrude themselves constantly, as if to express an alert control over the ritual significance of events that are being discussed. On the other hand, normal conversation frequently bears on the uncontrollable where chance intrudes. This raises the problem of coping with uncertainty, and it is precisely this sort of problem that over-anxious Maasai may take to a diviner. In his hands, numbers have a different significance that shifts from quantity to portent. It will be recalled from the previous chapter that a Loonkidongi diviner’s basic kit consists of the hide and horn of a specially selected ox, and a collection of several hundred pebbles.These pebbles are kept inside the horn and include some particular well-tried favourites.When the diviner wishes to consult his oracle for his own benefit, he lays out the hide and places his shoulder-cloth on top of it. The technique of consultation is to break down the search for a course of action into a series of simple questions, and each of these is answered by a throw of the pebbles. Whispering the first question into the mouth of the horn, the diviner then shakes out over a hundred pebbles at random onto his cloth, and picks out his favourites and counts them. If the number is not propitious, he repeats the throw. If it is propitious, he rubs these favourites on his forehead, stomach, inner forearms, and inner legs. He then arranges all these pebbles into groups of 20, including his favourites, and counts them.The range of possible numbers gives a range of more 124

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or of less encouraging answers to his question.This is then repeated for the second question, and so on until he has built up his diagnosis of the problem and its remedy. When he consults his oracle on behalf of someone else, the procedure is the same, except that it is the client’s shoulder-cloth that is placed on top of the hide, and it is the client who is told to rub the favourite pebbles on the same parts of his body. Anxious clients may extend the rubbing zealously to other parts, even hugging the pebbles under their armpits and only reluctantly handing them back to the diviner to continue his consultation.This does not concern the Loonkidongi. If the pebbles have also been rubbed on the four correct places, they say, the extra attention makes no difference. But, of course, it may tell the diviner something about his client’s state of mind. The numerical system of interpretation is outlined in the following section, but three points should be emphasized.The first is that I relied heavily on one informant, whose version I reproduce here. Less systematically, I checked his information for consistency with a second informant in another Loonkidongi community that traced a different line of descent from Supeet. There was substantial agreement between them, but also some variation in the significance of certain numbers and combinations of numbers.While they both insisted that the technique is invariable and disclaimed the possibility of any significant differences between rival communities, they were aware of a creeping revelation as new patterns were perceived, discussed among themselves, and became incorporated into their repertoire. A process of divergence due to the discovery of new insights locally, as they saw it, was balanced by a process of convergence as these were further tested and more widely shared. The version given here, therefore, should be regarded at best as a typical representation of a shifting configuration that cannot be judged from any absolute standard. The second point is that my principal informant clearly sensed a structural consistency underlying this system, but he was only able to express this in a disjointed manner as the significance of particular numbers shifted with the context in our conversations. It is at this contextual level that the skill in divining is learned, and my attempt to discern an underlying pattern is inevitably based on a superficial grasp of the system coupled with the penchants of my informant. Third, I would stress the sensitivity of this data in the Maasai area itself. It is not information that is systematically withheld, but it is something about which nonLoonkidongi prefer to show a disinterest. Otherwise, they might arouse hostile suspicions among other Maasai, and risk sorcery by Loonkidongi for seeking to filch their techniques. Both my informants were satisfied that they could always protect their system and openly discussed this with me, knowing that I would publish my material.There was no question of filching this information: I gave gifts in exchange for it, like the Maasai who seek a diviner’s advice, and rather as various tourists have been sold oracle horns by Loonkidongi. However, I was warned not to try the system out for myself. Like ‘poison’, it was not the possession of this information that was frowned upon, but the uses to which it might be put. I ask any reader travelling through the Maasai area to respect Loonkidongi and Maasai sensitivity on this matter as they would other aspects of their ritual behaviour. 125

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The oracular number cycle The Maasai have a similar system of counting to our own, based on multiples and powers of 10, whereby 80, for instance, is rendered as ‘10s how many?’ (‘8’).There is a similar tendency in general conversation to round figures to the nearest 10. However, when an oracle is consulted and the pebbles are thrown and then counted, the precise number is critical. Only throws within the range of 111–199 are considered, and these are well beyond the scope of everyday counting for Maasai. Outside this range, the oracle is said to be ‘silent’.Within the range, the final digit of a throw bears the weight of interpretation, although this may be modified by the second digit.There is no suggestion that the precise figure in a throw could be fixed by the diviner, and the final digit would be the hardest of all. To this extent, the most significant digit is also the most random. Among the Loonkidongi, the oracular interpretation of the final digit,‘0’ to ‘9’, is essentially an intricate elaboration of the ritual significance of these numbers among the Maasai. My information on these associations is as follows. ‘0’. The Maasai have no expression for ‘0’, other than a concept of literally ‘nothing’ as opposed to ‘something’ when they say ‘there is not (a thing)’, me-ata (en-toki). This is to express a certain anomaly. Their general optimism in a very uncertain environment is expressed in the notion that just one cow or wife or son can be the foundation of a large family and fortune; but to be robbed of this one possession robs them of hope.2 They are left with nothing, and their prospects are discounted with a rueful shrug.There is no explicit suggestion that exact multiples of 10 contain 0, as in ‘80’, but in their oracular interpretations, where the emphasis is on the final digit, this seems to be implicit in the suggestion of some anomaly, akin to the anomaly of zero, as if (e.g.) 140 : 141 : 142 (etc.) :: 0 : 1 : 2 (etc.). Or expressed slightly differently, 140 is a transitional number, lying beyond the 130s but only at the threshold of the 140s.This is expressed by the notion of ‘silence’: nothingness. The oracle is silent: it does not divulge its knowledge, but has given its own enigmatic shrug.They claim that the oracle cannot lie, but it can be silent, and if it is repeatedly silent on some issue, then the diviner lays it to one side for a time. Oracles are morally neutral, but they do have their moods. The notion that oracular numbers are only meaningful within the range 111–199 is also linked to this belief in the ‘silence of zero’, which even extends to the second digit, overriding any significance attached to the third. The ranges 100–110 and 200–210 are wholly ‘silent’, and it is these extended ‘silences’ that bound the meaningful range of oracular numbers. There are some circumstances where a ‘0’ as the final digit can be taken as a positive answer, but only to counsel inaction because the problem itself is ‘silent’. In the context of migration,‘0’ advises postponing the move. If something has been lost or stolen,‘0’ indicates that it is pointless to attempt to recover it now, for it will remain lost for some time. If a client wishes to restrain a wife from running away or an adversary from pursuing his aggression, then ‘0’ is a positive encouragement, implying that they are metaphorically ‘tied up’ or ‘bound’, inactive and reduced in

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a sense to ‘silence’. Similarly, ‘0’ may indicate that a stray cow is ‘tied up’ and will not run further afield. ‘1’. In a valid oracular throw, with between 111 and 199 pebbles, ‘1’ always appears as the first digit and this is explained through the notion that it refers to the diviner himself as the possessor of the oracle. Thus, for instance, 154 pebbles expresses a bridging from the diviner (‘1’ hundred) to the client’s misfortune (and ‘54’).This echoes the preliminary ritual in setting up the session which followed a similar pattern, bringing the diviner’s ox-hide into conjunction with the client’s cloth, and his pebbles with the client’s body.When the diviner consults the oracle on his own behalf, placing his own cloth on top of the ox-hide and rubbing the pebbles on his own body, then a similar logic applies. Just as the initial ‘1’ is necessary for the throw to be valid, so a further ‘1’ as the final digit is interpreted as especially reassuring and propitious for the diviner: the reflexiveness of his consultation, from him and back to him, is echoed in the symmetry of the numbers (121, 131, 141, etc.). In direct contrast with this interpretation, when the diviner consults his oracle on behalf of some client, then a final ‘1’ is associated with sorcery, even if the client is another Loonkidongi.There are two ways of interpreting this belief.There is an implicit notion of trespass onto the jealous preserves of the Loonkidongi; the client’s final digit has revealed a ‘1’ to which the oracle owner alone has a true right.This is not to suggest that the diviner himself has ensorcelled the client, but the oracle is trying to say that the client has somehow fallen foul of the power of the Loonkidongi, which is the implication of any sorcery. The second interpretation alludes to the aloofness of the notion of ‘1’. According to the Maasai stereotype, a sorcerer is a nefarious individualist, creeping through the bush and bent on his own eccentric course in a society that constantly demands gregarious sharing. In this respect, ‘1’ is distinctly different from the collectivity of higher numbers. This may also relate to the Maasai finger counting in which ‘1’ is the extended index finger.The finger is referred to as ol-asakutani, the sorcerer, and should never be pointed in any direction or at anyone, except in a collective curse (again invoking an element of sorcery).The very fact that ‘1’ is also associated with the diviner himself is consistent with his stereotype as he searches the bush alone for ‘medicines’, and the desolate reputation of Loonkidongi expressed in the Maasai saying that they ‘have no brothers’. Both interpretations seem to converge in the general notion that a final oracular ‘1’ indicates that sorcery is abroad. It is the context of the oracular question that shapes the interpretation. When the diviner consults his oracle on behalf of an ill client, a ‘1’ in the diagnosis would suggest that the illness is caused by sorcery. In a subsequent question relating to the ritual prescription,‘1’ would warn against the proposed remedy, which might have the inadvertent effect of sorcery. If a client wishes to ‘bind’ some enemy outside the moral order of Maasai society and render him harmless, then ‘1’ would indicate an effective formula, implying sorcery but legitimate because the victim is an outsider. When the issue before the oracle concerns the diviner’s own family, as in a question on migration, then it is the possibility of sorcery that is invoked by an oracular ‘1’ rather than the protection. He alone is the owner of the oracle, and the protectiveness of 127

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‘1’ does not extend to members of his family, who would be at risk during the migration. There is a different type of interpretation when a child is lost or perhaps a cow has been stolen. These are situations when sorcery is never suspected, for sorcerers do not indulge in mere abduction. However, the missing thing, like a sorcerer, is alone and cut off from the collectivity, and an oracular ‘1’ in response to a question concerning the direction in which to search is seen as a definite affirmative. ‘2’.When a Maasai is seriously ill, an oracular ‘2’ as the final digit promises recovery and vitality. In ritual terms, a pair may symbolize the minimum collective ideal of Maasai society; two men together can represent the interests of a group as a delegation in a way that one man acting by himself cannot, and ‘2’ is implicitly opposed to ‘1’.There is also a frequent binary opposition in ritual, which expressed most simply is 1  1  2, implying a sense of completeness. On the other hand, an oracular ‘2’ is regarded as ominous for an ill Loonkidongi; he will remain weak and unable to stand.Thus ‘2’ is good for the gregarious Maasai rather as ‘1’ is good for the more solitary Loonkidongi, and vice versa. In real life, the Loonkidongi and Maasai are seen as having inversely related fortunes.The Loonkidongi thrive on the afflictions of their Maasai clients, and this seems to be reflected in the inverted notions underscoring the interpretations of ‘1’ and ‘2’. Outside the context of illness, an oracular ‘2’ is thought to be mildly discouraging; it is calm rather than strong. If migration is contemplated,‘2’ indicates that no purpose would be served since further moves would be necessary. If the moran contemplate a raid, it would indicate that they would find only hoof-prints and not any cattle. If something is lost, it indicates that it is safe, but will not be easily found. ‘4’ and ‘8’. It is useful at this point to break the ascending sequence, since the principle of pairing and binary opposition is extended even more propitiously to ‘4’ (2  2) and ‘8’ (4  4). In Maasai finger signs, the number ‘4’ is indicated by grouping the fingers of the right-hand as two plus two, shaped like a letter V, with a gap between the middle and fourth fingers; and this arrangement is reiterated for ‘8’, shaking the hand from the wrist. A polygynous ideal, though only achieved by few elders, is to have ‘4’ or ‘8’ wives with their huts divided evenly to the right and to the left of his gateway. Blessings, ritual gifts, and sequences tend to reiterate ‘4’ and ‘8’. They are calm (e-bor) and cool (e-irobi ). This principle is incorporated directly into oracular counting, making no distinction between ‘4’ and ‘8’, although they are distinctly stronger than just ‘2’. Both are good for questions concerning marriage negotiations, ceremonies, and migrations – whether to migrate or stay depending on the question – for these are situations in which calmness combined with strength is an ideal. On the other hand, the calmness of these numbers can be inhibiting and they are not appropriate responses where action is called for.When something is lost,‘4’ and ‘8’ indicate that the trail is cool, with the reassurance that it helps to ‘bind’ lost children or stock, protecting them until they are found.Again, elders sometimes seek a diviner’s help to build up their powers in debate against a rival age-set, and ‘4’ or ‘8’ cannot give them the initiative: they will just fudge the issue in a docile compromise. Similarly, while these numbers are ideal for mild 128

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illness or cattle epidemics, returning matters to normal, they cannot help critical illnesses, for the patient will simply remain calm and hence in his debilitated state: rather as ‘2’ enfeebles the Loonkidongi, he will not respond to the challenge. Ritually, among the Maasai, ‘2’, ‘4’, and ‘8’ form a continuum, but when consulting oracular pebbles, there is a discontinuity between ‘2’ on the one hand, and ‘4’ and ‘8’ on the other. ‘3’. An oracular ‘3’ is propitious for stock, and especially cattle. It indicates that they will keep together as a herd and not become separated by thick bush, or rustlers, or illness.3 This gregarious principle is extended beyond cattle to humans in the notion that an oracular ‘3’ offers both a rich prize of cattle for moran on a raid, but also a gathering of enemy warriors, fully prepared to meet them, and the ominous prospect of a pitched battle. Outside the context of livestock,‘3’ is somewhat innocuous and neither good nor bad.Any proposed migration or remedy for an illness would be inconclusive; it does not help to find or ‘bind’ anything other than livestock. There is a faint association of ‘3’ with sorcery, but it also indicates that the attempt has been bungled and the sorcerer in question is somewhat inept. However, the oracular number 133 is taken seriously, because 3  3  6, and ‘6’ is ridden with sorcery. Less ominous combinations with a final ‘3’ (such as 143, 153) are taken to imply that any attempt at sorcery has gone off at half-cock. ‘5’.‘5’ is regarded as a propitious number for ceremonies involving males.This is expressed in the polygynous ideal of ‘2’ wives on each side of his gateway: it is the husband who makes up ‘5’. After a sacrifice, a piece of the hide is placed on the middle finger of each male participant, and this similarly divides the five fingers of the right-hand into the symmetrical relationship: (2)  1  (2). An oracular ‘5’ has similar associations, giving males strength. It is propitious for migrations since both elders and bulls will impregnate their females. It gives strength to seriously ill males, to would-be orators who wish to defeat their rivals in debate, and to raiding moran. In marriage negotiations, however, this strengthening may be a liability, for a suitor needs a soft approach seeking accommodation rather than conquest; and his object is to gain a female, whereas an oracular ‘5’ is not necessarily reassuring for females. If a male possession is lost, ‘5’ indicates that he is at least still alive, but it has no relevance for a lost female. ‘6’. An oracular ‘6’ is the most unpropitious of all numbers in every traditional context. It suggests a more heinous sorcery even than ‘1’, and is unpropitious for Loonkidongi and other Maasai alike. It is sinister for illness or some lost possession, or migration, and the diviner will fear the worst, but will normally ask his oracle further questions in the hope of reassuring himself that this ‘6’ was an isolated event and possibly even a mistake. If ‘6’ persists, he tries no further. Outside the traditional milieu, however, an oracular ‘6’ is regarded as propitious when it refers to money. It indicates, for instance, that a request to a friend for money will be successful, just as the ‘3’ would indicate success if asking for a cow. The dual aspect of ‘6’ seems to reflect the ambivalence of the Maasai towards modern opportunities. Money has crept into their economy, enabling them to live beyond 129

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the confines of their traditional pastoralism. But to obtain money they must sell off their cattle, and to become addicted to things that money can buy is to squander the herd and abuse the principle of stock ownership. Even if selling can be justified in the wider interests of family and herd, it is still regarded as a necessary evil. In this sense, money is a manifest symbol of the threat of modern urban culture. It can buy things that stem from this culture and this bears on power itself. Modern medicine, for instance, is manifestly superior to Loonkidongi techniques. Significantly, it is sometimes rumoured to have been the superior techniques of Europeans in their power struggle with the outstanding Loonkidongi Prophet, Lenana, that led to his early death, through the gift of a red blanket that was impregnated with poison (contra Case 24). Through their culture, Europeans and Africans in authority are assumed to have a power that is superior even to sorcery, and like sorcerers they are outside the moral order of Maasai society.Their money too lies outside this moral order, for it can be easily concealed, like sorcerers’ ‘poisons’ but unlike most other Maasai possessions. With money, it is easier for a man to avoid his obligations to share and it induces him to behave as a greedy individual rather than as a member of a collectivity. It unconstrains him and he is dangerously free. This popular view opposes modern urban culture to Maasai ideals, rather as the Loonkidongi are opposed to Maasai ideals, and the following pattern emerges.4

Loonkidongi : urban culture :: oracular power : power through money :: ‘1’ : ’6’

‘7’. An oracular ‘7’ has a similar bias in favour of women and children that ‘5’ has for men. It is generally good for women’s fertility and for illness among them or their children, and it provides a reassurance that a lost female possession is still alive.The propitiousness of ‘7’ extends to sheep and goats, who are associated with the hut and village life as suitable food for women and children.This propitiousness also extends to consultations on behalf of some other ill diviner or an ill morani, for in their condition they are confined to the village and outside the normal male domain. Beyond this, ‘7’ has a wide range of associations that are coloured by the ambiguous notion that it is useful but troublesome (e-pe), like women.The popular male view of female ineptness is reflected in the beliefs that ‘7’ would be no good for defeating a rival in debate, since it would inspire empty argument rather than oratory; it would wreck any marriage negotiations; and it would be no good for ‘binding’ anyone, since they would somehow wriggle out of it. It would be disastrous for any plans for an orderly migration, for this would turn into an utter shambles, with persistent bickering, household belongings strewn along the route, and cattle straying everywhere. Correspondingly, ‘7’ is unpropitious for those associated with the bush: that is cattle, groups of moran and a diviner consulting on his own behalf. In these beliefs, ‘7’ is opposed to all other odd numbers. It is the opposite of ‘1’ for self-consulting diviners, of ‘3’ for cattle, and of ‘5’ and ‘9’ for men. 130

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‘9’.‘9’, like 5, is propitious where men are involved, and correspondingly it may be linked to the polygynous ideal of an elder with four wives on each side of his gateway: (4)  1  (4). Certain ceremonial herds consist of eight females and a bull. Similarly, as an oracular number, ‘9’ is propitious for males. Beyond this, however, there is an association with sorcery expressed in different ways. An arithmetical link between ‘3’, ‘6’, ‘9’, and sorcery is expressed, rather like the link between ‘2’, ‘4’, ‘8’, and good fortune. Thus 139 and 193 are thought by some to be unpropitious oracular numbers (like 133) because 9  3  6. The principal argument, however, is that ‘9’ is a male preserve (rather as ‘1’ is a Loonkidongi preserve), and it is dangerous for any other category to encroach on it. In this way, the anomalous ‘0’ is flanked by two sensitive preserves, but of these it is ‘1’ that is the more dangerous because the Loonkidongi have direct access to sorcery, which has no moral scruple. By comparison, outside its propitious context for men, ‘9’ serves as a warning to others. These interpretations apply primarily to the final digit of an oracular number. The middle digit has a similar, but altogether weaker significance. A middle ‘0’ (101–109) is again silent and the throw is repeated; ‘6’ (161–169) is always unpropitious for everyone; ‘7’ (171–179) is always unpropitious for cattle; and ‘9’ (191–199) is always unpropitious for non-males.The other ranges of numbers are all acceptable.Where the final two digits are the same (144, 155, 166 etc.), this tends to reinforce the less propitious implications of the final digit. For instance, because ‘5’ is not wholly propitious for women, 155 would caution against migration because women are involved. 166 is extra doom laden. 177 is extra troublesome, even for women. 133 implies 3  3  6 and is unpropitious, even for cattle. 111 and 199 are too dangerously associated with sorcery, even for Loonkidongi and males. Only 122, 144, and 188 emerge as relatively safe doubles. Generally, the second digit has less relevance than the third apart from the shadow it casts on the side of caution, encouraging the diviner to repeat his question with a further throw if necessary rather than providing him with a clear answer. In addition to these, certain other numbers in the range 111–199 may be seen to have a disturbing inner pattern, and it is here that there appeared to be most variation in my data. My principal informant noted the sinister implications of 123 (1 236), whereas my informant from another community drew attention to a wider range of disturbing combinations containing ‘3’, ‘6’, and ‘9’. Both agreed that divergent views could relate to the experience of individual diviners or Loonkidongi communities in rapport with their oracles, as they probed beyond their received knowledge to discern further patterns that were not widely accepted as yet. Rather like the progressive revelation of favourite pebbles, time alone would tell. *** Figures 6.1–6.3 attempt to summarize this range of interpretation in graphical form.This is based on the model of a ‘clock-face’ (Figure 6.1(a)), with the ten digits and a vertical dividing line to ‘0’ as the point of transition from one cycle to the next. A scale of propitiousness is adopted in Figure 6.1(b), modifying the basic 131

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Figure 6.1 The oracular cycle of digits.

clock-face by varying the distance of certain digits from the centre. ‘4’ and ‘8’ are generally propitious and are placed closer to the centre;‘6’ is least propitious and is furthest away, followed by ‘1’; and the remaining digits, including ‘0’, with their good and their bad aspects remain in an intermediate zone. Figure 6.2 elaborates on this basic pattern to indicate the varying significance of each digit, with arrowheads showing inward or outward displacement according to context.With these shifts, propitious digits are again closer to the centre, unpropitious digits are further away, and those with a neutral or mixed significance are in the intermediate zone (as ‘0’ almost always is). Reverting to Figure 6.1(b), one may note that the unpropitious ‘1’ and ‘6’ are the midpoints between the generally propitious ‘4’ and ‘8’. This suggests drawing an ‘axis of misfortune’ between ‘1’ and ‘6’ about which a certain symmetry may be seen in Figure 6.3(a).‘4’ and ‘8’ are matched; there is an explicit linking of ‘5’ which is propitious for males with ‘7’ which in similar respects is propitious for females; and there is the explicit association of ‘3’ and ‘9’ with possible sorcery because like ‘6’ they are multiples of three. The pattern itself is not explicit, but it seems again to reflect the ritual preference among Maasai for symmetry, as was noted in relation to 2, 4, and 8.This is a general motif. At a meat feast, the symmetry of the carcass is implicit in pairing the cuts between opposed categories of feaster.5 Again, in Maasai idiom, the ‘right-hand’ and ‘left-hand’ refer to the formal division of an age-set into two halves, and to the alternation of wives’ huts on each side of an elder’s gateway.The whole notion of right-hand and left-hand is symmetrical, and while the Maasai do not point out that the ten fingers of their hands are the basis of their finger counting language, their two hands can very loosely fit the division of the oracular number cycle into two symmetrical halves. Having noted the symmetry, there is also the notion of inequality in each of these contexts, with the right-hand senior to the left, males senior to females, and so on. Similarly, Figure 6.2 reveals a certain inequality between the two halves of 132

Figure 6.2 Variation of propitious and unpropitious numbers with context.

Figure 6.3 The ‘clock-face’ and the axis of misfortune.

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the oracular cycle. Within the second half, the numbers 7 and 9 are unpropitious in a variety of contexts; whereas in the first half, only 2 is ever really unpropitious and this only relates to one context. Generally, the first half of the cycle has a less unpropitious ring to it. The same two halves of the cycle can be viewed quite differently by emphasizing the repetition of the sequence as the diviner counts upwards. Thus in Figure 6.3(b), the sequence 1–2–4–5 has associations that are repeated in 6–7–8–9. Once again, this may be seen simply as a pattern, but it does have a more dynamic implication.While pure symmetry is a static concept, rather like a reflection in a mirror and with the axis in a mediating role, the repetition of a sequence when counting has a similarity to a recurring cycle in time.Viewed this way, the axis corresponds to points of transition and poses a boundary anomaly, not unlike the marginal phase of a rite of passage. It is time cycles, linked to the causal sequence of events that are fundamental to the Maasai patterning of experience. This may provide an oblique clue, for oracles are concerned with establishing causal links in situations of uncertainty and anxiety that change over time. This leads one to examine more closely the similarities between the oracular number cycle and the Maasai cycles in time.

Maasai time cycles The concept of time among the Maasai involves a series of independent cycles. Beyond their self-evident response to natural rhythms – the daily routines on the one hand and seasonal adjustments over the year on the other – there are some recurring cycles that are essentially symbolic constructions. The notion of cycles extends to their social organization.When they are seeking to convey some principle of alternation between wives, or generations (en-talepa) or age-sets (il-piron) there is a certain enthusiasm for detail coupled with the vague assertion that ‘it goes round and round’ (e-manaa o manaa …). It is at this semi-articulate level that parallels seem to exist that are striking because they recur in a variety of contexts. Cycles may also extend in space. Any village comprises a circular ring of huts with gateways in the outer fence, and these have a prescribed order when a ritual village is built, with the leading gateways facing a propitious direction – North or South – although finer details vary between tribal sections.The principle is elaborated further in the major ceremonies of the clan-conscious Samburu, where every hut and gateway has its position according to lineage seniority, starting with the most senior and working round in a clockwise cycle to the most junior.6 The notion that different directions have degrees of propitiousness is expressed in other ways: blessings should face either North or South, and the dead are laid to rest facing one of these directions with the body laid along the less propitious East–West axis. It is in the East and West that the sun rises and sets, ‘red like blood’ and these directions mark the major transitions of the daily cycle. This suggests a horizontal affinity with the oracular number cycle; that is East & West : North & South :: 1 & 6 : 4 & 8 :: liminal : propitious 134

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The link between East/West and the rising/setting sun bears on the daily cycle, which is the most frequent of the cycles to be considered here. There is a vertical symmetry about the meridian in this cycle, which is expressed in the Loonkidongi practice of only consulting their oracles at certain times of the day. An oracle is believed to respond to questions in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon periods when the cattle are being driven to or from their most distant pastures. It is ‘silent’ in the heat of the day when the sun is overhead and the cattle have reached these pastures and also when they are confined to the village at night and are especially vulnerable to mystical forces from the bush. Three further time cycles may be considered in greater detail. Of these, it is only the lunar cycle that is concerned with the ritual significance of numbers and this is discussed first. The others are the annual cycle of seasons and the age-set cycle of about fifteen years, which are characterized respectively by their economic and political significance.The aim is to discern how far each of these cycles has an affinity with the oracular number cycle that might reflect deeper metaphorical levels of Maasai consciousness. The ritual lunar cycle The days of the Maasai lunar month are associated with degrees of propitiousness for ceremony, and often with certain preferences for male initiations on particular days that vary from family to family. Figure 6.4 summarizes these associations, adopting the same notation as in previous diagrams, with displacement from the centre according to degrees of unpropitiousness. It is the pattern rather than the numbers themselves that is of prime concern here; and again, one may note an axis of transition that separates the cycle into two unequal halves. Each half of the lunar month is counted separately, referring first to the waxing fortnight of evening ‘Lightness’ when the moon rises during the daytime, and then to the waning fortnight of evening ‘Darkness’ when it rises after sunset. More precisely, the lunar month begins when the old moon is no longer visible in the early morning, and the Maasai start to count the days of ‘Lightness’ (Ne-ibor) from that point. The moon remains out of sight for the first three days (1–3), and this is regarded as an unpropitious period for ceremonies until the new moon is first seen in the late afternoon. Because the counting begins when the moon is least visible, the precise number of each day is often an arguable point.The appearance of the new moon ends much of this speculation: when it is sighted, this becomes the beginning of Day 4. During the remaining days of ‘Lightness’, which comprise the most propitious period of the lunar month, the day of the month is sometimes discussed and checked visually against the shape of the moon and its angle with the sun, and then, towards full moon, by noting its height above the horizon as the sun is setting. During this propitious period, days with even numbers are generally propitious, and especially Days 4 and 8 for women’s ceremonies and girl’s circumcisions. The odd numbered days (and especially Days 5 and 9) are propitious for men’s 135

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Figure 6.4 The Maasai lunar month (with unpropitious days displaced outwards).

ceremonies and male circumcisions. Days 5 to 9 form the most propitious period for major festivals; but Day 7, which divides this period into two halves is held by some to be somewhat unpropitious and they would not initiate their own sons then. From Day 14 (Ol-panga), the emphasis switches from counting to naming the days.The moon is nearly full as it rises on Day 15 (Ol-kadet), and Merker translates this as ‘looks across’ at the setting sun: an appropriate expression for a transitional time when the moon is felt to lose contact with the sun.7 The second half-cycle refers to the days of evening ‘Darkness’ (Ne-imin), when the moon is ‘lost’ (ne-imin). Counting starts on the day before full moon, and the naming refers to a series of increasingly dark colours, associated with the moon as it rises later each evening. Day 1 is ‘Green’ (Ol-onyori), and there would be no circumcisions, because it is too close to full moon, which is Day 2 and ‘Red’ (Ol-onyukie).The rising moon at this time reflects the redness of the setting sun.‘It has blood’ and is considered the most unpropitious day of the month, reminiscent of the notion of a malignant ‘Red God’.There would normally be no migrations or ceremonies or hair-shaving on this day. However, a man born at full moon is held to have an immunity and may migrate or be initiated then, and this may become a family custom among his sons. Days 3–5 or ‘Mid-darkness’ (Mugien) are generally propitious, and are ideal for ceremonies performed by the Loonkidongi. Days 6–8 or ‘Deep darkness’ (Sopien) are the last three days that are still sufficiently 136

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propitious for minor ceremonies. From Day 9 onwards, the moon is in its last quarter, rising after midnight, and this is no longer propitious for any ceremony. These days are the ‘Bull of darkness’ (Ol-oingoni leneimin), in other words, utter blackness. From Day 12 onwards, the moon is ‘spoiled’ (e-tarroiye).The last two days of the month when it is just visible in the early morning, Eeroto (14?) and Kilanyata (15?), are also extremely unpropitious, for the moon ‘is dying’.There would be no migrations or head-shaving on these days, and no families appear to claim immunity. As the ceremonial possibilities of the moon dwindle during the last quarter, so the Maasai tend to lose track of their counting, and frequently with bad visibility and a wafer-thin crescent, it is uncertain when the old month has actually ended and a new month begins. The preference is to take no chances, and to wait until the new moon appears and then once again to revive confidence in the numbering of days and a new period of propitiousness. This reveals a pattern whereby unpropitiousness tends to be associated with the transitional points at the extreme phases of the cycle. The notion of the moon ‘dying’ during the transition from an old moon in the morning to a new moon in the evening is an evocative metaphor. Again, the full moon marks a sharp transition from bright to dark evenings. In one context the full moon also is said to ‘die’. This is the expression used for a lunar eclipse, which can only take place at this time when it may transform to a spectacular reddish colour associated unpropitiously with ‘blood’. In the Maasai cosmos, the reassuring aspect of the lunar cycle is its utter predictability, which contrasts with spectacular cosmic irregularities such as comets or eclipses.These are regarded with some awe and are readily associated with any misfortunes occurring at about this time.An eclipse of the moon is more common and less awesome than the appearance of a comet, but it still represents a break in the normal cycle and is a cause for concern. In their view, the full moon is not only like blood but is also accident prone, and by avoiding it ceremonially, no-one will be caught out. Similarly, of course, at the other unpropitious end of the lunar cycle, the Maasai avoid the rarer and more spectacular catastrophe of an eclipse of the sun (cf. Peters 1891: 244). Details of this pattern bear a similarity to certain oracular numbers, sharing the propitious linking of 4 and 8, and of 5 and 9 for males, with 7 as the anomalous mid-point between 5 and 9. Again, the Maasai ideal for ceremony (‘Light’ Days 5–9) is different from the Loonkidongi ideal (‘Dark’ Days 3–5), echoing contrasts in the oracular pattern, and the shift to ‘Darkness’ seems to echo the dark doings of the secretive Loonkidongi and the concern over misfortune and the bush at night among the Maasai. But more intriguing is the similarity in the cyclical pattern. An axis associated with misfortune divides each cycle into two unequal halves. And very loosely, this axis corresponds to the natural points of transition in each case. The silence of ‘0’, which is the true transition of the oracular cycle has an affinity with the more metaphorical silence during the closing period of the lunar month when the associated customs tend to peter out, counting is lost, and the moon itself is spoiled. Silence anticipates the threat of misfortune in each cycle. The parallels at this level are summarized in Table 6.1. 137

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Table 6.1 The oracular and lunar cycles Features in Figures 6.1 and 6.2

Oracular cycle

Lunar cycle

‘Silence’ preceding unpropitiousness Axis of misfortune around points of transition More propitious and extended sub-cycle More ambiguous and curtailed sub-cycle

0 1&6

Days 9–13 of ‘darkness’ Dying moon and full moon

2–5

Active days of ‘lightness’ (4–15)

7–9

Active days of ‘darkness’ (3–8)

The annual cycle of seasons Unlike the lunar cycle, the seasonal pattern of rainfall and drought imposes itself on Maasai pastoralism, and this is reflected in their names for successive seasons and (lunar) months. Figure 6.5 is an elaboration of Figure 4.1, indicating the degree of unpredictability (shaded) around the typical seasonal profile, arranged in a cycle.8 The expectation of rain is always bedevilled by uncertainty, and the only feature that is relatively assured is the prolonged summer drought. During this season, the herds become emaciated, food becomes scarce, and the population tends to disperse in search of sparse grazing further afield. The Maasai then have to adjust themselves to a more rigorous pattern of existence, and ceremonial gatherings on any scale have to be deferred until easier times. By comparison, the ‘dry’ winter period is altogether more unpredictable as it may be offset by some heavy local showers. The contrast between seasons is echoed in the earlier allegory of the benign ‘Black God’, who brings rain-clouds and rain, and the malignant ‘Red God’, associated with relentless drought.9 The spring and autumn rainy seasons are ideal for ceremony and they are separated by drier periods when resources tend to become overstretched, especially during the summer. This creates the elongated pattern shown in the figure. The characteristics of this pattern are again reminiscent of the oracular cycle, with two unequal propitious phases separated by ominous interludes. Unlike the other cycles considered here, the Maasai year has no logical starting point. There is, however, one celestial occurrence that is unique in the Maasai calendar and has a possible relevance.The Pleiades cluster of stars share the same name as the principal rainy season in the spring (In-kokua), and the Maasai see a link between the disappearance of the cluster from the evening sky towards the end of April and the dwindling of the rains at this time. During the six weeks when the Pleiades cannot be seen, there is a notion of a cosmic hiatus: contact with God is lost and there is a suspension of almost all ceremony, for the elders’ prayers would not be heard.There is no pronounced belief in malignant forces at this time, but it is worth noting that it coincides with the transition in Maasai society from the rainy season to the long summer drought, with its apprehension of hunger and uncertainty. 138

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Figure 6.5 The annual cycle of seasons (elaborating on Figure 4.1).

When the Pleiades reappear in June, most parts of the Maasai area are poised for a time of hardship.10 Or to express this in metaphorical terms, this notion of a hiatus separates the two aspects of God. Reverting to the parallel with the oracular cycle, it is a transitional period of ‘silence’, void of ceremony or ritual contact; God abandons the Maasai, anticipating the next unpropitious interlude. At this time of year, the harshness of the drought is predictable, but its attendant misfortunes are unknown and the omens are silent. As with the cycles noted earlier, this elaboration of the basic seasonal pattern is not made explicit by the Maasai themselves, and one must resist any suggestion that the recurring motif in their symbolic cycles has a simple ecological explanation. Nevertheless, it is important to stress the extent to which this seasonal fluctuation and its uncertainties shape their lives and their consciousness, devolving on the condition of their herds. As committed pastoralists, they have not just an eye for the weather, but as many senses as they can muster. The alternation between seasons is an ingrained lifetime experience. On top of this, the Van Gennepian notion of a Godless transitional phase is a cultural overlayer that shapes the year into a pattern resembling the oracular number cycle, as suggested in Table 6.2. 139

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Table 6.2 The oracular and seasonal cycles Features in Figures 6.1 and 6.2

Oracular cycle

Seasonal cycle

‘Silence’ preceding uncertainty Ominous phases Most propitious phase Chequered propitious phase

0 1&6 2–5 7–9

Pleiades hiatus in May Summer and winter dry seasons Heavy spring rains Less reliable autumn rains

The age-set cycle of confidence As a final example, the oracular number cycle may be compared with the age-set cycle of about fifteen years, which focuses on moranhood and underpins the age system as the dominant feature of Maasai society.This cycle is characterized by the division of each new age-set into two successive circumcision groups, those of the right-hand side enjoying a greater share of popular acclaim than those of the left-hand side. Figure 6.6 is an elaboration of Figure 2.2, highlighting similarities with the basic ‘clock-face’ model. In the sequence of events, the arrows in this figure draw attention to the high and low points of popular esteem for the moran, expressed in terms of apprehensiveness and confidence in their ability to fulfil their traditional role. The consummation of moranhood is by no means certain. Historically, each age-set has earned a distinctive reputation, which is not always flattering, and this continues as moranhood adapts in response to new challenges. Recapitulating this cycle, each new age-set is anticipated by the firestick patrons, who suspend male initiations with the threat of a curse, demarcating the boundary between age-sets decisively. The curse is lifted some years later when the patrons kindle the fire that symbolically brings the new age-set to life (A in this figure).At this point there is a certain resemblance to the ‘silent zero’ at the beginning of the oracular number cycle.The new age-set has patrons, but no members or character as yet. Or rather, there are exuberant boys who may dare the moran, but they are still formally outside the age system.The flicker of life is essentially the possibility of future fulfilment, but no-one can say for sure. A season or so after lighting the fire, there follows a spate of initiations, and membership of the right-hand side of the new age-set starts to build up (B). At first, the initiates are placed under ritual restrictions, similar to newly born infants, to protect them from misfortune. It is a period of transition with a certain apprehensiveness of the unknown, and this is shown as an outward displacement in the figure. Politically, the threat to the new age-set is more explicit when the initiates become moran and are no longer protected as rivalry builds up over the privileges of moranhood. Once they have seized the initiative and claimed these privileges, then they become moran in the fullest sense and can claim to rule (C). This is a period of growing confidence that reaches a climax some years later at their eunoto 140

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Figure 6.6 The ‘cycle’ of apprehension and confidence in moranhood.

festival (D). They are at the height of their esteem, and this is indicated by an inward displacement in the figure. The smaller left-hand side follows a similar pattern, but its profile is altogether more muted than for the right-hand (B, C, D). Rivalry with their predecessors of the right-hand is less heated because it is internal to the age-set, and the transfer of the privileges is less likely to lead to affray, but there is also concern over their ability to fulfil their role. Altogether, the left-hand side have a briefer share of a dimmer limelight; and their period as moran is overshadowed by the new curse placed by the next age-set of firestick patrons, stunting their growth in order to prepare for the initiation of their successors. This creates two uncertain points of discontinuity in the cycle. The parallels between the oracular number cycle and the age-set cycle are summarized in Table 6.3. The concern with degrees of propitiousness in an oracular context shifts to a matter of confidence associated with the moran in the age-set context. It is not the threat of sorcery that is expressed in the age-set cycle, so much as a threat to security if the community at large remain unconvinced of the performance of a new group of moran who fail to establish themselves as worthy successors.Any weakness among moran as warriors is perceived as the vulnerability of their society as a whole, even in relatively peaceful times. 141

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Table 6.3 The oracular and age-set cycles Features in Figures 6.1 and 6.2

Oracular cycle

Age-set cycle

Initial silence

0

Apprehensiveness associated with points of transition

1&6

More extended sub-cycle

2–5

More curtailed sub-cycle

7–9

Point when age-set is kindled with no members Periods of initiation and novice moranhood, ending with the acquisition of privileges Phase when the right-hand are unchallengeable Phase when the left-hand are unchallengeable

Conclusion: simulating the pattern of affliction Maasai elders sometimes jokingly suggest that while Loonkidongi diviners have oracles, they themselves have their en-keshei.This is a wooden board game with two rows of holes, containing round pebbles similar to those that are counted in oracles. Groups of pebbles are moved rapidly from hole to hole, along one side and then down the other, with the ultimate aim of removing all the pebbles from the opponent’s side of the board. No serious parallel is suggested between these two very different ways of manipulating pebbles, and yet the game, like the oracular number cycle, displays a motif that has been noted in a variety of contexts in Maasai society: it has its own cyclical motion based on two opposed sides with a point of transition at each end.While the play itself is open-ended, the game is circumscribed by rules, and skill is acquired only through years of practice, like the oracle. For those Maasai who are addicted, the game provokes good-tempered banter, alluding to cattle raiding, and the irrepressible urge by onlookers to preempt the next move on either side.There may be an element of interplay when a Loonkidongi first learns his craft from his seniors, but in the context of his practice as a diviner, the logic of the oracle contrasts with the logic of Maasai interaction in that it is not open to challenge or public scrutiny: it is a closed philosophical system as among the Azande.11 The diviner is not directly engaged in a game with his fellows. Rather this is a form of game with Providence, played vicariously on behalf of his Maasai client and from on high. To his client, his prescription may be firm, but his pronouncements are oblique, with hints rather than promises, as he whispers to the oracle and maintains a degree of mystery. The pattern of oracular numerology suggests that the implicit model is the cycling of time that structures Maasai existence at various levels, bearing on their notions of adversity and the cosmos. At a more inclusive level of awareness, of course, time presses relentlessly on, just as the full oracular number increases with each repetitive cycle of the final digit.The linear aspect of time, like the life-span of the individual and twists of fortune, is unrepeatable. It is as steadily ageing individuals that Maasai have their aspirations for growing families and herds, and 142

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reconcile themselves to disappointment and their mortality. In Chapter 2, the notion of cycles combined with the forward march of time was expressed as an ageing spiral, to emphasize that while the appearance of the age system is of an endless cycle, the experience of those involved is progressive and finite.The accumulation of wisdom and knowledge through social experience stems from this linear aspect of time and extends to Maasai understanding of these time cycles. However, in imponderable situations of affliction or crisis, real or imagined, the wisdom of experience may be overstretched and the normal rules of causality no longer apply. Instead, there is a genuine choice between rational actions, but also a danger of irrational panic, for time is of the essence. It is then that Maasai may turn to Loonkidongi diviners, who have a monopoly of expertise in this area.The oracular consultation provides a framework for action, wise or otherwise, when there is no virtue in being wise after the event, and any strategy can seem better than none. Now, it is number rather than time that is of the essence, but playing on the cyclical system of counting that behaves rather like a cycle in time. In a situation of impending misfortune, when factors of chance are seen to dominate, the oracle throws up numbers by chance, and these are assumed to reveal the unknown, resolving the dilemma of uncertainty. There is a sense in which nothing seems more certain or logical than numbers, but where chance prevails, then an alternative logic revealing a deeper pattern is required.The appearance of patterns recurring in cycles has a mesmeric quality that cannot be pinned down. It is as if there is a deliberate simulation of the forces of Providence interacting with the pattern of misfortune to create order out of disorder. Number cycles replicate cosmological cycles with a homeopathic logic that transcends the calculated and open logic of daily transactions. Chance is used to remedy mischance, rather as a coin might be tossed at random to guide a search for some missing object. By seeming to bring the unknown within the grasp of what is knowable (to the diviner at least), malevolent forces are exorcized and misfortune can be faced. It is an important step back towards normality, although at the expense of confirming Maasai reliance on the mystical power of the Loonkidongi. The perception of oracular numbers, then, appears to be a metaphor based on the cyclical predictability of aspects of Maasai society and cosmology coupled with the unpredictability of Providence. The repetitive cycles have a reassuring Durkheimian quality of being timeless and predictable, like society itself, surviving the mortality of individuals and eminently given to metaphysical interpretation.12

Notes 1 The Maasai finger language has been recorded by Merker (1904: 149–50), Hollis (1905: 40–1), Gulliver (1958), and Mol (1978: 116). 2 Cf. Hollis 1905: 288; Pastoral Continuum: 34. 3 One is reminded of Georg Simmel’s analysis of ‘3’ as the nucleus of a society with a robust immortality that a twosome lacks (Simmel 1950: 145; cf. Pastoral Continuum: 76). 4 Nina Johnsen (1997: 252) records the emergence of another way in which the ambiguity of money has been incorporated into Maasai symbolism. When an accused man is

143

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5 6 7

8

9 10 11

12

subjected to a conditional curse, he may be invited to suck a coin and swallow his saliva, which will ‘poison’ him if he is guilty. Cf. Case 12. See Matapato (pp. 259–61) for a fuller elaboration of this principle in dividing meat for a feast. Samburu: 92. Compared with my own data collected among Matapato, John Galaty (1983: 367–73) has recorded an altogether more elaborate attention to direction in the eunoto festival of the Loodokilani Maasai. Merker 1904: 154–5. Merker also refers to Day 10 as ‘silent’ (ne-gera), cf. the oracular zero above. Logically, these terms for the moon should refer to nights rather than days, and this was expressed by the Samburu (Nomads: 70, 126–7; cf. Mol 1978: 105). However, in performing their ceremonies, the Maasai clearly referred to the preceding day until they lost count. See p. 95 n. 5.This cyclical form of representation is taken with permission from Western (1973: 139); cf. Pastoral Continuum: 147, 224. Mol (1978: 106) lists a collation of sources on the variety of names for months and seasons among the Maasai; cf. Nomads: 6, 124–5, indicating the similarity of this seasonal profile further north. See pp. 75, 95 n. 10. Hollis (1905: 333) refers to June as the first month of the Maasai year, which is consistent with the present interpretation of the disappearance of the Pleiades as the ‘silent’ precursor of the cycle. Pastoral Continuum: 51–2. Cf. Evans-Pritchard (1937: 12, 75, 80, 313ff.) regarding the self-perpetuating logic of Zande oracles in coping with problems that ranged from the knowable to the unknowable. One may also note parallels among the Loonkidongi concerning: the necessity of owning an oracle among the Azande (1937: 262); the range of restrictions to ensure success (pp. 281, 284, 299); the experience required to frame the questions in the right order (p. 85); Zande notions that the oracle is impersonal and does not lie (pp. 263, 330); and methods of coping with apparent contradictions (pp. 330, 351).The Zande suggestion (p. 263), that oracles are to them what paper is to Europeans as a source of knowledge, is also echoed among the Loonkidongi, who expressed a more positive attitude towards the opportunities of schooling for their children than other Maasai. Such is their faith in their oracles (as among the Azande) that they do not see this as either a contradiction or a threat. Cf. Durkheim 1912: 10; Geertz 1973: 399; Bloch 1977: 285.

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Part II DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

7 THE PURKO MAASAI IN 1977 A northern model

The sixteen tribal sections that comprise the Maasai are largely independent of one another, but they display a unity that sets them apart from other Maa-speaking peoples, because they share the same age-set cycle and an overlapping array of clans. Beyond this unity, there are local shifts of emphasis and nuance in their practices and beliefs.While there is a degree of randomness in this variation, there also appears to be a broad pattern that places greater emphasis on the anomalies of moranhood in the north and on the rivalries between age-sets in the south.This is illustrated in the next two chapters with reference to the two dominant tribal sections: the Purko and the Kisonko. Significantly, these two claim a tradition of peaceful alliance throughout an earlier period of Maasai infighting; and they are each involved in separate events during the age cycle, inaugurating each new age-set in the north and culminating the transfer to elderhood in the south.These two events synchronize the age system for all Maasai, overriding variations in its inner workings at a local level. In terms of sheer scale and self-presentation – and how they are perceived by others – the Purko and Kisonko are without peer. In Kenya, the Purko see themselves as the true representatives of Maasai society: ‘Purko’ is synonymous with ‘Maasai’, and they regard what they do as the only valid version of true Maasai practice.They are remembered as the seat of resistance against colonial attempts to encourage education and curb the system of moranhood, and their defiance led to more laissez-faire policies towards the Maasai generally. Since that time, the Purko have adapted politically, while resisting cultural compromise. Change has inevitably penetrated their area, emanating from the border areas and the administrative centre at Narok, but apathy towards education remains widespread and a parallel discourse still persists, maintaining traditional ideals quite independently of trends towards cultivation and tourism in certain areas.1 It is the situation as it appeared in 1977 that is presented here, with the aim of highlighting aspects that seemed especially characteristic of Purko at that time.

The role of boys in inaugurating a new age-set The Purko belong to a group of northern tribal sections that play a leading role in inaugurating each new age-set. Other Maasai would not start fresh initiations until 147

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the news has filtered down that the boys of the north have ‘seized the ox’s horn’. Once this cue has been given, the remaining tribal sections may follow suit in their own ways at any time, and some may lag by several years. Among the Purko, expectations for a new age-set would build up from the time that the left-hand age-group of moran had abandoned their manyata villages and started to discard the restrictions on their lifestyle. Freed from these, they no longer depended on the company of their peers, undercutting the principle of sociability that characterized manyata life. Increasingly, uninitiated girls would begin to regard the moran as too old, and from this point, the ‘privileges’ of moranhood lost their lustre. Older boys were now free to assume these, placing themselves at the centre of popular attention perhaps three years before the new right-hand initiations. They could put red ochre on their heads, yelp, grunt, cross the centre of any village, eat meat in the forest, join the moran in lion hunts or sorties against cattle raiders, and have sexual relations with consenting girls.They could not assume the remaining ‘privileges’ until they actually became moran. These were the right to braid their hair, to put dark hafts in their spears, to carry shields, and to take their girls to their forest feasts. Meanwhile, they would be spurned by older girls, who expected to marry and remained attached to the retiring moran. Although these moran were poised for elderhood, initiations were still permitted and an occasional post-manyata recruit might add to their number.At the same time, elders of the age-set preceding these moran were poised to become the firestick patrons of the new age-set, and their first task was to stem these tail-end initiations. In front of a group of older boys, some of these prospective patrons would lay a curse on further initiations on behalf of all Purko. From this point, there was a growing body of mature boys awaiting initiation. During the wet seasons that followed, when they could be spared from herding, these boys danced from village to village, recruiting more boys, or they might ask for an ox for slaughter from any elder who could not spare his son. A spirit of self-reliance and autonomy would build up among the boys, and popular leaders began to emerge with growing confidence. They had to aim to impress everyone with their concerted strength as a unified force before their firestick patrons would take the next step. The patrons did not expect feats of courage or endurance, such as killing a lion, so much as a united display of mature responsibility, taking risks only when life or herd were at stake. Once the boys were convinced in this respect, the age-set of firestick patrons mustered their numbers from all parts of Purko and migrated to establish a very substantial village.This was the ‘village of the enkipaata’, which was named after a flamboyant dance that the boys would perform at the end of the festivity. They summoned the boys and selected the most promising candidate with qualities of leadership to be principal spokesman for the prospective right-hand age-group. He was their go-between, and the patrons presented him with a list of demands.They wanted oxen for feasting, money to brew beer, and above all ceremonial fur capes.2 The amount of each was specified.The boys would beg the money and the oxen from their fathers, but the capes could only be provided by the Dorobo hunters 148

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and gatherers of Mau, and these would take time to prepare.The ceremonial village would not disperse until the boys had returned with all these goods after several months.The whole period was marked by the boys’ dancing, and possibly an occasional lion hunt to provide themselves with ceremonial headdresses for their enkipaata dance. It was only when they had fulfilled their patrons’ demands that they were given permission to perform this dance during the final four days of the festival. This involved parading around the countryside, half-naked to display the fact that they had pubic hair and were mature enough for circumcision, and wearing war finery that they had borrowed from their older brothers. The boys were now grooming themselves for the next event: a visit to their neighbours, the Keekonyukie Maasai, to take part in the ceremonial competition of seizing ‘the ox’s horn’ (emuwo olkiteng), the inaugural event for the new age-set throughout all Maasai.3 The contest was between four northern tribal sections: Keekonyukie, Purko, Damat, and Uasinkishu.The Purko were larger than the other three combined, and the pressure on their boys to win this competition was intense.Their patrons insisted that Purko must win this contest by seizing the ox’s horn first; and Keekonyukie as hosts were equally keen that they should at least come second, grabbing the hump.This left a residual competition between Damat and Uasinkishu for third place, grabbing the underside.The explicit challenge for the Purko boys was that they must win at all costs. Forty-nine Purko firestick patrons would set out for Keekonyukie beforehand as a peaceful delegation, leading their wives to establish the Purko sector within the ceremonial ‘village of the horn’.The boys set out as a posse, with spears, clubs, thigh-bells and red ochre on their heads, and apprehensive of the pressures on them to excel.They brought their own herd of cattle to avoid relying on their hosts for food, for they had been warned against the possibility of becoming enfeebled by Keekonyukie sorcery. At the village, a Keekonyukie boy of Lukumai clan always acted as host and provider of the ceremonial ox (lolpolosolkiteng), and he was given stock by the other competing tribal sections. On the day of the contest, the climax was marked by the return of cattle from grazing, including the ceremonial ox. At this point, everyone would be waiting in small groups for one boy to make the first move.To win, the Purko patrons had to devise some ruse. If any Purko boy just ambled towards the ox, then boys from the rival groups would start to race and even beat him to seize the ox’s horn first: his chances would be no greater than theirs, and his initiative would then appear inept. The Purko might therefore dress up their most athletic performer as an elder, squatting among the other Purko patrons, his head cowled and pretending to drink beer as it was passed round.When the cattle came home in the evening, the boys from various tribes would be waiting in anticipation for the first to make a move, while the elders in their small groups looked on. When general attention was directed away from him as the ox entered the village, the athlete would throw off his disguise and race towards the ox and win the contest, just beating a Keekonyukie athlete (breaking cover from his ruse). For a while consternation would reign. That night, the boys of all tribal sections carefully guarded the 149

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ox against any possible attempt at sorcery, and next morning it would be driven to the bush and sacrificed for a feast.The Keekonyukie firestick patrons then kindled a fire for all Maasai, bringing the new age-set to life. A striking feature of this ceremony was the pronounced belief in sorcery on the one hand and yet the total absence of a Loonkidongi involvement on the other. Unlike other major ceremonies of the age cycle where each tribal section sought protection from their Prophet, elders in the north argued that the ‘ox’s horn’ ceremony did not concern any particular Prophet and was more ancient than the Loonkidongi involvement in Maasai affairs. They regarded themselves as strong enough to cope on their own without seeking a higher patronage, even for protection from the sorcery of ill-wishers; and both the ox after it had been seized and the fire that the patrons kindled to roast it were carefully guarded by boys. Having won the competition, the possibility of sorcery was taken even more seriously by the Purko than the possibility of an affray.The athlete would be smuggled out of Keekonyukie and the other Purko boys would leave the area very discreetly. The Purko patrons too returned home and lifted their curse, giving permission for the new initiations.They took satisfaction in having contrived their protégés’ victory, aware that their successors would have to plan a different ruse in about fifteen years time. The coming together of the four northern tribal sections to inaugurate a new age-set was echoed after their circumcisions when the initiates toured the countryside, dancing and visiting each other’s areas, and again years later, when they sent delegations to one another’s eunoto festivals. Such visits reaffirmed the principle that the four tribal sections were close allies. As age mates they could always claim that the others were not strangers (iloonkuapi) but trusted age mates (iloolporror) who had danced together as boys.4

The segregation of the manyata from the domestic domain After the initiates had become novice moran, they were recognized as the righthand side of a new age-set (i.e. an ‘age-group’). From this point, they forged a path through moranhood that would be followed years later by those who were initiated as the left-hand side.Throughout Maasai, moranhood was characterized by the avoidance of meat seen by married women, even their own mothers. After initiation, adopting this avoidance was highlighted when each novice morani provided his first forest feast: his ‘ox-of-the-wooden-earplugs’, which he shared with some of his friends. Among the Purko, this involved an element of horse-play and sexual innuendo between the novices and their mothers, who came to claim their cuts of meat. The next step was for all the novices to set up their manyata villages in each part of Purko with a show of force.They mobilized as posses (impikasin) and mounted a series of dawn raids on their fathers’ villages. The mother of each morani would be ‘snatched away’, together with a bull and a small herd of female cattle. These would be led to the site for their manyata, where the mothers-ofmoran would set up their huts as ‘manyata-mothers’. If an elder had moran sons by 150

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several wives, then only the most senior wife would be taken away, and the sons of her co-wives were then attached to her hut. The father could negotiate to offer one of the other mothers-of-moran instead, or even two wives if he was unusually wealthy and they were both popular with the moran. But he was not in a position to refuse any of his wives, and the moran were reluctant to vary their practice except with good reason. For instance, a mother-of-moran would not be snatched away if she was her husband’s only wife, but her moran sons would still join the manyata, and they would attach themselves to some other hut as foster sons. Each manyata oversaw a particular territory, and this normally determined the catchment area for recruitment (Figure 3.1(c)). However, the ideal of Purko solidarity rose above the rivalry between manyata villages that characterized some other tribal sections. If a family had closer links with a neighbouring territory, for instance, the moran sons were allowed to lead their mothers to that manyata as an alternative, or indeed to any manyata of their choice within Purko. If just one morani son did not want to move elsewhere, however, then his mother had to join the local manyata and remain with it until it disbanded. Any of her sons could transfer to another manyata without her at any time, where they would live as paupers, without a mother or cattle, but she was not allowed to accompany them.Very occasionally, it was the manyata-mother also who was left as a pauper – with cattle but no sons; and it was then only a matter of time before the spokesmen of the two manyata villages would confer for the return of her sons. This would always be granted, for Purko spokesmen were not prepared to lose their dignity over such issues, and if the sons refused to return then they would be handed over by force. When the manyata was set up, a more critical situation arose if a Purko family had recently migrated to a neighbouring tribal section.The flamboyant display of the posse as a snatch-force to set up the manyata then had a further significance. Beyond the show of strength against ambivalent fathers, there was a very public trespass against their neighbours, claiming their rights.This was the critical activity that marked the boundaries between tribal sections, beating the bounds as it were, and by convention legitimate posses would not be opposed. Beyond the ideal of Purko unity, the display of recruitment marked the emergence of a new age-set as an unstoppable force; and then, half-way through the cycle of moranhood, the display of the left-hand age-group reaffirmed their commitment. The extent of manyata autonomy was demonstrated by the independence of moran to assert their physical presence. The strength of feeling for their manyata system among Purko moran may be judged from a celebrated example. Case 25. In the 1920s, an attempt was made by the colonial administration to abolish the manyata system throughout the Kenya Maasai in order to dampen the independent spirit of moran and force them to settle down more quickly to elderhood. At this time, the right-hand side of Terito age-set were moran, and with this official support to boost their authority, leading firestick patrons of Twati age-set at first managed to assert themselves over their protégés. 151

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However, there was growing resentment among the Purko moran, who remained unsettled at first, and then feeling their strength after a series of incidents, they defied their patrons and mobilized to build their manyat. By this time, both elders and administration lost the determination to pursue an unpopular policy, and the moran of other tribal sections then followed the Purko lead and built their manyat, again by fait accompli, asserting their independence as they always had done.The role of Purko moran above all others in defying both their patrons and the colonial overlords has become legend among Maasai generally.5 This example reflected the popular ambivalence towards the manyata system among Purko elders.The manyat kept moran in their place at the expense of losing control over them. The emphasis on self-imposed discipline and a role in the defence of stock expressed an ideal, but in moments of irritation, the elders would also describe moran in general as wild predators (ilowarak) who constantly begged for oxen to eat at their forest feasts, or as wastrels (ilwishiwish) who loitered with adulterous intent near the elders’ villages, instead of devoting themselves to their own business. Abolishing the manyata system could exacerbate the problem rather than resolve it. The emphasis in manyata life, invoking past military ideals, concerned discipline and interdependence as prerequisites for unity. When moran visited the elders’ villages to share milk or for other purposes, they were expected to keep company in groups of four or more and return to the manyata. There was no question of excluding social misfits from this company, but rather a concern to bring them within their regime.This even included wastrels, who had failed to develop responsibility towards cattle and wandered through life without purpose. It was argued that they could come to their senses at any time, and meanwhile the manyata accepted a parental responsibility. Because of the concern for discipline and order, the manyata was also regarded as an ideal place for maturing children, where they would be under closer supervision than in the disorganized milieu of normal village life. When a mother-ofmoran was seconded to the manyata, the father could decide which of his uninitiated children should accompany her: just one son to serve as a manyata herdboy, and any daughters to help their mother under her tutelage. Girls were also the sexual playthings of moran, but only within the strict conventions of the manyata, which required marked loyalty among moran rather than rivalry. Each girl would choose a formal lover (olangata) and his substitute (osolemai ) from among the manyata moran. A girl who did not live at the manyata was free to choose any Purko morani as her formal lover, even from a neighbouring manyata territory, but she could not then switch to a new lover who lived in another manyata, for this would stir up rivalries.A clear distinction was drawn between sexual relations with any girl, which were freely shared even with visiting moran from a neighbouring manyata, and the protective relationship that she had with her lover. For him to resent her having casual sex with another morani was a punishable offence, and she should not resent his casual encounters with other girls. But he might threaten to 152

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spear any morani who slighted her or insulted him in her presence. He expected her to be wholly loyal, or she had to return the beads he had given her; and if her mother did not approve of her choice of lover, then she could tell the girl to return these beads. Prompted by popular opinion among girls and their mothers, there was no limit to the number of formal lovers any morani could have, and this bore on his prestige, but not necessarily his sexual encounters. The father of a moran might visit the manyata and stay a few nights with his wife, when he would be treated courteously, but few elders wanted to stay longer, for the manyata was a place for ‘children’.The father could at first decide which of his uninitiated children might go to the manyata village, but he could not withdraw them at will. The normal way of obtaining any concession was to approach the manyata through its spokesman with the gift of an ox for slaughter, in order that the matter should be debated by the manyata, culminating with a feast. This would be the procedure for a father wishing to marry off a daughter who was at the manyata, for instance, but the moran would be under no pressure from other elders to comply. Or again, this would be the procedure if one of their number felt compelled to leave the manyata in order to manage his family affairs, perhaps after his father’s death.The manyata might agree that he should marry in order to establish continuity within the family, but they were less likely to agree that he should transfer from the manyata or bring his bride to live there.The manyata was not a place for wives, and she would have to remain at the father’s village. In addition to the principal spokesman for the age-group, who had been selected by the firestick patrons as a boy, each manyata had its own spokesman, and he was chosen by his peers for his acumen and qualities of leadership.As a key figure in their affairs, he chose a number of other moran to advise and help him as his personal aides (i-murto), even as many as twenty-five in a large manyata, where moran were often scattered in small groups over the extensive manyata territory. With the help of these aides, he was the centre of a dispersed network of intelligence and had considerable authority in matters of immediate concern. He held his position by popular consent, and in the final resort he might be replaced by his aides if he failed to live up to their expectations. In earlier times when a manyata embarked on a raid, his aides would protect him and restrain him from the fighting, for he had to be the clear-headed leader who steered the enterprise at each stage, and he was too important to risk in an affray. Senior to all others was the manyata spokesman at Nkoituko, who had been selected as a boy to be the principal spokesman by the firestick patrons. He could only be replaced if he died before the eunoto festival, which would be devastating for his whole age-group. He, above all, had to be protected from risk before eunoto, and he was not allowed to leave the Purko area for fear of sorcery. Thus, while the various manyata spokesmen were ideally placed to be selected for delegations to the Purko Prophet, the principal spokesman could not join them, since he might be trapped by a rival Prophet when passing through his domain (Case 24). Instead, his manyata at Nkoituko was the assembly point for each delegation before setting off with his instructions, and again on their return to report back to him. 153

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In managing their affairs, the moran of a manyata cultivated the art of discussion at general meetings to resolve differences of opinion, always striving for manyata unity as the ultimate ideal. The emphasis was on democracy, and the manyata spokesman’s role was to steer the arguments towards a consensus view, sensitive to the various strands of interest. The stress on debating groomed the moran for elderhood, and it also taught them to respect the force of strong and imaginative argument. Some of the most graphic accounts of early encounters with the Maasai noted the skill of their leading orators among both moran and elders.6 Popular democracy merged into democratic leadership, and a successful manyata spokesman with charismatic qualities could build up a powerful reputation, launching him on a career in elderhood; while other spokesmen might lose their flare and find themselves out-manoeuvred by those who emerged on their merits as leading spokesmen among elders.Two influential spokesmen were remembered as legendary figures among the Purko for their uncompromising stance against the moran. Partaloi Olegilisho was the prime-mover of Twati age-set who attempted to rein in the Terito moran (Case 25); and Kintai Olemashikonde was the Dareto spokesman who succeeded in pursuing this policy as a leading firestick patron of the next age-set, Nyankusi (Case 28). A third Purko spokesman acquired a legendary status for defying Olegilisho as a morani. Case 26. The fact that the principal morani spokesman in Purko could not be replaced before eunoto posed a problem for democratic leadership.When the boys of Terito age-set gathered for their enkipaata inauguration, Olegilisho persuaded other Twati elders that Lengarabali Olemutelu should be selected as the principal spokesman, for he was clearly a powerful figurehead whom the boys respected. Olegilisho then tried to force these boys to settle down to elderhood immediately after their initiation (Case 25), and obtained two wives for Olemutelu, including one of his own daughters. According to the Purko, Olemutelu’s forceful qualities grew beyond restraint and he acquired a notoriety of his own. His age peers were afraid of him and he showed no respect for elders, even Olegilisho, his father-in-law and patron. Olegilisho cursed him, and as a result one of Olemutelu’s wives died and the other ran away.Then Olemutelu died childless,‘leaving a deserted village’ (emuaate).This was held to demonstrate the power of the firestick patrons’ curse, but it also reinforced the need to retain moranhood so that young men would mature and develop respect for their peers. Olemutelu’s isolation was a symptom of Terito malaise. Beyond this, Olegilisho’s own reputation as a spokesman was dented by his misjudgement in selecting Olemutelu and attempting to suppress moranhood prematurely. It was in this climate that the Terito moran managed to assert themselves and build their manyata villages after Olemutelu’s death, and their firestick patrons of Twati agreed to formalize this step, disregarding Olegilisho’s opposition. The separation of manyata villages into clearly defined territories reduced the possibility of rivalry between them, and the spokesmen of neighbouring manyat 154

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were expected to confer when there were tensions, with a view to maintaining Purko unity. Cattle raiding or even pilfering the odd cow, for instance, should only take place across the boundaries of Purko, for it would be a breach of manyata discipline to steal cattle from another part of Purko.When cattle had been stolen from a particular spot, the moran of that manyata territory could pursue the thieving party through neighbouring territories, but the neighbouring manyat would only become involved in response to an explicit request.The sporadic theft of sheep or goats within Purko was an aggravation, but it was too commonplace to be regarded as a serious issue for the manyata, where there were no small stock anyway. An elder might involve his own moran sons to trace stolen sheep or goats, and should then settle this issue through a meeting of elders and not the manyata. In principle, elders did not want to implicate the moran is any dispute that they were handling for themselves, and the moran did not want to be implicated. If any elder tried to involve his moran sons in the settlement of a debt by force, then this would simply widen the dispute: the sons would have to placate the debtor, the father would have to placate his age mates for a breach of age-set discipline, and manyata unity might be compromised. Within each manyata territory, the firestick patrons preferred to remain aloof from manyata affairs. On behalf of the others, four leading patrons were nominated as manyata guardians with an overseeing role, and the manyata spokesman would visit them to liaise on current issues. More rarely the four patrons would visit the manyata to address the moran, haranguing them to reaffirm the limits of manyata autonomy.Very occasionally, a more concerted body of up to thirty patrons might descend when the moran had violated the domain of the elders, and notably when this concerned adultery, which challenged the elders’ monopoly over wives. On these occasions, the patrons were both the ritual sponsors of the age-set and guests of the manyata, and they could threaten to leave if they were not generously hosted with meat and beer.This was to hint at their curse, and the moran and their mothers were expected to plead with them to stay.The patrons, would berate the moran incessantly, instilling the fear of their curse for betraying the ideal of moranhood. Elders of more senior age-sets might come to join in this haranguing if they too were upset. Meanwhile, the manyata spokesman had to sit in silence among the elders, and he was expected to reiterate the patrons’ demands in future manyata discussions, acting as their agent.The manyata shared responsibility for the actions of every morani, and if just one had encroached on the elders’ domain, the patrons had a pretext for responding with a show of oppression.The elders would only give their blessing and leave the moran again to govern themselves once they had humiliated the culprits in front of their peers and were satisfied that their ultimate power had been firmly re-established. The condition for manyata autonomy, was that the moran should confine themselves to their own domain and this was especially marked among the Purko. Elders too welcomed it as a means towards maintaining control over their own affairs (and those of their younger wives). In other tribal sections, this ideal was more blurred in practice. In Matapato, for instance, there was a broad balance between moran 155

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who went to the manyata and those who remained living with their fathers; fathers could recall their uninitiated sons or daughters from the manyata at will; the firestick patrons had to be involved if a manyata spokesman was to be replaced. None of these applied in Purko, where the greater autonomy of the manyata corresponded to a more rigid segregation from the elders’ villages. Again, moran adulterers were regarded as thieving wastrels in both societies, but whereas Matapato elders viewed those who had been caught as evidence of a widespread vice among moran, the Purko elders held up the moran ideal, questioning the right of adulterers to parade as moran and emphasizing their disloyalty in a humiliating breach of the manyata discipline. Unlike Matapato, Purko moran were relatively free of suspicion when they visited the villages of elders to share milk together: the elders were prepared to trust them in groups, whereas those in Matapato were not. Generally, the Purko portrayal of moranhood was closer to the Matapato fantasy of the ultra-purist and chaste diehards.These were held to have been a reclusive warrior elite, who kept away from the villages and wives of elders and led the moran unflinchingly into battle. When I described this scenario to Purko elders, they insisted that the same ideals had applied to all their moran and not just to a warrior elite. Compared with Matapato, the greater stress on the separation from the elders’ villages among the Purko corresponded to greater solidarity between manyat throughout the Purko section and notably in their laissez-faire attitude towards recruitment in the first instance. In this respect, the Matapato displayed more territorial rivalry between manyat, and offered no leeway for moran or girls who might wish to affiliate with a neighbouring manyata.7

Eunoto Purko descriptions of their eunoto festival mark it out as the climax in the extended transition to elderhood, corresponding in importance to the olngesher ceremony among the Kisonko (Chapter 8).This was the only occasion when all Purko moran came together, making it the largest ritual gathering anywhere in Maasai at any time.8 The festival was preceded by a delegation of leading firestick patrons and moran to their Prophet to help select the most propitious course of action through divination. A secondary aim was to minimize the risk of sorcery, and for this reason, the Prophet’s advice was a carefully guarded secret until the time of the festival.Three details that had to be settled were a suitable site for the festival manyata, two suitable oxen for the sacrifices, and two suitable moran to lead the way to elderhood. The eunoto festival was figuratively the ‘planting’ of the age-group, and focused on the installation of a ritual leader, the one-who-is-planted (olotuno) to lead the way to a settled elderhood, and also a deputy ritual leader who should accompany him throughout the festival.The role of the ritual leader was quite different from that of the principal spokesman who had been selected for his astute qualities as a boy.The principal spokesman was protected during moranhood as his death would 156

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rob the Purko moran of their key strategist and undermine their confidence. For this reason, he was also felt to be a prime target for any Loonkidongi sorcerer who wished to discredit the Purko Prophet. However, his survival was no longer strictly relevant once his age mates had become established at the eunoto festival, and this was the point at which the ritual leader was installed. The qualities required of a ritual leader were very different from those of the spokesman, and so were the associated beliefs. He had to be wholly unblemished in terms of his physical appearance, ancestry, and equable character. His position gave him coercive powers over his age mates, who should always be calm in his presence, behaving as elders, or this could provoke his curse. Overshadowing the power of the ritual leader was the belief that he could die early, and to soften his anger, a wife was chosen as a gift from his peers, in the hope that he would leave behind at least one son before he died. Thus, the threat towards the principal spokesman was a threat against all his moran followers; while the shadow overhanging the ritual leader was personal and seemed to touch on the sombre and mystical shadow of elderhood, which the moran dreaded. Eunoto represented the high-point of an age-group’s career as moran, leading them to the threshold of elderhood; and the switch of focus from the principal spokesman to the ritual leader at this point was a solemn reminder of what this implied. Case 27. According to Purko elders, when the Talala age-set were moran, the Prophet Mbatian was approached regarding the appointment of a ritual leader. Mbatian was said to have consulted his oracle and concluded that the most propitious choice was the principal moran spokesman, Terere. Endowing the same man with the two roles in succession was unprecedented, and the Purko asked Mbatian to reconsider. He again consulted his oracle carefully and was satisfied that Terere was the best choice. However, it was not anomalous, they argued, for there is no overlap in the roles of principal spokesman (before eunoto) and ritual leader (after eunoto), and hence there was no contradiction. Terere died as a relatively young elder.9 Before congregating on one spot to celebrate their eunoto, the moran would lead their mothers to rebuild their manyata villages on separate sites nearby, and then they converged to occupy separate parts of the joint eunoto manyata. At one time, individual manyat would vie to establish their huts in the eastern sector – the superior side (shumata) – reminiscent of the rivalry to grab the ‘ox’s horn’ among boys. This coming together could ignite the rivalries between the manyat that had been carefully avoided up to this point, and it became a controversial issue during the critical period of pacifying the Purko moran. Case 28. When the right-hand of Dareto age-set moved to neighbouring sites for their eunoto, two of the manyat had been keen to hold their eunoto as soon as possible, but this was resisted by two others, leading to a direct confrontation when one morani was killed. A more serious incident occurred at the 157

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next stage of a later eunoto when the protégés of Dareto (the right-hand of Nyankusi) converged to build their joint eunoto manyata. On this occasion, the rivalry to occupy the eastern sector escalated to a fight, wounding twenty moran and hurting some elders and women in the confusion. Following the earlier episode when moran of the previous age-set had appeared to gain the upper-hand (Case 25), the firestick patrons (Dareto age-set) were determined to establish control and rein in the moran.Taking the initiative after this clear breach at a festival that formally marked the maturity of moran, the patrons insisted that eunoto now should mark the end of their moranhood.The moran would not return to their separate manyat but to their fathers’ villages and hand over the ‘privileges’ of moranhood to boys destined for the next age-group. It also seems to have followed from this episode that a significant number of orphaned initiates would be forced in future to marry early and take over responsibility for their families as premature elders, bypassing moranhood and reducing the potential for trouble among moran (Table 2.1).This was the most radical shift in Maasai practice during colonial times, with the firestick patrons clearly in control. The eunoto festival was now viewed with mixed feelings. For the moran, it marked the point at which they became ‘great’ – senior moran – and it involved a supreme public display of their moranhood and of Purko unity, but it also marked the end of their autonomy as moran, and they hated any threat by the firestick patrons to hold this festival ahead of time, hastening their passage to elderhood. For the elders, disbanding the manyat represented a return to normality in various ways, but it also brought young men closer to their wives and the competition for wives. It represented as radical a transition in social relations as the earlier stage when the manyat had first been set up. This shift in Purko practice was adopted by others, such as Loita, although in varying degrees. Among the Matapato, for instance, it became fully accepted that the manyata period should no longer extend beyond eunoto, but the issue of handing over the ‘privileges’ remained unresolved; and rivalry over these ‘privileges’ persisted more generally among the southern Maasai (Figure 7.1(b)).Thus, while the principle of manyata autonomy was upheld to an unusually marked degree among the Purko, there was also now a smoother transition from each manyata to its successor from this point. The importance of eunoto was reiterated when delegations from the previous age-set would bring token gifts to add to the feasting at the festival. Other delegations might be of moran from Keekonyukie or Uasinkishu with whom the Purko had competed to grab the ‘ox’s horn’ as boys. These visitors were given generous hospitality during their brief stay, but they had to leave before the main ceremony. There was no suggestion of sorcery, but just the notion that denying them hospitality in the first instance or their presence subsequently could break the spell (egil entalengo).The principal guests were the firestick patrons, and they had to be hosted lavishly so that they would stay to stage-manage the climax. If they felt underfed 158

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or disgruntled, they might histrionically threaten to leave during the proceedings, knowing that the moran and their anxious mothers would plead with them to stay with gifts of food and beer. At a Purko eunoto, the identity of the ritual leader and his deputy was kept secret until they were seized and installed shortly after the moran had set up their joint manyata. This was followed by eight days of elaborate dancing. The first four of these involved a competitive display before onlookers inside the joint eunoto manyata.The moran loosened their hair, discarded their shoulder cloths, and decorated their bodies with chalk. Only those who had killed an enemy could wear chalk on their right arms and legs; only ‘moran-of-the-girls’ – those who had avoided married women – could decorate their left-hand limbs. Girls admired bravery and sexual fidelity, associating these with the highest ideals of moranhood. During the second four days, the moran emphasized their unity by performing their flamboyant enkipaata dance through the bushland, as they had done when boys, without chalk and naked, apart from their lion-mane and ostrich-feather headdresses, and shoulder-cloths trailing behind them. They would process, dancing, up to a day’s journey in any direction through the more populated areas, but keeping their distance from admiring onlookers and turning their display towards the world at large. Meanwhile, the ritual leader and his deputy moved to a new ritual village, which was constructed to the east of the joint eunoto manyata, with a special thorn enclosure in the centre that faced east. The eight days of dancing led on the ninth day to the first of two sacrifices, which took place within this enclosure, and a large hut (e-sinkira) was built to the east of this enclosure and this too faced east.The outline of this hut was first delineated by a thong (enkeene), cut from the hide of the sacrificed animal, and this thong was then bundled up and kept safely by the deputy ritual leader, as the ‘custodian-of-the-thong’ (olbaruenkeene). Only true moran-ofthe-girls could prepare and place the central strut for the hut or throw dung onto its walls. Inside the hut, each clan had its own sector where gourds of milk and beer were placed. The principal spokesman, ritual leader, and his deputy were the first to taste certain cuts of the sacrificial meat and later to have their braided hair of moranhood shaved off by their mothers; and other moran followed. The second sacrifice was associated with the ritual leader and took place in the bush, away from the two villages.10 The firestick patrons offered all the moran sacrificial cuts as before, and staged the event as the climax of eunoto. Haranguing the moran, they would warn them that they had dug a hole in the large esinkira hut and placed a curse that would kill any adulterer who entered and peed into this hole, and also any other morani who had offended them. The moran then returned from the bush, and the e-sinkira hut became the centre of a confrontation between moran adulterers and moran-of-the-girls. Up to this point, the moran themselves had a reasonable idea who the adulterers were, but the patrons, parents and girls only had suspicions. Even in the dancing before the sacrifices, some adulterers might have worn chalk to deceive their girl-friends, and 159

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

some moran-of-the-girls might have deliberately chosen not to display themselves to tease their girls at that point. However, subterfuge on this issue would be ritually dangerous following the climax of eunoto. When they returned from the bush, adulterous moran were expected to return surreptitiously to the joint manyata village, avoiding this stage of celebration, while the moran-of-the-girls returned more ostentatiously. Each might wear an ostrich feather in his hair, a buffalo-horn armlet, his mother’s neck beads, and his lovers’ waist beads – no matter how many lovers he had. He could then parade to the ritual village, leading his doting parents, sisters, and lovers, who clung to his garments, sharing this moment of truth and watching him enter the esinkira hut in triumph. The moran-of-the-girls would actively prevent any incautious adulterous morani who tried to bluff his way into the hut and also any wastrels. In eunoto, the transition from dancing in the village to dancing in the bush reflected a wider pattern.The deputy ritual leader’s sacrifice took place in the village and then the ritual leader’s sacrifice took place in the bush. Again the rivalry between manyat that could erupt when they first converged to form the joint eunoto manyata contrasted traditionally with a massive raid against some enemy of the Maasai after eunoto in an exuberant display of unity, reaching beyond Purko boundaries to a higher goal. The Purko regarded the eunoto festival as a hazardous period, when rival tribal sections might try to harm them with sorcery, wreaking havoc. Behind this threat was a concern over unscrupulous Loonkidongi, who might see the eunoto as a prime opportunity to discredit the Purko Prophet and usurp his role. Ambitious diviners were assumed to be responsible for conflicts with the Loita Maasai in the past and for cattle raids by Damat moran more recently. Like other tribal sections, the Purko valued their Prophet’s skills as a necessary protection, and so long as he retained his faculties and did not choose a successor whom they despised, they would not risk his anger by switching to some rival: Purko was his domain. But they did insist on keeping him at a safe distance, aware that other Maasai were plagued with sorcery. Apart from Mbatian’s son, Lenana who died in 1911, there has been a significant absence of Prophets living close to the Purko.11 They rejected the request from their Prophet Kimuruai that he should move to live among them to give greater protection from his rival Simel, and they rejected a similar request from his successor, Loopir (Case 24). It was not the Prophet’s presence that the Purko mistrusted so much as his brothers and sons who would gather around him as camp-followers, competing among themselves to be his successor, and building a nest of sorcery in the heart of the Purko area. Generally, they maintained a firm control over the Loonkidongi and would stand no nonsense from them; and the examples of a Loonkidongi suitor who was killed for threatening sorcery, was widely paraded as a precedent (Case 20). Diviners who entered the area could be summarily told to leave if they raised any suspicions. Only the few who managed to settle amicably in Purko villages and manifestly helped individuals to cope with misfortune were accepted. Such men were no longer suspected of sorcery, and their sons were always welcome as non-resident visitors at the local 160

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manyata and fine moran who could attend the initial stages of eunoto, but not the climax.

The transition to elderhood and relations through food The avoidances of moranhood – that they should not drink milk alone or eat meat seen by married women – were relaxed in formal stages as they retired to elderhood, or to express this differently, the resolution of each avoidance became a privilege at the next stage, colouring the process of ageing. However, retiring moran were reluctant to discard food avoidances for some years and never quite felt at ease when taking food, except in the company of age mates. The privileges of elderhood undermined the sense of unity among age peers, and they did not have the same lustre as the ‘privileges’ of moranhood. The protocol associated with food avoidances among all Maasai is characteristic of the correct relationship between men according to age, and between men and women. However, the Purko regarded themselves as paragons of ritual correctness, elaborating these avoidances and their development through the life cycle in altogether finer detail than in any other part of Maasai covered by my survey. A more detailed outline of this extended process is summarized in Table 7.1, and I would advise any reader also to trace through Figure 7.1 as the three parts of this section unfold, or simply to marvel at the Purko capacity to out-Maasai the Maasai and pass on to the next section (which demonstrates the same point). (a)

‘Drinking milk’

During their manyata days, Purko moran observed their food avoidances (enturuj) and paraded their ‘privileges’ (enkisulata) as a matter of pride. At any time, small groups of moran might be engaged in a meat feast that they had prepared in a remote forest area, well away from any paths used by women. At other times, they would visit elders’ villages to drink milk, but only when one of their number led them to the hut of a clansman to act as host.The host offered milk to his fellows but abstained himself, until he in turn was offered milk of another clan in another hut. In a situation of extreme hunger, he might accept milk from a girl who had a morani lover, but not if she was a clan ‘sister’.The emphasis during these visits was to display a developed sense of respect for the elders’ village areas and not be seen loitering nearby. Elaborating on these restrictions, moran were even reluctant to drink water by themselves, and some girls would adopt some of the avoidances of their moran lovers. A decisive step towards elderhood occurred after they had completed their eunoto ceremony, and became senior moran. Since Nyankusi times, this has been the point when they have disbanded their manyat and led their mothers back to their fathers’ villages. The next ceremonial step was undertaken by each senior morani in his mother’s hut, when he formally discarded the custom of sharing milk with fellow moran. First, under the threat of a firestick patron’s curse, he had to 161

Table 7.1 Avoidances and privileges with age among the Purko Age-set C event [and age of leading members of age-set C]

Associated avoidances and privileges for age-set C

Left-hand moran of previous age-set (B) still live in manyat.

Boys would be beaten by the moran if they filched the ‘privileges of moranhood’. However, the moran allow their herdboy brothers at the manyat to put red ochre on their heads as a special concession. [18 years old] Manyata Boys destined for the next age-set (C) and are allowed to villages of left-hand of assume most of the ‘privileges of moranhood’, and will age-set B disperse, and avoid eating porridge in the presence of moran or girls the moran ‘drink milk’. (but not of sisters).Younger boys are denied these privileges. [20] Elders of age-set A Threshold event. Each recruit to age-set C (right-hand) is sponsor initiation of agecircumcised in his father’s village and is now subject to set C as firestick patrons. special food and other restrictions throughout the Maasai region (see Matapato: 60). [20] After a period of They may now assume the remaining privileges of months, initiates of agemoranhood.They must avoid meat seen by married set C (right-hand) discard women, and can only drink milk offered by another moran their initiates’ garb, and (or a girl associated with the moran, but not a ‘sister’).They become moran. now avoid porridge, and also food prepared by or for age-set B.This is reciprocated by members of age-set B, who still regard moran of age-set C as ‘children’. [21] From this point, each Any moran of age-set C (right-hand) can now have milk member of age-set B from the herds of all those members of age-set B who have should be given a ‘heifer received this heifer. In other respects the food avoidances of avoidance’ by a between the two age-sets remain until the ‘thong’ ‘brother’ of age-set C. ceremony. [25] Eunoto of age-set C Threshold event.The right-hand of age-set C is formally (right-hand) moran.The established. As senior moran, they need no longer avoid only Purko ceremony held sexual relations with married women, once the adulterers on one site. have been publicly humiliated under the shadow of a curse by their firestick patrons of age-set A. [26] ‘Drinking milk’ Threshold event.The celebrant must ‘drink milk’ given by ceremony, performed by an elder (and not an age mate) and may now take milk by each right-hand moran himself and may eat porridge.Threatened by a firestick of age-set C individually. patron’s curse, he must admit if he has broken any food or A significant step towards tobacco restrictions as a moran. At this point, the rightelderhood, typically hand moran relinquish the privileges of moranhood to boys followed by marriage. destined for the left-hand sub-set and avoid (and are avoided by) young girls who now associate with these boys. The wife of each rightThis is given at some point, not too soon after marriage.The hand moran of age-set C husband and other members of age-set C no longer gives her husband a avoid milk in this wife’s hut.This gift is repeated in due ‘heifer of avoidance’. course by each subsequent wife, and again when the husband ‘eats meat’ (see later, and cf. Matapato: 176). Each right-hand moran of This is given at any time after ‘drinking milk’.The giver can age-set C gives his father now chew tobacco. He would be punished by his father if a ‘heifer of avoidance’. he infringes before this gift, and by his age mates also if he infringes before ‘drinking milk’. continued

Table 7.1 (Continued) Age-set C Event [and age of leading members of age-set C]

Associated avoidances and privileges for age-set C

[28] Left-hand of age-set C are initiated and repeat this sequence.

The same avoidances and privileges apply for the left-hand of age-set C as for the right-hand. After ‘drinking milk’ [33], the ‘privileges’ are conceded to boys destined for age-set D (right-hand). Age-set C give ‘heifers of avoidance’ to the remaining members of age-set B who have not so far received them.The food avoidances between age-sets B and C are relaxed. Age-set B will now share milk or meat with age-set C. However, age-set B still avoid taking food or sleeping in the huts of wives of age-set C. This is the first step in ending the food avoidances between age-sets C and D (as between age-sets B and C), and completed with ‘thong’ ceremony of age-set D.

[35] ‘Thong’ ceremony performed by right- and left-hand sides of age-set C in separate villages at the same time. [36] Members of age-set C start to receive ‘heifers of avoidance’ from close brothers in age-set D. [41] ‘Eating meat’ ceremony is performed individually by age-set C.

The oldest daughter of each member of age-set C gives her father a ‘heifer of avoidance’.

[44] ‘Stools’ ceremony for age-set C, uniting right- and left-hand sides and endowing a firestick patrons’ curse over future age-set E. Held at various sites in Purko. [50] ‘Thong’ ceremony of age-set D as hosts to age-set C. ‘Great Ox’ feast is the ultimate celebration of elderhood and is performed individually.

The celebrant ‘eats meat’ in front of his wife and other women to relax the meat avoidance of moranhood. Under the threat of a firestick patrons’ curse he has to admit any infringements of this avoidance, and his wife has to admit to any adulteries with moran of age-set D. This is given at any time after her marriage.The daughter’s father and other members of age-set C may now take milk or tea in her hut and in the huts of her younger married sisters.They may also now eat porridge there, but only after the ‘daughters’ have left, and would take meat prepared by these ‘daughters’ to eat in another hut. Threshold event. Elders may now wear long capes and carry eseeki herding sticks (cf. Mol 1996: 361). No specific relaxations, but as elders in a full sense, members of age-set C become less reticent about eating in the presence of their wives. At first they would only eat meat with beer and the uninhibiting company of age mates, and only in the huts of senior wives. At this ceremony, their wives again have to admit to any further adulteries with moran of age-set D. Age-set C relax food avoidances with age-set D and relax their avoidance of the huts and wives of age-set B. From now on, age-sets B and C treat each other more equally in terms of sharing food and visiting each others’ huts than at any time previously. Personal threshold event. Celebrant should now avoid all physical confrontations, except to defend himself. No specific relaxation of food avoidances. Again his wife is forced to admit any adulteries with age-set D since the ‘stools’ ceremony (cf. Matapato: 252–5).

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

confess if he had taken milk alone as a morani, flouting the avoidance; and any other patron with a grievance could block the ceremony until he had been placated with a heifer. Then he was offered milk by a patron – not an age mate. He might at first refuse to drink until he had been offered stock by members of his immediate family. This was the principal occasion when he could demand to be given stock, while others impatiently urged him to ‘drink’ when they felt that he had been offered enough. He then ‘drank milk’ alone before onlookers, including his own age mates, who celebrated the occasion, singing, dancing, and slaughtering an ox for a feast on the next day. ‘Drinking milk’ marked the point when senior moran individually discarded their ‘privileges’ as mere postures of ‘children’.When all the right-hand age-group of moran had taken this step, boys of the left-hand could assume these privileges, and when they too had ‘drunk milk’, then this set in motion anticipation of the next age-set cycle. After ‘drinking milk’, a morani who had already married was no longer expected to avoid his own wife. He could now sleep in her hut, drink milk, and eat porridge there. But discarding the food avoidances still touched on his pride and full relaxation was achieved in a number of stages that were typically marked by the gift of a ‘heifer-of-avoidance’ (enkashe enturuj ). The husband would refuse to take food in his wife’s presence, ordering her out of her hut until she gave him such a heifer. He would demand a further heifer when he ‘ate meat’ (see later); and he had to be given another one years later before she could chew tobacco or take snuff, but only after he had given a heifer-of-avoidance to his own father for this privilege. If these heifers were not offered, they could be confiscated. Among Purko elders, this high-handed treatment in belabouring the food avoidances of their wives contrasted strikingly with the sensitive relationship of avoidance with their daughters.This was a matter of decorum and respect, avoiding any suggestion of intimacy, and this would only soften after the daughter’s marriage when she gave her father a heifer-of-avoidance. Then he and his age mates could at least have certain foods that she had prepared.

(b)

The conciliation sequence

If food avoidances among Purko moran were rather more elaborate than in other tribal sections, this was more than matched by an intricate process of conciliation between adjacent age-sets. This involved the progressive relaxation of avoidances between them spanning a period of about thirty years. When a new age-set (C) was imminent and boys assumed the ‘privileges’ of moranhood, their enhanced status was offset by the contempt now displayed towards them by their older brothers of age-set B. From this point, any boys were summarily chased away from any place where the senior moran were preparing meat or from a hut where they wished to take some milk.The milk avoidance was ended with the gift of a heifer-of-avoidance to each senior morani, ideally by a younger brother after his initiation, but unlike Maasai further south, these gifts 164

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were paid over a longer period and the meat avoidance remained for almost an age-set cycle, until all the junior age-set had settled to elderhood by ‘drinking milk’, by which time the seniors of age-set B were beginning to flex their muscles as firestick patrons (of age-set D). Meanwhile, with some of these heifers still unpaid, the seniors regarded all the juniors as ‘children’, even those of the righthand who had paid them heifers and abandoned their manyat years earlier. The meat avoidance between adjacent age-sets was resolved at the point when all the remaining members of the preceding age-set (B) were finally given their heifers-of-avoidance, and notably the right-hand and left-hand ritual leaders, their deputies, and the principal spokesmen – six dignitaries in all. Thus while these dignitaries had been the first among their peers to be upgraded, shaving off their moran hair, ‘drinking milk’, and (ideally) marrying before the others, they were the last to receive these gifts, marking the relaxation of food avoidances with ageset C. To formalize this step, right-hand and left-hand sides of the junior age-set (C) each built a separate village at Nkoituko, where their ritual leaders and principal spokesmen lived.These were the ‘villages of the thong’ (enkangitie eenkeene); and there, the two deputy ritual leaders, as the right-hand and left-hand ‘custodians-of-the-thong’ of age-set C, unbundled their thongs and disposed of them. Their predecessors of age-set B were invited to a meat feast to receive their outstanding heifers-of-avoidance. Simplified versions of this ceremony were performed in other parts of Purko, with feasting and the gifts of heifers that were still owed. From this point, members of the senior age-set would accept meat cooked by the juniors at their forest feasts, although the juniors would still not eat meat prepared by elders at their village messes, which might have been seen by women; and these two age-sets were still expected to avoid each other’s huts and wives for a further age-set cycle. It was only when the next ‘thong’ ceremony was performed, by the next age-set (D) as hosts of age-set (C), that the latter could relax all their avoidances in relation to the wives and huts of their predecessors of age-set (B). Thus at the time of fieldwork, the Dareto and Terito age-sets did not avoid each others’ huts or wives, and this extended to the Nyankusi age-set, who were patrons of the moran. However, Nyankusi age-set avoided the huts of Seuri (Teregeyeni) although they would at least eat meat together, and Seuri avoided eating meat with the moran of Kitoip (Rampauni). Once the two deputy ritual leaders of the moran had unbundled their ‘thongs’, the Seuri would no longer avoid the food of the junior age-set, and Nyankusi and Seuri would no longer avoid each others’ wives and huts.

(c)

The upgrading sequence

The ‘conciliation sequence’ between adjacent age-sets ran in parallel with the formal ‘upgrading sequence’, involving the firestick relationship between alternate age-sets, first as moran and then as patrons in their turn, which was broadly similar 165

Figure 7.1 The ceremonial progression of the Purko age system.

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among all Maasai. In this way, the transition of the Purko moran to the domain of elderhood (upgrading) was moderated by a more extended process of accommodation with their immediate seniors (conciliation). Figure 7.1(a) brings these parallel sequences into a formal framework, replicating Table 7.1 within the wider structure of the Purko age system. The two sequences were aspects of a single process, but were regarded as belonging to separate spheres of ritual (intalengo). The avoidance of meat seen by married women ended with a ceremony that was performed individually when most of the retired moran had married, and it repeated features of the ‘drinking milk’ ceremony. Two firestick patrons would formally offer meat to the celebrant and to his wife in front of other women. Again, under threat of a curse, the celebrant had first to confess if he had violated this avoidance at any time, and his wife had to confess if she had ‘gone to the moran’ (in adultery).12 The celebrant’s own fidelity was not strictly relevant, but it became an issue in at least one instance. Case 29. Before ‘eating meat’, Kalikoi demanded that his wife should confess her adulteries to him. She denied any guilt and he cursed her, implicating their future children. Following the normal procedure for raising a complaint, she brewed beer and invited local members of her husband’s age-set to hear her case, including the deputy ritual leader who happened to live nearby. At this meeting, she reasserted her innocence, and accused her husband of an illicit adultery. Unless Kalikoi gave her a heifer and withdrew his curse, she claimed, she would run back to her father’s village and would refuse to ‘eat meat’ with him.The heifer was paid. After ‘eating meat’ a young elder still abstained from meat in his wives’ huts for several years, and then he would at first only eat it with beer and in the company of age mates and only in the hut of a senior wife who had paid her heifer-ofavoidance.The ideal place for eating meat always remained the elders’ eating place or mess (olpul) near the village, where they had meat or soup that they themselves had prepared, and not necessarily with beer. The final landmark in the upgrading sequence united the right-hand and lefthand sides into a single age-set.This was the ‘stools’ ceremony, which followed after the Kisonko olngesher and had a similar structure. Again the Prophet was first consulted, but unlike eunoto, the event was dispersed among various sites within Purko, with the principal village again at Nkoituko, where the sacrifice took place. Throughout Purko, each member of the age-set would bring his senior wife to build her hut in the nearest ‘village-of-the-stools’. The ceremony was marked by the courtesy visits of delegations to greet them with gifts beforehand. Altogether, these could be ten times larger than the gifts offered at eunoto, amounting to 40 oxen, 50 sheep, and 100 gourds of beer. Prominent among these were elders of the preceding age-set in their prime, who had been supplicated as guests in the

167

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‘thong’ ceremony.These elders now came as if to welcome their successors to full elderhood with a lavish display of gifts for consumption, and then they had to leave. Following the sacrifice, the patrons visited the hut of each of their firestick protégés, and blessed him and his wife. He would be seated on a new stool, marking his elevation to full elderhood, and this would be kept for future ceremonial use, such as at the initiation of each of his children, when he would again be blessed and then sit in vigil. Following the ‘stools’ ceremony, the firestick patrons had fulfilled their task, and their protégés paid them a token gift of forty-nine oxen. This gift had an inauspicious stigma attached to it. Only a really poor member of the patrons’ age-set would accept one of these oxen, and he had to drive it away and keep well away. It was held that if any of the recipients were to return to the ceremonial village, or if his ox were to return to its donor, then the Purko would be utterly annihilated.13 The prospect of receiving one of these oxen attracted some of the more marginal members of the patrons’ age-set, including those who had dropped out of the pastoral economy and loitered on the margins of townships outside the Maasai area. Through the gift to such men, there was a sense in which their age-set as a whole had been thanked and no firestick patron could bear a grudge against their protégés for any downturn in fortune as they grew old.The youngest patrons at this point would be in their sixties, and each ox was a barren irreversible gift, reminiscent in some ways of old age, as a new group of elders in their prime stepped into the centre stage, and time moved relentlessly on. The ‘stools’ ceremony marked a watershed in status, with the emergence of a fully fledged age-set who were unambiguously elders.They could openly drink beer and relax food avoidances among themselves. However, their new status also brought avoidances associated with seniority. Fighting among elders or seducing uninitiated girls was an offence, punishable by seizing and slaughtering a fine ox for an age-set feast. Punishment depended on the popular strength of feeling surrounding each case. If brothers fought, for instance, then this would be regarded as regrettable rather than shocking – it was a family matter rather than a breach of age-set etiquette. But after the ‘stools’ ceremony, there was altogether less tolerance for the type of impulsive behaviour associated with younger men. A final celebration of seniority that each elder was obliged to perform before any of his children could be initiated concerned his Great Ox feast (loolbaa).14 Again, he would be blessed together with his wife by one of the surviving firestick patrons, who might even have to be carried to the spot to fulfil this role.There was no specific relaxation of food avoidances from this point, but he might feel himself sufficiently ‘great’ to eat meat by himself in his wife’s presence and eventually even without beer, and to eat with less embarrassment in the presence of ‘daughters’. These were matters of personal preference, however, and some elders would never relax their food avoidances beyond a token extent. Abstaining from 168

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beer and the company of married women earned the bemused respect of others, who recognized the lingering integrity of moranhood ideals even into old age. Generally, the restrictions on food observed by moran and elders were particularly elaborate among the Purko compared with other tribal sections. However, the process of relaxation went further as the boundaries between age-sets mellowed and softened with age.

Queuing and the sequence of ritual precedence among kin The ramifications of the Maasai age system do not extend to the complexities of generational reckoning, which entangles age systems further north. Maasai age-sets are definitely not ‘generation-sets’. However, there is a hint of a generational system in the formal linkage between certain extended families within the same clan, quite independent of their age system. This is based on a fiction of quasi-kinship that entails an extension of family avoidances (entalepa) and enhances generational awareness. It is popularly held that these avoidances offset any tendency towards overfamiliarity or indiscipline within smaller families, heightening their respect for seniority within the larger quasi-family and raising their joint reputation for worthiness within the community at large. The form that this takes varies between tribal sections, and the Purko had a version that emphasized the need for respect. If two families shared entalepa, then the corresponding generations should respect one another as ‘full brothers’ and avoid intimacy with each other’s wives or sleeping in their huts. Regardless of age differences, they should also avoid the next generation as ‘children’; but they could sleep in the huts of their ‘parental’ generation. Terms of address were used between them that made their strict code of avoidance very public and a matter of family pride. The Purko concern for family reputation also underpinned the rules of precedence among the children of one elder, whatever their personal relationship, and these followed from their birth order within the polygynous family.These rules again were widely recognized among other Maasai in my survey, but they were particularly elaborate and binding among the Purko.15 The rules were: (a) that each son of an elder should be initiated, marry his first wife, and hold his Great Ox feast in strict order of birth, regardless of the seniority of his mother; (b) that each daughter of one elder should be initiated and married in strict order of birth, regardless of the seniority of her mother; and (c) that children of the next generation should only be initiated after each of their parents had completed this sequence of ceremonies. The rules are simple, and the Samburu, for instance, had no difficulty in conforming to similar rules, because they performed equivalent ceremonies with minimum 169

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

Figure 7.2 The sequence of ceremonial precedence within the Purko family. Notes In this chart ‘bridewealth’ refers to the formal gift when a wife is led with cattle’, and the arrows indicate the order of performance according to the following rules of precedence: 1 Sisters must be initiated, married, and their bridewealth paid in strict order of birth; and the bridewealth for co-wives must be paid in strict order of marriage. 2 Brothers must be initiated, marry, pay bridewealth for their first wives, and perform their Great Ox ceremony (loolbaa) in strict order of birth; the rule does not apply to the marriage and bridewealth of subsequent wives. 3 A man cannot perform his Great Ox ceremony until he has paid bridewealth for his first wife. 4 A child cannot be initiated until (a) bridewealth has been paid for the mother, and (b) the father has performed his Great Ox ceremony.

delay between them. Among the Maasai, however, there were protracted delays between these events. An elder would lead his bride away shortly after her initiation and give his father-in-law cattle as loans from time to time, but he did not actually marry her with a formal gift of bridewealth until years later, when at last she became one of his undisputed ‘possessions’. He was then held to ‘lead her with cattle’, and divorce and the return of earlier loans became altogether more

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problematic.The ox that was slaughtered on this occasion was regarded as the wife’s equivalent of her husband’s Great Ox, and it would even be slaughtered for a dead woman or widow to legitimize the position of her children. At the time of fieldwork, other Maasai besides Purko had similar rules of family precedence, but these had been compromised in a variety of ways to accommodate anomalies, and the whole system seemed unworkable. In terms of the economic costs of these ceremonies, there was no obvious problem in normal times: the formal bridewealth was only a token payment and the Great Ox and initiation feasts were limited to the slaughter of one fine beast.The nature of the problem becomes apparent in Figure 7.2, which represents a systematic flow-chart of these rules, starting with the completion of formal bridewealth in one generation and following through to the marriages of the next. The problem lies in the order of precedence between siblings, which is liable to create queuing difficulties when a senior lacks either the incentive or the means to perform when his turn comes.Thus a man who wishes to initiate his oldest child can find this step blocked indefinitely by the fact that his older brother is unable to pay his first wife’s formal bridewealth because her older sister has serious marital problems and her marriage is still in effect on trial. Or again, poorer fathers may be keen to formalize the marriages of their daughters, giving them more security over the cattle that they have received in advance, whereas richer fathers may prefer to wait until these marriages have born children and clearly stabilized. Because of human uncertainties, a system of this kind seems bound to accumulate a backlog of unperformed ceremonies within and beyond the family that leads eventually to a breakdown. Among the tribal sections in my survey, only the Purko and Loita still claimed to subscribe fully to this system of family precedence, and even in Loita, it only applied to full brothers and sisters (and not to half-siblings) and there were ways to sidestep any blockage in the queue by paying a heifer-of-avoidance that acknowledged a breach of precedence. Elsewhere, elders indicated that the system had lapsed although some families still aspired to it. In Matapato, for instance, formal bridewealth was no longer paid, Great Ox feasts were increasingly delayed, and initiations took place according to birth order, though with little regard for the mother’s marital status or the father’s Great Ox. Among the Kisonko of Loitokitok and of Tanzania, there appeared to be an increasing backlog, with more and more adults unable to complete their marriages because their parents never did. Ceremonial devices would be suggested by a diviner to circumvent the rules, and these were becoming commonplace in order to initiate children whose parents were not yet ritually qualified – and perhaps they never would be. How then had such an unworkable system remained intact among the Purko? The relevant feature appears to have been a matter of family aspiration. A trustworthy family would make a concerted effort to observe the rules.They would be more successful, for instance, in forcing their wastrel sons and strong-willed daughters to comply with expectations, so that each member could perform within the sequence at

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DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

the appropriate time. Such families could take pride in this and their affines (and affines’ affines) could have confidence that their own ceremonial sequences would not be blocked by a backlog of unfulfilled bridewealth payments.The general preference for intermarriage between certain families was bolstered by the confidence that they had in one another, and it was this kind of ceremonial discipline that in turn fostered this confidence: they were highly eligible. Marrying into a good family was everywhere stressed as a Maasai ideal – such families had ‘marriageability’ (en-kaputi) – and elders claimed to be the only experts on this topic, with an extensive knowledge of the histories of intermarriage. Older women gleaned some of this knowledge for themselves, but the elders claimed that they could see further and more clearly, and this was none of the women’s business. They tenaciously maintained control over marriages for themselves, and women did not question it. Control over marriage was also control over marriageability. For the family, marriageability was as telling as wealth, since it signalled the strength of family unity over personal selfindulgence. In this way, eligible families were linked through intermarriage on the one hand, and through quasi-kinship (entalepa) with those that they could not marry on the other. Pressed on this point, the Purko elders admitted certain irregularities, but only as a final resort. For instance, a man’s first marriage might be blocked by the fact that his older brother was an unmarriageable wastrel who wandered through life without a care. Further south, the older wastrel brother could be offered a heiferof-avoidance for his blessing in return for superseding him in marriage.Among the Purko, however, this would not be done lightly. Lineage elders were reluctant to break precedence, and they would put pressure on the wastrel to mend his ways under their firm authority. Only after lengthy discussions and when they were satisfied that this was quite hopeless would they take the ultimate step of excluding him from the family: ‘Let him go and wander through the bush’, they would say, ‘for he has no home’. From this point, he forfeited all rights, except to be initiated first, to inherit his father’s herd if he was the oldest living son, and to a heifer-ofavoidance from his younger brothers, and then he had no power to curse them. Similarly, when a young wife ran away to live with another man and all efforts to return her had failed, then she too would be regarded as a wastrel, a drop-out, and her parental family would ‘let her go’: she no longer had anywhere to run back to. Her younger sisters and any junior co-wives took precedence over her, and suitable arrangements were made to adopt her children. This process of reluctant disqualification points to a degree of flexibility among the Purko after all, preventing the build-up of a long queue. However, each irregularity of this sort was an admission of weakness within the family.The strength of the ideal as compared with other tribal sections may be seen as an indication of the pressure exerted on erring kinsmen to remain marriageable and take their turn in the ceremonial queue. It is as if the Purko managed to sustain their standards above the threshold of credibility, the rules broadly held, and the system survived with the discreet use of slip mechanisms. Whereas elsewhere, the rules appear to have held 172

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in the past, but the standards had since slipped below this threshold, and the system had lapsed because it lacked credibility. In such circumstances, even the most reputable family could not adhere to the rules, for they also required a large measure of adherence by all other families related through marriage. More generally, this loss of a collective will in some other parts of Maasai was popularly linked to the elders’ loss of control over the moran and over their wives, leading to increasingly unstable marriages and increasing delays in completing bridewealth payments as a result. Among the Matapato, concern over moran adulteries was even institutionalized when it was brought to a head at major ceremonies or when the marriages of a whole age-group of moran could be blocked by outraged elders, whereas Purko concern over moran adultery and sexual antagonism simply did not extend to these lengths.16 A broader survey of Purko practices suggests a general historical process among the Maa-speakers at large.The Great Ox celebration (loolbaa) was linked to an earlier feast, when an initiate slaughtered his ‘goat-of-the-shrubs’ (lembenek) before becoming a moran.This too had to be performed in strict birth order within the family and was normally a precondition for mounting his Great Ox feast a generation later.17 However, there were several divergent forms between families that are summarized in Table 7.2(a). The standard ceremonial practice along the top row of this table may be a relatively recent development. Earlier writers noted that the Great Ox feast was

Table 7.2 Variation in the sequence of personal feasts On becoming moran

Before ‘drinking milk’

Before initiation of children

(a) Variation noted among the Purko in 1977 Goat Loolbaa (Great Ox) Goat and then Loolbaa Goat

Loolbaa

Loolbaa Goat

Comments

Standard Purko practice On successive days; a few families A few families. Cf. Merker 1904: 102 A few families. Cf. Nomads: 90 One or two families

(b) Historical reconstruction of cumulative delays across the Maa-speaking region North Loolbaa Samburu practice → Goat → Loolbaa [Passing-the-fence] → Common in Uasinkishu Goat → Loolbaa Mainstream Maasai practice → Goat and then Loolbaa Common in Loita Goat → Increasingly lapsed form South

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DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

performed when a moran wished to leave the manyata in order to marry (Merker 1904: 102); and that another ceremony called ‘passing-the-fence’ (e-emata e-sita), preceded the initiation of any children (Hollis 1905: 294–5).18 According to Loonkidongi, who still observed ‘passing-the-fence’ in 1977, wealthy Maasai at one time had followed this course – mounting the Great Ox feast as moran and passing-the-fence as elders – but as more and more elders became ineligible to passthe-fence, because their fathers had died before doing so, this practice lapsed and was replaced by the Great Ox feast. The whole sequence appears to be bedevilled by cumulative delays, leading to a lapse in custom. This can be extrapolated to suggest a general process summarized in Table 7.2(b). It should be emphasized that this table is no more than an inference, but the trend from north to south is striking. At the head of the table, the Samburu had no problem with observing strict birth order with either their version of a son’s Great Ox feast (loolbaa) or a daughter’s formal payment of bridewealth, since both of these followed very soon after their initiation, and the ox was only as big as they could manage.19 If they could not afford an ox, then a goat was permissible. This had no repercussions for the family: even if a youth had only slaughtered a goat, his younger brothers and sons were still expected to provide an ox when their turn came, if possible.The implication of the next stage of the table, recorded by Merker in 1904 (and still reported among the Uasinkishu in 1977) is that the expedient of slaughtering a goat following initiation had become common practice, deferring the Great Ox feast to a time when the moran could afford it from his war gains. And so the argument proceeds in steps until the final stage, which appears to be most prevalent in the southern and eastern region, where the Great Ox feast is said to be lapsing to a point of extinction.The major step in the reconstruction is from the straightforward Samburu pattern, which focused entirely on the order of initiation according to birth order and the ceremonial feasts followed on as aspects of the same celebration, to the more unpredictable Maasai pattern, which extended the order of family precedence to the lavish display of feasts; and this had a built-in proneness to delay and loss of family prestige. In 1977, Maasai elders saw the breakdown of the Great Ox feast throughout their region in terms of a growing inability to find really fine oxen worthy of the occasion. They blamed the trend on the loss of condition among their herds, rather than on the competitiveness of their expectations. A similar trend besets the formal settlement of bridewealth. The Samburu made a prompt payment after a girl’s initiation. The Maasai previously delayed this payment until she had recovered from the operation (Merker 1904: 65; Hollis 1905: 302), but this was often further delayed (Fox 1931: 186), leading more recently still to the lapse in custom in the south. The Maasai account for this lapse in terms of the increasing instability of marriage, that is, a loss of confidence in the ability of extended families to cope with wilful sons or daughters-in-law.

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THE PURKO MAASAI IN 1977

Conclusion: the characteristics of the northern model The Purko have been characterized by an elaborate array of institutions that displayed a marked resilience as they adapted to pacification and change. Generally among Kenya Maasai, it was the Purko moran who had a reputation for highspirited assertiveness, because of the trouble caused by successive age-sets during the colonial period. Historically, they were trendsetters in these respects and were held in high regard by the others.The strength of Purko institutions highlights the apparent contradiction between the tightly regulated manyata system and the patriarchal family. As compared with other tribal sections, both of these appeared exceptionally strong. The manyata had more autonomy than elsewhere, placing fathers in an even weaker negotiating position with their moran sons and defying control by their firestick patrons to a greater extent. Purko elders viewed this within the wider context, emphasizing the extent to which the strictness of the manyata regime fostered respect for other domains, regardless of its uncompromising independence. It was the manyat that had autonomy, not individual moran; and elders maintained firm control regarding the hand-over of privileges after the manyata was disbanded. The anomalous position of the moran in times of peace, in other words, was contained within the system. Significantly, when moran led their mothers back to their fathers’ villages after the manyata had been disbanded, the authority of each father appeared undiminished. Compared with the possibility of some compromise further south, for instance, Purko elders firmly rejected my suggestion that a post-manyata married son might be given some independence to ease any tension with his father. It was unthinkable. Regardless of age, a father had to remain fully in control over his sons and the total family herd until he died, or he would be despised for displaying weakness; and even an impulsive son would not dare to ‘force’ his marriage without his father’s prior agreement.20 Within the extended family, the Purko appeared to maintain the sequence of ritual precedence more rigidly than elsewhere, extending beyond birth order among siblings to the network of intermarriage. The same ideals were voiced in other tribal sections, but it was widely accepted that these had lapsed in recent times – or perhaps they had also been more lax previously. Generally, the Purko appeared to expect a higher degree of family discipline at all levels; and they rejected the widespread image of guardian uncles who exploit the herds and families of widows, insisting that guardians were accountable to other elders of their lineage.21 This combination of an unusually marked spirit of independence among Purko manyat and a firmer paternalistic control within the family reinforces the analysis in my earlier study of The Maasai of Matapato.There, I suggested that the exuberant defiance of the manyata episode might be regarded as a rite of passage (and rebellion) among moran, structuring the transition from a capricious boyhood to becoming trustworthy adults who were committed to the family enterprise. The Purko model fits this correlation, with an even stricter paternalistic regime on the

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DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

one hand, and more extreme autonomy of the manyat on the other, pointing again to a way of structuring continuity within the family. It was not that data collected on these topics elsewhere seemed impoverished, but that the Purko took the presentation of themselves a stage further, with an even more flamboyant regard for being more Maasai than the others. In their conversation, Purko was ‘Maasai’ and the variant forms in other parts were not. Another striking feature of the Purko system concerned the contrast between the particularly elaborate avoidances of moranhood and the progressive relaxation of these avoidances subsequently. Paradoxically, while the ‘conciliation sequence’ drew attention to the relationship between adjacent age-sets, it highlighted the opposition between moran and elders – that is between age grades – moderating this as the avoidances of moranhood were progressively relaxed.As we shall see, this is an aspect of the Purko system that contrasts with the southern model, where there was less moderation with age: the moran were less segregated, and rivalries between adjacent age-sets persisted.This contrast was also expressed in beliefs surrounding ageset festivals, when firestick patrons would firmly exclude members of adjacent age-sets from attending the sacrifices of their protégés. The Purko argued that the presence of such men was unpropitious: it was not their festival and they did not belong there, but this was not to suggest that they had any malignant intent.Whereas in the south, this exclusion was to guard against possible sorcery by their rivals. Similarly, the Purko regarded fighting among elders as merely unpropitious; whereas it was viewed as a form of sorcery in the south, implying a more deliberate attempt to inflict harm and leading to a more extreme response from the community of elders.Among the Maasai generally, both moranhood and the infirmity of old age produce their anomalies. The shift in emphasis tends to be from the anomaly of moranhood expressed as a pronounced concern with the lack of respect among younger men in the north, towards a southern concern for the anomaly of old age, associated with a more elaborated belief in sorcerers, who are depicted as perverted elders, isolated from the sensitive bonds of community life. Moran would never be suspected of sorcery. The Purko tended to dismiss the possibility of sorcery from within, and they were confident that their Prophet could deal with any scheming Loonkidongi or insidious attempts to undermine their self-confidence. This relaxed attitude was reminiscent of the Samburu, who felt that the principal threat of sorcery came from outsiders; and they would have no truck with the Loonkidongi, aware of their double-edged reputation among the Maasai. This extends the notion of a trend from north to south to the Maa-speaking peoples more generally. It is tempting to pursue this northern parallel by considering the position of the father within the polygynous family. It was suggested in Chapter 4 that the strongly corporate clans among the Samburu served as a moderating influence that checked any tendency towards patriarchal despotism, and this seemed to correspond to a general lack of concern over sorcery. Among the Purko, the extended family appears to have played a similarly constraining role, with a particularly high regard

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for reputation and marriageability, strict rules of ritual precedence, and less scope for ambiguity between the generations than further south. Turning to the link between the family and the age system in the two societies, a clearer correlation emerges. In terms of sheer complexity, the Purko and their up-country Samburu cousins are at opposite ends of a scale of Maa social organization. However, the similarities between them were not so much a matter of scale or ‘Maasainess’ as of relations between older and younger men in two highly polygynous societies. The Samburu moran, without manyat, were not as strictly segregated from the elders as the Purko moran, but they were ostracized in a different way and for an altogether more extended period before they could marry and become involved in the affairs of the elders (Figure 2.1). The north is characterized by the gerontocratic model, holding younger men at bay. Turning to a southern model in the next chapter, different features of the age system become salient together with different attitudes towards ageing and sorcery.

Notes 1 The first school in the Purko area of Maasai was established in 1903. In the 1980s, Killian Holland undertook an exhaustive study of education in Lemek, a part of Purko that was close to commercial development, tourism, and transport facilities, where 23 per cent of the men aged 20–39 years had been to school at some time. But only 3 per cent had completed their secondary education and they generally denied that their schooling had helped them, even indirectly (Holland 1996: 38, 66, 287–8). 2 Among the Purko, there was a general elaboration of ceremonial capes associated with the privileges of ageing. Boys at their enkipaata could wear short black calf-skin capes (narok). Moran could wear these and also short brown hyrax capes (ngiro). Elders after their ‘stools’ ceremony could wear longer versions of either sort or long capes of blue monkey skin (oipus, mugie); and these were ideal gifts from the boys at their enkipaata. The cape of non-domestic animals could be worn by an elder at an age ceremony or as a guest, but only the skins of domestic animals should be worn when he celebrated his ‘Great Ox’ feast, his child’s initiation, or when leading a bride in marriage. For photographs, see Hollis 1905: xvi; Beckwith and Saitoti 1980: 260–1. 3 Cf. Matapato: 157 regarding rivalries over seizing an ox’s horn at eunoto. For a photograph, see Salvadori and Fedders 1973: 66. In the Keekonyukie ceremony, the Dalalekutuk had been previously included in this competition before their relocation by the colonial administration placed them too far away.Their place was then taken by the Uasinkishu, who had been relocated nearby. Some Purko informants questioned whether the Damat would compete in future because of their deteriorating relationship with Purko, following a spate of stock-thefts, which could provoke the boys to violence.The claim that this was an ancient northern Maasai ceremony is consistent with the lack of a Loonkidongi involvement. It may also be noted that the host’s clan, Lukumai, is more numerous in the north and is the only Maasai clan that extends to the Samburu and the Chamus. 4 For a description of the initiation process and the ‘ox-of-the-wooden-earplugs’ feast, see Matapato: 70–8, 83–4. These were very similar in Purko, but the forest feast of the ‘oxof-the-wooden-earplugs’ was mandatory for all moran there, and it had to be performed before eunoto.

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5 6 7 8

9

10

11 12

13 14

15 16

17

18 19

Tignor 1972: 280–7; cf. Matapato: 101, 146. Thomson 1885: 162, 433; Hinde 1901: 33; Merker 1904: 85; Jackson 1930: 294. See Table 3.2; and also Matapato: 101–38 for a fuller account of a Maasai manyata system. Bagge (1904: 167) visited a Purko eunoto village that had a circumference of about 1.5 miles to accommodate all those taking part.This would have been more than seven times the perimeter of the Matapato eunoto village in 1977, and would imply an enclosed area that was more than fifty times as great (Matapato: 155). John Berntsen (1977: 28, citing Fischer 1882–3: 79) has noted another possible instance of a principal spokesman being appointed as ritual leader. He was Kidaru at Naivasha (inside the Purko area at that time), possibly of Twati I age-set. For a fuller account of a Maasai eunoto and the significance of beliefs surrounding the ritual leader, see Matapato: 139–71 and especially pp. 166–9. Certain contradictions (and an inconclusive argument) between my Purko informants suggested that a difference might exist between the two firestick streams regarding the ordering of events (cf. Matapato: 226–7n). The Terito-Seuri stream appeared to follow the same sequence as in Matapato, associating the village sacrifice with the deputy ritual leader, when the esinkira hut was built, and the subsequent bush sacrifice with the ritual leader; whereas these roles may have been reversed among the Dareto-Nyankusi stream: one Dareto elder insisted that the initial sacrifice in the village was associated with the ritual leader, and the esinkira hut was built on the day of the deputy’s (subsequent) sacrifice in the bush. Berntsen (1977: 32) summarizes a useful range of evidence that points to the absence of Loonkidongi in the north before Lenana. If he confessed, the celebrant had to give a heifer to the patron who offered him meat. If his wife confessed, she had to obtain a heifer from her father to give to her husband. Because ‘eating meat’ was not a collective ceremony among the Purko, it did not provoke a general confrontation between the sexes (as in Matapato: 179–82). This belief has an affinity with the payment of bloodwealth between clans following a homicide, where again the stock that were transferred were felt to be inauspicious and must never return to their original owners. With a variable gender prefix, the translation of loolbaa is problematic. Among the Samburu it seems to refer to the arrows (im-baa) thrown away by initiates (Nomads: 90). Among the southern Maasai it is associated with healing the wounds (il-baa) inflicted in youth. Generally, it is recognized as an important matter (im-baa), hence my translation of ‘Great Ox’. Maasai practices associated with initiation, marriage, and the Great Ox feast (loolbaa) have been outlined in Matapato (pp. 26–33, 57, 252–5), and these are applied broadly to the Purko. Matapato: 115, 177–86, 205–7, 253–4. On the topic of sexual antagonism, Purko descriptions of women’s mobbings did not suggest that these extended to manhandling the wife or husband as in Matapato. It was, in other words, quite similar to the age-set punishment, esoogo, and bore the same name there. Again, the token display of whipping between the sexes at a Purko Great Ox feast contrasted with the more full-blooded contest in some other Maasai tribal sections. One Purko informant had been appalled by the viciousness of a Great Ox contest that he had witnessed among the Siria Maasai, which had drawn blood and reduced the whips to shreds. The ox-of-the-wooden-earplugs (loonkulaleen/loonkutui, p. 150) provided a third individual feast in the same series. Ideally, it was performed shortly after the goat-of-theshrubs, before a moran joined his manyata. But the rules of family precedence and timing appeared to be more flexible, and if a family could not afford it, it could be delayed and even omitted altogether. See p. 123 n. 11. Samburu: 44, 87, 96, 238–9; Nomads: 85, 90, 102–3. Among both Maasai and Samburu, a man’s Great Ox was recognized as equivalent to his sister’s marriage ox (erukoret), when

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her formal bridewealth was paid.The Samburu took family precedence one step further by initiating all siblings in order of birth – sons and daughters.This was an ideal among the Purko, but families would adopt some token means of evading this ritually when a fully grown girl needed to be initiated before an older brother who had to wait until a new age-set was opened (cf. Sankan 1971: 25; Matapato: 64n). 20 Cf. Matapato: 30, 234–5. 21 Cf. Matapato: 54–6, 63n, 115. For a systematic comparison between the Purko and neighbouring Maasai groups on topics noted in this concluding section, see Spencer nd. (‘Survey’).

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8 THE KISONKO MAASAI OF LOITOKITOK IN 1977 A southern model

At the inauguration of each new age-set, the Maasai look northwards towards the Keekonyukie, where the new firestick patrons kindle their fire for the first time, and the boys ‘seize the ox’s horn’. After this cue, other tribal sections follow with their own customary procedure towards initiations and moranhood: they may take similar steps, though in a different order, or they may vary in the internal structuring of the age-set, and so on.1 About twenty-three years later, they all look southwards for a further cue to round off the ceremonial sequence for this age-set.This occurs when the firestick patrons of Kisonko sponsor the olngesher festival as their final collective act; and again, other tribal sections follow with their own prescribed pattern. In this way, ritual anticipation switches between north and south, corresponding to two points on the age cycle – or rather spiral – one-and-a-half loops apart. Popular awareness of time, linked to the process of ageing, looks alternately in these two directions for the ceremonial cues that synchronize age organization throughout all Maasai proper. The Kisonko are the dominant tribal section of the south, who enjoy a reputation for pronounced respect.This is a quality that all Maasai take pride in, but it is acknowledged that the Kisonko excel all others, always generous and courteous as hosts, undemanding as guests, and even their children are held to display a decorum that is lacking in other parts. Ceremonially, the lead is taken by the Kisonko in the Monduli–Sikirari area in Tanzania to the southwest of Mt Kilimanjaro.They act as the hosts of the major ceremonies shared with a federation of southern tribal sections and in liaison with the Kisonko Prophet nearby.They seize the ‘ox’s horn’ together in their own less competitive version of this ceremony, they share in a joint eunoto as moran, and above all they become fully established elders at a joint olngesher.Those living close to the site of these ceremonies are expected to attend, whereas those from more distant Kisonko manyata territories only send a delegation and they are each allocated their own sector within the ceremonial village. Similarly, each of the affiliated tribal sections only send a delegation and have their sector.2 One of these affiliated groups are the Loitokitok Kisonko in Kenya. Others know them as the ‘Loitokitok’ and this is the name of their homeland (Map 8.1). However, they regard themselves as ‘Kisonko’ who just happened to be cut off from 180

THE KISONKO MAASAI OF LOITOKITOK IN 1977

International boundary Kaputiei

10

20

40 50 kms

30

Laisir manyata

M

0

at ap at o

Limits of the Maasai area

K Ta enya nz an ia

Laitayok manyata

TOK

OKI

LOIT

Molelian (Lekuku) manyata

TANZANIAN KISONKO Molelian (Lerombo) manyata Mt Kilimanjaro

Eunoto (Monduli)

Mt Meru

Ar

us

ha Olngesher (Sikirari)

‘Ox’s horn’ (Simanjiro)

TANZANIAN KISONKO

K Ta enya nz an ia

Map 8.1 The Loitokitok area and the ceremonial centres of Kisonko.

their Tanzanian kin by the quirk of an international boundary that was barely older than the oldest living Maasai in 1977. Politically, the Loitokitok Kisonko have enjoyed a considerable degree of independence, living under the same administrative umbrella as other Kenya Maasai throughout the twentieth century, retaining ceremonial and social links with the Kisonko proper in Tanzania, but also accommodating to change in their own way.

Moranhood and manyata organization in Loitokitok The ceremonial sequence of the Kisonko age system is less complex than in Purko, with no extended process of conciliation between adjacent age-sets and no lefthand circumcisions to follow those of the right-hand side: the age-set remains undivided. Instead of a limited period of circumcision, and just one major episode of recruitment with a degree of flexibility between manyata territories, as in Purko, the circumcision period continued from year to year and posses were mounted annually to recruit for the manyata with less accommodation between manyat: a moran could not simply choose which manyata to join. By 1977, the manyata systems of the two branches of Kisonko diverged: manyata villages had been reduced in Tanzania to a token appearance at the time of eunoto, whereas, they had been retained in Loitokitok with only a temporary gap between the disbanding of one 181

Figure 8.1 The ceremonial progression of the Kisonko age system in Loitokitok (1970s).

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manyata and the formation of its successor (Figure 8.1). In this respect, the Loitokitok Kisonko appeared to be closer to the traditional Maasai system than any other tribal section, whereas the Tanzanian Kisonko had changed quite radically. There were four manyat in Loitokitok and these reflected the division of Maasai society into moieties and clans.The two manyat in the west were associated with the Laisir and Laitayok clans respectively (Black Ox moiety), and both the manyat in the east were associated with the ‘Molelian’ clan (Red Oxen moiety).This was a residue of earlier times when warriors spontaneously divided themselves into separate clans and moieties when they fought over their spoils after a raid. By restricting membership of each Loitokitok manyata in this way, a conflict of loyalties within the manyata was avoided.3 The justification for retaining the manyata system among the Maasai in Kenya was couched in terms of defending their cattle from stock raiders.This was embellished with restrictions that highlighted the rigidity of the manyata regime and relations between the moran and the remainder of the community. Among the Purko, for instance, a manyata should not disband before eunoto (and it could not even move to another site in Matapato); and then there was a hiatus with no manyata protection for several years. The manyata system in Loitokitok contrasted with these, displaying a more direct response to the pressures of the situation.They were exposed on three sides to non-Maasai, and the defence of their herds was a particularly sensitive issue. Even their Maasai neighbours were not altogether trusted. They did not see themselves as the aggressors, but as wealthy pastoralists who were confronted by predatory neighbours along their exposed borders. Unlike the Purko, the independent manyata villages in Loitokitok readily collaborated to combat a raid, recognizing one another from the devices on their shields, and posing a formidable array to the raiders, who would travel without shields.The need for watchfulness lessened during the dry season when conditions were less favourable for organized stock raiding: at this time, stolen stock were in poorer condition, slower on the hoof, and easier to track down. As the drought increased, the manyata might migrate to a better area for the cattle, and at its height it might even disperse altogether as manyata mothers returned temporarily with their daughters to the fathers’ villages, while the moran and herdboys spread out with the herds.The manyata network remained intact up to a point, but the continuity of the manyata villages as a nerve-centre was inevitably disrupted in response to local conditions. In contrast to the extended period between successive manyata regimes among other Kenya Maasai, the transfer from one age-set to its successor in Loitokitok involved only a brief inter-regnum, and this took place during a dry season when the herds were not exposed to unnecessary risk. If there was a border tension at the time, then the change-over would be postponed, leaving the problem of defence with experienced moran, who were mobilized through the coordinated network of their four manyata villages. Compared with Purko, the Loitokitok displayed a more pragmatic accommodation between the manyata and the wider community.There was more flexibility in their relations with their fathers. Beyond the minimum quota of about ten cattle 183

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to accompany each manyata mother, the moran might take further animals from a wealthy family; and (unlike Purko) a father who had collaborated willingly with the moran at this time could later increase the proportion of his herd at the manyata to protect his surplus stock, or he could take his best cattle and his uninitiated children away if he felt they were being neglected. The contrast in attitudes between the north and the south was also expressed towards those moran who did not reside at the manyata. Among the Purko, for instance, an ageing man with just two moran sons might want to retain the older one at home because of his skill in herding. However, the local manyata had the last word, and they might offer him only the younger, or they might refuse him altogether. In Purko terms, non-manyata moran were out of place, compromising the segregation between moran and elders. They were an anomaly and there was less respect for them. Those who went to school tended to be withdrawn as circumcision approached, and those who remained at school were disregarded by the moran, effectively disenfranchising them from manyata affairs. Non-manyata moran would be teased by both the moran and the women when they visited the manyata, they were scorned by manyata girls, and elders would view them suspiciously as adulterous wastrels if they were felt to be loitering near their villages, instead of devoting themselves to the welfare of cattle. In Loitokitok, there was a more relaxed attitude towards non-manyata moran: both their age-mates and elders accepted that there were circumstances when the moran needed to absent themselves to attend to family concerns.There might be some good-natured teasing when a morani returned to the manyata, but there was no suggestion of stigma or malingering. Non-manyata moran would be recalled for any meeting of the manyata for they were equally entitled to play a full part and equally bound by manyata decisions. When posses were mounted to reconvene the manyata after it had been dispersed by drought, individual circumstances might have changed and the mix between manyata and non-manyata moran could shift. Each case would be considered on its merits by all moran, and those who wished to be relieved of manyata service – to become non-manyata moran – had to make their case. The categories of manyata and non-manyata moran merged to the extent that informants expressed some difficulty in assessing the balance between them when I was trying to compile Table 2.1, which reflects the differences in attitude. The categories were more relevant to the residence of their mothers than to the precise mix of activities of the moran. An even more striking contrast concerned attitudes towards premature elders: those that were forced to ‘drink milk’ shortly after circumcision. They were respected by Purko moran, who argued that no one would willingly take this short-cut to elderhood unless forced by circumstance, normally as a wealthy heir who needed to establish a family as soon as possible to manage his herd. Meanwhile, his age-mates could always rely on him to provide them with ample food. In Loitokitok, the more flexible manyata system could accommodate any orphaned youth who needed to marry, and there was no obvious reason why he should not be a morani for the full term. A premature elder was scorned for 184

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having shirked the hardships and harsher edge of manyata life. Away from the village and out of sight of elders, the moran would taunt him and even lash out with switches as though he was some insolent boy. Only if he was prepared to stick up for himself and insisted on keeping their company might he earn their respect and be allowed to join their forest feasting. Premature elders, they argued, did not benefit from the formative influence of manyata life.They did not acquire the same sense of respect or obligation towards their peers, or understand how to behave with girls. They posed an anomaly and were relatively few. This lack of tolerance towards premature elders in Loitokitok highlighted the boundary of moranhood as a whole rather than of the manyata more specifically, as among the Purko. All Loitokitok moran were subject to manyata discipline, and this did not exclude those who were forced to marry early or to devote most of their time to herding, but it did exclude premature elders who seemed to have no logical niche within a traditional setting. Case 30. As a Purko morani, Kurratany had shaved off his pigtails at eunoto, while Kisonko moran of his age-set still wore theirs.When Kurratany visited Loitokitok, he was embarrassed by the extent to which his own age mates had looser conventions towards food: they would share meat with elders rather than avoid them; and when they drank together, they did not avoid the milk of their own clan or act as hosts in the huts of their own clan.Worse than this, Kurratany was at first humiliated by their dismissive rudeness towards him.The Kisonko are widely known for their generosity and deep sense of respect towards age-mates, and this should be especially marked towards strangers (p. 60). But on this occasion, his hosts assumed that he was a premature elder because of his cropped hair.They ignored him at first and then questioned him suspiciously, challenging him until he persuaded them that he too was a morani with a manyata background. Fifty years later, as a widely respected old man, he still felt hurt at the off-hand way he had been interrogated – and by his own age mates above all. The separation of manyata and elders’ affairs was clear-cut. The moran were seen as ‘police’ who protected Loitokitok from intruders, and the manyat played a central role in this. Each manyata was left to look after itself, and the firestick patrons only visited it when their presence was clearly needed. They would not, for instance, interfere in boundary disputes between the manyat during times of recruitment. The unity of the manyata was paramount, and the elders avoided involving the moran to settle grievances among themselves almost as keenly as among the Purko.To implicate a morani son in snatching back a disputed cow, say, could provoke other moran sons to retaliate and would diminish the authority of elders and alienate the moran.4 The manyata experience aimed to foster the social awareness of immature men, cultivating higher ideals that rose above family squabbles and parochial interests, for these would undermine the effectiveness of the manyata and the reputation of the evolving age-set. 185

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Compared with accounts from other tribal sections, the Loitokitok eunoto was a muted affair. It was performed principally by the Kisonko of Tanzania with only a token Loitokitok presence. When their delegation returned, a meat feast was mounted to host the firestick patrons at each manyata in return for their blessing, and the pigtails of moran were shaved off by their mothers.As senior moran, those who needed to obtain work could now seek permission from the manyata to leave the area. But for others, there was no fundamental change, even after they began to marry.They remained attached to their manyata as before, without their wives, and regrew and rebraided their hair in a variety of pigtailed styles that were counted among the privileges of moranhood. A particularly colourful belief linked the regrowth of their hair with the fate of the Kisonko ritual leader who had been installed at the eunoto in Tanzania. The ritual leader was the first to approach elderhood, and the vague suggestion of bad luck in the north was amplified to a more firmly held belief in the south that his fate was inversely linked to the fortunes of his age-mates.5 After eunoto, all moran were expected to regrow their pigtails until the ritual leader was shaved at the olngesher ceremony, about eight years later. Meanwhile, it was held that every time the pigtails of one of his age-mates were shaved off, the whole age-set took a step towards elderhood and the ritual leader grew progressively weaker. In Loitokitok, a number of moran seeking work might be given permission to shave. However, this involved a risk, since the ritual leader would curse the offenders to death if he knew the extent of this malpractice. But he lived across the border in Monduli, surrounded by loyal hair-growing moran, and perhaps he did not realize the scale of the threat to his survival from Loitokitok.This risk of a curse only ended when all their pigtails were finally shaved at their olngesher ceremony, but the threat of misfortune overshadowing the ritual leader remained.6 The foreboding concerning the debilitation of the ritual leader after eunoto may be seen as a manifestation of the process of ageing. The age-set became senior moran through eunoto, and by stepping up the age grade ladder, they vacated a rung onto which the next age-set would be promoted. Eunoto was the signal for uninitiated boys to press for new circumcisions leading towards the next age-set.These might still be several years away, but the initiative had shifted, setting in motion a process that would lead in time to new rivalries and the transfer of privileges once the new age-set had built up its strength. For the established senior moran, delay was of the essence and each age-mate who shaved his hair, for whatever reason, was weakening their solidarity and hastening their elderhood.

The change-over as a critical event In terms of the durability of a manyata, the eunoto in Loitokitok took place about five years later than in Purko, and then the manyata survived for perhaps another six years, out-spanning the Purko left-hand manyata also. During this extended stint, certain moran married, but they still identified closely with the manyata.The wife of a manyata morani set up her hut in his father’s village. Other moran might 186

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visit her there, but the husband especially would only pay furtive visits to her, avoiding her in public and any suggestion of a lapse of manyata discipline. The new circumcisions took place while the manyata system of the previous age-set was still pre-eminent. Compared with a build-up of boys awaiting circumcision over about five years between age-sets among the Purko, the Kisonko moratorium on circumcisions spanned 9–10 years (Figures 7.1 and 8.1).This resulted in a more explosive situation. Youths who had previously been denied initiation in their early teens were now in their twenties and still technically ‘boys’. As their numbers accumulated, they were poised to take matters into their own hands if initiation was delayed any longer. After circumcision, the initiates were clearly distinguished in appearance from the senior moran. As ‘ritual dependants’ (in-tomonok), they were protected by the notion that any violation would bring misfortune, a widespread convention that extended even beyond the Maa-speaking peoples. To protect them from attack by the senior moran until their numbers built up, their firestick patrons delayed their transition to moranhood for about a year.Then, with two age-sets of moran, the novices were still denied the privileges by the senior moran, and would not normally dare to go on a lion hunt, shiver, shake, or yelp in the bush, or they would be beaten. If they wanted to share a meat feast in the forest, they had to ask permission from the manyata of senior moran and accept an escort to supervise their activities and protect them from attack by other moran. Each year, a new batch of circumcisions would take place in the rainy season, and at some point during this period, the novices could expect to outmatch the senior moran. At this point, they would not ask for the privileges, but would simply assume them. The senior moran might feel that they were still physically in their prime, but as one elder put it, they were becoming aware that they could not run as fast or duck as quickly or throw as hard as the novices, and they were more likely to miss their targets.They were passing their prime, and this realization could spread from one part of Loitokitok to others. At this point, the patrons of the senior moran would take the first step towards disbanding their manyata, saving their protégés from the humiliation of being harried into retirement.The novices could now claim to be ruling moran, excelling all others, and the way was open for them to establish their own manyata villages. Because the Kisonko did not divide their age-sets into successive parts – there would be no left-hand side – the serving body of moran continued to build up their numbers and retain their privileges for an extended period.This may account for differences in the ethos of manyata life between the north and the south.The Kisonko reputation among other Maasai for their pronounced sense of respect may well be linked to the more leisurely pace at which males were allowed to advance towards elderhood. The whole process leading towards a change-over was protracted, and then, when it occurred, it was more momentous than in Purko and tensions over the transfer of the privileges of moranhood were proportionately greater. Throughout Maasai, the struggle for these privileges was recognized as more intense in the south.7 While this stemmed at least in part from the extended span of each age-set, the level of expectations were also higher among youths, and 187

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the northern practice of dividing the age-set into two shorter sub-cycles was not an immediate solution. Case 31. When the Terito were moran in the 1930s, the Kisonko moran of Tanzania still lived in manyat. After the first initiations, their Prophet, Lembeya, proposed that the age-set should divide between right- and lefthand sides, insisting that his oracle had indicated that this was the only propitious course. The two sides became known as Kitatin and Maadideeni respectively. In Loitokitok, this decision did not at first affect the sequence of events establishing the Kitatin, who continued to recruit over a number of years and became numerous and strong. As a result, their successors of Maadideeni were inevitably weak and their initiations were soon terminated. Kitatin refused them all privileges for some time and when Maadideeni tried to fight for these, they were defeated and several of their moran were killed. They then mounted a raid on the Chagga to establish some prestige. It was badly organized and they lost more men and gained no cattle. Eventually, they were conceded the privileges as a late gesture by Kitatin, but they then refused to hand these on to the next age-set, Nyankusi II, after their initiation. They would lash out with their switches at any young Nyankusi morani they came across, and insisted that they should not gather together in groups of more than three without permission.As the Nyankusi increased in number and confidence, the elders lost control of the situation.Throughout the Kisonko area there were rumours of fighting between the two age-sets. In a decisive challenge, a group of Loitokitok Nyankusi armed themselves and assumed the privileges, yelping as they toured the countryside and mobilized their age mates for a confrontation. According to Nyankusi informants, twenty-two Maadideeni were killed in the encounter and only three Nyankusi. The episode is now regarded throughout Kisonko as a disastrous tampering with the system that will never again be repeated.The elders have insisted that this should be a matter that concerns them and not the Prophet. It was their domain and it did not escape their notice that the Prophet’s advice had entailed a second eunoto (for the left-hand) and hence a second massive payment for his services.8

The transition to elderhood The fact that initiations were mounted over the same period throughout Kisonko, including Loitokitok, and that they all shared a single eunoto, meant that pressures towards the retirement of the moran were also broadly in line in the various parts. One of the factors that shaped expectations among senior moran, novices, and patrons in Loitokitok and in Tanzania was the knowledge that the privileges of moranhood had (or had not) been transferred across the border. In this way, ‘drinking milk’ in their fathers’ villages occurred at about the same time, and then they 188

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were all poised for the final step towards elderhood through a shared olngesher festival in Tanzania.This was attended by a delegation of forty-nine retiring moran from the four manyata territories of Loitokitok, accompanied by some firestick patrons.9 At the olngesher, the ritual leader and his deputy again played leading roles, and at this point a third ritual figure was installed, the man-with-the-brass-earrings (oloosurutia), who had to be unmarried.The symbolism of these three together was made most explicit by a Loitokitok elder who suggested that at olngesher the ritual leader (the man-who-is-planted) first blessed his age-set with regard to the stakes that established their huts and hence marriages; then his deputy (the custodian-ofthe-thong) blessed them with regard to their wives’ leather maternity belts and hence fertility; and finally, the man-with-the-brass-earrings blessed them with regard to the earrings they themselves would wear at their children’s initiations. Apart from this benediction on the age-set, the appointment of the-man-with-thebrass-earrings once again was widely associated with misfortune. He wore the scroll brass earrings traditionally worn by women and very old men, and used also on ceremonial occasions.10 He was dressed like an old man and respected wherever he went throughout Maasailand, and he could ask any age-mate for an ox when he visited him and might build up a herd of 100 oxen on one tour. But he should never ask for fertile stock or his age-set would curse him, and he should never ask out of sheer greed. Unlike the ritual leader, he should never marry, or it would bring disaster to his age-set throughout all Maasai. In Maasai terms especially, this sterile future held nothing to look forward to and nothing to leave behind after death, rather like someone with an irrevocable death curse hanging over him. He was destined for oblivion, apart from being associated with the name that was now chosen for his age-set. This extended throughout Maasai, far outstripping the ritual leaders of each tribal section, who were merely associated with the local eunoto name given to the right- or left-hand side of their age-set. But both roles had ominous overtones. The return of the Loitokitok delegation to their homeland led to a truncated form of olngesher, when all retiring moran assembled in one large village, each territory having its own sector. An ox was slaughtered (echoing the olngesher sacrifice in Tanzania), and the retiring moran ‘ate meat’ in the presence of their wives. Any wife who had ‘gone to the moran’ of the next age-set and any retiring morani who had seduced a young wife of that age-set were warned not to take part, under the threat of a patron’s curse. The wife should not watch or she would die; and the retiring morani should refuse the meat or he would lose all his cattle and children. Then the firestick patrons presented each retiring morani with a tobacco tube that had been cut from bamboo by the delegation on their way back from Tanzania, and fashioned locally at Topaile (Mount Meru).These tobacco tubes had a similar significance to the ‘stools’ that were acquired at this point among the Purko. The patrons blessed the retiring moran with their tubes, granting them permission to chew tobacco and endowing them with the power to bless and curse.The transition to elderhood was now formalized; and in effect, the ruling firestick alliance 189

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had shifted from an active partnership between retiring patrons and retiring moran (age-sets A and C) to their rivals and successors of age-sets B and D. Meanwhile, the retiring moran (C) were still inexperienced as elders and they had to adjust themselves to a new political field that was sensitive to the balance of interests within the community at large. As aspiring patrons, they wished to promote a new age-set of protégés (E) as soon as possible, and the next step was to lay a curse on a token razor and firestick, which would end circumcisions to the intervening age-set (D). But by custom, this had to wait until the pigtails of the oldest moran of D reached right down to their waists.This would normally take four or five years from the first circumcisions; and then there would be a further year of uncertainty and surreptitious circumcisions following the curse, before they could impose their will throughout the area and finally establish themselves as a force to be respected.

The rivalry between firestick alliances in elderhood The Kisonko had no conciliation sequence to moderate relations between adjacent age-sets that could compare with the Purko. After initiation, each novice morani was expected to give a heifer-of-avoidance to an older brother, ending food restrictions between them, but this was not systematically observed. Many did not have brothers in the next age-set, and anyway food continued to be avoided between these age-sets in each other’s huts.Then, after ‘drinking milk’, the retiring moran in each manyata territory offered a gift of three female cattle to elders of this age-set (now the ruling patrons) to mollify their resentment over adulteries with their wives. This opened the way towards marrying their daughters and new opportunities for settling down. However, the tensions between the two age-sets persisted, although the idiom changed. Jostling on the age grade ladder, as described in Chapter 2, was characteristic of the southern model, first as moran and later as elders. Over time, there was a swing of moral advantage between the opposed firestick alliances. At one point, age-set A in their fifties combined experience with the capacity to assert themselves politically; and as patrons of the ruling moran of age-set C, they could claim pre-eminence among elders. They claimed to excel all others (eisul nkishu). As they aged, the moral advantage would slip towards the other firestick alliance between age-sets B and D, emerging as the ruling patrons and ruling moran respectively.About fifteen years later, age-set C would step back into the arena, contending for power, and so on.This led to a periodic cycle of about thirty years (2  15 years) during which there was an oscillation in political advantage from one firestick alliance to the other and back again, with no more than two active agesets within either alliance at any time. This is illustrated in Figure 8.2, which is a two-dimensional elaboration of the spiral of ageing (Figure 2.4), based on a thirty-year cycle. This diagram may be viewed in two ways. First, one can trace the spiral from boyhood to old age, illustrating at a glance why the age-sets have been spaced apart by about fifteen years: three 190

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Figure 8.2 The Kisonko spiral of alternating power between firestick alliances.

age-sets (c. forty-five years) corresponded to the active span of a man’s adult career, typically between the ages of perhaps twenty and sixty-five years.Within this span, each active adult male is a member of the dominant firestick alliance for two-thirds of the time, at first in the prime of youth and then, after a lapse of fifteen years, in the prime of elderhood. In-between, his age-set would be no match physically for the moran or politically for the ruling patrons and his firestick alliance are eclipsed by their rivals. His situation may be described as one of latency as he adjusts to the transition to elderhood, aiming to build up his family and herd. Given this system, if men’s ageing were spread over a longer or shorter period, then the span of each age-set would be longer or shorter. However, the cycle of about 14–15 years appears to have been remarkably consistent, reaching over the entire span of historical record from the times of Maasai dominance in this area.11 The second approach is to view the diagram along the sloping diagonal. This indicates the position of age-sets within the two firestick alliances at one point in time. Pre-eminence among both the moran and elders is wholly weighted in favour of one alliance, although the situation would be exactly reversed about fifteen years later, when the diagonal has rotated clockwise through half a cycle.At the point of change-over, the ruling firestick patrons are past their prime and their political role is taken over by the next age-set and their ritual responsibilities are given over to their firestick protégés, the retiring moran, who now become novice elders and play a more active role in discussions on community affairs. In Loitokitok, all elders would contribute to these discussions, and the ruling firestick patrons readily appreciated constructive suggestions from members of other 191

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age-sets.They had to act responsibly and consensus strengthened their debates and influence over the moran. Even the change-over between age-sets needed to be seen as a dignified handover of power at the right time in the interests of Loitokitok as a whole. However, this was also a sensitive period when the aspiring patrons might press for an early change-over. Government appointments increasingly favoured younger elders with better education and these were poised to throw their weight behind any attempt to accelerate the process.This would provoke the older men to insist that educated appointees were least qualified to understand the traditional system, spoiling the chance of consensus. Increasingly, contributions by the aspiring patrons were seen as intrusive criticism of the ruling patrons’ handling of sensitive issues and polarized debate. On such occasions the ruling patrons could angrily demand that rival age-sets (older and younger) should leave any meeting that concerned the ruling moran, provoking an angry response. The histrionic intensity of these confrontations varied with phases of the age cycle.The ability of the ruling patrons to muster their numbers and dominate the rhetoric of debate reached a peak in their mid-fifties. They might have to travel considerable distances by foot to attend these meetings, and then they needed to display their moral vigour and their astuteness in responding to the cross-currents of allegation and rumour. But their age was already a diminishing asset, and the advantage inevitably slipped away as they tired and lost the will to persist. If doubt was cast on their competence to control the moran following some incident, this would challenge their legitimate authority and shift the balance of the debate, undermining their own self-confidence. At some point, the patrons were expected to ‘lie down’ (a-irrag) or ‘sleep’ (a-ilura).They resented these euphemisms for ageing that overlooked the proverbial wisdom of old age and the role they could still play in community affairs. In this way, the transition from one age-set of firestick patrons to the next closely echoed the transition from the dominant age-set of the moran to their successors, and elders faced similar dilemmas of timing and strategy. In principle, the aspiring patrons did not wish to seem premature and ineffective, and the ruling patrons needed to display a statesmanship that maintained the best interests of the community above any desire to cling onto power indefinitely, or they could find themselves outclassed and humiliated into retirement. This appears to have been achieved relatively smoothly in Purko, whereas the issue remained sensitive in Loitokitok, and any opportunity to arrive at a dignified transfer tended to be lost as the ruling patrons sought to cling onto their position. Bad feeling between the two firestick alliances would mount, setting the scene for renewed confrontations in the cycles to come. After olngesher, it is perhaps significant that the e-soogo punishment for two elders who fought and drew blood was more elaborate in Loitokitok than in any of the other tribal sections I visited. If one of them was the aggressor then this was held to be a form of sorcery and he must be punished, while the other had to perform an identical forfeit to protect him from the sorcery.The other elders were not concerned with the balance of blame, and anyway in the final analysis it could be 192

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a moot point which was the true aggressor and which the victim.The implication is that physical violence had to be avoided at all costs in the tensions that could persist between age-sets. Rivalries over the privileges might incite the moran towards violence, but the destructive implications of such behaviour after their promotion at olngesher was anathema.12 The eunoto and olngesher festivals highlighted ambiguities in the process of promotion. Ritually, boys could not be mobilized for initiation until the eunoto of the previous age-set had been performed; and olngesher brought the public role of the firestick patrons to an end, sealing their retirement. Delay of these events was therefore a tempting strategy if the patrons wished to prolong their power. However, both festivals were performed by the Kisonko living in the Monduli/Sikirari area of Tanzania.The Kisonko of Loitokitok only sent a delegation and could not delay these events; and to delay their own local celebration subsequently would be a selfdefeating manipulation of the system, undermining the prospects of their firestick protégés, the ruling moran.A delayed eunoto would merely extend the period when moran and their patrons were regarded as immature. It would not affect the buildup of pressure from the boys for a new age-set. A delayed olngesher would merely delay the point at which they could prevent further initiations into this new ageset.The ruling patrons were expected to give active support to the community, and this would be undermined by any transparent attempt to tamper with the natural process of age-set succession, leaving Loitokitok cattle exposed by the patrons’ ineptness. The points at which retiring moran disbanded their manyata villages, ‘drank milk’, and performed their olngesher were clear stages in the process of change-over among firestick protégés. However, the transition among their patrons was less clear-cut and depended on their ability to retain the high ground in debate. The aspiring patrons might seize the initiative even before their protégés had been granted the privileges of moranhood; or the ruling patrons might continue to assert themselves successfully after olngesher, refusing to ‘lie down’. Sooner or later, the outcome was inevitable, but the moral advantage lay with the side that managed to extend their credibility as a force in community affairs beyond the formal transition points of the age-cycle: sooner for the aspiring patrons or later for the retiring patrons. Once the retiring patrons had lost the claim to ‘rule’, they faded from the arena of local politics. As individuals, they might be relatively wealthy with large families and herds, and those with flare might continue to play a significant role as elder statesmen in community affairs.This was the benign aspect of old age.They could continue to share in a warm camaraderie among age-mates, but their age-set had no future. If they refused to ‘lie down’ as an age-set in debate, then they could be dubbed a rabble of foolish and meddlesome old degenerates, with no respect for their age. Disconnected and without status, they had outlived the system.This was the downside of old age for those who had lost touch with their changing role. It was as though they had climbed up the age ladder, from one grade to the next with increasing respect, leading at the very top to a missing rung. 193

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The alternation of power and the involvement of the Prophet Loitokitok ambivalence towards Loonkidongi diviners was similar to the Purko. Elders would question any itinerant diviner who entered their area, allowing only one in at a time, and if there was any sign of greed towards their herds or marriageable girls – a hint of sorcery – then they would summarily order him to leave, threatening to report him to their Prophet. They did not want such men in Loitokitok.13 On the other hand, resident Loonkidongi, who had established trust over a long period, appeared to be more integrated into the local communities than among the Purko. Their repertoire of remedies were widely respected, and they disclaimed any knowledge of sorcery, other than the ability to ‘bind’ those that might cause harm. Whereas the Loonkidongi presence was marginalized among the Purko, it was fully acknowledged in Loitokitok. Any delegation of nine moran to the Prophet, for instance, would comprise two from each of the four manyat and one Loonkidongi. The situation was rather different just across the border in Tanzania, where the Loonkidongi were concentrated on either side of Mt Meru, especially in the Monduli area and to a lesser extent in Sikirari, where they were more interspersed with Tanzanian Kisonko. The Loitokitok did not feel directly threatened by these neighbours, but they still regarded this area as a notorious nest of the worse kind of internecine sorcery. Case 32. Monduli was regarded as the traditional centre of Loonkidongi influence over all Maasai until Lenana moved to British East Africa (Kenya) in the 1890s and allied himself with the new administration there (Case 24). When Lenana died in 1911, his son Parit inherited Kisonko as his domain. The close link between Monduli and Kisonko was revived around 1923 when the Kisonko elders felt that local Loonkidongi rivalry had escalated out of control.They needed a powerful Prophet at Monduli to protect them from the insidious spread of sorcery. A delegation was therefore sent to fetch Parit to live again among them.All Kisonko age-sets are said to have joined in this procession, led by the moran of Dareto age-set. They brought Parit back in triumph and re-established the close bond between Prophet and moran. Since then, the Kisonko of Tanzania have regarded their Prophets at Monduli as giving protection close to home and holding the other Loonkidongi sorcerers of Monduli at bay, rather as the Loita regarded Simel. Parit was succeeded by his brother, Lembeya, and then by his sons, Letinka and Lebalosi. Rivalry between these two came to a head at about the time that the Nyankusi II age-set were wresting the privileges from the Terito moran (Case 31). With the intense rivalry between these adjacent age-sets, the Kisonko elders resolved the issue by adopting both men as Prophets, each with a patronage over one of the firestick alliances. Letinka and then his son, Lorokolgos, were Prophets for the alliance comprising Terito and Seuri, and they remained at Monduli. Lebalusi and his successors, Shineni, Tipilet and Nampapit, were Prophets for the 194

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firestick alliance comprising Nyankusi II and Kitoip, and they moved for greater safety from Monduli to Sikirari. In this way, the rivalry between firestick alliances (especially among the southern Maasai) has been linked with rivalry among Loonkidongi (especially around Monduli).14 In this dual division of power, the Loitokitok suggested that no Prophet could survive more than one complete age cycle because of the internecine sorcery in the Monduli/Sikirari area. Each Prophet in succession was likely to die or to lose his reason during the period when the alliance he oversaw was weakest; that is, during the least active period of their ceremonial cycle between the olngesher of one age-set and the inauguration of their firestick protégés. In this way, while the Kisonko paid generously for their protection from sorcery and were assumed to benefit from it, the Prophets themselves were thought to pay an even higher price than the retiring patrons.15 Like the majority of Kisonko who were dispersed over a very wide area, the Loitokitok did not regard themselves as particularly close to their Prophets, and they did not, for instance, keep them informed of Loitokitok affairs. They would send delegations for advice and paid their dues without a closer involvement, and this arrangement was felt to work well. So long as the ruling patrons and the ruling moran were at the height of their powers and on good terms with their Prophet, their dominant alliance had the diplomatic backing of all other elders for the well-being of Loitokitok generally. If during this period, the latent firestick alliance undertook a sacrifice, then this was overseen by their own (latent) Prophet, for this was still his domain and of no concern to Loitokitok as a whole. In times when there was felt to be widespread misfortune, the two firestick alliances might even agree to a joint ceremonial initiative. This had to be handled diplomatically, as the Loitokitok elders must avoid arousing the jealousy of either Prophet.To keep the issue outside the arena of their rivalries, the elders would approach a third reputable diviner in the Monduli area.They avoided any hint of switching allegiance or they might risk the jealousy of both their established Prophets. On the next occasion when they acted jointly, therefore, they would approach a fourth diviner, and so on. It was during the period of transition around olngesher, when the latent firestick alliance was poised to take over power from the dominant alliance, that tension came to a head, characterized by a prudent avoidance between adjacent age-sets. This was seen as having its counterpart in the increasing rivalries between their respective Prophets and the belief that the attempts to ridicule and discredit by elders on both sides were backed by sorcerers’ traps fostered by their Prophets,‘binding’ their adversaries. This was a lesser form of sorcery, but the possibility of a more insidious threat was always possible. Case 33. Loitokitok elders of Nyankusi II age-set recalled the period when they seized power from Terito age-set as the ruling patrons around 1970.They recalled a secret visit to their Prophet (now in Sikirari). He had supplied them 195

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with two packets of magic powder.The first was to make them eloquent and irresistible in debate. Each Nyankusi orator would dip his tooth-stick in this powder and when inspiration flagged, he would brush his teeth as if pausing momentarily for thought, and then he would resume, invigorated and inspired.The second powder was to dull the wits of Terito by ‘binding’ them, taxing their ability to dominate and weakening their resolve to ‘rule’. The Nyankusi elders were to doctor some mugs with this powder and then invite some of the best Terito orators to drink tea with them as their guests, with a show of friendship. This was intended as a mellow form of sorcery infused with benefaction. It would not kill any of the older men; but it would weaken their resolve in public affairs and encourage them to devote their remaining years to their families and herds, bringing fertility and wealth to their homesteads. Predictably, the Terito elders guessed the Nyankusi intentions, and went to their Prophet at Monduli, and he also gave them two packets to help them stave off their ageing and confuse their enemies. Relations between the two agesets became strained. They avoided visiting each other’s villages. Even brothers who had lived together amicably throughout their lives, moved apart. While the two age-sets sparred with each other in this way, their Prophets were assumed to be locked in mortal conflict elsewhere and at a higher level. Eventually, the Nyankusi elders managed to break through the defences of the Terito, tricking their leading spokesman into tasting some of the magic powder. He lost his power of persuasion in debate, and without him, his age-mates lacked direction and started to argue at cross-purposes. The initiative then passed to the Nyankusi who rose to the occasion as a concerted force and proclaimed themselves the ruling patrons now, with the best interests of the wider community in view. By 1977, the Nyankusi age-set had been ruling patrons in Loitokitok for perhaps seven years. As elders, they were at their peak and ostensibly more active in local and even regional affairs than either their Terito seniors or their Seuri juniors.This, they claimed, was due to the effectiveness of their former Prophet Shineni.They were delighted that the ritual leader he had chosen for them at the Kisonko eunoto had died young – a sure sign that they would remain strong and healthy for years to come. It was equally reassuring that the Seuri age-set were weak while their ritual leader was prospering and astonishingly fit. This implied a measure of ineptness on the part of the rival Prophet, Lorokolgos. Looking ahead to the time when the Seuri would try to trick them into premature retirement, the Nyankusi were uncertain whether Seuri sorcery would be as benign as their own had been against the Terito. Like other lesser diviners and Prophets, Lorokolgos might seek to make up for his ineptness by being less concerned for the good of the wider community and more concerned to display his power with a more deadly magic. But they were still quite confident: they had the better Prophet, they had more experience, and they would be fully prepared. They would choose their own time 196

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for handing over to Seuri. The dominance of the gullible Terito had been undermined before the olngesher of their firestick protégés; whereas the Nyankusi confidently expected to continue their rule beyond this point. It was a boast that echoed the assurances of the ruling moran of Kitoip age-set that they would only concede the privileges in their own time and on their own terms. Ironically, it was the ruling elders of Nyankusi age-set who had assured me that the moran were being unrealistic, yet now they were making similar predictions concerning their own surrender of power. The Seuri elders viewed the situation differently.They pointed out that they were still relatively young, and few had yet built up large enough herds or families of their own to participate fully in the affairs of elders. Meanwhile, the Nyankusi were fifteen years older than them, and it was not only the Nyankusi ritual leader who had died; but so had many other Nyankusi elders as well, and with these losses, they were steadily weakening. Meanwhile, the Seuri were bent on curbing illicit initiations into Kitoip during the closed period, anticipating a new age-set that would help them rebuild their own alliance.16 This was a first step, and the Seuri elders hinted darkly that they were already making plans to take over the initiative quite soon – again sooner than one might realistically have expected. Meanwhile, they were pressing the administration to appoint some of their own leading members to government positions locally as a stake in any future claim to rule. Features of this southern model were held to be quite general elsewhere and they were echoed among the Matapato, for instance.17 However, the rivalries and mistrust between adjacent age-sets shifted with context and they sat alongside, tensions between the moran and elders at large.Whereas in Loitokitok, the unfolding pattern of firestick antagonism was clearly articulated and the internecine rivalry of the Loonkidongi was given a peculiarly southern twist. In the northern Purko version, excluding the other firestick alliance from any sacrifice was regarded essentially as a matter of ritual propriety; and sorcery was seen as an external threat from neighbouring tribal sections, fed by rivalries between Loonkidongi elsewhere. Among the Loitokitok, excluding a rival firestick alliance from a sacrifice was an explicit precaution against sorcery from within their own area (or Monduli nearby), fed especially by the rivalry between firestick alliances. This rivalry was tied to the phases of the age cycle, and the major concern with sorcery reflected the periodic crisis of popular confidence in an age-set of ruling patrons whose time was running out.18

Conclusion: the northern and southern models of constraint While all tribal sections have their own variations of the basic age system, these are synchronized through the lead given by the Keekonyukie in the north, when the boys seize the ‘ox’s horn’ to inaugurate a new age-set, and by the Kisonko at their olngesher festival in the south, when the age-set is unified throughout the Maasai 197

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area and given a name. This unity was challenged by a Kisonko elder who suggested to me that the Kisonko would not wait indefinitely for the cue from Keekonyukie before initiating a new age-set.This seemed to be a rhetorical claim to assert the superiority of Kisonko’s role, overshadowing the part played by the Keekonyukie. But records suggest that the opposite is also possible, and the name chosen in Kisonko for a particular age-set may be obscure elsewhere, with shifts in usage over time and in different parts. By the time one name becomes established throughout the area, it is quite conceivable that this is different from what had originally been proposed in Kisonko.19 Nevertheless, the basic premise concerning the roles of Keekonyukie and Kisonko remains unchallenged, and the unity of the age system is not affected by quite radical differences between tribal sections. In the two models of the Maasai that have been outlined here, the critical issue facing the aspiring firestick patrons at the time of change-over shifts from the north to the south. In the north, it is an issue of control over the emerging cohort of moran who are excluded from the community of elders (a confrontation of robust elderhood vs youth). In the south, it is a contest with their predecessors, whose energy is diminishing, squeezing them out of the public arena (a crisis of old age). In the northern model, the firestick relationship bridges the stark separateness of the moran from elders and it is the negative aspect that dominates: the moran claim an autonomy but only for one-half of the age-set cycle and they submit to the threats of their patrons in the final resort. In the southern model, the moran are clearly separate from the elders – and for a more extended period that spans the full age-set cycle – but they are less cut off from the domain of elderhood. The high proportion of non-manyata moran and the sporadic dispersal of the manyata in times of drought soften the boundary. Above all, it is the positive aspect of the firestick relationship that is stressed, and the moran in their prime are the defenders of a community that is essentially governed by their firestick patrons in their prime. This partnership is echoed in the rivalries between adjacent age-sets: the struggle for privileges between moran is replicated at a higher level in a struggle for credibility between their patrons, coloured by the apprehension of sorcery. Between the two models, there is a shift from opposed age grades in the north (moran vs elders) to opposed age-sets and hence firestick alliances in the south (senior moran  patrons vs junior moran  patrons). Table 8.1 summarizes the pattern of variation between the north and the south, broadly typified by the Purko and Loitokitok respectively. Somewhere in the middle of this field were geographically intermediate tribal sections, such as the Matapato, who had features in common with Purko in some respects and Loitokitok in others.20 The significance of Matapato in this table is simply that my research was anchored there in the first instance, and this inevitably fashioned my approach towards the other Maasai, which in turn fed back to my appreciation of the Matapato. The pattern can be extended up to include other Maa-speakers. Ethnographic accounts of the Parakuyu in the far south suggest that they are quite similar to Kisonko in a number of respects, and contrast with the Purko. First, the Prophet 198

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Table 8.1 Range of variation between northern and southern models Topic

(1) Manyata system Age-set divided: right- and left-hand sides Recruitment within manyata territory only Attitude towards non-manyata moran Attitude towards premature elders Period without manyata coverage Permanence of manyata village on site Significance of eunoto festival Belief in fate of ritual leader Cue for disbanding manyata Pace of retirement to elderhood Transfer of privileges to successors (2) Relations between age-sets Separation of manyata from elders Thrust of firestick patron’s control Relations between adjacent age-sets Conciliation sequence

Purko (northern pattern)

Matapato (intermediate pattern)

Loitokitok (southern pattern)

Always Flexible Dismissive Tolerant Substantial Can migrate Massive Mixed feelings After eunoto Phased Early and controlled

Nearly always Very strict Accommodating Ambivalent Substantial Must not migrate Impressive Rather ominous After eunoto Phased Mildly fraught

No longer Very strict Accommodating Derisive Brief Can be suspended Remote Very ominous Before olngesher Delayed and sharp Fraught

Marked Restrictive

Clear Generally restrictive Mellow over time Mistrustful Complex and Simple and extended low profile Not an issue Concern

Marginalization of retired patrons (3) Constraints of kinship Clanship obligations on the moran as hosts Stressed Manyata morani’s liberation from father Extreme Elder’s independence from ageing father Barely conceivable Ritual precedence within extended family Sustained (4) Prophets, sorcery, and witchcraft Prophet’s domain Tribal section Proximity of Prophet Distant and cool

Accommodating Generally supportive Persistently tense Simple and low profile Critical

Not stressed Substantial Revocable Lapsed

Not stressed Negotiable Revocable Lapsed Firestick alliance Close and cordial in Monduli/Sikirari Internal Feared especially by retiring patrons ? Not acknowledged Widely suggested

Principal threat of sorcery Possibility of sorcery between age-sets

External Denied

Tribal section Distant but cordial Various Expressed

Possibility of sorcery within family

Denied

Expressed

Concern over people with ‘eyes’

Relaxed

Aware

controlled ‘critical phases in promotion of age-sets’, opening new initiations, and subsequently ‘holding’ the eunoto and olngesher festivals of promotion.There was also rivalry among diviners for the position of Prophet, with the possibility of sorcery (‘witchcraft’) when they died unexpectedly. Second, a father had only limited control over his sons once they had married, and for this reason, coupled with competition between generations for wives, he tried to delay his sons’ marriages.Third, the extended ban on circumcisions between age-sets was very similar to Kisonko (9–10 years within a total age-set span of 14–15 years), and this set the scene for 199

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a potentially explosive period of change-over. Competition between senior and junior moran was a source of friction; and when they became elders, adjacent agesets were still considered rivals and ‘enemies’.This antagonism was linked to a firestick alliance between alternate age-sets, who helped and respected one another as mutual friends.And fourth, after the ritual leader was installed at eunoto, he was not expected to become rich or to survive much longer than one age cycle beyond his installation, or his age-set would not prosper. As a forerunner, he was deeply respected and effectively transferred to the firestick patrons’ age-set, sleeping in their huts, for instance, rather than those of his former age-mates.21 In the far north, the Samburu were even more extreme than the Purko in three essential respects. First, while the firestick patrons were more domineering among the Purko than in the south, highlighting the separateness of the moran from the elders, the firestick regime was more gerontocratic still among the Samburu. Samburu moran could only begin to settle down to elderhood and marry towards the end of the age cycle, facilitating polygyny without involving strains in the father–son relationship. Second, while Purko elders were more constrained by family protocol than in the south and had less freedom to impose their will in an arbitrary manner, there was even more constraint among the Samburu because of the communal bonds of clanship. Clansmen supported one another, and in doing so they actively curbed the freedom of elders to exploit their junior kin.This seemed correlated with a less competitive ethos than among the Maasai, and even less concern over sorcery or a need for protection by Prophets than in Purko.The elders of each Samburu clan managed their own festival events.Third, the tensions between rival age-sets, highlighting the peaks and troughs of ageing in the south and expressed in the beliefs of impending misfortune associated with the ritual leader, were altogether less marked among the Purko, and these were moderated further still among the Samburu, again by the close bonds of clanship: the principal antagonism was between clans rather than age-sets; and their pronounced beliefs surrounding the ritual leader did not express any sustained threat of misfortune. Compared with the Samburu, the Maasai age system did not protect the family so directly: Maasai elders could also be firestick patrons of their sons, and restrictions on early marriage were less stringent, creating tensions between resilient fathers and their older sons. But unlike the Samburu, the Maasai did have manyat, and the manyata episode can be viewed in terms of an opportunity to break through the vicious circle by separating maturing sons from their demanding fathers over a critical period.This separation was more absolute but briefer among the Purko, and it was more accommodating but also more extended in Loitokitok.22 Because of the age system, no Maasai elder had unrestrained power, but in terms of his freedom to manage his immediate family in his own way, this tended to increase towards the south and there was an increasing concern over the possibility of sorcery, culminating in the sinister reputation of Loonkidongi in the Monduli/Sikirari area. Maasai elders did not see themselves as unrestrained patriarchs, but their gossip often recognized this characteristic in others, and it was a view widely shared among wives and among moran. The image of unrelenting 200

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power of greedy sorcerers can be viewed as a caricature of the unseemly side of elderhood, increasingly separated from the constraining influence of age-mates and kinsmen with the approach of old age. A historical explanation that might account for this trend from the north to the south is beyond the scope of the present work, although it would be tempting to link it with the southward thrust of the Maasai several centuries ago.This migration was from the more arid areas of the belligerent north, where nomadic pastoralists had to contend with one another in order to survive, to a prime pastoralist niche in the more benign south where their neighbours were settled agriculturalists. It was in the deep south, with its mixture of tribal groups, chiefdoms, and emerging states that there may have been an opportunity for a family of diviners, backed by the muscle and organization of the thrusting Maasai, to develop into a quasi-state (p. 114). And given the history of earlier migrations by pastoralists from the north, taking over this niche by displacing or absorbing their predecessors in succession, this broad process could stretch even further back in history, beyond the Maasai.23 Here, it is only possible to take a first step towards such a reconstruction by considering the shape of Maasai society around the time of the colonial conquest.

Notes 1 Thus, seizing the ‘ox’s horn’ occurs before the boys’ enkipaata dance in some southern tribal sections (Figure 8.1, cf. Fosbrooke 1948: 25–7), after it in the north (Figure 7.1, cf. Sankan 1971: 26, Uasinkishu), and has been discarded in some others. Again, I was told that among the Kaputiei Maasai, age-sets of the Terito–Seuri firestick alliance invariably divide between right-hand and left-hand sides, following the normal pattern for the north, whereas age-sets of the Nyankusi–Kitoip firestick alliance follow the southern practice and do not divide. 2 Each of the major ceremonies in Kisonko is associated with a different location. Eunoto is held at Mukulat (Monduli), olngesher at Oldonyo Lolmowarak (Sikirari), and ‘seizing the ox’s horn’ is traditionally at Ilkiteetu (Simanjiro, and at a greater distance from Loonkidongi influence, as in the north). Manyata areas with delegations of up to 100 participants include Sikirari, Monduli, Simanjiro/Ilkiteetu, Nkare-Naibor/Lonkiito/ Kitumbeeni, Oldoinyo-Loltatua/Enkariaoni, and Moibo/Naberera. Entoimet, Imueinteet, Engaruka, and Manyara would send altogether smaller delegations. In addition, outlying tribal sections, such as Loitokitok, Serenket, Salei, Laitayok of Lolgirgir, and Arusha would be represented by smaller delegations. In the past, the Meru and Chagga too would be represented by delegations. 3 Cf. Merker (1904: 97), who noted similar divisions among the Kisonko (Laitayok  Elmengana) and identified the above terms for the moieties as battle-cries. Unlike the manyat, the population at large are not strictly segregated by clan affiliation. I was told by a Maasai from Kaputiei section that the four manyat there were also organized according to moiety: two manyat in the north – one for each moiety – shared a single territory, and this pairing was repeated in the south. None of the other tribal sections in my survey associated manyat with clanship, and the alternative argument was put to me that the dispersal of clans and moieties served to lessen the rivalry between manyat, preserving a wider unity (Matapato: 19, 104–5, Spencer nd.). 4 In contrast with Purko practice (p. 156 above), various authors have suggested that the moran may be implicated in enforcing the wishes of the elders (Fosbrooke 1948: 38;

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5

6

7 8

9 10

11

12

Beidelman 1960: 268; Gulliver 1963: 63, 107; Jacobs 1965: 294, 343–4). Significantly, perhaps, all these refer to the southern Maa (Kisonko, Arusha, and Parakuyu).The only rare situation that my own Kisonko and Matapato informants could reconcile with this would be when a creditor had built up the support of elders and moran of all age-sets over an extended period against an obstinate debtor and finally had their mandate to involve his own moran sons to bring the matter to an end. Purko informants flatly denied that such a step would even be contemplated. A Tanzanian Kisonko elder indicated that the ritual leader is always a member of the Mamasita clan and his deputy is of Laisir, and both are from the Monduli area; the ritual leader’s wife is always taken from the Enkare Naibor area and his marriage cattle are supplied by the Laitayok Lolgirgir. Various commentators have suggested that the ritual leader is responsible for the general appearance of other moran (Hollis 1905: 299n; Fosbrooke 1948: 40; Jacobs 1965: 318).This was denied by my informants in various tribal sections. However, it seems possible that Fosbrooke’s comment in particular relates to the concern of the Kisonko ritual leader that his followers should not shave their hair. Cf. Gulliver 1963: 46; Jacobs 1965: 268–9; Ndagala 1992: 92. Cf. Fosbrooke (1948: 33), who noted that the right and left sides of Talala age-set performed separate olngesher festivals, which also would have entailed a double payment for the Prophet, Lenana. Case 31 may be linked to the fact that the Kisonko boys of Nyankusi were never assembled to seize their ‘ox’s horn’; and from that time, the Kisonko have followed the practice of some other tribal sections, mounting this event before eunoto (cf. Matapato: 157). Ndagala (1992: 93–101) gives a useful eye-witness account of the Kisonko olngesher ceremony. Cf. Merker 1904: 72, 137; Hollis 1905: 284. Beliefs surrounding the man-with-thebrass-earrings are generally vague and variable, and comments here are based on a broad consensus among the Maasai I have visited. The unpropitious aspect of the oxen given to him may be compared with beliefs surrounding the gifts of forty-nine oxen that are given to firestick patrons following the olngesher/‘stools’ festival in various tribal sections: these have unpropitious and barren implications associated with old age (p. 168). In effect, the man-with-the-brass-earrings appears to have an affinity with the surviving patrons of his age-set who retire to a bleak future at this point. I was also told by a Kisonkoi that he has always been a member of the Parsinko sub-clan (Laisir) from Sikirari, and that he might be given a heifer if his host has no ox to give. Merker (1904: 72–3) seems to have conflated data on (a) the ritual leader (installation of ol-aunoni), (b) the man-with-the-brass-earrings (should remain impoverished with only gifts of oxen), and (c) the spokesman (with overall responsibility for coordination and discipline among the moran). Confusion between these roles is a more plausible explanation than that they may have changed radically without my older informants being aware of this in 1977, or indeed Fosbrooke thirty years earlier (1948: 39–40). Available evidence suggests that the period between successive age-sets has remained relatively constant. The oldest men alive in 1977 were six age-sets senior to the youngest boys, and could just remember seeing elders six age-sets senior to themselves when they were young (cf. Nomads: 149; Pastoral Continuum: 135). Using an altogether finer method of assessment, Fosbrooke (1956: 196–9) suggests a precolonial interval of perhaps fourteen years, compared with fifteen years more recently, but this would not radically alter the present argument. In the e-soogo punishment for fighting in Loitokitok, each victim initially forfeits a fine ox and eight pregnant heifers, and both victims then have to move to live at opposite ends of the same village. On the day of the ritual, age-mates of each victim drive his ox out of his gateway to slaughter it in the bush for a separate feast.The victims then cross

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13

14

15

16 17

18

over through the centre of the village three times, passing one another on each occasion: first to be smeared in the bush with brisket fat from the other’s ox by the other’s age-mates; and then back to be smeared with their own; and then back again to join in the meat feast of the other’s ox. Each victim would squat holding his herding stick while being smeared with the fat (cf. Matapato: 211). All other elders can only attend one of these feasts and then drink beer in the hut of the owner, for it is held that apart from the victims, if anyone else is involved with both sides on this day, then all the meat-feasters will die: it would be sorcery. Only after the ritual has been successfully completed are the other confiscated animals handed back one by one at the request of individual age-sets, wives and moran.The number of beasts that are retained depends on the strength of feeling that is still aroused. Earlier accounts note the existence of Sikirari (i.e. Loonkidongi) on the north-eastern foothills of Kilimanjaro.This appears to have been even larger than the colony reported at Ngong (Enchoremuny) at that time, with two manyat of moran (Sandford 1919: 7; cf. Whitehouse 1933: 146). Regarding the Kisonko Prophet’s liberties in relation to Maasai girls, see Fosbrooke (1948: 21). A Loitokitok elder even suggested an original slant on Maasai history interpreting the precolonial civil wars as between firestick alliances rather than between tribal sections. He argued that Sendeu was Prophet for the alliance that his own age-set (Talala) had with Nyankusi I, while his brother Lenana was Prophet for the alliance that his age-set (Laimir) had with Twati II. Berntsen (1977: 25) extrapolates a similar argument. However, other elders repeatedly stressed to me that it was the effectiveness and not the age-set of a Prophet that mattered. Lorokolgos and Tipilet belonged to Nyankusi II and Seuri age-sets respectively, but were each Prophets for the other alliance. Working among the Kisonko in the Monduli area, Daniel Ndagala (1992: 94, 98, 167) noted that firestick patrons held the initiative in appointing a new Prophet when a new age-set was formed.Then, the Prophet expanded his role at each stage, at first at eunoto, but especially at the culminating point of olngesher, using his authority to control the proceedings. Thus Lorokolgos delayed the Seuri olngesher for two years because he was too ill to fulfil his role, and then Nampapit insisted on advancing the Kitoip olngesher by a month or so in order to avoid disaster, and he moved to the festival site to ensure that the preparations were completed in time.At first, the Kisonko elders resisted Nampapit’s advice because it was leading to chaos, and then they were reassured by his presence. Here too, one may note that the concerns over danger that peaked around the time of olngesher in Loitokitok coincided with the critical period of the age-set cycle involving the Prophet in the Monduli/Sikirari area. For a fuller account of this episode, see Matapato: 67. Cf. Matapato: 215–18.A similar belief was expressed by a Purko elder, who suggested that the spate of early deaths among the Dareto of Siria was due to sorcery by the Terito, underlining the otherness of Siria.This was denied by my Siria informants who argued that this had just been a matter of chance (‘God’). The notion of hidden malignant forces was more than just an emanation of Loonkidongi influence in the south.There was also a widespread belief that a mild form of witchcraft was especially prevalent in this area. This was associated with those who had inherited penetrating ‘eyes’ (inkonyek); and such persons could inflict harm on children and small animals through involuntary greed, unless they spat on them.Among the Purko, it was held that only women could have ‘eyes’, inherited from their mothers. Such a woman could be cured by her husband, forcing her to gaze intently at the rib-fat of a goat that he had killed within the village; but her daughters would still inherit ‘eyes’. The Loitokitok viewed the problem more seriously, suggesting that either sex could inherit ‘eyes’ from either parent, and if they were also ill-natured and did not spit, then their greed could even harm larger beings. Generally, other Maasai viewed the Kisonko

203

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

19

20

21

22 23

as a people whose reputation for respect was offset by a greater apprehensiveness over ‘eyes’, which even the Loonkidongi could not fathom. See also Ndagala 1992: 124; Matapato: 43–4, 60–1. The Kisonko held an olngesher in 1974, and in 1977 I was assured by two separate Kisonko informants that the name chosen for the promoted age-set was ‘Meruturud’. And yet ‘Seuri’, which was already recognized in Purko in 1977, has now become the established name. In the literature on the Maasai, there appears to be more consistency among authors concerning the names of long-established age-sets than on more recent names, even after olngesher. Similar shifts in usage seems to explain early references to the Laitayok clan as Ilmengana and the Loonkidongi as Sikirari (cf. Notes 3 and 13). Details of variation among some other tribal sections are summarized in Spencer nd. (‘Survey’). Fuller elaboration of the four principal topics of Table 8.1 are discussed in Matapato: (1) pp. 84–6, 89–94, 96–8, 108, 115, 172–86; (2) pp. 66–8, 82, 102–3, 107–11, 216–19; (3) pp. 57, 79, 87–9, 100n, 108–11, 231, 234–6; (4) pp. 43–4, 60–1, 140, 219–26, 248–50. Beidelman 1960: 262–5, 273–4; Hurskainen 1984: 109, 134–6, 142, 145–6, 185–9.While Beidelman and Hurskainen note that the brass earrings worn by the ritual leader for the rest of his life are like those of a woman, this practice together with other beliefs could more significantly point to the peaceful trappings of an older man with coercive powers and the prospect of a shortened life-span (p. 72). He may not marry further wives, even if his first wife dies (Beidelman); and with bleak prospects, he should limit his ambitions (Hurskainen). See above (pp. 27, 155, 169, 176) and below (p. 228, note on Vossen); Samburu: 32–5, 83, 88–9, 97–8, 133–4, 139–40, 151–3, 172, 190; Nomads: 115–16; Matapato: 271–4. Ehret 1973: 163.

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9 A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL AND THE HUB OF POWER

Four characteristic features of the southern Maasai highlight the extent of variation with the northern model.These are: the unity of the age-set spanning about fifteen years with no subdivision into successive right-hand and left-hand age-groups; the closer involvement of the Prophet in age-set development; the notion of moranhood as a preparation for elderhood rather than a troublesome episode; and this corresponds to firestick alliances that are supportive and associated with the tensions between adjacent age-sets. One of the aims of this chapter is to explore how far these variations between south and north may be traced to the transition of Maasai society from a dominant military power in the region to one that has been restricted by imposed government.An assessment of the Maasai age system and the role of the Loonkidongi Prophets at the time of the earliest records is a step towards unravelling the changes that have occurred since that time.

The colonial intervention by British and German administrations A critical analysis of the transition to colonial rule has been undertaken by Richard Waller (1976), focusing on the efforts of the British administration to consolidate their position during the 1890s in what was later to become Kenya. At this time, Maasai herds had been severely reduced by epidemic, and there was widespread unrest between tribal sections as they battled for survival, fostered by the rival Prophets, Sendeu and his brother Lenana, in a tussle for supremacy.The stronghold of their father, Mbatian, had been in the area to the west of Mt Kilimanjaro, close to the Kisonko; and while Sendeu remained there after Mbatian’s death, Lenana moved north and established links with northern Maasai such as Purko, whose herds had suffered. Lenana, a talented diplomat, was now in an ideal position to liaise with the British, who at first recognized his authority as paramount over the northern Maasai.This was an especially sensitive issue, as the British were building a railway through Maasai territory, linking the coast with the potential riches of Uganda; and it was essential to establish peace with the Maasai in order to achieve this. It suited both parties, therefore, to form an alliance in which Lenana acted as broker. On the one hand, this enabled the British to employ Maasai moran strategically 205

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

(and cheaply) as mercenaries to dispel resistance to their rule among other pastoral tribes; and on the other, it provided the Maasai with a means of restoring their herds through a share of confiscated cattle. In this way, the developing administration superimposed their authority on Lenana’s system of patronage; and through him, the Kenya Maasai became clients of the British for as long as it suited both sides. In German East Africa (now Tanzania), the military administration treated the southern Maasai as any other subject peoples and systematically extended their control as masters rather than patrons, without attempting to cultivate Maasai help at any point.Their military station was established at Moshi, and their proximity to Sikirari undermined Sendeu’s independence, and hence his influence as a Prophet and his freedom to pursue his feud with Lenana. Sendeu therefore moved away to the more remote Ngorongoro steppes, closer to his powerful followers of the Loita Maasai (1896). This contrasted with Lenana’s move to Ngong to be closer to his powerful allies, the British (1899). Once Sendeu had left their area, the Kisonko switched their allegiance to Lenana, leading eventually to Sendeu’s humiliation when he sued Lenana for peace (1902).1 The alliance between the British and the Maasai provided an ideal opportunity for collecting and publishing material on the Maasai, culminating in (Sir) Claud Hollis’s The Masai: their language and folklore (1905). Hollis’s section on Maasai grammar grappled impressively with the complex verbal structure of Maa, and this was coupled with some genuine ethnographic snippets. The lack of a rapport between the German authorities and the Maasai in the south provided an unlikely setting for any meaningful account, and yet it gave rise to the most significant volume on the Maasai for decades to come, and this still remains a historical gem. Moritz Merker’s Die Masai was published in 1904, and it complemented Hollis’s grammar, published a year later. Merker’s volume was based on eight years of experience from 1895 as an officer at Moshi, before German influence had been formally established beyond Mt Meru; and meanwhile the Maasai were effectively unadministered, apart from an increasing limitation on their raiding. Merker’s volume contains a number of flaws when viewed from this distance, notably in his ambitious attempt to grapple with Maasai religious beliefs and traditions. However, he kept these quite separate from his extended account of their social organization, which in terms of ethnography was quite an extraordinary achievement.This towered above any other account of the Maasai during the colonial period, which ended in the early 1960s, and its general neglect since then is a striking anomaly of Maasai studies.2

Merker’s model of moranhood around 1900 The tone for Merker’s work is set by his outline of the Prophet’s court which comprised a cluster of villages containing his many wives, an entourage of moran as his bodyguards, and of elders who served as his advisors, with their families. Those who approached the Prophet regarded him with awe, hardly daring to raise their eyes. In addition to the mystique that surrounded him, the Prophet’s powers of 206

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

divination were underpinned by a well-organized network of spies, who kept him well informed on the disposition of his own Maasai followers and the strengths and weaknesses of neighbouring peoples.This enabled him to display an uncanny grasp of shifts in opportunity, and to guide Maasai moran on their raids, extending to pre-emptive strikes when attacks were anticipated.3 Instead of a separate Prophet for each tribal section, which is typical today, Merker described a time when Mbatian had been Prophet for all (southern) Maasai until his death around 1891. Since then, the rivalry between his two sons, Sendeu and Lenana, had implicated the Maasai in a devastating civil war that was drawing to an end even as Merker wrote, but he does not elaborate on this. It is inter-tribal raiding against non-Maasai rather than civil war that colours his account as a facet of Maasai existence. The dominance of just one Prophet pervades this work, and while Merker constantly referred to the Maasai as a unity, it is evident that his principal focus was just one tribal section such as Kisonko, comprising the Prophet and a number of manyat, with their own defined territories and spokesmen.This suggests a basic territorial pattern that has persisted since then (albeit with modified boundaries).4 The thrust of Merker’s account concerns the development of an ‘age-class’ (Altersklasse) through moranhood; and this is summarized in Table 9.1, which shows that the term ‘age-class’ refers to the right-hand or left-hand age-group before the two sides are combined to form a united age-set at olngesher. Compared with more recent accounts, the enkipaata celebrations of boys is shown as lasting longer: they elected their own spokesman (Sprecher), and feasted in a succession of villages over one month. This celebration was repeated annually over 4–5 years with increasing numbers of growing boys until the Prophet agreed to their circumcisions, marking the initiation of a new age-group. Following initiation, youths had to serve for an extended period as novices (Rekruten) before they could become moran. Once they had shown their mettle, they would seek a name for their age-group from the Prophet. As they increased in number and experience, their concern was to establish a reputation as ruthless killers, and they would mount minor raids against relatively vulnerable targets, such as trading caravans or weak non-pastoral tribes.This contrasted with the preceding age-group of mature moran (Kreiger), whose prime motive was to build up their herds, involving raids against more formidable enemies. The senior moran might sometimes allow the novices to join them at their forest feasts and even to accompany them on their raids, forming a joint company of 100–200 strong within each manyata territory. In this way, the established senior moran provided the novices with further experience.5 However, the novices were still regarded as little more than boys and the senior moran would not allow them into their manyata village.They had to establish their own manyata and their right to the privileges of moranhood by force, at which point the senior moran would retire (Case 1). Once these rights were no longer contested, the novices – now aspiring moran – would be joined by their mothers, whose huts established their village as a true manyata, and by younger brothers to 207

Table 9.1 Merker’s model of the Maasai age system c.1900 Age and stage

Event Prophet orders boys’ enkipaata celebrations

12–16 A

B

C

D 20–22 28–30 E

Comments and page references (Merker 1910)

(‘En gebata’).This feast is repeated each year for 4–5 years until the next circumcisions. (pp. 60–61) Prophet opens period of Elders decide timing of circumcisions. circumcisions Most recently occurred for righthand of Twati age-set in 1896. (pp. 61, 76, 78) Boys are circumcised Age of circumcision depends on ability of initiate to join in raiding and of his father to afford an ox feast. (p. 60) Boys become novices when they (‘El barnot’).They live in their fathers’ discard their initiates’ garb villages.Wealthy orphans may marry and climb up to the next age-group. (pp. 74, 76) Novices engage in raiding Undertaken (a) on their own account against soft targets, and (b) with moran of the next age-group to gain experience. (pp. 75, 77) Novices usurp the moranhood Occurs after about 2 years as novices. arena and build their own manyat The previous age-group of senior moran then reluctantly retire to elderhood. (pp. 67, 83) Prophet orders enkipaata for This ends further circumcisions after the next age-group 4–5 years, and occurred in 1901 for the left-hand of Twati age-set. (pp. 62, 71–2, 78) Prophet hosts a festival to install Ie. eunoto, followed by forest a ritual leader (ol aunoni) feasting and usually a raid. Each tribal section has its own ritual leader. (pp. 73–4) Prophet opens a new Involves the next age-group, after circumcision period 4–5 years of annual enkipaata celebrations. (pp. 61–2) Typical age for a moran to be betrothed to a girl aged 8–10 years as his future senior wife. (p. 44) Great Ox feast marks formal (‘Ol baa’). Performed when moran feel retirement to elderhood by that the novices of the next ageing moran as individuals age-group are poised to assert their own moranhood.They typically marry at about this age, but may still join in raiding. (pp. 67, 104) Age-group of retiring moran Those who do not wish to settle down discard their garb, and marry if may attach themselves to the next they have not already done so age-group of younger moran. Retiring moran only join in fighting if there is a war, or in defence of their herds. (pp. 73–4, 104) Prophet hosts olngesher feast (‘Ol neher’- Kisonko dialect). Righthand and left-hand age-groups combine to form a single age-set. (pp. 72, 74)

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

herd the cattle and by girls. Each girl could choose her own lover, and turn to other moran in his absence. However, she could not marry her lover nor any other moran of this manyata. Merker regarded this system of free love as a form of celibacy: with no sustained pairing, love-making did not detract from the ideal of manyata unity, and it also created close peer bonds among the girls. Nevertheless, rivalry over girls was clearly a source of friction among moran that detracted from the corporate ideal. The manyata spokesman was selected for his diplomatic and organizational skills, and he had to resolve almost daily squabbles among moran, often over the girls and sometimes leading to fights, even with weapons. Particularly quarrelsome moran would be warned after inflicting serious injury and could be outlawed from the manyata if they persisted.6 The period of circumcision and recruitment ended when the Prophet proclaimed the enkipaata for boys who would form the age-group. The young warriors would then be formally established as senior moran at a festival in which the ritual leader was installed (i.e. eunoto).The ritual leader acted as an intermediary with the Prophet, and used his influence to diffuse disputes between neighbouring manyat in liaison with their spokesmen. He was associated with the need for agegroup unity as they approached elderhood, raising the level of concerted action from the individual manyata to the tribal section as a whole; and anyone who defied his authority would be beaten.7 Merker’s detailed knowledge of Maasai society around 1900 combined with his professional military training to produce the most convincing account of their raiding tactics on record. His estimates suggest that typically in times of peace, about 25 per cent of the moran would be feasting in small groups in the forest areas, a minimum of 10–20 per cent would remain at the manyata to protect it, while the remainder were dispersed on errands, visiting other villages, watching over their territory, and spying on their neighbours. The manyata spokesman was at the hub of the information network generated by these activities, which extended to reports by boys who herded close to the boundaries and by old women. He was therefore ideally placed to make strategic judgements in matters of raiding and defence – and to feed information to the Prophet when they met.8 After perhaps two months of peace, a popular urge to mount a raid would gather momentum among moran.They would petition their manyata spokesman, who in turn would confer with the spokesmen of neighbouring manyat and then with their ritual leader to agree on a specific enemy to raid. Conflicting opinions could arouse strong feelings: whether they should concentrate on building up their cattle herds, or avenge a recent defeat, or assert Maasai primacy against an enemy that posed an increasing threat. Even after a general consensus had been reached, there could still be friction among the rank and file; and the spokesmen in collaboration with the ritual leader would divert attention by inducing their followers to take an oath of bravery (entorosi ).This took the form of a favour that they displayed prominently. For the leading members this might be a snuff-holder or fly-whisk borrowed from an elder, while other moran would fashion a fragment from a girlfriend’s 209

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

beaded apron. Foremost among these were the two most prominent types of warrior: the diehards (ilkigeloni ), who paraded a distinctive red symbol on edge of their shields, pledging themselves to outstanding bravery on the battlefield; and the ‘bulls’ (iloingok) who were regarded as the natural war leaders and wore leg-bells that sounded as a rallying point for other moran in the heat of battle.There were perhaps 5–6 ‘bulls’ in each manyata.9 Once the moran were geared for war, their spokesmen would approach the Prophet, who would consult his oracle and interweave the information provided by the spokesmen with his own extensive knowledge, even on trivial matters. He would then give them detailed instructions on their tactics and medicines to ensure success. These were regarded as infallible and any subsequent setbacks would be blamed on the bungling of moran and not the ineptness of their Prophet. When the spokesmen returned, the moran would share a final forest feast, lacing their soups with the strongest combination of stimulants. They would then set off on their raid, mobilized in groups of 10–20, and armed with heavy shields and spears. They might cover 2–300 kms in 3–4 days, marching stealthily in order to maximize the surprise and confusion at the moment of attack and the size of their haul.The success of the Maasai as a united military force depended on an effective system of deceptions and coordinated strategies, directed by the spokesmen behind the scene of battle. The task was divided between various troops, each with a specific role. Scouts would be sent ahead to reconnoitre. Then the ‘bulls’ would lead 3 or 4 columns of the most spirited moran to penetrate the area and engage the enemy; while the main body of moran would spread out to round up the cattle as they dispersed in the confusion, driving the herds away as quickly as possible.Their line of retreat was covered by the redoubtable diehards to engage the enemy hordes as they mobilized to retrieve their cattle. During this operation, pairs of moran were pledged to support one another. If a particularly popular morani was wounded – one who was acknowledged as a manyata benefactor because of his generosity – then others would vie to look after him on the way home; whereas no one would help a mean colleague: if he was wounded, he could be left to lie.10 When they had reached safety, the division of the plunder was organized by the leaders.The first share was set aside for the (absent) ritual leader, and then, according to the size of the haul, special shares were allocated to those with special claims: first those who had killed on the raid, then the manyata benefactors, then the first morani to seize an animal, and then the spies who had preceded the expedition. Wounded moran could claim one animal each. The remaining spoil was ideally divided equally among all those who had taken part in the raid. However, at this point unity could break down as certain moran claimed a larger share, leading to fighting in which several might be wounded.At one time, certain locally dominant clans had their own heraldic device on their shields, which displayed their united strength on the battlefield and again during the heated process of dividing the spoil. If too few cattle had been captured, the clans would combine into two opposed moieties and fight for what there was, each invoking the moiety name as their battle cry, with the winner taking all.11 210

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

Merker’s model of elderhood around 1900 As a new age-group emerged, the mature moran were forced to share the limelight. This swelled their fighting power and the growing band of novices joined them and gained experience, but it also introduced a new rivalry that could only end with the retirement of the senior moran to elderhood as their successors took the centre stage. Significantly, this is a point in Merker’s account where his focus switched to the novices as they usurped the arena of moranhood, while the tiring senior moran faded from view as they became faceless elders. As individuals, senior moran could seek their spokesman’s permission to leave the manyata prematurely in order to marry, marking their departure and transition to elderhood with their loolbaa (Great Ox) feast. Or they could continue to live at the manyata after marriage until it was disbanded.12 Either way, each retiring moran returned to his father’s village and once again submitted to his authority.The father was the family overlord (Familienoberhaupt) and was held in respect and awe by his sons. He remained in a position to override their independence after they had married, retaining the right to dispose of stock from their herds until he died. Even during the sons’ years at the manyata, living apart from their father, their war-gains had gone principally to the family herd, either directly or after being looked after by their manyata girlfriends. Correspondingly, it was the father’s responsibility to pay compensation if his son killed another morani. Any son could be expelled from the paternal family or he might decide to abscond. But he then would need to buy protection from another family with gifts of cattle; and eventually he would have to return to his father and pay for his misdemeanour if he wished to marry and found a family of his own. Clearly, while the paternal family was strong, the father was vaguely accountable for his behaviour to respected brothers of the extended family who lived locally and could convene as a family council (Familienrat). The extent of this accountability was further demonstrated after the father’s death by the nature of the authority inherited by his oldest son. He wielded influence in resolving family disputes, but this only lasted while he retained his brothers’ respect, for they had the power to depose him.13 Beyond the family, individuals relied on the loyal support of their clansmen within the tribal section. Disputes between clansmen tended to be settled amicably, whereas numerical dominance affected the outcome between clans, especially if they belonged to different moieties or were accretions that had become attached to the Maasai.14 Members of stronger clans could evade punishment more easily, and following a homicide, they would more readily resort to a bruising feud in the tussle over compensation.These loyalties were again displayed among moran during the division of war-spoils; and the significance of clanship in resolving disputes through coercion is a telling sign that the moran may once have had a higher profile in community affairs. Or did Merker underestimate the power of elders to inhibit these rivalries? Merker clearly felt that the patrilineal descent system had been stronger in the past before the cattle plagues of the 1880–90s – the Disaster (emutai ). His vision of this earlier form of Maasai society suggested that extended families lived in their

211

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

own nomadic villages without near neighbours, and relatively unconstrained by tribal conventions. More recently, he noted that clanship was diminishing in importance: moran no longer displayed clan emblems on their shields, and linked clans had begun to intermarry. Since Merker’s time, even clan exogamy has progressively lapsed and residual bonds of clanship seem more relevant by default than as an organizing principle.15 Compared with his treatment of the military aspects of Maasai society, which focused attention on the spirited prime of moranhood, Merker’s description of their subsequent careers as elders presents a disjointed outline of customary procedures to resolve disputes.These could draw in elders who were respected because they were rich or had been manyata spokesmen. However, there is no clear indication of the thrust of community life among elders nor of any control over the moran.Without moran, Merker portrays life in the elders’ villages in terms of dullness and boredom (stumpfsinn und langeweile). He noted that women prayed each morning and night when milking, but elders only prayed in times of crisis or on special occasions. This seems to imply that Merker regarded routine elders’ meetings with their prayers and blessings as special occasions, or perhaps his reticence revealed a significant gap in his experience among the Maasai.16 Apart from acknowledging the power of the father over his family and procedures for resolving disputes, Merker’s disregard for elderhood is summarized in the dismissive claim that after Maasai moran retired to elderhood and married at about the age of thirty, they generally grew old early, without ever reaching a great age. This suggests that even the powerful family overlords were only a handful of ageing survivors.Yet in 1901, he described the Prophet Sendeu as a man of about his own age – still a youth in Maasai terms (der noch junge) – although Sendeu’s agegroup suggests that he was at least 10 years older; and while Merker sadly died only seven years later at the age of forty, Sendeu lived for another thirty-two years.17

A critique of Merker’s model of moranhood The principal actors in Merker’s account were the moran, as they built up their herds through raiding, before retiring to the shadowy world of elderhood.There is no mention of any firestick relationship between alternate age-sets as a vehicle for elders to control moran, and even age-sets that are formed and named on reaching elderhood hardly have any significance. Instead, the emphasis is on self-regulation during the period of moranhood and concerns the dynamics of change-over between successive age-groups (right-hand or left-hand sides) as the units of action. There was no suggestion of especially sharp rivalry between moran and novices at the beginning of an age-set cycle (between age-sets) and a measure of accommodation at the next change-over halfway through the cycle (within the age-set). In effect, his model presents a cycle of age-groups and glosses over the more inclusive ageset cycle (cf. Figure 2.2). He only made passing reference to the merging of the two sides into a united age-set at olngesher.This was not treated as an obscure event, but it remained shrouded in the obscurity of elderhood.18 212

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

An intriguing aspect of this model is its similarity to the age system of the Kalenjin peoples, who had ambivalent links with the Uasinkishu Maasai (Case 11). The Kalenjin age system had no firestick relationship between alternate age-sets, but relied on each age-set passing on its knowledge and skills to its successor and rival. In Merker’s account, senior moran did not actually regard novices of the following age-group as their protégés or pass on secret ritual knowledge as among the Kalenjin, but nevertheless they seemed to play a significant part in their training. The novices were 8–10 years younger, and they associated with the moran in their forest feasts and on their raids; and it was the moran who curbed the excesses of the novices until they were strong enough to take over the warrior role.As among the Kalenjin, this involved increasing rivalry, but the overarching priority among the Maasai concerned dominance over the region and there was also an element of altruism in handing over the privileges of moranhood to a new and energetic age-group, when they were ready. Having noted this parallel, Merker’s model of an 8–10 year cycle presents an intrinsic inconsistency that is made evident in Table 9.2.19 This table notes (A) that boys aged 12–16 are circumcised to become novices. About two years later (B), when they are 15–16 years on average and not yet up to full strength, these novices wrest control from the ageing moran whose average age (E) is around 22–23.5 years. Not only is it highly improbable that youths in their mid-teens would overcome a larger number of more experienced young men in their early and middle twenties, but this contradicts Merker’s repeated point that young men did not begin to tire of moranhood or accept the prospect of elderhood until they were aged 28–30. Even a maximum age-group span of ten years appears too short. In other words, according to Merker’s time-scale, it was not so much the novices who were held in an extended limbo between boyhood and warriorhood, as the retiring moran between warriorhood and elderhood.The fact that the Maasai were living through a period of devastating cattle epidemics, when raiding was the principal means of rebuilding their herds, adds to the likelihood that the moran would Table 9.2 Age and age-group development (Merker’s model) Stages of development of an age-group (after Merker 1904)

Age range with an 8-year cycle

Age range with a 10-year cycle

A First circumcisions for a new age-group B Novices surpass moran of the previous agegroup and usurp the arena of moranhood C End of circumcisions D New circumcisions for the next age-group E Moran surpassed by novices of next age-group and retire to elderhood

12–16 12–18

12–16 12–18

12–20 16–24 18–26

12–21 17–26 19–28

15 22

15 23.5

Average ages at time of changeover usurping novices (B above) retiring moran (E above)

213

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

have been reluctant to retire prematurely.And this would of course be true for their enemies also: they too would have sported their most mature fighters.The problem suggests two possible explanations that may both be relevant. The first possibility is that Merker may have underestimated the ages of initiates or the span of an age-set cycle. Henry Fosbrooke – also an administrator in this area forty years later – undertook a further assessment of the Kisonko Maasai age system. The two authors broadly agreed on the structure of the age system and the process of succession between ‘age-groups’. However, in Fosbrooke’s model, the initiates tended to be 4–5 years older than in Merker’s, and the right-hand agegroup did not assume the full privileges of moranhood or establish their manyata villages until all the circumcisions had been completed, after perhaps four years (or less for the smaller left-hand side). Thus, with an age-group span of about eight years, Fosbrooke’s data suggests that the respective ages at change-over are typically around twenty-one and twenty-nine years (and perhaps less for left-hand agegroups).With regard to the age of circumcision, Fosbrooke’s estimate is well within the range suggested by other authors of his time. However, Merker’s estimate of their age is also broadly in line with his contemporaries (Table 9.3). Merker provided a photograph of initiates and it is unlikely that he would have mistaken youths of (say) 16–21 years for boys aged only 12–16.20 This leads to an alternative explanation for the anomalies of Table 9.2. Bearing in mind that Maasai age-sets have been spaced apart by about fifteen years for an indefinite period, Merker’s eight-year span of a typical age-group appears more feasible than a ten-year span. Taking the eight-year column of this table, this may be transposed to Table 9.4 as the right-hand age-group. The whole problem is transformed if one radically reinterprets the change-over at stage (B). In Merker’s model, young novices wrested power from their predecessors at this point, before Table 9.3 Estimates of boys’ age at initiation Source

Estimated age at initiation

Krapf 1854: 14 Krapf 1860: 363

17–20 14–20

Thomson 1885: 247 Johnston 1886: 412 von Hohnel 1894: 245 Hinde 1901: 41 Johnston 1902: 804, 827 Merker 1904/1910: 60 Hollis 1905: 262n

14 14 12–14 8–13 8–15 12–16 13–17



Average 13.1 years

Leys 1924: 104 Whitehouse 1933: 146 Fosbrooke 1948: 28 Fosbrooke 1956: 189 Jacobs 1963: 55

15–18 17–25 16.5–c.21 14–17 14–18



Average 17.6 years

214

(Very early hearsay estimates)

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

they had completed their period of initiation, when they were young, relatively inexperienced, and well below their full strength.The reconstructed model assumes that Merker misinterpreted his informants, and that youths remained as novices for about ten years rather than just two.21 In other words, a change-over did occur at point (B) in the cycle, but it concerned the previous age-group, who only assumed the privileges and built their manyat when they were in their early twenties and unstoppable. Correspondingly, their predecessors only accepted the inevitability of elderhood when they were nearing thirty and losing the will to persist, as Merker suggests.The left-hand age-group column of the table has been adjusted to cover a seven-year span to bring the total age-set cycle to fifteen years.The figures could be adjusted further between the two sides or for the total span to match different assumptions, but this would not affect the resolution of the problem. This reinterpretation of Merker’s data incorporates a major assumption, but in other respects it fits well with the broad perspective of his account. The novices could hardly begin to achieve all that he claimed for them in their first two years or so. Again, he noted that any threat to discipline within an unduly large age-group of novices could be resolved by the Prophet’s dividing them into two successive named sub-groups.22 This seems altogether more plausible if their period as novices extended well beyond two years, leading to greater rivalries as they continued to mature. The Maasai at that time were building up their herds through raiding after the Disaster, and early initiation into a prolonged period as novices Table 9.4 Age and age-set development (elaborating Merker’s model) Stages of age-set development through right- and then left-hand age-group

Age range Lefthand

A Right-hand circumcisions for a new age-set start (B) [Previous age-set: right-hand moran hand over privileges to left-hand novices] C End of right-hand circumcisions D New circumcisions for the left-hand age-group E Right-hand novices surpass left-hand moran of the previous age-set, become moran, and build their manyata villages End of left-hand circumcisions (A) [Next age-set: right-hand circumcisions start] B Right-hand age-group retire to elderhood, handing over to the left-hand novices, who become moran and build their manyata villages (C) [Next age-set: end right-hand circumcisions] (D) [Next age-set: start left-hand circumcisions] E Left-hand moran are surpassed by right-hand novices of next age-set and retire to elderhood

215

Average age of ruling moran

Righthand 12–16 12–19

12–16 12–18

12–19 16–23

19–26 20–27 24–31 25–32

12–20 16–24 18–26

(22)

19–27 23–31 26–34

(30) (22.5)

(28.5)

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

would fulfil this aim, balancing the rivalries between successive age-groups with joint ventures against their neighbours. Compared with Fosbrooke’s later account, this reconstruction suggests that a major shift in the Kisonko age system has taken place, with delayed initiations and a reduced period as novices. This contradicts a common assumption that the age of initiation has fallen since the time that youths were expected to become hardened warriors: a kind of Gresham’s Law applied to moranhood. It is a view held by many elders, who may have confused history with their own sense of ageing: that moran (qua policemen) are getting younger. However, the weight of independent estimates (Table 9.3) does suggest that the age of initiation may actually have risen during forty years of imposed peace. Merker noted that boys’ initiations were delayed if their fathers needed them for herding. As Maasai herds recovered, the training of youths switched from an extended period as novices priming themselves for raiding towards a more extended period as herd-boys, conscripted by their fathers to care for the family cattle.23 Indeed, if the demographic profile of life expectancy has shifted since Merker’s time, as seems rather likely, then this would have affected a range of expectations associated with age. Relative to the number of youths, there are likely to be more fathers who live long enough to dominate their sons, and more firestick patrons to dominate their moran protégés. Merker’s data compared with later accounts during the colonial period suggest that it has not been initiates who were getting younger, but manyata moran.With the transition from a predatory form of society to one that concentrated more on peaceful pastoralism, there was no prolonged stint as novices and the privileges of moranhood appear to have passed down to youths at an earlier age – after a longer stint as herd-boys.

The Prophet and the dynamics of power Merker’s account is oddly ahistorical. On the one hand, he pitched it in the period when Mbatian was dead and the Maasai were a spent force, recovering from the Disaster, which he witnessed at the beginning of his tour of duty. Tribal sections still engaged in skirmishes among themselves, but ultimately they were constrained by the German (and British) authorities, as Merker loyally stressed towards the end of his work. On the other hand, his ethnographic present concerned Maasai military organization and cattle-raiding backed up by a well-informed system of information, as it might have been but for the impact of this colonial presence and the remoteness of any Prophet in Kisonko since Sendeu’s discreet departure in 1896.24 His pithy analysis of the organization of warriorhood provides a unique insight into the power structure and strategies that underpinned the earlier military success of the Maasai, balancing self-discipline with competitiveness according to context. It is the most authoritative source that we have, but ultimately it is a reconstruction, suspended anachronously between an earlier regime that was being pulled apart by Mbatian’s sons, and the more recent regime that was being imposed by European penetration. There is no clear indication of the place of the age 216

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

system once moran settled down as elders, nor of any mechanism that enabled the elders to assert their influence. Gerontocracy appears to pervade his account within the family, but there is no mention of the firestick relationship between patrons and moran, or of the role of elders more generally. Instead, it is the Prophet who is seen to dominate, in liaison with the moran through their beleaguered spokesmen. Table 4.2 indicates the balance of domains controlled by the Prophet and the elders in recent times, with the initiative for control over the age system firmly in the hands of the elders, while the Prophet provides magical protection and advice against sorcery, especially in mounting major festivals. However, Merker’s view suggested quite a different balance, in effect shifting the Prophet’s domain from the right-hand side of the table towards the centre and even beyond at the expense of the elders. He saw the Prophet as the powerful presiding figure (Gewaltigen), with ultimate control over the moran. It was the Prophet rather than the elders who gave advice and permission on virtually all important issues, and in hosting ceremonies that marked the major stages of their promotion near his village, he controlled the timing and the performance. The Prophet was only involved in the elders’ affairs in exceptional cases. He arbitrated in disputes between different communities; his village provided sanctuary for homicides who confessed their guilt; and his close neighbours were elders in his confidence who acted as his assistants and advisors, but again without a clear role. It is the absence of links between the Prophet and the elders in other respects that is striking as compared with the moran. When elders wished to seek help on a variety of uncertain issues, they would turn to local diviners rather than the Prophet.25 The European image of Maasai around 1900 focused attention on the irrepressible combination of skilful Prophets and headstrong warriors who were beyond the control of elders.Yet, earlier writers had acknowledged a shadowy influence of the elders within their own society.26 There were, in other words, two arenas: the first concerned the external relations of Maasai as predators, and this was very visible to early travellers or officials such as Merker; and the second concerned the dynamics of community that were less obvious to casual observers. Joseph Thomson, the first European to traverse Maasailand, resolved this apparent contradiction when he noted that captured cattle belonged to the father, whose ‘sole idea was to rear a brood of young cattle-lifters’, and Merker reiterated the point.27 This was to acknowledge that elders were more than merely disinterested onlookers, and that moranhood and cattle-rustling were early stages of a career that did not simply end when they stopped raiding. Beyond the family, the key institution underpinning respect for elders at large – the firestick relationship – appears to have been overlooked in the literature and records until 1930.28 Yet, it is implausible to assume that it did not exist in Merker’s time. Elders in 1977 would dismiss any such suggestion with incredulity, and the fact that the firestick relationship flourishes quite independently among the Samburu in the far north and the Parakuyu in the south is a clear indication that it is even more ancient than the Loonkidongi dynasty. There is a consensus among various authorities that the nineteenth century had seen an increase in the power of Loonkidongi Prophets, with Mbatian building on 217

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

the high reputation of his father, Supeet, to acquire a commanding position over the Maasai.This may have been due in part to Mbatian’s organizational and diplomatic skills, building on his privileged position as ritual advisor, but his stature was almost certainly enhanced by the sustained successes of Maasai moran against their enemies, linking their growing reputation firmly to his. The spread of Maasai success was also the spread of Loonkidongi patronage extending from Kisonko towards the northern Maasai, at the expense of non-Loonkidongi diviners and perhaps of elders exerting their influence more generally.29 Merker’s description of the Prophet’s court appears to have captured a lingering memory of Mbatian at the height of his power.This was the model of Maasai society that Die Masai sought to reconstruct, emphasizing the charismatic power of the Prophet, and to this extent drawing attention away from the authority of the elders. However, it was already a dated model as Maasai society was torn apart and the new colonial administrations established their influence. The ahistorical aspect of Merker’s analysis fuels earlier speculation that the principal source of his information may have been dispossessed Maasai who had settled as agriculturalists among the Maa-speaking Arusha, not far from the military station at Moshi and ritually linked to the Kisonko Maasai through their Prophet. Merker noted that his informants were aged 50 years or more, and many of them could have fully consummated their moranhood at the height of Mbatian’s fame, providing the author with rich accounts of their past, and a bleaker insight into their more recent misfortunes as elders.30

Conclusion: colonial intervention and the transformation of the age system From the standpoint of 1900, Merker’s disregard for the role of the elders is typical of his time. Similarly, the high profile of the Prophet, albeit a distant figure, does not mark out his work as outstanding.31 Other writers of this period attributed political scheming and ruthless manipulation to such Prophets as Sendeu and Lenana. However, unlike Merker, these writers tended to treat ‘custom’ as a rather separate issue – a disjointed guide for action and belief among the remainder of the population. The Prophet was unrestrained, while the others were shackled by custom. Merker did not see it that way. The distinctive aspect of his analysis was that self-interest and custom appeared to interact. The various domains of community life displayed patronage at various levels that served as constraints on individuals, who could nevertheless assert themselves in the final resort. As a guiding principle for Maasai life, Merker repeatedly invoked the axiom that ‘Might goes before Right’, even among dissatisfied elders when they choose to take the law into their own hands. It was a principle that applied as much to the father of the family as to his sons, to clansmen asserting their joint interests, to novices claiming the privileges of moranhood, to moran competing over girls in the manyata or dividing the spoils of war, to Prophets in their internecine feuding, and to the Maasai as the dominant force in the region in pre-colonial times.And implicitly in 218

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

his conclusion, it provided a legitimate argument for Europeans to take over the position of power.32 This critique of Merker’s book is a necessary step towards a fuller appreciation of the historical significance of his work. In the 1970s, the Maasai had no clear sense of their own history.They tended to view the past as a projection of the contemporary scene, with inter-tribal warfare as an overlayer that had since been replaced by the colonial and post-colonial umbrella. Similarly, they regarded recent changes in custom as unprecedented rather than as symptoms of the flexibility of their social system, as it adjusted to change. Indeed, they showed little curiosity over variations between tribal sections or between north and south, despite their vivacious enthusiasm for what they regarded as mainstream practices.They argued that such differences have always obtained, whereas Merker’s work provides the clearest evidence of change and local variation in change. Because Merker’s work is such a credible source, his comments on pre-colonial change are noteworthy. Thus, his material provides the only useful evidence that we have on the earlier significance of clanship, which has had diminishing importance among the Maasai throughout the twentieth century in contrast to their northern neighbours. If dominant clans previously flexed their muscles without regard for customary restraint, as he indicated, then this would raise a more fundamental issue, implicating the loyalties of moran and compromising any popular ideal of manyata unity. According to Merker, the decline of clanship was precipitated by the Disaster. However, this also provoked a widespread breakdown of social order, sharpening rivalries rather than inhibiting them. An alternative explanation suggests that any trend towards accommodation between clans could have coincided with Mbatian’s earlier rise as an outstanding Prophet who unified the Maasai against their enemies. This is to imply that one of Mbatian’s great achievements could have been to inhibit clan hostilities and family feuding in the interests of establishing Maasai dominance throughout the region. It may be linked to Maasai traditions of migration from the north, before they allied themselves to Loonkidongi Prophets and asserted their pre-eminent position in the region. Merker’s suggestion that Maasai clans were more independent in the past suggests that they were previously more similar to the Samburu, who have weaker diviners, stronger clans, and a more rudimentary age system. In other words, it is quite conceivable that the Samburu may be closer in these respects to some proto-Maa ancestral group in the north: from a Maasai viewpoint, a historical remnant of former times.33 In Merker’s account and in other early writings, it is the elders who are marginalized and the warrior villages – the manyat – that are central. However, early encounters with the Maasai tended to underrate the power of the elders, drawing attention to the extent to which they were unable to restrain the high-spirited moran. With administration, this led to official policies aimed at reinforcing the power of the elders with a view to taming the moran. In the sense that successive age-sets of moran have been brought to heel, the role of moran as warriors became superfluous, and gerontocracy may be regarded as an indirect product of imposed 219

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

government – it was the moran who were marginalized. In a less blatant sense, the power of elders over the moran is clearly altogether older than European patronage. The gist of Merker’s work and odd observations by other early authors is that elders and moran had different kinds of power. Moran held the initiative in the military expansion and defence of the Maasai, while elders held power in internal matters, notably in control over marriage and women as key resources. Gerontocracy in this sense was not concerned with controlling every aspect of moranhood or even preventing them from having discreet affairs with women or pilfering stock for the pot that still persists. But elders were able to restrain moran as individuals, and fathers had formal control over the family stock, including their sons’ war-gains. Above all, moran remained unmarried and could not claim ultimate control over the stock in their possession. It was the elders who had a monopoly of control over women, marriage, and herds, underpinned by a regime that demanded respect amounting to fear. From this perspective, the petty delinquencies of the moran and the outbursts of angry defiance in the heat of the moment were the price these elders had to pay for imposing heavy-handed restrictions on young men until the age of perhaps thirty years.The age system outlined in Chapter 2, in other words, appears to have been essentially in place in the nineteenth century, and significantly, the age-set interval over a cycle of about fifteen years among the Maasai appears to have remained remarkably constant over at least 150 years.This spanned pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial times, and the virtual abolition of inter-tribal warfare, and this, despite attempts by successive administrations to curb the manyata system and abolish moranhood altogether.34 Regardless of appearances, the elders were in control of what mattered to them: polygyny, associated with large families and delayed marriage for moran.The institution of moranhood persisted. The moran had a long-term stake in this system; and short-term rivalries among themselves and outbursts against the elders served to divert their attention from the system of exploitation that relied on a delayed elderhood.The element of lawlessness could upset the elders; but in the act of giving vent to anger, their parade of ritual power served to assert their ultimate control.The obscurity of elderhood was and is the success of elders in obscuring their power. As neo-Marxists might argue, in insisting that they alone knew how to ensure good marriages, the elders controlled the means of reproduction as an impenetrable secret, while the glamour of moranhood was the opium of the mass of dispossessed young men, forced to bide their time. During Mbatian’s time, it was not so much the moran over whom the elders seem to have lacked control as the Prophet himself. In their oral traditions, this was the height of Maasai successes against other Maa-speakers, increasing the reputation and wealth of the Prophet.After Mbatian’s death, his sons, Lenana and Sendeu, competed for the initiative at the high-point of Loonkidongi power. Whether Loonkidongi hegemony could have been sustained, but for colonial intervention, is a moot point. The infighting among Maa-speakers and then among the Maasai themselves suggests that they had reached the limits of expansion, and that the initiative might have swung back to the elders anyway. 220

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

This touches on an aspect of Maasai society that clearly has changed very considerably.The transition from a situation in which the Prophet held the initiative to one in which the elders held the upper hand under colonial rule in Kenya has been well documented, and has been illustrated here in Chapter 7 for the Purko (Cases 25–6, 28). Lenana was at first appointed Paramount Chief, but the limitations of his influence became apparent even before his death in 1911, and the new administration then recognized that the most prominent elders were the key players.35 The developing situation is less clear cut in Tanzania (German East Africa in Merker’s time, and then Tanganyika). The Kisonko preference for a Prophet who is resident nearby in Monduli or Sikirari, rather than kept at bay as among the Purko, raises the question concerning the Prophet’s involvement in Kisonko affairs, especially in this ritually focal region (Chapter 8). It is not so much the principal role of firestick patrons in organizing the age-set festivals or the advisory role of the Prophet that is in question as the extent to which the Prophet could use his mystical powers to undermine the authority of the patrons to his own advantage, impinging on the dynamics of the age system.36 This touches on the Kisonko practice of maintaining a prolonged period of moranhood, punctuated by particularly vicious tussles for supremacy between successive age-sets of moran every fifteen years or so. In 1977, Kisonko elders maintained that their age-sets did not follow the Purko pattern of dissipating these tensions by dividing successive age-sets of moran into right- and left-hand sides, and they regarded the Terito age-set, who had actually divided in the 1930s, as an aberration (Case 31). However, far from being an anomaly, division into the two sides does appear to have been a regular Kisonko practice in pre-colonial times. Merker regarded it as the standard pattern: he identified right-hand and left-hand sides for the previous three age-sets, and writing in 1901, he expected Twati II age-set to divide as well.37 In other words, the nineteenth-century profile of the manyata system, indicated for Purko in Figure 7.1(b), could also have applied broadly to the Kisonko of Loitokitok and Tanzania.This raises the interesting possibility that the distinction between northern and southern models is at least in part rooted in colonial history. Table 9.5 summarizes the sequence of Kisonko age-sets over a period of change, grouping them into four phases of development.38 Phase A relates to the glowing period of success and prosperity, as it is remembered in pre-colonial times, when age-sets systematically divided. Phase B coincided with the earlier period of colonial administration, when Twati II age-set did not divide after all, and nor did the Dareto who followed them.At this time, the freedom of Maasai moran to raid with impunity was held in check by the new colonial authorities and especially by the German administration in Kisonko. This suggests that the right-hand moran of each age-set, having failed to fulfil their ambitions, clung onto their privileges, while the left-hand novices failed to build up a sufficient challenge. The novices were then recruited as the rump of the right-hand, rather than ousted as left-hand upstarts who could cause trouble in future.39 This contrasted with the situation in Kenya where the British authorities employed Maasai moran as mercenaries against their traditional enemies, enabling them to recover some of their cattle 221

Table 9.5 Prophets and the division of age-sets in Kisonko Age-set ( firestick stream staggered), and approximate date of initiation Phase A Kidotu (1825)

Divided into right- and left-hand sides? ?

Twati I (1839) Nyankusi I (1853)

? Divided

Laimer Talala

Divided Divided

(1867) (1881)

Prophet living among Kisonko

Comments

Supeet

Supeet based in Monduli/Sikirari (inside Kisonko)

Supeet Supeet → Mbatian Mbatian Mbatian

→ Sendeu Phase B Twati II (1896)

Dareto

(1911)

Undivided

No one

Undivided

No one

Mbatian based in Monduli/Sikirari (Thomson, Johnston, and von Hohnel among the earliest European visitors to the Maasai area) Mbatian died c.1891 Sendeu left Monduli and Kisonko in 1896 (Merker posted to Moshi, 1895–1903) → Lenana consulted as Prophet in Kenya – died 1911 → Parit consulted as Prophet in Kenya

Phase C Parit Terito

(1926)

Divided

Parit → Lembeya → Letinka

Phase D Nyankusi II (1942) Seuri Kitoip

Undivided

(1955)

Undivided

(1971)

Undivided

→ Lebalusi

Parit led back to Monduli by Dareto moran in 1923 Parit died 1928 Lembeya based in Monduli; died 1938. See Case 31 Kisonko elders separated rival Prophets. See Case 32

Lebalusi migrated from Monduli to Sikirari → Shineni Shineni based in Sikirari → Lorokolgos Lorokolgos succeeded Letinka, based in Monduli → Tipilet Tipilet succeeded Shineni, based in Sikirari → Nampapit

A PRE-COLONIAL MODEL

losses in recent disasters. Among the Purko, for instance, these age-sets still divided into right- and left-hand sides, and continued to do so under an administration that tried repeatedly to curtail the period of moranhood (Case 25). To the extent that the Kisonko Prophet may have played a key role in moran affairs previously, his absence during this phase may have contributed towards the loss of control over the right-hand moran, and even to the decision by Kisonko elders to invite their Prophet, Parit, to return to Monduli, leading to Phase C.After Parit’s death, the influence of his successor, Lembeya, in insisting that the Terito age-set should divide into the two sides, has already been noted (Case 31).40 This is the most explicit evidence of the power of the Kisonko Prophet to intervene in age-set affairs for his own ends, and Lembeya was blamed for destabilizing the age system. This led to Phase D and the decision of Kisonko elders to install separate Prophets for each firestick alliance and to limit their opportunity for exploitation (Case 32). It appears to be from that point that it has become established that Kisonko age-sets should not divide and this is perhaps a useful indication of the extent to which Kisonko elders have asserted the boundary between their domain of control and that of their Prophet. Rather as Mbatian appears to have wrested the initiative in earlier times, and then Lenana in the north, negotiating Maasai boundaries, and then Lembeya in the south bending the age system to his own ends, so Kisonko elders responded in a similar vein to regain control. It has not been so much a matter of inventing tradition as of tossing it around in the rough and tumble of politics, a point that Merker would have appreciated. In 1977, Kisonko elders suggested that there had always been rivalry between successive age-sets and they insisted that sorcery in their area was as ancient as Loonkidongi rivalry and the dynasty itself. However, it remains possible that these characteristics of the southern model are products of the colonial period, at least in part. Earlier Prophets benefited from the war gains of moran; and when this source was cut off, the thrust of their revenue switched to consultation fees for the major festivals.41 Clearly, anxieties over sorcery arise in part from tensions within the Maasai community, but to the extent that these anxieties are shaped and fanned by Loonkidongi and given a particular thrust at the collective festivals, the shift in the role of the Prophet is perhaps significant. It raises the level of concern over sorcery by switching attention to threats from within the Maasai area.The elder who suggested that ‘If it were not for Loonkidongi, we would not need Loonkidongi’ was perhaps closer to the truth than he realized. The contrast with the situation in Kenya is striking. Among the Maasai in Tanganyika, the administration appears to have been altogether more loose. A formal administrative presence was only established in 1933 and the Prophet at Monduli was regarded as a sort of paramount chief for the whole area until about 1939 (i.e. covering Phase C until the time of Lembeya’s death).42 The remoteness of the Prophet for the Purko was matched by the remoteness of colonial administration in Kisonko.Then, as elders wrested control from the Prophets in Phase D, reverting to an undivided period of moranhood for each age-set and a long period between successive initiations, this served to fan the rivalries from one age-set to 223

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

the next. This thumbnail outline can hardly do justice to all the factors involved: the concentration of Loonkidongi in the Monduli/Sikirari area, the complementary roles of north vs south in the age cycle, and so many other differences between Purko and Kisonko, appear to be deep-seated. However, the impact of the colonial period on Maasai practice has to be a relevant factor; and to the extent that this has created differences between north and south, it follows that a model of the Maasai age system around 1900, based on Merker’s work, could broadly apply to all Maasai, although the involvement of the Prophet in the north is less certain. The lasting contribution of Merker’s work is not his theoretical stance, but his ability to give his ethnographic evidence the space to speak for itself. His description of his approach towards collecting his material has a gratifyingly contemporary ring of sound advice for research students today. As he noted in his Preface: In compiling the contents [of this work], I have gone on the principle of allowing people to relate things to me freely, and of only putting direct questions when it was a matter of verifying what I had already noted down. I am convinced that this is the only procedure – demanding much time and therefore quite impracticable for travelling explorers. [Only this approach] can produce results that are in no way influenced by the thoughts of the European inquirer, and which therefore reflect closely the ideas of the people themselves.43 The Maasai are great talkers with a boundless enthusiasm for their system towards those who are prepared to listen.Writing just 100 years ago, Merker was clearly a good listener, and the gem of his work is that of the Maasai also. It is their heritage.

Appendix: loose ends in Maasai history While earlier misconceptions regarding the position of moran, elders, and the Prophet have been considered in this chapter and regarding the Wakuafi in Chapter 3, there are three further pre-colonial topics that remain confused and unresolved. These concern the source of Merker’s curious information on Maasai religion, the paradox of the past status of Maasai women, and the anomaly of an earlier association between the Samburu and Parakuyu.

The origins of Merker’s information on Maasai religion? The sources of Merker’s information also bears on one of the most bizarre aspects of his work. In terms of meticulous ethnography, the 200 pages of section II of his volume towered above any other account of the Maasai during the colonial period. He kept this quite separate from section IV, which was concerned with dying traditions collected from a few old men of particular families (Merker 1904: vi).These seemed to overlap with the Pentateuch and he presented them as evidence that the 224

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Maasai could have been a lost tribe of Israel. His treatment of this information was clearly informed by anthropological ideas of his time, as grand evolutionary theories were challenged by the growing thrust of detailed ethnographies, giving rise to alternative explanations that drew attention to the global diffusion of cultures, notably among German Catholic missionaries. His finding excited publicity at first, and the volume was reprinted in 1910 after his death.Then, as other writers questioned his evidence, a cloud of incredulity hung over this volume and attention switched to speculation on the sources of his error. Then interest dwindled further, and from that time, his work has not been given the attention it deserves. An English translation was compiled in 1950 but never published. Merker documented his evidence with the bemused detachment of a soldierscholar that informs all his work. It is an aspect that has cast a cloud of incredulity over his volume, despite his perceptive and meticulous ethnography up to this point. But the sheer abundance of evidence, linking his findings to the early Hebrews, is also intriguing – and at variance with every other account of the Maasai. Episodes in his version range from the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Ten Commandments, to the filching of a brother’s inheritance through deception. These account for about 30 per cent of the traditions recorded by Merker, and they are interwoven with recognizable snippets and motifs of Maasai oral tradition that have been noted by other authors. In considering various explanations, Merker dismissed the possibility of influence by Christian, Jewish, or Islamic missionaries, because these were too new to the area to infect ancient traditions related by older men. However, this was to underrate the contagiousness of compelling myths, and the speed at which they are prone to intercultural borrowing among the Maasai. Only fifteen years after Mbatian’s death, Hollis presented a version of the struggle for inheritance between his sons (Case 24) that was too close to the Esau-Jacob story to be credible; and this was apparently quite independent of Merker’s similar rendering of a more ancient episode in Maasai oral tradition. Again, when a thoroughly unwesternized Matapato elder told me the saga of his Purko age mate, the charismatic rabble-rousing Olemutelu who was cursed to death (Case 26), his version of Olemutelu’s final illness depicted the stigmata very clearly and must have been influenced indirectly by missionary teaching in the area (and the New Testament rather than the Old).These interpretations demonstrate the tendency for Maasai oral tradition to borrow from exotic sources, and the contexts draw attention to fraught aspects of Maasai society that lend themselves to this kind of grafting: fraternal rivalries among the Loonkidongi, tensions between moran and their patrons. This cultural inventiveness does not explain why the close parallels in Merker’s account only concerned the early episodes of the bible – the Torah – and this remains a mystery, but it does open up the argument and the scope for explanation. Elsewhere, Merker noted the extent to which neighbouring peoples had borrowed characteristics from the Maasai, but he did not seriously consider the reverse process.44 A point to note is that Merker was officially based at Moshi, to the south of Kilimanjaro, and this was also a locality that Harry Johnston (1886: 210) had previously described as a ‘great intermixture of race … a rendezvous of tribes and 225

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tongues … [including] Arabs, Gallas, Masai …’. This would have been an ideal melting-pot for borrowed traditions. Given Merker’s expertise, his informants on these oral traditions must surely have been Maa-speaking and close enough to the Maasai to convince him that the traditions were authentic. He was too meticulous with all his data to risk a wild fantasy. This suggests an intriguing possibility. The concentration of Loonkidongi in the Sikirari region would have been very accessible from Moshi.The bias in Merker’s material, underrating the power of Maasai elders and overrating that of the Prophet, could have followed from an undue reliance on information that he gathered from local Loonkidongi. And the oral traditions that he collected might also have been Loonkidongi-inspired, at least in part.This suggests that a closer analysis of his text (section IV, chapter 1) and comparison with non-Maasai traditions in the area could even provide an elusive clue with regard to the origins of the Loonkidongi: a question that has been raised from time to time and may never be adequately answered.45 The subordination of women? A number of authors have stressed the enhanced position of Maasai women: that women are not possessions of their husbands (Kipury 1989: 120–1, cited in Rigby 1996: 81–2); that a woman’s hut is an inviolable refuge, which cannot be entered without her permission or in her absence, even by her husband ( Jacobs 1965: 183–5; Arhem 1985: 13; cf. Fosbrooke 1948: 48; Rigby 1985: 148–51); that women have lost economic rights and control over pastoral resources that they once held, due to the intrusion of the capitalist economy (Talle 1988: 66–7, 224–5, 248, 267; Kipury 1989: 121–2, cited in Rigby 1996: 83–4; Hodgson 2001: 16, 26–36, 68, 91–2, 222–4). Each of these claims was flatly denied by my informants in seven tribal sections of Maasai, and their responses are elaborated in ‘A survey of variation among the Maasai, 1977’ (Spencer nd.). Elders stressed that a husband could enter a woman’s hut uninvited or in her absence, and that he could rummage through her store or even beat her there. It was her hut, but she was one of his possessions. Even those women who expressed their bitterness to me did not claim that the highhanded behaviour of elders had ever been different, suggesting that husbands have always done whatever they want in the privacy of the hut.There was no sense of historical change on either side. Nevertheless, the constraints on women have eased in one respect at least.They are no longer obliged to wear heavy metal coils round their legs and arms, and this has given them altogether more freedom of movement than in the past, perhaps even making it easier to run away (Leys 1924: 103; cf. Nomads: 107). There is no clear evidence that women had more rights in the past. Merker’s remarks on their menial position are scattered throughout his text as a subsidiary theme, and they suggest very little change since his time. He noted the high level of polygyny, women’s household routine, their subservience to the husband’s ageset, situations in which they were beaten, their role in ceremonies associated with their fertility, and the allocation of stock that remained the husband’s in the final 226

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resort and passed directly to his sons (Merker 1904: 27, 32, 45–7, 49–52, 56–7, 102–3, 118, 195, 200–1). He even claimed that women had no legal rights whatever, but this is contradicted where he noted elsewhere that there was a procedure for raising a genuine grievance (Merker 1904: 118, 212; cf. Matapato: 199). With regard to betrothal, Merker’s comments may suggest a more sensitive role in the past for the bride’s mother as intermediary in obtaining the father’s agreement, and for the girl herself in agreeing to the marriage (Merker 1904: 44). Or did Merker perhaps confuse the purely ceremonial roles that women still perform with a more active involvement in the process of negotiation? More recent cases are reported where astute mothers can have some influence in the arrangement of marriages (e.g. Case 4 above, and Matapato: 114, 228–32), but these are regarded as quite exceptional. The final decision lies firmly in the hands of elders, and any suggestion that it might previously have been otherwise was regarded with incredulity when I discussed it in 1977 with Maasai elders and wives separately.The position of Maasai women appears to have remained unchanged throughout the colonial period, except perhaps on this one uncertain issue, where the extent of their influence on the marriages of their daughters remains an open possibility. Yet, this continuity with the past has been challenged by at least three authors, and most explicitly by Dorothy Hodgson. In asserting that Maasai women have lost the rights that they once had, Hodgson draws heavily on Merker’s study.This leads her to claim that Merker ‘clearly documents women’s powers’ and while they may ‘have been subordinate as wives, his own evidence demonstrates many ways in which they did exercise power and authority’. Women were ‘central players in negotiating the marriage alliances and arrangements of their sons and daughters’. They ‘were central to the ritual sphere’, playing ‘central roles’ in age-set promotions, such as eunoto, and in ‘peacemaking ceremonies with neighboring groups’, and they were ‘responsible for constantly mediating the relationship between Maasai and their God’ (Hodgson 2001: 32–34). Clearly, ambiguities in Merker’s account may suggest interpretations that run counter to his general thesis, but outside the women’s domain relating to their fertility and children, the thrust of his work points to the relentless subordination of women. Men dominated other ritual spheres, and women’s roles in these were essentially passive rather than central. There was no mention of women in Merker’s outline of eunoto, the fact that the ritual leader wore spiral brass earrings similar to those worn by old men and women did not provide women with a central role, only a non-Maasai captive wife would be co-opted into any peacemaking ceremony, his brief description of women’s prayers at the morning and evening milking gives no hint of a broader mediating role, and so on (Merker 1904: 72, 101, 199, see also pp. 49–50 and n. 2). Central to Hodgson’s interpretation of Merker’s work is the role of Maasai women as ‘crucial intermediaries in the extensive and active trade networks’ with neighbouring peoples, and their ‘freedom and mobility as traders’, until the devastation of their herds by the cattle plagues of the 1880–90s disrupted gender relations (Hodgson 2001: 29–30, 36).Yet, Merker repeatedly asserted that it was these plagues that precipitated the need for this trading in the first place, and his study 227

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focuses on a period when the initiative for trade had passed to non-Maasai, again reducing Maasai women to a more passive role (Merker 1904: 9, 11, 32). Nowhere did he indicate women’s ‘mobility as traders’. In citing Helge Kjekshus (1977), Hodgson appears to have overlooked Polly Hill’s point concerning the status of women: that one of the great geographical dichotomies of pre-colonial times was the highly developed market system of West Africa in contrast to its general absence in East Africa (Kjekshus 1977: 111). Early observations on Maasai women’s trading appears to be the strongest evidence of a more independent role in the past. Merker’s low-key treatment contrasts strikingly with the accounts of his predecessors, who passed briefly through the area. These recorded encounters with Maasai women on their way to trade with Kikuyu in the north and Chagga in the south.Their impunity was stressed, and this appears related to their essential activity in this trading (Thomson 1885: 161, 166, 308; Peters 1891: 248–5; von Hohnel 1894 i: 291). More generally, the details are too sketchy to guess the age of these women, whether they were escorted, or how far they had travelled, except for those from Serenketi whom von Hohnel encountered, with non-pastoral products to trade (Thomson 1885: 159, 166, 308; Johnston 1886: 404; von Hohnel 1894 i: 284–5; ii: 296). Perhaps significantly, the Serenketi are remembered as ‘Dorobo’ at that time, having lost their herds (cf. Baumann 1894: 31, 167–8). It was Dorobo especially who acted as go-betweens in trade between the Maasai and their neighbours (Thomson 1885: 447–9; von Hohnel 1894 i: 287; Merker 1904: 225; Muriuki 1974: 101). In the 1970s, Maasai elders suggested that it would have been quite exceptional for women to travel any distance to trade, and then only older women (cf. Merker 1904: 30, 85): the need for trading would have been most acute during the hunger of the dry season, which would have been when younger women especially were tied down by their household duties. Correspondingly, this would have been the ideal time for trading by itinerant opportunists, such as the Kikuyu and Dorobo (cf. Matapato: 21, 200; Pastoral Continuum: 9–10, 224–5). Merker as a resident over eight years only describes the regular visits of trading caravans to Maasai villages, by older women and their male escorts.This suggests that their agricultural neighbours had by this time seized the initiative in this trading, providing a diversion for Maasai women from the tedium of their village life that he noted elsewhere in his work.46

An earlier association between Samburu and Parakuyu? The striking contrast between the Samburu and Parakuyu (pp. 198–200) is consistent with their geographic separation at either end of the Maa-speaking cluster. This separateness has been questioned historically by Rainer Vossen through an examination of dialects in the Maa-speaking region.This was based on a comparison of local usage for a sample of 610 terms, collected from the ‘Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya’ (Heine 1980), augmented by published word-lists and a fourweek research trip among Maa-speakers in Tanzania. This comparative vernacular 228

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revealed differences in dialect between tribal sections among the Maasai, but also eighteen words that were present in Samburu and Parakuyu usage but absent among the Maasai proper.This led Vossen to suggest an earlier link between these two fringe Maa-speakers (Vossen 1977: 21–6; with additional terms in Sommer and Vossen 1993: 33–6). Here, I do not wish to question Vossen’s reasoning, but to subject the list of eighteen terms to closer inspection.This reveals that 8 of these terms are in fact in use among the Maasai proper (to begin, bird, camel, to fly, hole, joy, truth, to vomit) 2 entail very minor shifts in meaning in Maasai that seem to have been overlooked in translation (forearm, cloth) 1 is used by the Maasai in its plural form, while the singular is recognized as an archaic term (ox) 1 is directly derived from another Maa word on this list and does not qualify as an independent term (to agree cf. to love) This leaves just six of the eighteen terms on Vossen’s list that are not shared with Maasai proper. The most obvious explanation for this anomaly is that either the terms are further archaic forms that have been superseded among the Maasai proper, or that they were northern terms that were brought south by Laikipiak refugees: the Laikipiak were neighbours of the Samburu before their defeat and dispersal in the nineteenth century. Of these six remaining terms 4 Samburu terms are matched in early Maa word-lists. These are: rib (Krapf 1854), shoulder (Erhardt 1857), to tear (Krapf; Erhardt; Johnston 1886), and nine (Krapf; Erhardt; Johnston; Last 1880). Vossen assumes that these word-lists were collected from Parakuyu sources, but the evidence for this is poor. Krapf ’s informant was resident among the Parakuyu but Laikipiak/Enganglima in origin (Krapf 1854: 4–5; Hollis 1905: 261); and only Last’s source appears to have been probably Parakuyu ( Johnston 1886: 448–9). Thus, none of these four Samburu terms was clearly shared with the Parakuyu to the exclusion of Maasai proper. However, the confusion on the ‘Wakuafi/Iloikop’ issue was such that any of the terms may have derived from any Maa-speaking source. In other words, all but two of the eighteen terms listed by Vossen are questionable, to say the least, and this does not rule out the possibility that the two remaining terms too were originally archaic forms of Maasai (daytime, to love).This compares with twenty-three words on Vossen’s list of 610 that were shared by Maasai and Parakuyu, but not with the Samburu. It leaves the suggestion of some prehistoric link between the Samburu and Parakuyu seriously in doubt. 229

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Notes 1 Waller 1976: 536, 540–8; Merker 1904: 78–9; Berntsen 1977: 32; Spear 1997: 53, 77–8. 2 Merker’s original volume was republished with minor revisions. To convert page references (below) from the earlier 1904 edition to the later 1910 edition, the following adjustment should be made: pp. 1–64 same; pp. 65–184, add one page  a further page every twenty-two pages; pp. 185–339, add seven pages  a further page every thirty-seven pages. Eg. 1904: 297  1910: (297  7  3).This is normally accurate to within a page. 3 Merker 1904: 18–22, 91–2. Commenting on the Loonkidongi, Merker tends to use the Maasai term oloiboni for the Prophet, although he also refers to him as Hauptling (chief ), noting that this is not strictly appropriate despite his substantial power. Merker (1904: 18, 22, 194, 201, 210) refers to other diviners as el goiatek, which I have translated to imply a charlatan (p. 102 above, cf. Mol 1996: 209). In this respect, Merker’s translation as Zauberer (magician, sorcerer) is not altogether inappropriate, especially where he refers to sorcery itself (1904: 153, 203). 4 With reasonable consistency, Merker appears to have coined the terms Landschaft for a manyata territory (e.g. 1904: 8, 71, 73, 82), and Distrikt normally for a tribal section, where he also cited the Maasai term en gop (e.g. 1904: 8, 72, 86–7, 206; although his use of the term Distrikt on p. 82 surely refers to a manyata territory). At a more inclusive level, he also identified three ‘provinces’ (Provinzen), which correspond broadly to the Purko federation, the Kisonko federation, and other tribal sections associated with Loita, under the Prophet Sendeu (Merker 1904: 8, 78; cf. Hollis 1905: 260–1). 5 Merker 1904: 61, 70–7, 80–2, 91. Merker noted that each manyata had 50–100 moran, whence a joint company of twice that number, including novices, would seem to have been centred on the moran from just one manyata. 6 Merker 1904: 75–6, 81–3, 86–9, 209–10.The suggestion that each manyata was an ‘exogamous’ unit for subsequent marriage implies that, as among the Loitokitok, the Kisonko manyat may have been clan-based when clan exogamy was still strictly observed, and that moran consorted with their clan ‘sisters’ as among Samburu. Although Merker (p. 47) also recorded that restrictions on marriage between lovers could be evaded by a form of forced marriage that obliged the elders to accept their initiative as a fait accompli (cf. Samburu: 43–5; Matapato: 30). Merker’s suggestion that girls and boys circumcised during the same period were associated with the same age-set (p. 71) would imply that uninitiated girls at the manyata were not identified with the age-set of their lovers – unless and only when they left for circumcision and marriage. Merker estimated that there were a corresponding number of girls to moran at the manyata (p. 44) or even twice as many (p. 82). 7 Merker 1904: 72–3, 210. Merker’s comments on the restrictions of ritual leader’s wealth after his installation probably reflect a confusion with the man-of-the-brass-earings (p. 189 above) rather than the emergence of separate roles since 1900. 8 Merker 1904: 82, 84–9, 91, 99. These details are implied where Merker suggests that: (a) each morani attends a forest feast once or twice a month for 3–4 days at a time, and almost continuously during the dry month of September; (b) that at least ten moran always remain at the manyata out of 50–100 altogether.The older women who acted as the spokesman’s spies could have been involved in trading expeditions, enjoying considerable freedom from domestic duties and immunity from harassment (p. 228). 9 Merker 1904: 80, 86, 90–1, 95. Cf. Matapato (pp. 125–8), where the iloontorosi diehards seemed to correspond to the ilkigeloni who covered the withdrawal after a raid in Merker’s account. 10 Merker 1904: 91–6, 102. 11 Merker 1904: 79–80, 97; cf.Thomson 1885: 95. It seems likely that just one spokesman would have been in overall command (cf. Matapato: 104–5, 144), but Merker (1904: 85–6, 94) uses the term ‘leaders’ (Anfuhrer) in a variety of contexts, and it is not clear

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12

13

14 15 16 17

18

19 20

21

whether those who organized the distribution of the plunder were just the spokesmen or included the leading fighters also. The share that would be set aside for the Prophet is not mentioned. Earlier in his work, Merker (1904: 16–17) describes a three-fold grouping of clans (Geschlechter) into stems (Stamme). In fighting for the spoil, Elmengana and Laiser stems would combined to oppose Elmuleljan stem, resulting in a direct clash between moieties. This provides a structure very similar to the two-fold division recorded by Hollis (1905: 260), Fox (1930: 457), and Fosbrooke (1948: 41), although Hollis transposed the labels for these moieties as compared with other writers. Merker 1904: 45, 73–4, 76, 82–3, 102–3.With regard to mounting a feast when a morani wishes to leave the manyata, I was given an identical description of this event among the Purko in 1977, but this was a routine occasion with no suggestion that it was the Great Ox feast (olbaa) of the morani (cf.Table 7.2). Merker 1904: 30, 49, 83, 86, 98, 192, 195, 333; cf. Matapato: 228–49. Merker (p. 28) also suggested that a son might acquire cattle from his father, when he was 10–12 years old and if he was no longer needed for herding, and then he would take his mother and her allocated stock to a distant village, decreasing the opportunity to filch further cattle from his father.This fits oddly with his emphasis on the father’s authority over his sons, even after moranhood, and Merker’s informant was presumably referring to an orphan son who could assert his independence from a grasping guardian proxy-father after an early initiation. Cf. Matapato: 54–6 (contra Spencer 1976: 170, 173 n. 23). Merker refers to these recent accretions from earlier Maa-speaking stock as Elmengana, a term that is associated with the Laitayok clan more recently (Merker 1904: 17–18; cf. Fosbrooke 1948: 8, 41). Merker 1904: 32, 47, 86–7, 97, 204–9 (cf. Matapato: 19, 37n, 194, 237, 242).With regard to the linkage between clans, see note 11. Merker 1904: 31, 199, 209–12. Cf. p. 71 above, and also Hollis 1905: 345n, which may have been drawn directly from Merker’s account. Merker 1904: 19, 21, 103; 1910: 76. In 1901, Merker estimated Lenana’s age at c.45 and Sendeu as ten years younger (i.e. c.35). However, Farler (1882: 734) had previously gathered from Swahili traders that Sendeu was already Mbatian’s assistant and aged 25–30 at that time, that is, 45–50 in 1901. This would be consistent with Hinde (1901: 24) and Hollis (1905: 327) who regarded Sendeu as older than Lenana. Sendeu died in 1933. Merker 1904: 73, 75. Merker would have been in a position to witness an ageset change-over early in his stay in East Africa (following the right-hand initiations of Twati II around 1896), and he (mistakenly) anticipated the formation of a new left-hand age-group as he wrote, but he did not suggest that this next change-over would be of a different order from the first. Merker (1904: 61–2) suggests a circumcision period of 4–5 years followed by an interval between circumcisions of 4–5 years, implying an age-group span of 8–10 years. Merker 1910: 64. Fosbrooke (1948: 24–5, 28) focused on the Terito age-set among the Kisonko Maasai. These had been divided into right-hand and left-hand age-groups, simplifying the problem of comparison with Merker’s account. Hollis’s estimate in Table 9.3 appears to have been borrowed by other authors (Eliot 1905b: 136; Stigand 1913: 212; Sandford 1919: 2). Earlier estimates of the age of retirement from active moranhood are comparable with more recent guesses at around 25–30 or so ( Johnston 1886: 415–16; Hinde 1901: 105; Johnston 1902: 822; Merker 1904: 67; Eliot 1905b: 135; Shelford 1910: 269). The term ‘novices’ (Merker’s Rekruten) might seem a misnomer over an extended period of perhaps years. However, it would have been an appropriate translation for the Maasai, il-barnot, ‘young shavers’. This term is still in general use as a relative term for younger men, drawing attention to the shortness of their hair, which has been shaved more recently for initiation. Even after their hair had grown and been braided, novices still could not fashion it into a pigtail until they had gained the privileges of moranhood.

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22 Merker 1904: 74. 23 Merker 1904: 60.A later age of initiation more recently is also consistent with Fosbrooke (1956: 196–9), whose 1939 survey indicated that the average number of age-sets between fathers and sons in Kisonko was lower than in the previous generation, suggesting that this implied that the age-set cycle had previously spanned only 14 years rather than 15 years (and assuming no change in the age of first marriage). In the present context, it suggests that as pressures for inaugurating new age-sets decreased and sons were initiated later, so each new age-set was delayed by a year. Table 9.4 therefore assumes a 14-year age-set span in earlier times. 24 Merker appears to have met Sendeu in Moshi shortly after his arrival in East Africa, and possibly on a later occasion after becoming more familiar with the Maasai people, when Sendeu described to him the burial of his father, Mbatian. But Merker also notes Sendeu’s calculated withdrawal to the remoteness of Loita to resist official attempts at pacification, which suggests little contact between them (Merker 1904: 18–19, 79, 194, 336–7). 25 Merker 1904: 18–19, 21, 61, 70, 72, 75–6, 90–2, 206, 210. Cf. Hinde 1901: 22; Eliot 1905b: 135. 26 Krapf 1854: 14, 19; 1860: 363; Thomson 1885: 95–6, 182; Johnston 1886: 419; von Hohnel 1894 (i): 132, 248; Peters 1891: 226–7; Macdonald 1897: 69. 27 Thomson 1885: 255–6, 258. Cf. Merker 1904: 30, 98, 195, 333; Sandford 1919: 19. 28 The firestick relationship was first recorded by Fox (1930: 448, 450–1). 29 Jacobs 1965: 54, 73–4, 84;Waller 1985: 116–19; Spear 1997: 35.The power of Mbatian has been ascribed to his outstanding personal ability to influence the Maasai elders linked to the charisma of his office as Prophet (Hinde 1901: 22; Jacobs 1965: 87–8, 107, 326–8), to his diplomatic and organizational skills (Waller 1976: 541), and to his rapport with the moran (Berntsen 1977: 27–30, 32). Berntsen (1977: 25) also suggested that Mbatian’s father, Supeet, made this possible by overriding antagonisms between age-sets who previously would appoint their own Prophet: in other words, this is to imply that the appointment of Prophets in earlier times approximated to that recorded among the Siria and Uasinkishu more recently (p. 113). 30 Merker 1904: 9, 293, 337. 31 After Mbatian’s death, in the early years of colonial administration, the influence of the Prophet was at first overestimated (Sandford 1919: 3; Waller 1976: 541, 551 (Kenya); Jacobs 1965: 106–7 (Tanganyika) ), and this attitude is reflected in the early literature on the age system. Hollis (1905: 296) implied that the Prophet was approached by boys for permission to open circumcisions to a new age-set, and Merker (1904: 70) that he had the power to end them by ordering an enkipaata feast. However, it is also clear that those who did not attend this feast could still be circumcised, and the balance of power between the Prophet and elders remains uncertain. More recently, the ‘permission’ of the Prophet has been viewed as confirming a decision already taken by the elders (Fosbrooke 1948: 17, commenting on Whitehouse 1933: 150). Altogether more useful was Merker’s description of the part played by demographic factors in determining the succession of age-sets (Case 1). 32 Merker 1904: 6, 31, 80, 86, 97, 204, 209, 335–6. Cf. Thomson 1885: 95, 255; Johnston 1886: 419; Hinde 1901: 54–5. 33 Cf. Matapato: 2. The Samburu had no Maasai-style manyat, and it was clanship that formed the basis of their community life. Clan exogamy was strictly observed, and the prime loyalty among moran was to age mates of their clan, rather than to age mates at large. Significantly, the Samburu do not claim to have ever dominated their neighbours. Among the Maasai, the memory of earlier clanship bonds associated with warfare still lingered in 1977 (Matapato: 104–5). Recalling for me his experience of a raid, for instance, one elder identified those who had been killed by listing them by family and

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34

35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46

clan.The separation of manyat according to moiety in Loitokitok and Kaputiei could be another residue of this earlier period (cf. pp. 183, 201 n.3). Robert Tignor (1972) and George Simpson (1998) have traced the process of fostering the elders as an instrument of indirect rule in order to suppress the moran among the Purko and Samburu, respectively. The situation appears to have been more relaxed in Loitokitok, enabling moran to remain in step with the age cycle promoted by the Kisonko in Tanganyika. Waller 1976: 542–5, 550–1. The secondary role of the Kisonko Prophet to the firestick patrons in age-set matters has also been noted by Fosbrooke (1948: 17), Jacobs (1965: 326), and Ndagala (1992: 167). Cf.Waller 1976: 541; Berntsen 1977: 29. Merker 1904: 75; 1910: 76. Jacobs (1965: 74) was told in Kisonko that the Laimer age-set did not divide into two sides, but Fosbrooke (1956: 194) indicates a division, confirming Merker. Details of Table 9.5 (Phases A–C) are drawn principally from Fosbrooke 1956: 194–5. In Matapato, the Dareto age-set also failed to divide: the left-hand were initiated, but the right-hand successfully refused them the privileges and eventually the left-hand merged to become junior members of the right-hand (Matapato: 96–8). Cf. Fox 1930: 450; Jacobs 1965: 268–70. Coinciding with the left-hand circumcisions of Terito age-set,Whitehouse (1933: 150) noted that a (Kisonko) Prophet was entitled to overrule the patrons, even if they had laid a curse to suspend circumcisions until a new age-set (but see also note 31). Cf. Fosbrooke 1948: 20, 23. The Purko were less dominated by their Prophets and correspondingly the scale of their tribute may well have been lower. Fosbrooke 1948: 49; Jacobs 1965: 107;Waller 1976: 551. Merker 1904: v. Merker 1904: 10–11, 19, 260–78 (esp. 274), 293–4; Hollis 1905: 327–8; Johnston 1915: 482; Harris 1969: 379. Merker later extended the overlap with the bible to the sixth book (1910: 304). Merker (1904: 194–5) appears to have only worked with Sendeu briefly on a visit to Loita, where he recorded Sendeu’s account of Mbatian’s death. It is worth noting that much of Hollis’s (1905) information on the Maasai indirectly stemmed from Lenana, Sendeu’s brother (Fosbrooke 1955–56: 25–7). Aud Talle (1988: 65–6) also claims that Maasai women had more independence through trading in the past, but only cites accounts where the trading actually took place in Maasai village areas (Thomson 1985: 279; Merker 1904: 30; cf. Muriuki 1974: 86, 107–8). Talle (1988: 15), like Hodgson (2001: 18), spoke Swahili rather than Maa, and worked in association with educated Maasai assistants.

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10 ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF SOCIAL CONTROL AMONG THE ARUSHA MAASAI

Merker’s early study of the Kisonko Maasai identified the competition between successive age-sets of moran as a dynamic feature of their age system. Following this, nearly six decades lapsed before Philip Gulliver established the continuation of this rivalry into elderhood.The differences in their data reflects more than half a century of change and also the development of anthropology as a discipline, with a finer regard for internal politics and illustration. However, the similarities in their approaches are unmistakable. Both authors maintained a pragmatic view of the tenuous rule of law and custom in situations governed by self-interest. Gulliver’s book, Social Control in an African Society (1963) was concerned with dispute resolution among the Arusha, and it provided the first full account of the jostling on the age grade ladder, with heightened rivalry every fifteen years or so, as the whole spectrum of age-sets matured and aged, and power shifted between firestick alliances. The Arusha were a peripheral member of the Kisonko group, and their age organization was governed by almost identical rules and ceremonial activities, with no division between right-hand and left-hand sides. Unlike the pastoral Maasai, however, they lived on the fertile western slopes of Mount Meru where they practised settled agriculture, and this supported a population density up to one-hundred times greater than among their Kisonko neighbours. As they expanded down the mountain slopes, the Arusha had divided into twenty-eight parishes (imbalbali, loosely ‘valleys’), each with its own sacred grove, associated with communal rituals and a hereditary diviner. The parish was comparable up to a point with a Maasai tribal section but altogether smaller and more compact. Quite independent of the diviner and sacred grove, each parish had regular assemblies where elders would meet to resolve local issues. These assemblies were associated with the age organization, linking them to other Arusha and to the Kisonko Prophet nearby. The Arusha had no manyat, and this blurred the boundary between successive age-sets of moran, which was so clearly marked among the Loitokitok Kisonko, for instance, as shown in Figure 8.1. Initiation into a new age-set of moran gathered pace before their predecessors had formally retired to elderhood by performing their olngesher ceremony, and for a phase within the age-set cycle, there were two age-sets of moran, senior and junior (C and D), and each had a corresponding set of firestick 234

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patrons, senior and junior respectively (A and B). Gulliver undertook his research among the Arusha during such a phase, when there was an overlap in roles.1 Personal and family claims to land were linked to a dispersed patrilineal descent system that cut across parish boundaries. A striking difference with the Maasai was not so much the depth of Arusha lineages, stretching back two or three generations beyond the oldest living men, as their association with an ancestor cult and their significance in pursuing land disputes. Lineages among the nomadic Maasai were altogether looser, and family property – the herd – was more volatile, depending on the diligence of each stock-owner rather than the strength of his lineage. Unlike the Arusha, the Maasai had no ancestral graves or shrines.2 The forcefulness of Gulliver’s study lies in his extensive use of case studies, collected between 1956 and 1958, and these provide a rich resource that lend themselves to further analysis. On the one hand, the agricultural Arusha clearly differed in some fundamental respects from the pastoral Maasai; but on the other hand, they shared the same age system, and Gulliver’s analysis poses certain questions that the present chapter seeks to resolve through a re-examination of his case material.

The classification of disputes among the Arusha Gulliver’s account of disputes suggests three themes that I will label ‘gerontocracy’, ‘reluctance’, and ‘confrontation’. First, ‘gerontocracy’ was as marked within the Arusha family as among the Maasai. Only the father could represent his sons in the ancestor cult, and he retained ultimate rights over them, whatever their age. His sons might marry and assert their independence by pioneering a new farm elsewhere, but they could not dispose of any property or negotiate deals with outsiders without the father’s permission. Any pre-inheritance of cattle or land could be revoked at any time, and in the final analysis it was the father who was responsible for his sons in any dispute. Only his death would alter that.3 Disputes concerning the community at large were resolved at the parish assembly, which was also governed by gerontocratic principles. If a junior morani attended these meetings, he was expected to remain aloof at the outer fringe of the assembly ‘like a woman’. Senior moran could attend, although they were not expected to participate actively. Junior firestick patrons were more proactive, but their initiative tended to be scorned by the senior patrons.At the top of the age ladder, retired elders might be disregarded for their dwindling faculties, but they still demanded respect. At each level there was a certain resentment between adjacent age-sets: the older resented the aspirations of the younger and were reluctant to hand on their greater experience and knowledge; and the younger resented their position of permanent inferiority, and the withholding of privileges. As the older set matured and mellowed at each level, so the younger would increasingly demonstrate their confidence and place a tentative foot on the next rung of the ladder, even before it had been formally vacated. Gulliver portrayed the festivals of promotion to new grades as giving public recognition to an accomplished fact: senior moran were already behaving and asserting themselves like junior firestick patrons, and so on.4 235

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At first sight, this upward struggle would appear to refute gerontocracy. However, this term does not necessarily imply an unchallenged rule by the oldest men; it can also be defined as a premise of inequality between men of different ages that gives added value to the privileges associated with seniority. From this point of view, the premature assumption of such privileges may be seen as an assertion of superiority within a gerontocratic system rather than as a rejection of basic values.The pressure from below represented a certain pushing in the bunched queue but not an attempt to break it up. Coining a definition suggested by Max Gluckman, it was a mild form of rebellion, revealing the stake that the contenders already had in the system, and not a revolution against that system. Second, there was a ‘reluctance’ to become involved gratuitously in any dispute. The Arusha maintained egalitarian ideals, and they were critical of any man who appeared to assert himself unduly.This inhibited personal rivalries, and individuals were reluctant to become involved in any dispute that did not concern their lineage on the one hand, or their age-set on the other.Those who were nominated as ‘counsellors’ for their lineage were expected to mediate rather than adopt a partisan stance. While those who had been nominated as ‘spokesmen’ for their age-set because of their political acumen were ‘chronically apprehensive of accusations that they [were] attempting to exercise too much power’, and they were careful to consult and not dominate. Paradoxically, this general theme also appears to have influenced the relationship between age-sets, which by definition were not equal. Thus, both junior and senior firestick patrons openly expressed a readiness to delegate their responsibilities and to disengage from lower level activity in public affairs as they approached a time of promotion.At other times, younger men might express a reluctance to take on responsibilities for which they were not yet prepared. The reluctance theme lent a certain grace to the movement of age-sets up the ladder, setting limits both on the determination of older men to cling onto power, and on the ambitions of younger men to advance themselves prematurely. Gulliver made it clear that the development of influence and incentive in the successive age grades was closely associated with the acquisition of domestic responsibilities within the family, and a man’s ambitions were tempered by the slow rise and later decline of his involvement in establishing a household, which served as a springboard for his involvement in community affairs.5 Third, Arusha society was characterized by dual organization, and a central feature of Gulliver’s analysis concerned disputes that polarized into a ‘confrontation’ between permanently opposed pairs. This was particularly marked in their patrilineal clan system, which ramified into paired segments at all higher levels: they were divided into the same two moieties as the Maasai, and this two-fold division was repeated at lower levels of clan segmentation down to the ancestors of the shallow patrilineages. Dual organization was also displayed in their age organization, highlighting the firestick alliance between alternate age-sets. It was in this Arusha context, that Gulliver was the first author to link this alliance with jostling on the age grade ladder, which provided a central theme in Chapter 8. In his model, the

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ceremonial bond between firestick patrons and their moran protégés was coupled with support at meetings of the parish assembly, where disputes between adjacent age-sets tended to crystallize into confrontations between the two firestick alliances.The senior moran welcomed guidance and assistance from their (senior) patrons; and the junior moran, unable to defend themselves effectively, relied for support from their (junior) patrons.6 The two firestick alliances were broadly balanced in terms of their relative strengths over time, a feature that Gulliver refers to as ‘complementary opposition’, discernible in both their ritual and their political activities. Ritually, the ceremonial initiative shifted between them as the young men of first one alliance and then the other passed through some stage in their cycles of promotion. ‘Most years [were] associated with one [alliance] or the other, and past events [were] sometimes dated by this procedure.’ In such a year, the celebrating alliance could even claim a certain moral superiority and auspiciousness. In political terms, the firestick patrons of this alliance held the initiative in arranging important ceremonial activities, and these might involve consultations and deputations beyond the parish boundaries that confined most other political activities.There was a political balance between the alliances in another sense. At the time when the junior firestick patrons were effectively beginning to wrest the initiative in local affairs from the senior patrons, the senior moran were already beginning to feel their own political strength. Even where the primacy of the senior patrons was not effectively opposed, it was only a matter of time before this would slip away to the maturing younger men of the other alliance.7 These three themes take on a different importance according to the manner in which one approaches the Arusha age system. Gulliver was less concerned with the gerontocratic distribution of power as a topic for analysis, and he focused his attention instead on confrontations between adjacent age-sets and shifts in the balance of power between the opposed alliances. This concern for ‘confrontation’ as a dominant theme in no way denied the pervading gerontocratic premise, which provided the framework within which the power game of ‘complementary opposition’ was played: points were won by advancing one’s credibility either as firestick patrons or protégés up the gerontocratic ladder. However, ‘confrontation’ provided a model that focused on the relationship between age-sets rather than on the status conferred by age grades. Logically, it is as if one could pull the ladder away from the players and the game could continue after a fashion. Yet, the gerontocratic theme poses a fundamental contradiction. This was well brought out in the dilemma that firestick patrons could face when moran of their own alliance misbehaved: should they defend them as their allies against the accusations of the other alliance, or should they discipline them as their moral guardians. Should the principle of firestick alliance or of age stratification (gerontocracy) prevail? Did the reluctance theme provide a means towards avoiding this dilemma? As Gulliver did not discuss this problem, it is examined in the next section with reference to his case examples.

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Confrontation and dispute referral Gulliver undertook his study during a period leading up to the promotion of the senior moran to elderhood, when according to Arusha practice the various age-sets were already beginning to assume a status and associated privileges prematurely. His principal interest was in the process of dispute settlement whereby each dispute that was manifestly over some initial grievance drew in the allies of the two contending parties and stimulated their latent rivalry: it became a political issue. One may reasonably expect, therefore, that the festering resentment between adjacent age-sets over privileges denied and privileges usurped would be reflected in his case material, especially at this time.To what extent do the cases he presented reveal a substantial degree of confrontation between the two firestick alliances, and to what extent do they reveal other themes? The indigenous processes of dispute settlement were divided between two separate arenas. The semi-autonomous parishes at their regular assemblies were closely associated with matters concerning the age organization, and issues of local law and order.At their meetings, elders carefully avoided affairs that concerned other parishes or were primarily family or patrilineal matters.The other arena mobilized patrilineal allies to resolve disputes over family property or other lineage interests, and these could transcend parish boundaries. Because the patrilineage and clan system involved the whole of Arusha society, any sensitive dispute could mount up to a serious confrontation between major segments. And because the higher levels of segmentation were invariably two-fold, this appears to have precluded third party intervention by a collateral segment that was equally close to the two contenders: there was no recognized mediator to curb the tendency towards escalation in any dispute. Certain issues could logically impinge on both the parish and the patrilineal arenas.A boundary dispute, for instance, involved lineage property, but it could lead to a breach of the peace within the parish. Adultery was an age-set (and hence parish) affair, since age mates could claim certain rights in each other’s wives, but this might develop into a more serious marital problem which was of concern to the husband’s and the wife’s lineages. Gulliver argues that this kind of ambiguity provides a litigant with a choice of arena, and he could decide which one was more likely to favour his case, even switching his grievance from one arena to the other in mid-course. Modern courts provided a third arena, to which disputes might be referred for an imposed judgment, and these offered a further choice for the litigant whose attempts through the indigenous arenas had been balked.8 While this chapter principally concerns the age system, it is clearly necessary to examine the full range of dispute referrals in Arusha society in order to appreciate the balance of importance between the three arenas and also the degree of overlap. With this in mind, two tables have been collated from Gulliver’s examples.9 Table 10.1 indicates the extent to which (I) cases referred to the parish arena did indeed concern local issues of law and order; and (II) those referred to the patrilineal arena concerned property and other family interests. In parentheses are shown seven anomalous referrals to parish arenas that did not subscribe to this pattern. 238

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Table 10.1 Manifest causes of Arusha disputes (Gulliver’s sample) Manifest cause of dispute

Arena for referral

Total

Modern courts

Patrilineal gatherings

Local parish assembly

Other parish assembly

I Parish concern Local theft Assault Moran disrespect Adultery II Patrilineal concern Land disputes Marital problems Bridewealth claims Other debts Theft by an outsider III Unspecified

— — — —

— — — —

3 5 2 1

— — — —

3 5 2 1

4 — — — — —

13 2 3 3 1 2

(3) (1) (1*) — — 1

— — — (1) (1) —

20 3 4 4 2 3

Total

4

24

17

2

47

Note * Case 7.

Table 10.2 Dominant themes in the sample of Arusha disputes Dominant theme in discussion

Arena for referral

Total

Modern courts

Patrilineal gatherings

Local parish assembly

Other parish assembly

I Parish concern Confrontation Gerontocracy Reluctance II Patrilineal concern Confrontation Gerontocracy Reluctance III Unspecified

— — —

— — —

— 2 7

— — —

— 2 7

3 — 1 —

15 — 5 4

(1*) — (4) 3

— — (2) —

19 — 12 7

Total

4

24

17

2

47

Note * Case 7.

Table 10.2 examines the principal themes of the elders’ responses to these referrals. In the context of the parish arena, ‘confrontation’ refers to open opposition between adjacent age-sets and hence between opposed firestick alliances; in the context of the patrilineal arena, it refers to a fully mobilized encounter between 239

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opposed segments; and in the context of modern courts, it refers to a decision by the losing plaintiff to appeal beyond the authority of the magistrate’s court. This table also indicates the fate of the seven anomalous referrals, again in parentheses. One of these (Case 7) is outstanding in that it was central to both Gulliver’s analysis of the age system and his notion of Arusha opportunism. Here, the plaintiff was claiming repayment of bridewealth from his ex-father-in-law.This was ideally a matter for the patrilineal arena, but the plaintiff belonged to the weaker segment of a lineage and could not rely on wholehearted support. On the other hand, he was also a junior firestick patron at a time when his age-set were beginning to challenge the authority of their seniors, and his ex-father-in-law was a senior firestick patron of the same parish.The plaintiff therefore sought support from his age-set and the dispute was resolved in the parish arena with their help. This case, and the other anomalous referrals, would at first sight appear to bear Gulliver out when he noted: An Arusha seeks to make use of that [parish] assembly or [patrilineal gathering] which seems most likely to suit his purpose … The procedural rules that govern a disputant’s choice and the reaction of his opponent are extremely flexible … there is generally no essential compulsion to follow one kind of procedure rather than another, and a man tries to choose that which is most advantageous for him, and which his opponent does not or cannot easily reject. As a general rule … a formal settlement is the endproduct of a chain of two or more kinds of procedures each of which takes the treatment of it a step further.10 Apart from Case 7, however, the responses from the other elders tabulated in Table 10.2 were more specific. In four of the anomalous cases, the plaintiff had clearly miscalculated and was reproved (Cases 4, 6, 16, and 25). In two others, the response was negative although a step had been taken towards mobilizing the patrilineal arena at a subsequent occasion (Cases 1 and 24). Thus, only in Case 7 did opportunism clearly pay off.Yet even here, Gulliver noted that it was impossible to say whether the plaintiff had made the right choice in referring his claim to the parish arena – he eventually achieved a compromise settlement only slightly in his favour. While Gulliver suggested that ‘Arusha themselves are inclined to oversimplify the rules, and thereby both distort and over-formalize them’, one is led to conclude that this was truer of the litigant’s decision for referring the dispute (Table 10.1) than of the public response from the elders (Table 10.2).The Arusha appeared to have had a keen sense of ultra vires in parish and lineage affairs and a readiness to censure any man who contravened these rules.11 Case 7 is outstanding in a second respect: it is the only instance in the total sample of forty-seven referrals that illustrated the confrontation between adjacent age-sets to any degree. Commenting on the case, Gulliver noted that: Inter-group opposition was stimulated by inter-[alliance] conflict. The formal senior moran were preparing for promotion to elderhood, 240

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supported by the formal senior [firestick patrons], and the two moran age groups were engaged in bickering and quarreling, each looking to its patrons to support it.12 Given that this study was undertaken at such an acute phase of the age-set cycle, why did the total sample not contain more cases of this sort? Case 5, for instance, also involved the claim of a debt by a junior patron against a senior patron and, one would have thought, might have been referred opportunistically to the parish arena. Yet, in this instance, the creditor rejected this possibility partly on the grounds that he did not want to cause trouble between his own age-set and that of the defendant. In contrast to Case 7, this was an example where reluctance appears to have been the better part of valour. Again, why was ‘reluctance’ and not ‘confrontation’ the dominant theme in disputes that were quite legitimately referred to the parish assembly? Four of these examples involved adjacent age-sets and could very well have become matters for confrontation between firestick alliances, and yet the sentiment of opposition stopped short of this.A challenge from one alliance was evaded by the other (Case 17); mutual recriminations between alliances failed to structure the course of the debate – on the contrary it deflected the discussion and ‘eventually in some disorder the assembly broke up’ (Case 11); criticism of the other alliance – ‘They are bad, they thieve and lie and bring bad words upon us here’ – was a private comment to Gulliver and not an accusation in the debate (Case 8). More significant still, in three of these cases, the firestick patrons of the morani defendant did not support him in his dispute, but sided with the patrons of the opposed alliance to induce him to comply (Cases 8, 11, and 20). This clearly illustrated the way in which ‘gerontocracy’ (moral responsibility) conflicted with any urge to precipitate a ‘confrontation’ against rival patrons. In these three instances, their gerontocratic sense prevailed and there was a reluctance to raise the dispute to a more political level between opposed firestick alliances. Similarly, the defendant’s own age mates in each of these cases merely sought to reduce his fine, having persuaded him (in Cases 11 and 20) to admit his guilt.13 In contrast to the general reluctance to face a confrontation in the parish arena, Table 10.2 indicates the extent to which confrontation appeared to dominate the other two arenas. It is cases referred to the patrilineal arena that provide the overwhelming evidence in support of Gulliver’s general thesis that the resolution of a personal dispute develops into a political confrontation between opposed groups; and some of his descriptions are quite dramatic. The context in which the study was initially commissioned provides an immediate explanation to this pattern. Gulliver went to study the Arusha because of Government concern over disputes that arose from acute land shortage. Eleven of the fifteen patrilineal confrontations and all four referrals to the modern courts involved disputed land. In one sense, the referrals to modern courts were anomalous, and even irrelevant to Gulliver’s principal interest in the indigenous system. Nevertheless, he emphasized that such referrals concerned especially sensitive and potentially disruptive issues, and three of these referrals alone led to five appeals and 241

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a petition. Land shortage was the critical issue underlying this study, and this fact emerges clearly from the case material. However, land disputes were not a parish concern, and in the three instances where a plaintiff referred his grievance over land to the parish arena, the parish elders quite properly displayed a reluctance to become involved (Cases 4, 6, and 16).14 Tables 10.1 and 10.2 show a numerical assessment of Gulliver’s case material in an attempt to identify the pattern of dispute referrals. He made no such claim of his material: I have no adequate records of the progress of enough disputes to make a statistical analysis of the number of stages with accuracy and sample significance. Whilst regretting this, I believe it to be more important to demonstrate the kinds of principles involved.15 In other words, the sample was deliberately biased to illustrate his model. It follows that in this impressive array of forty-seven referrals one might expect the nuances of his analysis of the Arusha age-set system to merit a liberal selection of cases.Yet the selection is rather poor. There can be little doubt that Gulliver’s portrayal of the Arusha age system reflected a model that his informants had of their society, the opposition between firestick alliances echoing the principle of diverging interests in the patrilineal system.16 But especially with a biased sample of disputes, it is surely significant that these illustrated his model so sparsely. It was land shortage and lineage disputes that dominated, almost to the point of eclipsing age-set rivalries. More pertinent to the present discussion was the indeterminate balance between two themes (firestick alliance vs gerontocracy) that placed the patrons in an ambiguous position with respect to their protégés.This ambiguity is well brought out in the text where at one point the senior patrons supported the forthcoming promotion of the senior moran while at another point they threatened to withdraw this support unless the senior moran paid the outstanding adultery fines that were owing to them.17

The competition for scarce resources and the integrity of age systems Compared with the Maasai, the Arusha moran – for all their embellishment, dancing, camaraderie, and premature thrust towards elderhood – appear almost as wan characters in the wings, caught up in drunken brawls as individuals, but with no arena of their own. Gerontocracy was expressed in the Arusha idiom, but the distribution of power with age was not exaggerated to the point where it posed a major problem in its own right. The task of holding young men in check for a while so that elders could retain their monopoly in marriage does not appear to have been an issue. Polygyny seems to have been less pronounced than among the Maasai, with an earlier age of marriage for young men. (But this would have 242

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brought fathers who were still in their prime into more direct competition with their older sons.)18 To the extent that festivals of promotion among the Maasai are characterized by delays and extended harangues, these tend to perpetuate power relations and display a strong gerontocratic element in which the elders are playing for time and retarding movements up the age grade ladder. In contrast to this, Gulliver perceived ceremonial upgrading among the Arusha as lagging behind actual movements up the ladder. They were essentially displays of celebration by one firestick alliance outshining the other, with no direct relevance to the problem of controlling the moran.The fact that Gulliver offered no account of these ceremonies virtually relegated them to a side-show even in his model. Among the Maasai, festivals appear to be as concerned with reaffirming the power differentials between age grades as with celebration, and this is even true of the olngesher festival which is specifically about handing over power. In the final analysis, gerontocracy concerns the rate at which younger men are allowed to marry; and in this respect the Maasai ceremonies may be viewed up to a point as rites of intensification rather than of passage, and of degradation rather than of upgrading.19 Thus in each society, there is the problem of social control relating to the distribution of scarce resources: land among the Arusha and wives among the Maasai.The crucial difference is that whereas the age organization curbed resort to violence in both societies, only among the Maasai was it directly associated with the maintenance of scarcity and hence a prime source of tension as well as an ultimate check. The anomaly of Gulliver’s study is that he clearly identified a dynamic aspect of the Maasai age system and yet his rich array of examples illustrated this rather poorly as compared with the dynamics of the patrilineal gatherings. While he analysed each of these arenas in terms of complementary opposition – between competing age-sets on the one hand and competing patrilineal segments on the other – he did not attempt to establish a link between them. Unlike the models for the Maasai and Samburu (Chapter 2), there was no suggestion of some kind of interaction among the Arusha between age system on the one hand and the family or patrilineage on the other. Gulliver’s approach was transactionalist rather than functionalist, and he perceived any linkage between the patrilineal system and the parish-based age system more in terms of complementary opportunities than of interaction. A young Arusha elder developed his influence in lineage and parish matters concurrently to maximize his choice: ‘the two aspects of the one role … are complementary and neither is adequately played separately’. The more astute men were held to maximize their advantage by resorting to either arena opportunistically, and even became involved as kinsmen in a parish dispute, or as members of an age-set in a dispute with other patrilineal segments.20 They tended to become involved as total persons regardless of the institutional framework. It is this aspect that Gulliver developed, emphasizing the popular disregard for the rules that governed the Arusha arenas of debate.Yet Tables 10.1 and 10.2 indicate that despite opportunistic attempts, the Arusha tended to be sticklers for form, and justified their censure of anomalous requests with reference to these procedural rules. 243

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When they asserted that agnatic disputes should not be brought to the parish arena (Cases 5, 6, 9, and 16), in effect they were expressing not just the separation, but also the opposed values of the patrilineal system as against the age organization. This implicitly emphasized the role of the age organization in confining private disputes to the more strictly private arena, especially where these concerned land disputes between ‘brothers’ of the maximal lineage. Opportunists might choose between arenas as total persons; but the assembled elders, as onlookers and custodians of social order, approached them quite differently. They responded to formal expectations and in doing so, they maintained arena boundaries.These arenas were clearly more than empty platforms for spontaneous interplay between manipulating individuals. They were institutions, governed by rules and expectations, and in the interaction between contending parties, they were constraining. Indeed, the very persistence of the age system suggests that it was embedded in a wider array of institutional arrangements and was more than a mere vehicle for manipulation.

Conclusion: self-interest and social control Gulliver concluded his analysis by suggesting a scale of social control between two hypothetical extremes: political and judicial. His study of the Arusha with no arbitrating third parties, he suggested, was situated towards the political pole of this scale in contrast to Max Gluckman’s study of the Lozi of Zambia, who were situated towards the judicial pole, with their judges, courts, and concept of ‘the reasonable man’. Thus Arusha dispute processes have a nature which can be characterized as mainly political, rather than judicial: they concern conflict and struggle between opposed parties in the attempt to reach a decision on particular issues – The precise resolution of the conflict depends on the relative strengths of the parties … [and] … each party uses whatever means it can (short of armed force) to press its own advantage. This echoed Merker’s principle for the Maasai that ‘Might goes before Right’. Gluckman’s response was to suggest that the Arusha were less close to the political pole than Gulliver had been prepared to concede.21 However, I would go further and push the parish assembly right along this scale towards the judicial pole.The patrilineal arena can remain near the other end since Gulliver’s case material suggests that it was here that contending parties resorted to whatever means they could. The fact that this explicitly excluded armed force is precisely because such action would be a breach of the peace and raise the matter from a private to a public delict, and a concern of the age organization at parish level.The parish arena was essentially quasi-legal in the sense that it dealt with the wider public interest. It is with this in mind that one can again consider the ambiguity of the Arusha firestick patrons’ role. The political model presented them unambiguously 244

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as potential allies of their moran protégés; but Gulliver’s examples indicated that they were just as likely to criticize these protégés, especially where they were clearly in the wrong.This suggests a closer approximation to a judicial model.The fact that patrons had this ambiguous role made it easier for them to adopt a more neutral stance in assessing the balance of misbehaviour in a dispute between younger men. The power of the junior and senior patrons, which Gulliver saw as emanating from their control over and alliance with the moran, now appears to have been more closely associated with their judicial authority to maintain the peace, according to notions of public interest rather than sectional gain. Their reluctant responses in Table 10.2, avoiding partial involvement, can be reinterpreted as an impartial support for reasonable behaviour. It has already been noted that land was a sensitive issue that threatened the Arusha family. Five of the eleven patrilineal confrontations over land and two that were referred to modern courts were between close agnates, and appear to have revealed crises in the growth and development of the lineage. The age organization, linked as it was with the parish arena, was concerned with the issue of local law and order in a society where rivalries, especially over land, tended to disunite. It was concerned with the solidarity within an age-set where brothers and cousins of a similar age might have an incipient quarrel; it was concerned with a mixture of alliance and respect between alternate age-sets where the older sons especially might find the power of their still active fathers and other senior kin overbearing. In other words, as with the manyata system among the Maasai, it was perhaps concerned up to a point with cultivating a queue discipline where younger members of a family might be tempted to take the law into their own hands.22 Thus, one has bitter lineage disputes in which devious tactics were permitted on the one hand, and a separate restraining institution on the other, which in opposing violence and lawlessness maintained the conventions of day to day existence. The parish age organization appears to have preserved lineage autonomy while limiting the excess of competition. Gulliver regarded these as quite unrelated aspects of Arusha society, but his material pointed to the importance of the constraint imposed by the age system on family squabbles over property: feuding was not allowed to escalate beyond verbal confrontations and rhetoric. Like Merker, he underestimated the relevance of the age system in precisely the area where it excelled: the maintenance of public order dominated by the conformist ideals of elderhood. It was the elders who were the bastions of the age system, limiting violence and hence the degree of confrontation. The complementary aspects of family and age system among the Maasai are comparable to a similar relationship between patrilineal and parish systems in Arusha society, where the limits to opportunism were firmly set by the age organization. But diverging from Gulliver’s notion of complementary opposition, which was between rival groups, the present treatment focuses on the opposition of values associated with complementary institutions. In highlighting these contrasts, a moral boundary was clearly defined between them, and any opportunistic attempt to transcend this boundary was revealed for what it was. The poles of Gulliver’s 245

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notional scale of social control, corresponded up to a point with polar concepts underpinning these two institutions – between the public and the private. Gulliver’s work established a dynamic aspect of the Maasai age system more generally, and it is ironic that his Arusha material illustrates this so sparsely.Table 10.2 only identified one uncertain and irregular instance of direct confrontation between age-sets, although the posturing, rhetoric, and asides were clearly poised in this direction.The resolution of this anomaly could lie in a general problem facing all anthropologists who examine age systems of this kind and normally only see one phase of the total age-set cycle. Whereas Gulliver’s survey of 315 households had enabled him to identify successive stages of development of the Arusha family and the associated patterns of tension and resolution, his pioneering study of their age system was inevitably based on a single instance which he could only observe in part: for less than two years over the total cycle of fifteen years or so.23 Yet, this does not appear to have been a problem. These were critical years of transition in the cycle, and still the elders were reluctant to pursue their age-set rivalries at the parish assemblies. One is left with some clear differences between the Maasai and the Arusha.The confrontation between adjacent age-sets, which Arusha appeared to envisage but shied away from, is more fully enacted among the Maasai, notably in the south.24 The appeal of self-interest is by no means absent among the Maasai. It is central to an elder’s control over his family and herd, and to his involvement in the career of his age-set. However, the scarcity of land among the Arusha and of wives among the Maasai create quite different grounds for competition and to that extent the two societies are incomparable. One cannot really compare the melodramatic climaxes that mushroom out of disputes between Arusha patrilineal segments with those that erupt between age-sets at the critical times of jostling on the Maasai age ladder. But even this might be questioned if one attempts to reach back to Merker’s view of an earlier Maasai society that was bedeviled by feuding clans and the dominance of physical strength in settling their grievances.25 The Arusha could just conceivably provide a further glimpse into this reconstruction of a forgotten past. Clearly, Gulliver’s approach has a powerful appeal to the dynamics of self-interest and jostling for position, and his model of the Arusha age system is altogether closer to the Maasai system than his examples suggest.The Arusha appear to have upheld the rhetoric of this system, even if they stopped short of following this through to direct confrontation.This then raises a question that is considered in the final chapter of this volume. How might one develop the transactional model of self-interest and manipulation in order to describe the institutional aspects of the Maasai age system more fully?

Notes 1 2 3 4

Gulliver Gulliver Gulliver Gulliver

1963: 43. 1963: 12, 17–21, 74–6 1963: 73–5; cf. p. 82 above; Matapato: 228–36. 1963: 37–42, 44–5, 59–61.

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Gulliver 1963: 3, 30, 41–2, 47, 49–51, 58–9, 62, 103–4. Gulliver 1963: 29–30, 31n, 44–6, 56, 59, 111, 117, 192. Cf. pp. 26, 191–2. Gulliver 1963: 28, 31, 59, 64, 192. Gulliver 1963: 163–9, 178, 267–74. For a fuller classification of cases on which Tables 10.1 and 10.2 are based, see Spencer 1976: 175. Gulliver 1963: 178. Gulliver 1963: 189–93, 196; 1964: 229. Gulliver 1963: 192. Gulliver 1963: 194, 199, 218–9, 236. Gulliver 1963: ix, 139, 213. Gulliver 1963: 214. Gulliver 1963: 31, 110, 144–5. Gulliver 1963: 41, 57. Gulliver 1963: 45–6; 1964: 210–17. The status of unmarried moran has been linked in the present work to the prevalence of polygyny (Figure 2.1). Gulliver’s survey of Arusha polygyny is not strictly comparable with available data for the Maasai. However, the overall impression is of a rather lower rate, despite the possibility of widow remarriage, which the Maasai do not permit, and the greater probability of taking further wives from agricultural peoples such as the Meru. The combination of factors coupled with the absence of age-set restrictions suggest less delay on the marriage of young men among Arusha (Gulliver 1961: 22; 1963: 40, 72–3, 143; 1964: 219). Matapato: 184–5. Gulliver 1963: 42, 56, 177; Cases 7, 11, 14, and 17. Gulliver 1963: 299–300; Gluckman 1965: 144–6. Gulliver 1964: 210–22. Gulliver 1964. Chapter 8; Gulliver 1963: 46; Matapato: 214–19; Galaty 1998: 211–23. See above, p. 211.

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11 CONCLUSION The interplay of power and providence, and the theory of dilemmas

The Maasai age system is comparatively straightforward, but it lends itself to a variety of approaches that have been considered in earlier chapters of this work. Different interpretations draw attention to the ambiguity of the firestick relationship between alternate age-sets, which tends to highlight tension between the firestick patrons and the moran in the north (Chapter 7), in contrast to an alliance between them in the south (Chapter 8).The balance between these two aspects of the relationship varies with context.The shifts in emphasis between them also typify different phases of the age-set cycle over about fifteen years: the southern ‘alliance’ model highlights the change-over between age-sets, and then the northern ‘gerontocratic’ model highlights the separateness of moran during the height of their manyata experience. This concluding chapter aims to go beyond the formal outline of the system, typified by the various figures and tables in this work, in order to explore some of the more indeterminate aspects. It is concerned with the problems of decision-making facing individuals, groups, and whole age-sets, leading towards a fuller appreciation of the system.

Transactional approaches and the shifting saddle-point1 Philip Gulliver’s transactional approach towards Maasai age organization was outlined in Chapter 10, interpreting the southern model in terms of individuals and groups who exploited the system for their own advantage. In essence, the tussle between firestick alliances was presented in terms that resembled Fredrik Barth’s earlier analysis of dual organization among the Pathan. Pithy principles of selfinterest and political realism overrode the rules of cultural nicety.2 Resorting to the Theory of Games, Barth argued that as power shifts from one coalition to the other, there is a dynamic equilibrium offering an incentive to both winners and losers. Over time, each coalition can exercise a similar amount of power, and both would oppose any bandwagon surge of support in either direction that would ultimately eliminate the losers – and the game itself. At any moment, there is an accommodation between players, such that the maximum concession that one is prepared to make matches the minimum demands that the other insists on: even the loser has 248

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a stake in the system. In the jargon of Games Theory, this represents a saddle-point: by analogy, the highest point across a saddle is also the lowest point along its length. In a similar way, in the southern Maasai model, the opposed firestick alliances take turns in wielding power, and this too may be viewed in terms of a shifting saddle-point. In debates among elders, for instance, ageing firestick patrons (A) may retain a certain dignity by accommodating the growing contribution made by their successors of the next age-set (B); and these in turn may display a mature statesmanship by addressing the wider interests of the community rather than their own narrower ambitions to take over as the central players.The path leading towards a change-over may then be seen as a shifting saddle-point, with age-set (A) maximizing their concessions and (B) minimizing their demands. But even if this course is punctuated by some undignified confrontations – a clash of demands as in Case 33 – efforts to contain the damage and repair it in due course may again be viewed in terms of a shifting saddle-point: both parties have to make concessions to reclaim the dignity of consensus among elders and the ideal of Maasai unity. Similarly, there is a saddle-point in the northern model between the firestick patrons, who cannot control every aspect of moran behaviour, and the moran, whose high standing depends on a show of respect for Maasai ideals. These two aspects of the northern model combine in the ethos of the manyata system. To the extent that northern and southern models highlight incompatible aspects of the patrons’ relationship with the moran – as disciplinarians in certain situations or their allies in others – the balance between these at any point may again be viewed as a saddle-point between the two models. In focusing on the highlights of these models, Chapters 7 and 8 provided ideal types that tended towards the two extremes of Maasai society.As the age-set cycle of about fifteen years develops, agesets at each level find themselves confronted with situations that are unique in their experience. Each phase poses a novel problem and their debates seek to arrive at some consensus that offers the optimum course for action. The most influential speakers are those who can grasp the opportunity persuasively, weaving the various strands into an imaginative synthesis (Chapter 2). In working their way towards a decision, the group concoct what they see as the saddle-point of their dilemma, maximizing their position in the face of the minimum demands posed by the situation. They are not necessarily playing against a specific opponent, but against the world at large and ultimately the uncertain forces of providence that shape the future. Beyond the recurrence of the age cycle, a similar process is involved in steering a course between tradition and change. As individuals and as groups, they seek an intermediate position in which concessions on one side are balanced by demands on the other. The constant adaptation of ‘tradition’ to novelty is the shifting of the saddle-point between the two (Chapter 9).3 Taking a purely transactionalist view, the political process and state of play are determined by the self-interest of individuals, who may disregard rules when these do not suit them. Taking an alternative view, it is the checks on their freedom that provide the ultimate rules of the ‘game’ and this emphasizes the priority of institutions over the transactions of individuals, short of total anarchy. A higher order of ‘game’ is 249

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necessary to resolve the contradiction between these two approaches.The critique of Gulliver’s analysis in Chapter 10 did not invalidate a transactional approach, but rather sought to place it within a chicken-and-egg context – neither the individual nor any social institution can claim a logical priority over the other, and this leads one to search for a more inclusive model. Earlier discussions on the theory of games among anthropologists concerned a simple political or economic model in which the gains of one side are matched by the losses of the other: win, lose or draw, they are ‘zero-sum’ or ‘constant-sum’ games. Rivalry between age-sets for control over a central arena can be viewed in this way, and so can the interplay between sexes, overriding any premise of inequality. In the present chapter, the focus is concerned with an elaboration of this theory, where the gains and losses do not necessarily balance. In fact, the theory of ‘variable-sum’ games is not really about any popular analogy between social behaviour and games. It looks beyond the jostle for power and touches on the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of social life noted by such writers as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, and Durkheim. It is really a rather basic, even stark, theory of dilemmas – dilemmas that are common in human experience from an early age (even in games) and persist in adult life. Like Simmel’s micro-sociology of Forms, this theory seeks to reduce interaction to some very basic metaphors; and like Lévi-Strauss’s approach to structuralism, these are essentially dualistic. Dualism characterizes Maasai age organization, and the challenge here is to test the aptness of this basic theory as a tool for analysing the complexity of their system.

Asymmetrical competition and the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma Among the Maasai, the risks and considerable rewards of the pastoral economy devolve on household heads as quasi-independent stock-owners. They are forced to make choices, and in the balance of their judgement, they are faced with certain dilemmas. Consider, for instance, a situation of drought where the cattle are famished. Ideally, each stock-owner should send his herd to an area where the grazing is better, but there may be certain imponderables that place the herd at risk: an area that has just benefited from a cloudburst may be attractive, but there is a risk that too many other exhausted herds will converge on this spot leading to heavy losses; areas that have been officially closed for ecological reasons may offer good grazing, but also severe fines for trespassers who are caught; or in earlier times, the intertribal no-man’s-land was often undergrazed but also less protected from enemy raids. In each of these instances, migration involves a risk when it is easier to be wise after the event.This may be described as the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma, where the stock-owner has to consider the risks of contending with a more powerful adversary in the form of freaks of the weather, official grazing guards, or enemies of the Maasai.4 Expressed in these ‘either-or’ possibilities, there are just four possible outcomes, which in order of preference for the stock-owner are: 1 2

a risky migration that pays off; avoiding a risky migration that would have been disastrous; 250

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3 4

missing the opportunity of a risky migration that would have paid off and that benefited other herds instead; a risky migration that turns into a disaster.

In choosing where to migrate, if at all, the stock-owner has to gamble between a high-risk or a low-risk strategy. Some elders are recognized as more impulsive than others, and some as more lucky by sheer chance, affecting the profile of their herd growth over time.The fortune of each herd are in the owner’s hands prospectively and those of Providence retrospectively. In such situations, the adversary is impersonal: the elder cannot probe its mind, but only weigh his chances. Where the choice concerns interaction with others who also have choices to make, then the analysis concerns both sides, for each Self also has to assess the situation from the Other’s point of view, and this provides a further dimension to the dilemma. For example, when maturing boys or novices dare to filch the privileges from ageing moran, as in Merker’s account (Case 1), they too engage in a game of Cat-and-Mouse, but with a human adversary. To wrest control from their predecessors, they must assume the privileges of moranhood for themselves: they do not beg for these as they would be refused.While they are still young and few in number, they are challenging experienced moran who will beat them if they catch them. The moran are vigilant custodians of their privileges, and no one doubts their physical strength. However, they cannot maintain the initiative indefinitely; and in the longer term it is a question concerning when rather than if these privileges will be handed on. Meanwhile, in the early stages of this contest, the moran and novices may be involved in a game of Cat-and-Mouse. If the novices can out-manoeuvre the moran and display their superior vigilance by sporting forbidden privileges and avoiding a beating, then popular attention switches to their side. The ruling moran are humiliated and any further defence of their privileges becomes hollow: next time it could be a real enemy on a stock raid who slips past their guard. In effect, the Mouse has come out to play and the Cat has bodged it. The essentials of this example may be reduced to a basic dilemma facing the two opposed groups, again yielding four possible outcomes that depend on the combination of their choices. In Figure 11.1(a), the outcomes are ranked 1–4 according to preference for the novices. In their rivalry over the privileges, the most desirable outcome for the ruling moran (as ‘Cat’) is the least desirable outcome for the novices (as ‘Mouse’). Expressed in this way, Mouse’s gain is Cat’s loss and this may be described as a constant-sum game.5 Expressing this in matrix form (Figure 11.1(b)), it may be noted that there is no ‘saddle-point’. If either side knew the other’s choice, they would choose differently: if the inattentive ruling moran had known that the novices were about to make a bid for the privileges, they would have been more vigilant; if the novices knew that the ruling moran were vigilant, they would not make a bid; and so on. As the arrows indicate, one can trace round the diagram with a succession of ‘ifs’ in an endless cycle. 251

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Figure 11.1 The Cat-and-Mouse dilemma facing moran and novices.

A similar dilemma faces the elders in their attempts to discredit one another in debate emphasized in the southern model, and this is especially highlighted in Gulliver’s analysis of the Arusha.The aspiring (firestick) patrons are poised to raise the stakes if the ruling patrons of the next age-set have dropped their guard by failing to brief themselves adequately or attend the meeting in sufficient strength, and so on.The ruling patrons have to maintain the initiative in order to discredit their rivals and protect themselves from humiliation. In the southern model, ruling moran and ruling firestick patrons form an alliance of muscle and political power against their successors, who will eventually beat them. Until then, while they have the strength and initiative, they are playing for time. 252

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A more elaborate treatment becomes necessary in a similar dilemma posed by the northern model, where the rivalry is not between adjacent age-sets, but between suspicious elders and evasive moran, who are suspected of adultery and stocktheft. Elders must be formally respected, but when their backs are turned, the moran may be tempted to switch their attentions to the wives and small stock of these older men, who find it impossible to maintain a watch on every wife and every sheep and goat all the time. If a morani is caught, he will be punished; but if he is not, then he will have cocked a snook at his seniors in addition to indulging his appetites. Clearly, this is a Cat-and-Mouse situation again, but it is not constant-sum. Unlike the battle over privileges, the game has a different meaning for each side.When the moran get away with their adulteries, then in their terms (and in their private boasting) they have scored over the regime imposed on them; but if the elders never even suspect, then in their terms they have not ostensibly lost. If the moran are caught, then in different senses both sides are losers: a cuckold can never really win.The moran feel that they get away with enough to give the game some spice, while the elders suspect that the moran get away with too much, but they cannot prove it. In other words, one is in the realm of variable-sum games where the gains of one side do not exactly tally with the losses of the other, which is inevitable whenever mice try to gamble with cats.Yet the structure of the dilemma expressed in Figure 11.1(b) remains, with no saddle point, and regardless of the balance between hurt pride and anger among the elders and gratification or punishment among moran. Other comparable situations, where the outcome is indeterminate, include the belief in sorcerers who subvert the protection offered by the Prophet (Chapter 5); and women’s fertility dances and mobbings, where wives may subvert the claim of husbands to be their masters; and also daily village life where the balance of power between the sexes may shift with context (Chapter 3). Normally, the domains of the Prophet on the one hand and of the elders on the other are unchallenged, but their position and prestige are coloured by an awareness that their measure of control can never be taken for granted. In their confrontations with moran, the elders’ weapon is their power to curse, and the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma has its counterpart in Maasai cosmology and more succinctly in the Samburu elaboration of this belief (Chapter 4). Figure 11.2 illustrates this, expressing the dilemma at a higher level.The elders pose as the agents of Providence in determining the destiny of the moran, and they weight the penalties in their own favour in a situation where the odds are assumed to favour the moran. In the Samburu view of Providence, every person has a guardian spirit that protects him in normal times but will abandon him if he is justifiably cursed by someone he should respect. The senior’s power is that his own guardian spirit responds to his blessing by extending protection to the junior (who is then doubly protected), or responds to his curse – if he uses it frugally – by bringing disaster. Thus if a morani is cursed for disrespect to a firestick patron, then he is abandoned by his own spirit and castigated by the patron’s spirit, and he is then prone to sudden misfortune. He must make reparations as quickly as possible to obtain 253

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Figure 11.2 Providence and the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma in Samburu cosmology.

a blessing. Figure 11.2 shows the Samburu perception of the outcomes in terms of the automatic responses of the two spirits to the initiatives of their dependants. To the extent that moran and elders are not contending on equal terms, the penalties on each side are not ‘constant-sum’. A variable-sum game is sometimes described as a constant-sum game with Providence at a higher level, which affects the nature of competition lower down. Higher stakes are involved than merely winning or losing a game. In this sort of situation elsewhere, the figure of Providence may be personified as a kind of Cat: the cowled figure of Death lurking among the living in European folklore, or Machiavelli’s cruel goddess Fortuna poised against the wits of men, or the spectre of witchcraft in parts of Africa. Among the Maasai, this is the province of God with a sinister as well as benevolent side.

Confrontation and the Hobbesian dilemma In the Cat-and-Mouse model, ruling moran who defend their privileges and novices or aspiring moran who try to filch them face different kinds of dilemma, and the competition between them is asymmetrical. This may be compared with other types of dilemma where the opponents are more equally matched. Clearly, there are endless possibilities for elaborating different scenarios and their associated dilemmas: each shift in the balance of penalties alone presents a new situation, and there are many other types of engagement. However, these appear to range within three basic forms that are strikingly pure in the sense that each has its characteristic profile of saddle points. One of these is the indecisive Cat-and-Mouse contest, and the other two are generally known as the Game of Chicken and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. They are ideal types; and because they reflect facets of social behaviour, any particular ethnographic encounter may entail more than one of them, rather as the Maasai age system was built up from a collection of ideal types in Chapter 2. 254

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Figure 11.3 Confrontation between Hawks and Doves (or Game of Chicken).

Within the limitations of this approach, one is led to infer that all other situations of choice are either trivial because there is no dilemma or they may be reduced to combinations of these three types.6 The three appear to establish the dimensions of a particular set of possibilities. The Game of Chicken is concerned with direct confrontation and in the jargon of politics it involves the dilemma facing Hawks and Doves (Figure 11.3).7 Among the Maasai, the full-blooded ethos of moranhood posed this dilemma, taking warrior virtues to their brittle limit. In the competition between ruling moran and novices, more may be at stake than a constant-sum tussle for control over the arena of moranhood. So long as the ruling moran are clearly masters, the novices engage in a mild game of Cat-and-Mouse, toying furtively with the privileges.As they gain strength and confidence, so does the possibility of a vicious clash. Increasingly, the novices become an even match for the moran, and the Cat-and-Mouse shadow boxing transforms into a matched contest. A compliant attitude by both sides in the previous model (passive submission) now becomes a Stand-off between Doves, until one side or the other makes a bid for power. If an encounter stops short of a confrontation between Hawks, it is constant-sum (one wins, one loses, or they both draw).The new dilemma is that if both contestants are Hawks, then the damage to both sides may escalate until one of them wins. There are two saddle-points, depending on which side dominates, or both may be badly bruised. For the ruling moran, it is no longer a matter of beating the novices if they catch them.They now have to fight to retain their privileged position or stand by and accept the prospect of elderhood (Case 1). So long as the moran retain the initiative, they have no incentive to become Doves, and knowing this, the novices have no incentive to become Hawks, which would lead to a harsh defeat. The relationship therefore stabilizes on this outcome with one intimidating the other.To put this another way, in their extended Game of Chicken, the Cat-and-Mouse phase characterizes the initial saddle-point, when the novices filch the privileges if they can, but they do not seriously challenge the moran in a contest for power. Subsequently, the 255

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concession of the privileges as the moran retire to elderhood represents the alternative saddle point with the novices asserting their ability to dominate. The transition from the first state to the second constitutes the dilemma facing both sides, with their reputations at stake. At this time, rival groups of novices and moran may confront one another and there may be sporadic fatalities, especially in the south, but these do not build up to a sustained feud.The two age-sets of firestick patrons are also involved and seek to stave off a bruising confrontation.They too are concerned to maintain their reputations by demonstrating their control over the novices on the one hand and the senior moran on the other. Anticipating the crisis, the senior patrons point out to the senior moran that this may be their last opportunity to retire with grace while they are in undisputed command; or the moran may wait until they are routed by their juniors in a battle for the privileges of ‘children’, and these are not worth a single human life.The ruling moran save face by bowing to this pressure, and walk away from the arena in a stand-off. Physical contests for power are overshadowed by the stark possibility of the escalation of violence between Hawks. This tends to be avoided in the succession of age-sets. However, rivalries among moran provoke them to parade their abilities as warriors-in-waiting in their dances, invoking earlier traditions as diehards in battle and the image of Maasai as an unstoppable force. Joseph Thomson (1885) set the tone for later literature on this topic, when he described ‘pitched battles’ between Maasai and other Maa-speakers, fighting ‘day after day till one gave in’ with ‘thousands being killed on both sides’, while the ‘women stood by … and urged on the combatants in their terrible hand to hand encounters’. Eventually the Maasai dominated the scene, but only after suffering serious defeats. At another point,Thomson witnessed moran wounding one another in a fight over his own gifts, and later he describes the division of spoils of war, when the ‘braver men and bullies … took possession of such cattle as pleased them, and dared the rest to come and seize them … And thus began the real fighting of the expedition … There were more warriors killed over the division of the spoil than in the original capturing of it … a man not being considered worth avenging who could not hold his own life safe’.8 The Maasai are no less melodramatic in their understanding of earlier times, notably when they were locked in uncompromising confrontations with the Maaspeaking Laikipiak and Loogolala, who were dispersed to the point of annihilation. This is matched, however, by the recognition that among themselves, any uncompromising assertion of pride would also challenge the ideal of Maasai and age-set unity, and this would prompt others to diffuse any build-up of tension between hawkish moran before it had gone too far (Cases 25–6, 28). Once they have become elders, they should respect one another altogether, and following any drunken brawl (Case 4), the age mates of those involved would seize a fine ox from each of them for an age-set feast to dispel their own anger and avert their curse. While moran are expected to be Hawks up to a point, elders should be Doves in any physical confrontation, and the intervention of age mates, which saves face among moran, is a humbling experience among elders. In more recent times and perhaps 256

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formerly, confrontations that have escalated beyond control seem to be significant by default.They were collectively avoided at the critical point, but could never be quite ruled out among moran, and it was this possibility that coloured any buildup to a crisis. Between Maa-speaking peoples in pre-colonial times, such community restraint was absent, and there was nobody to moderate their confrontations. As noted earlier, the northern and southern models apply to different aspects of the Maasai age system.At the time of change-over, in effect, the vulnerable extremity of the southern model is contained by switching to the northern model, as the elders assert their gerontocratic power. Because moran are obliged to respect elders, the more hierarchical northern model does not readily lend itself to a dilemma provoked by a tussle for superiority. In any direct confrontation, the elders always intimidate the moran. However, the dilemma does have its niche in their ideology. The firestick patrons’ ability to intimidate resides in their curse; and faced with this threat, the moran should always show respect. They are expected to placate their patrons in whatever way is demanded in return for their blessing. In practice, there is always an ultimate display of respect, and a final blessing is never withheld. In theory, the patrons maintain the ultimate power to break a firestick. It is held that if they were to do this in a fit of pique, then the whole age-set of moran would die out. Even worse, this would sever a vital link in the ritual succession of alternate age-sets and the chain of their firestick alliance would be destroyed for ever. When the patrons explain this awesome possibility to their protégés, it is to hold up the possibility of their ultimate curse following a total breakdown of respect, matching Hawk with Hawk and inflicting the prospect of annihilation. Among themselves, they admit that this is too shocking to be imaginable, and the saddle points of this relationship are domination by the elders on the one hand, and their fantasy that insubordinate and adulterous moran have the upperhand in a disrespectful shadow play of Cat-and-Mouse on the other.Yet, clearly the ultimate possibility of annihilation has its place in the collective imagination, colouring the intimidation imposed by the elders.9 The stark reductionism of the Game of Chicken is none other than the Hobbesian dilemma of human passions leading to total war and chaos. It suggests the possibility of a runaway situation and the elimination of either side, as occurred to the Maaspeaking Laikipiak and Loogolala, or even ‘mutual extermination’, as suggested for the Maasai by Harry Johnston (1886).This leads one to look beyond the game to the mechanism maintaining the rules, rather as Hobbes tried to do, to appreciate the foundations of order and the possibility of social institutions that rise above chaos.

Confidence and the dilemmas of altruism The collective ideal for the Maasai in pre-colonial times was based on mutual trust. This was true of the federation of tribal sections, of diehard warriors in the forefront of battle, and of other moran who pledged themselves in pairs to defend one another in a raid. Success in their Game of Chicken against their enemies depended on this mutual trust among themselves. 257

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The dilemma of trust may be viewed as an elaboration of the Game of Chicken, which is characterized by the disastrous outcome of a clash of Hawks. When Maasai moran were challenged by novices, for instance, the Game of Chicken might reach an intensity when the ideal of Maasai unity was lost, exposing them to their enemies. Other Maasai were the spectators in these encounters, with brothers and sons on both sides, and as the stakes mounted, public opinion could transform the passive outcome of a stand-off to a more statesman-like truce, ensuring a smoother transfer of the privileges with dignity. Even in more peaceful times, the two age-sets of firestick patrons tried to steer the two age-sets of moran towards this resolution, asserting their control in the final resort. In this example, the dilemma modifies over time to a point where there is mutual advantage in avoiding a confrontation, since neither side would accept domination by the other as a stable outcome. It is no longer a question of which side will be ultimately submissive, but what is to be gained if assertiveness is taken to a self-destructive extreme? This shifts the dilemma from uncertainty over a rival’s determination to dominate, to uncertainty over his readiness to place short-term advantage above long-term damage to the partnership. As the gain for Hawks becomes reduced in the final analysis, the problem shifts from a matter of raw nerve to the more delicate question of mutual confidence in a relationship. A paradigm for the problem of trust is encapsulated in The Prisoner’s Dilemma. The classic scenario concerns the dilemma facing two accomplices who are being interrogated by their captors in separate cells. Each faces the temptation to betray for immediate gain on the one hand and the anxiety of being betrayed on the other. A Maasai parallel is of a group of moran who are caught by an elder after stealing one of his goats for the pot. By convention, the first to cry out ‘Emuro’ (‘hind shin’) will not be punished. But this will also be an admission of guilt for all of them. In asserting his own interests in the heat of the moment, the culprit incriminates his colleagues, betraying their trust in one another and the ideals of moranhood. Caught red-handed, but with uncertain evidence to convict them, each has to ask himself of the other. Can I trust him not to confess? Can I trust him to trust me? Can I trust him to trust me to trust him? … And so on. In other words, how much value do we place on our friendship, overriding self-interest? What are the chances that this friendship will snap because of the weakness of others? Providence looms over the question of reciprocated trust, with the elder who confronts them serving as Providence’s agent. The Prisoner’s Dilemma applies very aptly to the ambiguities of close family relationships. Among the Maasai, the ideal of robust extended families is based on loyalty between brothers, who should fight side by side and support one another in all circumstances. So long as there is mutual trust, the family holds together as a viable concern, cushioned against all hazards. However, it is also widely recognized that this very closeness can lead to competitiveness between brothers as they settle down to elderhood, betraying this trust (e.g. Case 4). This is sometimes amplified in the grotesque image of a guardian uncle (father’s-brother) as a greedy sorcerer. 258

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The Loonkidongi in particular are notorious for their fratricidal rivalry and sorcery, and this dilemma is well illustrated in the build-up of mistrust between the Prophet Lenana and his brother Sendeu (Case 24). Lenana (or Sendeu according to an alternative version) is said to have usurped the power inherited from their father, leading to fierce rivalry between them, and then to devastating internecine warfare between their followers, from which the Maasai never fully recovered. Here, one may borrow from Pareto the characteristics of trustworthy ‘Lions’, who show loyalty and abide by the rules, and devious ‘Foxes’, who exploit the loyalty of Lions for their own ends (Figure 11.4).10 The Prisoner’s Dilemma argues that any situation of trust is brittle, since betrayal by either party leads to mutual mistrust from which there can be no recovery. Among the Maasai, the notion of a sorcerer expresses the essence of a Fox in its most grotesque form: nefarious, incomprehensible, anti-social and the antithesis of all that is desirable in an elder and especially a member of one’s own age-set. Moran have a clean image in this respect: they resort openly to the spear and not to an invidious spell.This has relevance to the southern model of the age system, which provides its own symbolic imagery of Lions and Foxes.The very high expectations that express the warm and selfless fellowship within an age-set reflect the Paratovian lion. Between adjacent age-sets, on the other hand, a fox-like mistrust persists from the time the moran of one age-set found themselves confronted by their successors, even before they were initiated. Another popular image of a sorcerer portrays a perverted elder of an adjacent age-set. When firestick patrons perform a sacrifice at a festival for their protégés, the details of performance are kept secret and members of the intervening age-set are firmly excluded from the occasion. The possibility that one of them is a sorcerer lurking somewhere in the bush and bent on mischief colours the ritual drama.This mistrust comes to a head at the time of change-over.While the ruling moran (C) are challenged by the aspiring novices (D), building up towards a Game of Chicken, their respective firestick patrons (A and B) are caught up in a Prisoner’s Dilemma.They suspect one another

Figure 11.4 The Prisoner’s Dilemma between brothers.

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of sorcery, and may even move to separate villages and avoid taking food together. In their debates, they try to discredit one another, notably over their inability to control their protégés. In this display of mistrust, they behave like Foxes. The change-over can only be said to have taken place when the younger age-set of aspiring firestick patrons are clearly masters of the situation, claiming the attributes of power, and the seniors feel betrayed by one another and lose the will to persist. The breakdown of tradition may be viewed as an elaboration of this model that follows from a cascade of broken faith, where Foxes are trapped in mutual mistrust. An example of this concerned the payment of bridewealth and initiation of children, according to elaborate rules of family precedence.The ideal of intermarriage between ‘good’ families was linked to observing these rules summarized in Figure 7.2, and in the 1970s the Purko Maasai claimed to subscribe to them still. Similar rules were held to have been followed by other tribal sections, but some families had found difficulty in completing the bridewealth for their wives; and the rules of precedence obliged other families who were intermarried with them to defer their own performances indefinitely and to initiate their children regardless. This led to a chain-reaction of lapsed custom spreading across the Maasai region.A measure of trust between ‘good’ families was breaking down as expectations slipped, and this was popularly associated with an increasing instability of marriage. In terms of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Purko maintained standards as Lions, while in other parts some had evaded their obligations as Foxes, leading others to follow suit. By extension, within any community, there may be confidence so long as all members suppress their immediate interests for the greater good; but if one sector becomes self-seeking, then others are led to follow suit, and the spirit of confidence and trust in community life is lost. The saddle-point is mistrust, and Lions are destined to become transformed into Foxes sooner or later. Even if loyalty and confidence hold for a succession of encounters, the temptation to break faith is always there, destroying trust. This provides a paradigm for the disintegration of Maasai tradition under modern conditions, which is sometimes expressed as the Tragedy of the Commons. Just as common grazing land is progressively eroded by the pressure of growing herds, so more generally, the short-term interests of individuals increasingly undermine their customary obligations towards long-term common interest.This raises awkward questions concerning the future of society as an ideal.The Maasai were slower than their neighbours to adapt, but as their boundaries opened up – geographically and ideologically – the options for traditionalists dwindled. Once it was clear that those who had already grasped new opportunities were successful, this increased the temptation for others to compromise Maasai ideals. In increasing numbers, elders sent off their sons to work, married off their daughters to newly wealthy men, accepted cash as a medium of exchange, and registered as land-owners when the opportunity arose. Some squandered their herds as they turned to drink and even sold off their land.The majority of Maasai held fast while the world around them changed, but as their options dwindled further, the opportunists grew rich at their expense, leading insidiously towards unprecedented inequality in a world inhabited by Foxes.11 260

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Expressed in these terms, with increasing breakdown of expectations, the Prisoner’s Dilemma leads logically towards anarchy. This raises the problem of how a culture of consensus can develop in the first place. Where did age-set loyalty come from, for instance, and how could this loyalty recover from a meˆlée, notably when moran fought one another in a free-for-all for their share of the spoils after a raid? The peaks as well as the troughs of Maasai society need to be explained, and this requires an alternative model in which the players perceive the gain in showing trust as the context shifts. Literature on the Prisoner’s Dilemma emphasizes the pessimistic outcome of encounters. It starts from a situation of shared loyalty and degenerates sooner or later into disarray and hopelessness. In the thrust of individuals for personal gain, they all lose. While the standard model, expressed in these terms, is irreversible, the same array of preferences can be reinterpreted by changing the scenario to what may be termed The Rebel’s Dilemma, as shown in Figure 11.5. This now concerns the dilemma facing a zealot who stands alone against superior odds, and in holding fast he takes a risk in the hope of generating a growing trust among his allies and reviving their cause. The moran spokesman, Olemutelu, faced this dilemma when he successfully inspired resistance against official attempts to suppress moranhood, and he paid the price (Cases 25 and 26). Maasai imagery of warfare expresses this well. After an unexpected set-back, moran could lose their confidence in their ability to win, resulting in a rout with heavy losses. In this situation, each self-proclaimed ‘bull’ would try to rally the others by his example, turning the tide.As the survivors heard the sound of his thigh-bells and saw him grimly holding fast, they were expected to fight their way to his side with renewed confidence and a determination to win. Against the odds, a diehard could provide a catalyst for the renewal of trust in themselves and each other. Similarly, in a debate between elders, the heated disarray that sometimes brews out of conflicting views can be turned into a positive synthesis by a gifted spokesman or orator who rallies the general mood towards a consensus. He too is described as a ‘bull’ among elders.

Figure 11.5 The Rebel’s Dilemma.

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The ideals of Maasai society are cast in terms of altruistic roles – such as manyata benefactors, ritual leaders, spokesmen, ‘bulls’, and even the Prophet in a devious way. Such men have the charisma to steer public affairs towards unity as an alternative saddle-point. Both dilemmas appeal to the altruistic side of human nature.The ‘prisoner’ starts in the upper-left segment of the diagram, and through a process of mutual betrayal ends up in the lower-right segment.The ‘rebel’ starts in this lower-right position and if he wishes to break away from the defeatist situation of despair, he has to place his destiny where his ideals lie, and display an act of faith in the hope that others who share his dilemma will follow suit. In other words, the dilemma has to be approached with a different set of premises and from the opposite end.Whether the saddle-point is mistrust or trust depends on the context. Seen from one angle this is the Prisoner’s Dilemma; and seen from another it is the Rebel’s Dilemma. It is the social context that determines which one.The sequel to the civil war precipitated by Lenana and Sendeu can be recast using both models. Once Sendeu’s position was hopeless, he offered a truce to Lenana, who provided him with a niche to continue as a Prophet. This displayed a resumption of trust between them.Yet when Lenana died nine years later, his successors claimed that this was the result of Sendeu’s sorcery; and mistrust has prevailed between the two branches of the dynasty since then. Between the Prisoner’s and Rebel’s dilemmas, there is no saddle-point.

The interplay of dilemmas The Maasai image of themselves as a warrior society highlights confrontational situations that can involve any of these dilemmas successively or in combination: risk, self-assertion, and trust recur in a variety of forms.They are familiar themes, woven into daily conversation and, rather like popular metaphors, they reduce to basic face-to-face situations that are experienced from an early age.Two narratives told to children illustrate this.The first is a popular legend. When Maasai migrated to their present area, they found the Larinkon living there, dominated by their giant chief.The Larinkon told the Maasai to turn back or fight (Chicken).When the Maasai tried to negotiate with them, the Larinkon set them a seemingly impossible task, while secretly preparing to kill them (Prisoner’s Dilemma). As the Maasai elders pondered over this task, a bright herdboy suggested a trick that would resolve the problem. Each time the Maasai went back with their solution, the Larinkon set them another impossible task and the boy suggested another trick (Cat-and-Mouse). In the final episode, the boy’s father baffled the Larinkon by speaking in a difficult form of Maa; and in the confusion the boy seized the opportunity to club the unsuspecting giant chief to death (Rebel’s Dilemma). Following this cue, the Maasai defeated the Larinkon and freed themselves. (Sankan 1971: 69–73; Kipury 1983: 42–4) 262

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The second tale has the characteristics of a just-so story. At one time, the Maasai were forced to restrict their movements because of enemies nearby (Chicken). A morani then decided to risk taking his sister with the family herd to a salt-lick for the sake of the cattle. At their camp, the sister secretly made love with some enemy warriors while the brother was out herding, and tried to betray him to them (Prisoner’s Dilemma). However, the brother saw the enemy warriors’ footprints when he returned; and he laid a trap (Cat-and-Mouse) and killed all of them, freeing the Maasai from the threat to their land (Rebel’s Dilemma). His sister was then married off as a punishment. This is why unmarried Maasai girls are now placed under manyata discipline (Hollis 1905: 120) and married out (Kipury 1983: 34–6). A third example concerns the challenge of a lion-hunt, which invokes ingredients of each of the previously stated dilemmas simultaneously. In times of peace, killing a lion is a highpoint of moran endeavour. He is the ‘great predator’, who plunders Maasai herds; and after a successful hunt, his mane is paraded as a trophy headdress. Confronting a cornered lion is extremely dangerous, and in some tribal sections, the mane is awarded to the first morani to grab his tail (Cat-and-mouse). This disconcerts the animal for a split second while other moran spear him (Rebel’s Dilemma). Grabbing the tail and spearing the lion are twin aspects of a group achievement. Each morani has to respond instantly to the opportunities of the situation or the lion may maul them and get away (Chicken).The emphasis is on teamwork, and they should not be diverted by competition for the trophy, whereas a self-defeating scramble to seize the tail would betray a selfish streak that makes them all look foolish, or worse (Prisoner’s Dilemma). In this instance, it is the lion who is cast in the role of Providence’s agent: a win for the lion is also a loss for manyata solidarity. These basic dilemmas are brought into a composite framework in Figure 11.6, indicating how each outcome shifts the context and generates further dilemmas. A Game of Chicken may lead to intimidation by one side and inequality, leading in turn to a game of Cat-and-Mouse, and then to a Rebel’s Dilemma (if the Mouse breaks free) or a Prisoner’s Dilemma (if the Cat retains the initiative).At any time the Prisoner’s and Rebel’s Dilemmas correspond to shifts along the indeterminate balance between trust and mistrust: solidarity and chaos.To the extent that social life and social institutions may be said to exist, they are no stronger than the confidence and trust generated within the community; and among the Maasai, there is a certain ebb and flow that is linked to the dynamics of the age system. 263

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Figure 11.6 The interplay of outcomes and shifting dilemmas.

The Pareto cycle and the spiral of ageing A Hegelian–Marxist resolution of the Prisoner’s Dilemma would point to the selfdestructiveness of each social formation, which bears the seeds of its successor and a new set of dilemmas in a dialectic process of social evolution. Pareto’s less radical solution assumed revolution without evolution. In his analysis of cycles of elites in European history, the end-point of the dilemma was not a cabal of Foxes, but a shifting situation.As he saw it, when the Foxes had subverted power beyond a certain point, the Lions would rouse themselves and re-establish confidence in the basic institutions of society.The Prisoner’s and Rebel’s Dilemmas combine to simulate Pareto’s cycle. Political intrigue leads down a slippery slope towards mistrust; and from the depths of self-interest and deceit, the flight back to mutual trust may be viewed as a quasi-religious act of faith. Edmund Leach borrowed this model to infer political cycles in Highland Burma, switching attention from the succession of elites to the changing mood underpinning a cycle of power.12 However, this took place over too extended a period to be perceived by the people themselves; whereas the Maasai age cycle is a thoroughly self-conscious process, and an endless topic of anticipation and concern. The Maasai do not clearly discern the differences between the northern and southern models that I have elaborated here, 264

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but they describe the changing mood and the critical points of the age cycle in endless detail. In other words, this cycle is not the unintended product of institutionalized contradictions. Rather, it is the conscious focus of attention within the institutions themselves. The changing mood between Lions and Foxes provides a tool for analysing the ritual cycle of the Maasai age system, or rather the ‘age spiral’ as boys are separated from their father’s control at initiation to become moran, and then are reincorporated into the domain of elders about fifteen years later in an extended rite of passage. In the southern model, focusing on relations between adjacent age-sets, the shift of power from ruling to aspiring moran corresponds broadly to a similar shift higher up the age grade ladder from ruling to aspiring firestick patrons.The spotlight of popular attention then switches from one (firestick) alliance of alternate age-sets to the next.The crisis precipitated by this shift has provided examples for various dilemmas discussed here: novices dare the moran in a game of Cat-andMouse; this leads perilously towards a Game of Chicken, in which the most daring novices face a Rebel’s Dilemma, and moran who are ready to abandon the manyata prematurely face a Prisoner’s Dilemma. As Figure 11.6 suggests, each dilemma leads towards a critical outcome, which in turn modifies the context and changes the game. There remains the indeterminate balance between the build-up of trust and mistrust, highlighted by the Rebel’s and the Prisoner’s Dilemmas. Logically, the next step is some other paradigm that links these to the Pareto cycle and to the switches in the prevailing mood between lion-like and fox-like outlooks. Catastrophe Theory provides such a paradigm. This lies beyond the scope of the present exercise; but it is at least possible to indicate how the Pareto cycle can be replicated as a ‘single cusp catastrophe’.13 In the three dimensional representation shown in Figure 11.7, the folded surface represents the shifting equilibrium in relations between age-sets (i.e. the saddle-point), with the fold as an ambiguous phase where any situation can lead to alternative outcomes. As the cycle progresses over the folded area, it is at first locked onto the upper surface, maintaining continuity with the past; but were it not for this, the lower surface would provide an equally viable solution. In the southern model (Figure 11.7(a)), one may trace the cycle from the arrowhead in the unfolded area. Here, the situation is relatively unambiguous while the aspiring moran and their aspiring patrons are still too inexperienced to challenge the ruling firestick alliance of more senior age-sets: there is no discrepancy between status and maturity. As they mature and their rivals mellow, however, there is an increasing discrepancy, building up pressure for change and mutual mistrust. One then enters a phase of mounting crisis and the ambiguity of the folded area.As the cycle approaches the edge of the fold, there is a ‘catastrophic’ switch to the other surface, resolving the ambiguity.This marks a radical shift in power, which may be precipitated by some chance event, but it is inevitable sooner or later. The displacement of ruling age-sets also brings promotion, and any lingering resentment should mellow with a groundswell for accommodating to the new status quo. 265

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Figure 11.7 Two facets of the Maasai age ‘cycle’ (after Pareto and Zeeman).

The mood switches from the self-inflicted mistrust between Foxes to a more pragmatic acceptance of change underpinned by consensus among Lions. With the change-over, the strains of the age system are eased, and increasingly the new ruling firestick alliance adapt to their enhanced role. For the remainder of the cycle, with the ambiguity removed, a sense of order prevails. The northern model focuses on the rift between moran and their firestick patrons, extending to the elders as a whole.This too can be viewed in Paretovian terms and the analogy of Lions and Foxes is still apt, although the characteristics of the model invert the Pareto cycle. This involves refolding the equilibrium surface with the climax marking the descent towards mistrust rather than a leap towards renewed trust (Figure 11.7(b)). Starting again at the arrowhead around the time of change-over (the initiation of a new age-set), elders display general goodwill towards the aspiring moran whose reputation is still untarnished. Hence, there is no critical shift in relations between elders and the initiates at this stage, and no ambiguous fold in the surface.This does not last, however, for the licence to assert themselves in the process of building up their prestige leads the young moran to indulge in Games of Chicken among themselves and of Cat-and-Mouse with the elders, filching small stock and wives opportunistically. This leads towards a ‘catastrophic’ lapse into mistrust. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to show this as a cascade of minor lapses (i.e. a series of smaller folds) as relations between elders 266

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and moran plunge towards a Fox-ridden impasse following each defiance by the moran and each tirade of threats by their patrons. As the elders lose control, a reputation for irresponsibility builds up on one side, and a tally of grievances on the other. In their vacuous situation, the moran have little incentive to mend their ways, and the elders have a pretext to delay their promotion. If the elders as Cats are vigilant and as Hawks show their talons, then as Foxes they play for time. Playing for time is playing for wives and ensuring a higher degree of polygyny and security in their old age. Delay is of the essence. The return of the moran and the elders to a state of trust is achieved through a steady process of accommodation. Ultimately, the moran have to accept the inevitability of their own elderhood, just as they have to be accepted as elders. In their first flush of moranhood, they had neither reputation nor a real stake in the system.With the passing of years, they acquire both; and having consummated their moranhood, they have nothing further to look forward to except elderhood. The game that led both sides along the path towards mistrust loses its impetus, especially when a new age-set of moran is initiated and captures popular appeal. To emphasize their own superiority, the retiring age-set of moran have little alternative other than to behave with a new maturity.The first to marry and become an elder should be their ritual leader, who is regarded with awe and associated with the destiny of his age-set and the acute danger of misfortune. It is a vivid expression of the Rebel’s Dilemma facing the moran at this time. The first Lion to be exposed in a world of Foxes is supremely at risk; and both the ritual leader and his first wife are selected by coercion and forced to lead the way. Following his lead, other retiring moran cultivate a sense of trust, marry, and cross the threshold to elderhood.14 The two models are characteristic of the southern and northern Maasai respectively. However, they also apply more broadly to different aspects of the Maasai age system everywhere, drawing attention to the ambiguity of the firestick relationship, involving lion-like solidarity and fox-like mistrust at different points of the age-set cycle.To a lesser extent this applies also to relations between adjacent age-sets, who experience the jostling on the age ladder most directly. In referring to one another as affines (ilaputak), they draw attention to the widespread marriage bonds between them and the ambiguity of this relationship. They are prone to mistrust one another, but seek to display a polite façade of trust.The dignity of elderhood corresponds to the general expectation that all Maasai should behave as Lions, and especially age mates, but the spice of their gossip and joking draws attention to a world view in which Foxes play an equal part.

Conclusion: Providence and the dynamics of the Maasai age system Any attempt to apply theory to ethnographic data is necessarily reductionist and the victim of its own limitations; and a theory that attempts to reduce society and its processes to types of game can only be carried so far.The Theory of Dilemmas 267

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takes the argument a stage beyond the tidy balance sheet of a constant-sum game by considering the imponderables of social interaction, and this touches on perennial issues that have been raised throughout the history of social thought.The logic of the theory reduces the dilemmas of interacting players to a limited number of primary forms, associated with situations of choice in which each ‘Self ’ and the perceived ‘Other’ have archetypical roles. The higher the stakes, the closer this resembles a game of Cat-and-Mouse with Providence. In Weberian terms, these basic forms of dilemma are ideal types, removed from empirical reality and yet they may be seen to reflect an irreducible essence of that reality. Indeed, in the examples considered here, the stereotypes of the opposed players and even the spectre of Providence are symbolic images in Maasai cosmology and popular representation that relate to inescapable dilemmas posed by the way that their social life is structured. Certain recurrent situations concern some fundamental problems of interaction – of choice between the stark alternatives that face two players. Dualism is a persistent feature in the Maasai mode of thought (and indeed in the structuring of ritual – Chapter 6): boys are opposed to moran, moran to elders, men to women, Loonkidongi to Maasai, and so on.To be Maasai is to be drilled in these polarities as a premise of existence. Part II of this work has considered two types of dualism in Maasai age organization.The northern model is concerned with the problem of control by established elders over wilful moran, highlighting their contrasting ideologies and life styles.The southern model is concerned with the opposition between adjacent age-sets, and this is linked to the alliance between alternate age-sets and to the cycle of about thirty years, during which first one ‘firestick’ alliance and then the other by turn dominate the public arena as their members mature. Over the Maa-speaking area as a whole, there is gradation of these models from north to south. At first sight, they are incompatible. In the southern model, age-set rivalries bring moran and their firestick patrons into close alliance; in the northern model, the problems of gerontocratic control bring them into confrontation. Thus, where one model is applicab1e, the other, by definition, is not. However, they are complementary in that the most critical points of each model occur at quite different phases of the age-set cycle.The rivalry between firestick alliances becomes most acute during the period of change-over, whereas the strain within the ruling alliance – between moran and their firestick patrons – becomes most acute during the extended hiatus between one change-over and the next.While there is a shift in emphasis between north and south up to a point, both models apply to all Maasai at different points in time: mistrust switches from a general concern over the problems posed by the moran at their peak to relations between adjacent age-sets when they and their patrons are challenged by their successors.The solution to the Hobbesian dilemma here is that the game itself switches between arenas. What might appear to be an impasse of mistrust at one stage offers a ray of hope as the context shifts. Because the two models cut across one another, when one is bedevilled by the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the build-up of mistrust, this sets the stage in the other for a compromise, resolving any Rebel’s Dilemma with a renewed spirit of trust. 268

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More inclusively, these complementary aspects of the age system are themselves organized as a duality that unites all Maasai proper as the ceremonial focus switches between north and south. Among the Kisonko in the south, olngesher is the major festival that promotes retired moran to elderhood in the fullest sense and qualifies them to become firestick patrons with the power to bless and to curse.This marks the ceremonial culmination of one firestick alliance (between age-sets A and C) and paves the way for its successor (between C and E); and it is the first step towards challenging their adversaries (B and D) at the height of their control over the central arena. The Kisonko must perform this festival before more northern tribal sections can follow suit with their own versions.About eight years later – say half an age-set cycle – this is followed by a signal from the north when the aspiring firestick patrons in Keekonyukie establish their authority over boys who will become members of the new age-set (E) and kindle the first ceremonial fire to bring this new age-set to life. Only then can the new initiations take place in Keekonyukie, and this provides a cue to be followed by more southern tribal sections (including Kisonko). The two festivals mark an interaction between models and between north and south, switching between aspects of the cycle (Figure 11.7(a) and (b)) rather like a Lissajous figure.They are the only events that orient all Maasai in time and space, synchronizing their local age systems, and making them keenly aware that they are a united people. The ritualized sequence of this cycle provides a vivid collective representation of the Maasai system. At any time, popular gossip reflects an awareness of the current position for all Maasai and of each next step locally (Chapter 2). In so far as the analogy of an evolving game has some validity, it is this collective awareness that acts as umpire, serving as a commentary on the state of play, and dwarfing the manipulations of individuals and even of age-sets in their prime. With the unfolding of the ritual cycle, critical judgement is brought to bear, comparing what is with what ought to be and what should be next.There is always uncertainty over the outcome of events, but as these unfold, they are regarded merely as the small print of an overarching social order ordained by God and reaching into the future.‘Only God knows’, they claim, referring to truths that lie beyond their experience.The unknown is the prerogative of God, perceived as the figure of Providence. Nevertheless, it is Maasai who lay down the principles of this order and draw moral inferences from chance events and outcomes.Their reverence for this consensus of dogma implies a Durkheimian view of God: a collective representation of their stake in society. Even if Providence conceals ultimate truths, Maasai still express an absolute certainty in the order of things, which they can reiterate at length and understand only too well.Their faith in this unending cycle of performance has an affinity with a more lofty sense of Providence that is closer to a concept of Destiny. It rises above the transient games and dilemmas that entrap individuals and whole groups, and lays down eternal ground rules for the transient anthropologist to pick up. As a Maasai elder matures, he experiences each of the roles that precipitate these dilemmas. By the time his age-set loses the will to battle for the high-ground in debate, his wisdom is that he has seen it as a participant from every angle. He can 269

DIVERGING MODELS IN SPACE AND VARIATION OVER TIME

reflect on the games that younger men play – not just moran, but also elders in their prime – and he can reflect as an expert on the spiralling configuration of their age system. He emerges in old age on the side of Providence; and in any debate, after the heat of disputation has been dispelled by the force of consensus, it is the oldest man present who invokes God’s blessing, imposing an even higher and ageless authority. Maasai women are peripheral to the workings of the age system and they do not claim to understand its convolutions; but they have their own lifecourses that provide them with enough personal and vicarious experience to appreciate the nuances of the basic dilemmas. At this level at least, because these experiences play a significant part in popular gossip, women grasp the system very well.As they grow old and acquire a more detached view, they too, like ageing elders, play a distinctive role in popular consciousness. Older people are poised to be reconciled with the unfolding of events and they view the outcomes with equanimity as symptoms of a deeper truth.They are now beyond time.

Notes 1 In elaborating the concept of the saddle-point here and of different forms of dilemma later in the chapter, I follow Rapoport 1960. 2 In Barth’s model (1959), the losing coalition always held an attraction for disaffected elements within the winning coalition, leading to defections, a switch of power, and a broad balance between the two sides over time. Whereas in Gulliver’s model, it is shifts in advantage due to the process of ageing that maintains such a balance, rather than shifts in allegiance. Age-set loyalty is never in question. 3 Pp. 154, 195, 223; cf. Pastoral Continuum: 201, 235. 4 Matapato: 10; Nomads: 186–7.The Cat-and-Mouse dilemma as a game with Providence has been analysed by Davenport (1960) in relation to the decision of Jamaican fishermen to risk deeper currents further out in the sea.The problem facing a Maasai stockowner may be regarded as a comparable problem. 5 The preference rankings may also be regarded as notional penalty points: the highest ranking (1) is the lowest penalty, and so on.This provides numerical values for the relative balance of advantage in the choice matrix. In the Cat-and-Mouse dilemma, the sum of penalty points in each outcome is constant, adding up to 5: Moran:

lax vigilant ↓ ↓ 3

2 Novices:

cautious

→

3

precocius

→

1

2 4

1 4

6 Cf. Rapoport 1969. Within this form of matrix, 144 combinations of ranking preferences are conceivable, of which two-thirds are trivial in the sense that the choices facing the two players do not pose a dilemma. The Game of Chicken and the Prisoner’s Dilemma are the only symmetrical possibilities that are not trivial, with 2 saddle-points or 1 ambivalent point, respectively. Other non-trivial possibilities can be viewed as a

270

THE INTERPLAY OF POWER AND PROVIDENCE

combination of either of these two dilemmas and the game of Cat-and-Mouse (asymmetrical and with no saddle point). Beyond this, an infinite range of penalties may be considered, which colour the scenarios but do not affect the three basic structures. 7 Cf. Rapoport and Chammah 1969. The four outcomes of the Game of Chicken can again be expressed as preference rankings for each side, and hence notional penalties: Moran:

Novices:

Doves

→

Hawks

→

Doves Hawks ↓ ↓ 1 2 3 2 3 4 1 4

For each of the three benign outcomes, when one player persists as a Hawk and the other backs down as a Dove (or they both defer as Doves), their joint penalties comprise a constant-sum game (1  3, 3  1, or 2  2). However, if they both persist as Hawks in a more vicious encounter with no final winner, then the notional joint penalty would be a maximum (4  4) and no longer constant-sum. Given that there is no upper limit to this damage, the actual penalty on both sides could of course be incalculably large. 8 Thomson 1885: 95, 200, 242, 255. Cf. Johnston 1886: 406; Merker 1904: 86–7, 97; Matapato: 104–5, 164. 9 Samburu: 153; Matapato: 165, 220. 10 Cf. Rapoport and Chammah 1965. Expressing the outcomes for the Prisoner’s Dilemma numerically, again in terms of ranking/penalties: Moran:

Novices:

11 12 13 14

Lion

→

Fox

→

Lion Fox ↓ ↓ 1 2 4 2 4 3 1 3

Starting with mutual trust (2  2), if either player betrays this for personal advantage (1  4), this will prompt the other to follow suit, leading to the worst joint outcome of mutual mistrust (3  3). See Pastoral Continuum: 209–13, where this has been elaborated for the Maa-speaking Chamus adapted from Little 1992. Pareto 1916: 2178; Leach 1964: xi; Matapato: 5. Zeeman 1974; Isnard and Zeeman 1976. P. 186; Matapato: 145.

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278

SUBJECT INDEX

Significant page references in bold adultery 5, 16, 18, 33, 48, 53–4, 152, 155–6, 159–60, 162–3, 167, 173, 189–90, 220, 238–9, 242, 253, 257, 266 age grades 2, 8, 19, 198; and age ladder 23; and varna 30 ageing: contradictions among men 26–7, 32, 40, 195–6; and the social construction of time 15, 37–41, 269–70; among women 5, 36–7, 46–7, 228, 270; see also old men age ladder 23–9, 31–2, 186, 193, 235–6; conciliation sequence 162–8, 176, 199; jostling 190–7, 238–42, 246, 259–60; and stratification 29–31, 190, 192, 234–6, 246; see also debates, firestick alliance, privileges, southern model age-set 8, 19; a corporate group 20, 33–5, 42n13, 60, 76, 78, 89, 209; curse 21, 32, 59, 76, 78, 256; esoogo punishment 32, 36, 90, 92–3, 168, 178n16, 192–3, 202n12, 256; ‘exogamy’ 34; name 189, 198, 204n19, 212; sharing 21–2, 33–4, 42n13, 94, 106, 238 age-set cycle 5, 9, 15, 21–2, 37–8, 190, 269; and ageing spiral 5, 7, 37–41, 143, 180, 190–1, 264–5; change-over 23–5, 140, 147–8, 180, 186–8, 191–3, 197, 213, 232n31, 248, 255, 257, 259–60; and festivals 37, 39–40, 110, 135–7, 235; and moranhood 21–2, 140–1; northern vs. southern models 224, 249, 265–8; problem for research 246; span and demography 16–17, 26, 41n2, 187, 190–1, 202n11, 213–14, 220, 232n23; and the Theory of Dilemmas 264–7; see also initiation

age-sets list 28, 107, 222; Dareto 116, 154, 157–8, 233n39; Kitoip 29; Laimer 203n14, 233n37; Nyankusi I 203n14; Nyankusi II 28–9, 40, 69, 154, 158, 161, 188, 194–6, 202n8; Seuri 29, 196–7, 203n14;Talala 41n7, 101, 110, 157, 202n8, 203n14;Terito 28–9, 40, 151, 154, 188, 194–6, 221–2, 231n20, 233n40; Twati II 41n7, 116, 151, 154, 208, 231n18 age-sub-sets (age-groups) 19, 22, 110, 132, 140–1, 207; in Kisonko 187, 199, 205, 221–2; rivalry 141, 212, 215–16; see also moran age system 15–42; Arusha 244–6; and demography of ageing 23–4, 26–7, 214; and generation 5, 169; modification 206–23; synchronization 59, 147, 180, 269; and women 4–5, 15, 33–7; see also age ladder, Arusha, Maasai identity, Parakuyu, Samburu altruism and trust 20–3, 59, 213, 246, 257, 260–2 arenas for dispute 15–19, 21, 26–7, 36, 43, 113, 115–19, 217, 238–45, 250, 255–6, 268–9 Arusha xvi, 10, 26, 58, 66n10, 181, 234–47; adultery 238–9, 242; age system 2, 4, 7–9, 27, 202n4, 234–6; complementary opposition 237, 243, 245; dispute process 234–43; gerontocratic theme 235–7, 241–3; and Kisonko 4, 10n3, 112, 201n2, 218; opportunism 238, 240–1, 243–5; parish arena 238–41, 243–4; patrilineages and land 2, 8–9, 234–6, 238–46; polygyny 242–3, 247n17; reluctance theme 235, 237, 239, 241, 245

279

SUBJECT INDEX

birth 67, 72, 95n3, 97n25 blacksmiths 42n9, 66n6, 87 blessings 43, 55, 73–6, 87, 90–2, 128, 134, 212; and curse 6, 17, 25, 61, 76, 87, 253–4; by the oldest men 25, 31, 41, 72, 78, 270 boys: status 30, 51, 152, 175, 185, 216, 262; herdboys 20, 51–2, 56, 64–5, 102, 152, 216 boys’ ox see ox’s horn bridewealth 86, 122n4, 170–4, 179n19, 202n5, 240, 260 brothers: friction 46–7, 49, 71, 103, 120, 127, 196, 225, 245, 258–9, 261; respect 164, 169–72, 210, 258; see also Lenana–Sendeu feud ‘bulls’ 16, 53, 129, 150, 210, 261 bush: and malevolent forces 6, 50–1, 54, 65, 127; and the village 6, 50–5, 61, 64, 69–70, 78, 109, 120, 133, 160; see also diviners, moran capes, ceremonial 115, 123, 163, 177n2 capital and consumables 21 cash economy 46; and oracles 129 Cat-and-Mouse dilemma 250–4, 262, 264, 270n4 Chamus xvi, 4, 10, 42n8, 96, 112, 177, 271 charisma 262; and elderhood 17, 78, 89; of old age 31–2, 40, 67; of Prophet 218, 232 children: as possessions 6, 21, 32–3, 122; stories 51–2, 71, 263; upbringing 60, 64, 78–80, 89, 91, 93 circumcision: age of initiates 214–16; and family practice 41n2, 68–9, 169–70; ordeal 52; white 69–70; see also initiation clanship 3, 96n17, 147; and age system 159, 183, 201n3, 202n5; daughters 33; diminishing importance 42n14, 212, 219; exogamy 82, 84, 212, 230n6, 232n33; loyalties 199, 211, 218; relevant by default 82, 212; rivalries 218–19, 231n11, 246; and warfare 210, 231n11, 232n33 clans list: Kiboron 97n33, 123n8; Laisir 98, 123n8, 183, 202; Laitayok 3, 10n3, 183, 231n14; Lukumai 149, 177n3; Makesen 123n8; Molelian 183; see also Loonkidongi colonial rule: pacification 205–6, 216, 218–21, 223, 233n34; and power of the elders 219–20, 233n34

confidence and trust 257–8; and age-set cycle 140–1, 265–6 confrontation: Arusha 235–41, 244, 246; and Game-of-Chicken 255, 262 cosmic phenomena 71–2, 74, 84–5, 88, 95n10, 108, 135–40, 143 curse 16, 75–8, 89, 189, 253–4; conditional 75–6, 121, 144n4; father’s 79–80, 82, 89; firestick patrons’ 21, 25, 90, 140, 155, 193, 257; legitimacy 76–7, 94, 102, 121; see also blessings, initiation, Samburu, sin custodian-of-the-thong (Purko) 159, 165, 189 daughter avoidance 33–5, 36, 86, 102, 163–4, 168 death 66n8, 67, 85, 120; see also father debates 55, 77, 78–9; and age-set rivalry 25–6, 29, 101, 128, 192–3, 196, 241, 252, 260; Arusha 235–41; consensus 25, 65, 78, 154, 192, 249, 270; by moran 20, 22, 25, 153–4; oratory 17, 26, 43, 65, 128–30, 154, 193, 196, 249, 261 delegations see ritual delegations development and culture loss 1–3, 9, 260 Dinka 79, 96n13 directions: east-west 71, 134–5, 157, 159; north-south 59, 66n8, 134, 147, 176, 180, 269 Disaster, the (in 1880s) 32–3, 205, 211, 213, 215–16, 219, 227 diviners 4, 98–101, 124–5; ‘binding’ 101, 126–7, 130, 195–6; and the bush 51, 100, 102–3, 108–9, 127, 130; charlatans 99, 102, 106, 121, 194, 196, 230n3; itinerant 100, 103, 105–6, 111; and misfortune 84, 93–4, 143; novice 99–100; payment 101, 125; and Prophets 7, 106, 111, 113, 116, 122; remedies 92, 100–1; and sorcery 87, 100–1, 103, 127; see also Loonkidongi, oracles Dorobo (Maa-speaking foragers) 10n3, 42n9, 66n6, 90, 148, 228 ‘drinking milk’ 21, 161, 163–4, 166, 173, 182, 184, 188, 190, 193 drought 56–7, 72, 95n10, 138–9, 184–94, 198, 250 dual organization 236, 248, 250, 268 ‘eating meat’ 163–4, 167, 178n12, 189 education 2, 121, 144n11, 147, 177, 184, 192 elders: control over marriage 16, 33–5, 49, 220; as gerontocrats 7, 16, 78, 91–2, 200,

280

SUBJECT INDEX

167–8, 175–6, 199; see also elders, gerontocratic premise

217, 219–20, 257, 268; play for time 16, 39, 173, 193, 243, 252, 267; premature elders 20, 158, 184–5, 199; and Prophet 93, 110–11, 113, 116–19, 160, 188, 203n15, 217–18, 220–1, 223, 226, 232n29; respect 21, 30–3, 67, 77–9, 180, 185, 187; ritual authority 16–17, 55, 84; self-indulgence 21, 46, 48–9, 54, 71, 82, 94, 161, 218; wisdom 17, 31, 46, 55, 71, 78, 84, 91, 119, 143, 172, 192, 260; see also curse, debates, old men elders’ villages 44–5, 52–3, 152, 156, 161, 212 enkipaata dance: boys 148–9, 154, 166, 177n2, 182, 201n1, 207–9, 232n31; eunoto 59 eunoto festival 22, 29, 38, 40, 73, 199, 208; Purko 150, 153, 156–60, 166, 178n8; Loitokitok/Kisonko 182, 186 188, 201n2 ‘eyes’ 60, 66n9, 87, 199, 203n18 family 44–50; friction 43, 46–50, 55, 103, 200, 253; reputation 46, 102, 169, 172, 176–7, 260; rules of precedence 169–71, 175, 199, 260 father: death of 82, 120, 211; as patriarch 3, 46, 63, 79, 94, 120, 122, 175, 200, 211–12, 218, 231n13, 245; possessions 6, 21, 32–3, 122, 170, 226; see also daughter avoidance father’s brother 82, 120, 175, 231n13, 258 father-son: age difference 27–8, 41n8, 82, 96n16, 200, 216; Arusha 235, 243, 245; curse 79–80, 82, 89; manyata separation 4, 19, 153, 155, 175, 185, 199–200, 265; and war-gains 211, 217, 220 festivals: see age-set cycle, eunoto, Great Ox, olngesher, ritual delegations, sorcery, time cycles feud 245, 256; see also Lenana–Sendeu feud firestick alliance 26, 257; alternating power 26, 134, 234, 249, 252, 265–6, 268; Arusha 236–40, 242, 244–5; aspiring patrons 26, 148, 165, 192–3, 197–8; Loitokitok-Kisonko 190–1, 194–5, 198; rivalry 26, 190–7, 238–42, 246; see also old men, southern model firestick patrons and gerontocracy (northern model) 25, 212, 248; and change 178n10, 212, 217, 221, 223, 232n28; curse 21, 25, 90, 121, 140, 155, 159, 257, 266–7; Purko 150–6, 158–9,

Game-of-Chicken 254–7, 262–4, 270n7 generation: and age system 5, 169; and quasi-kinship (entalepa) 134, 169, 171–2 gerontocratic premise 2, 5, 15–19, 27, 29–32, 37, 40, 81, 93, 97n30, 177, 200, 217, 248, 257; see also Arusha, elders girls: betrothal and marriage 16, 33, 35, 84, 104, 174, 194, 227; as lovers 16–18, 22, 152–3, 161, 209; at manyata 20, 23–4, 35, 52–4, 148, 152, 159–60, 184, 209, 218, 230n6, 263; upbringing 51, 89, 102, 104, 152; see also children, daughter avoidance goat-of-the-shrubs 173 God 71–5; abandoning 90, 138, 253; all-knowing 41, 72, 74–5, 77–8, 81, 88, 91–2, 269; and attributes of elderhood 41, 77–8, 79; castigating 77, 91–3; and cosmic phenomena 68, 71–4; dual aspect (black and red) 75, 90, 95n9, 138–9, 254; impersonal 92; parental image 67, 71–2, 89–90, 92–3; as Providence 6, 72, 75, 88, 93, 253–4, 269 grazing schemes 3, 9, 45, 250 Great Ox festival (loolbaa) 73, 163, 168–70, 173–4, 178n16, 208, 211, 231n12; and bridewealth 171, 174, 177n2, 178n19; translation 178n14 heifer-of-avoidance 162–5, 167, 171–2, 190 herding: dilemma 250; as a metaphor 43; see also boys homicide 56, 60, 66n10, 101, 105, 178n13, 211 hut 33, 42n13, 43–6, 50, 63, 80, 86, 130, 226 ideal types: basic dilemmas 254, 268; models of age system 5, 15, 249, 254 Iloikop 62–3, 66n10 iloonkuapi (those of other lands) 62–4, 150 incest 34, 42, 48, 83 information network see Prophet, spokesman initiation 69–70; of a new age-group 22, 38, 141, 163, 166, 208, 213, 215, 231n18; of a new age-set 19, 22, 38, 42n8, 140–1, 162, 166, 187, 191, 215; patron’s curse and closed period 123n18, 140–1, 148, 150, 163, 187, 190, 193, 197, 233n40; prelude 24, 65, 140, 147–50

281

SUBJECT INDEX

Kalenjin 10n3, 69–71, 95n4, 213 Karimojong 95n8 Keekonyukie xvi, 10n3, 107, 122n2, 158; see also ox’s horn Kidongoi 51, 98, 107 Kikuyu 10n3, 111, 122n8, 123n9, 225, 228 Kisonko xvi, 180; age system 8, 27–8, 205, 214, 221; border 56–7, 61, 117–18; dominance 8, 147, 180; federation 112, 180, 234; manyata 20, 41n4; olngesher 59, 156, 167, 180, 269; Prophet 107, 109–10, 112, 117, 123n9, 194, 196, 205, 221–3, 232n29, 233n36, 234; reputation 147, 180, 185, 187, 204n18 knowledge: of diviners and Prophets 87, 99–101, 108–10, 131; esoteric 71–2, 81, 84–5, 87, 94; and sorcery 6, 71, 84–5, 94, 101; see also God Laikipiak 228, 256–7 Lenana 107–8, 130, 160, 178n11, 194, 202n8, 218, 221, 223, 231n17, 233n45 Lenana–Sendeu feud 116–17, 123n12, 203n14, 205–7, 216, 259, 261–2 lion hunt 54, 148–9, 187, 263 Loita xvi, 4, 20, 41n4, 57, 158, 160, 171; Prophet 107, 111–14, 117–19, 194, 206, 230n6 Loitokitok xvi, 4, 8, 10, 58, 180–204; and Loonkidongi 105–6, 194, 199; manyat 20, 181–5, 199, 221, 230n6; and Matapato, compared 183, 197–9; and Purko, compared 8, 181, 183–7, 189–90, 192, 194, 197–9, 202n4, 203n18 Loodokilani xvi, 57–8, 61–2, 113, 117–18, 122n2, 144n6 Loogolala 256–7 Loonkidongi 7, 43–66; colonies 7, 98, 103–4, 106–7, 112–14, 119–21, 122n2, 203n13; contemporary myth 117, 119, 120; dynasty 94, 98, 107, 114, 120; festivals 136, 174; intermarriage with Maasai 66n6, 104–6, 122n4, 194; and Loolkokwa 111; and migration 110, 122n7, 126–31, 136–7; moran 102, 112, 123n10, 160; origins 94, 98, 104, 109, 150, 226; patronage 98, 101, 106–14, 120; reputation 7, 99, 102–4, 106, 119–20, 127, 147, 175–6, 260; rise to power 114–15, 217–19; rivalry 103, 116, 118, 120, 122n1, 127, 195, 198–9, 223; and sorcery 7, 101–4, 125, 160, 200, 223; see also diviners, Prophet, Sikirari Lozi 244

Maa and Maasai proper xvi, 3, 10n3, 64, 257 Maasai: expansion 62, 218–19; federation 3, 60–1, 115, 119, 147, 257; as a lost tribe of Israel 224–5; migration from north 59, 66n8, 119, 177n3, 201, 219; as quasi-state 114, 201 Maasai identity/unity 64; and age system 3, 6, 32, 57–60, 147, 197–8, 249, 258; and clanship 3, 60, 147; and homeland 58–64 man-of-the-brass-earrings 189, 202n10, 230n7 manyata (warrior village) 2, 18–23, 150–6, 181–6, 199, 209; autonomy 19, 155–6, 175–6, 185; benefactor 210, 262; disbanding 21, 23, 25, 182, 187, 193, 199; discipline 20, 22–3, 53, 152, 155–6, 185, 187, 202n10, 209, 263; and fathers 4, 153, 183–4; and firestick patrons 41n4, 155, 185; formation 19–20, 56, 60, 150–3, 166, 181–3, 199, 214–15; girls 20, 23–4, 35, 152–3, 209, 230n6, 263; and moieties 183, 201n3, 233n33; mothers 19–21, 35–6, 89, 150–2, 183, 207; non-manyata moran 20, 41n4, 53, 153, 184, 198–9; old man of the manyata 20, 41n4; rivalry 151, 154–8, 209; size 20, 230n5; territory 44–5, 52, 56, 151, 230n4; see also girls, raiding, spokesman marriage: forced 96n11, 105, 230n6; ghost 83–4; Loonkidongi 104–6; marriageability 169–72, 177; negotiations 33, 58, 104–6, 129–30, 227; stability 173, 260; veto 33–4, 57–8, 73, 76–7, 173 masculinity 129, 131 Matapato xvi, 3–4, 8, 20, 56–7, 61, 66n6, 105; border 58, 117–18; and Loitokitok, compared 183, 197–9; manyata 183, 199; Prophet 107, 111–13, 116, 118, 199; and Purko, compared 58, 155–6, 158, 171, 173, 175, 178, 198–9, 202n4 Mbatian 105, 107, 114, 116–17, 119, 123n12, 157, 160, 222; death 205, 216, 225, 232n24; reputation 217–20, 223, 232n29 meat feast 132, 159, 165, 168, 186, 203; forest feasting 52, 148, 152, 161, 187, 209–10, 230n8; see also ‘eating meat’ migration: intersectional 44–5, 56–7, 61–2, 151, 201; and oracle 126–31; routine nomadism 35, 43–4, 55–6, 64, 78, 82–3, 136–7, 183, 201, 220, 250–1

282

SUBJECT INDEX

misfortune, interpretation of 6, 65, 67, 77, 91–2, 133, 157, 189 moieties 183, 201n3, 210, 231n11, 233n33, 236 Monduli 181, 186, 194–5, 197, 201n2, 202n5, 203n15, 222–3 Monduli-Sikirari region 180, 193–5, 200, 203n15, 221, 224 moran (warriors) 15–18; age range 16–17, 166, 182, 213–15; and the bush 6, 52–3, 65, 109; dances 17, 52–3, 65, 91, 109, 159; diehards 156, 210, 230n9, 256–7, 261; and elders’ villages 19, 47, 53–4, 152; integrity 18–23, 53–4, 152, 169, 249; in limbo 15–16, 18, 23, 213; marriage 16, 18, 23, 153, 184, 186–7, 208, 211, 220, 230n6, 267; meat avoidances 53, 150, 161–8, 176; novices 24, 37, 45, 187, 207–8, 211, 213–16, 218, 221, 231n21, 251–2, 255, 265, 270n5; pigtails 186, 190, 231n21; reputation 20, 30–1, 140, 175, 207, 256, 266–7; retire to elderhood 21, 25, 45, 148, 158, 161–9, 186, 188–90, 199, 208, 211, 215, 231n20, 256, 267; as warriors 16, 152, 156, 206, 210, 219–21, 255–7, 261; see also adultery, firestick patrons, girls, manyata, privileges, stock theft myths of origin 72, 74, 90, 104, 119–20, 123, 262 nomadism see migration northern model 175–7, 249, 257, 266–7; contrasted with southern model 8–9, 20, 198–9, 219, 221, 248, 264, 267–8; see also gerontocratic premise numeracy 68, 124, 126 old men: lead blessings 25, 31, 41, 72, 78, 270; retire 26, 28–9, 31, 36, 38, 193, 196, 212; rolelessness 5, 26, 40–1, 193, 196, 198–9, 202n10, 235; wisdom 29, 31, 41, 77–8, 192, 269–70; see also manyata Olemutelu 154, 225, 261 Olngesher festival 38, 59, 73, 181–2, 186, 188–93, 195, 197–8, 204n19, 208, 234, 243, 269; see also Kisonko oracles 4, 98–101; and migration 126–31; pebbles 124, 126–7, 131, 142; silent 100, 126, 135, 137–40, 142, 144n7; and sorcery 127–9, 131–3; see also diviners

oracular numbers 124–34; and age-set cycle 140–2; and lunar cycle 135–8; and seasonal cycle 138–40 ox-of-the-wooden-earplugs 150, 177n4, 178n17 ox’s horn 25, 59, 148–50, 157, 166, 177n3, 180–2, 197–8, 201, 202n8, 269 Parakuyu (Maa-speakers) xvi, 46–50: age system 3–4, 8, 66n1, 202n4, 204n21, 217; as fringe Maa 3, 10n3; hut and village 44–9; Prophet 4, 112; and Samburu 66n10, 228–30; and southern model 198–200 Pareto cycle and Catastrophe Theory 265 passing-the-fence 123n11, 173–4 Pleiades star cluster 72, 138–9 polygyny 105, 246; and delayed marriage 16, 131, 158, 220, 267 population xvi, 10n1, 234 prayers 6, 71–5, 78, 88, 90, 92, 138, 212; see also blessings, women Prisoner’s Dilemma 258–64, 271n10 privileges of moranhood 19, 161; rivalry over 140, 158, 186–8, 193–4, 197–8, 221, 235, 238; transfer of 21, 24, 35, 141, 148, 158, 162, 164, 175, 182, 186, 198, 213–15, 258; usurped by successors 17, 24, 162, 187–8, 207, 215, 218, 238, 251, 254–6 Prophet 10, 106–22; and age system 188, 196, 203n14, 207–8, 217; court 94, 114, 206–7, 218; and diviners 7, 111; domain 6–7, 74, 94, 106–13, 120, 122, 199, 217, 220–3, 230n3, 232n31, 233n40; information network 108–9, 111–12, 195, 207, 209–10; and moran 109–10, 194, 207, 210, 217; payment 110, 223, 231n11, 233n41; pre-colonial role 98, 205–7, 216–18; rivalry 115–20, 122, 194–5, 222, see also Lenana–Sendeu feud; séance 109–10; ‘seeing’ 101, 108–11, 114, 116–17, 119, 122; and sorcery 7–8, 94, 106, 108, 119–21, 176, 195–6, 253; and spokesman 109–10, 116, 153; succession 115–16, 203n15, 222; see also elders, Kisonko, Matapato, Purko propitiousness 68–71; and luck 68, 95n2; and numbers 68, 124, 128, 132–3; and ritual cycles 135–42; see also unpropitious Providence: and chance 9, 124, 142–3, 249–51, 253–4, 258, 263, 268, 270; and God 6, 72, 75, 88, 93, 253–4, 269

283

SUBJECT INDEX

Purko xvi, 147–79; dominance 8, 147, 175–6; family precedence 169–74, 199, 260; and Loitokitok, compared 8, 181, 183–7, 189–90, 192, 194, 197–9, 202n4, 203n18, 223, 233; and Loonkidongi 105, 194; manyata 20, 41n4, 150–61, 183–6, 199; and Matapato, compared 58, 155–6, 158, 171, 173, 175, 178, 198–9, 202n4; northern federation 147, 150, 230n4; Prophet 107, 113, 117–19, 160, 188, 199, 205, 221, 233n4; reputation 147, 172–3, 175, 260; transition to elderhood 161–9, 199 queue discipline: Arusha disputes 236, 245; and family precedence 169–74, 260; and war gains 210 raiding 129, 155, 209–10; division of the spoil 183, 210–11, 218, 220, 231n11, 256, 261; and manyata 25, 62, 65, 153, 155, 160, 183, 207–10; and spokesman 153, 209–10 Rebel’s Dilemma 261–4, 268 religious belief 1, 40, 67–97; see also ritual Rendille 87 respect: for age 21, 30–1, 42n9, 51, 67; Kisonko 180, 185, 187; Loonkidongi 102–4, 120 ritual: categories 92–3; innovation 69, 77, 219, 249, 260; as prescribed behaviour 68, 84, 89, 91, 93–4; variation 1, 68, 86, 112–14, 178n10 ritual delegations 68; coercive power 60–1, 72–3, 128; and festivals 149–50, 158, 167, 180, 186, 189, 193, 201n2; to the Prophet 73, 108–11, 116, 118, 153, 156, 194–5 ritual leader 29, 157, 165, 186, 189, 202n5, 230n7, 267; curse 121, 157, 186; installation 92, 121, 156–7, 159, 202n10; misfortune 68, 157, 186, 189, 196, 199–200, 267; and Prophet 110, 113, 156–7, 209; qualities 68, 157; role 156, 202n6, 209, 262; and spokesman 156–7, 159, 178n9, 202n10, 209 sacrifice 74, 95n7, 97n30, 150, 189; as a gift from God 73–4, 92–3, 95n8 saddle-point 249; of encounters 251, 154–5, 257, 259, 261, 270n6; shifts with context 249, 265

Samburu xvi, 2, 15–18; age system 2–4, 7–8, 15–17, 23, 28, 53, 169, 173–4, 217, 243; bond-brothers 83, 89, 96n11; bridewealth 174; clanship 16–17, 22–3, 42n14, 81–3, 89, 96n17, 134, 176, 177n3, 200, 232n33; conformism 81, 83, 88, 120, 200; curse 81–2, 87, 97n25, 254; demographic profile 17, 41; diviners 4, 87, 112; esoteric experts 84–5, 87, 119, 123n8; family precedence 174, 179n19; father-sons 7, 27–8, 41n8, 82, 96n16, 200; as fringe Maa xvi, 3, 177, 219, 228–9; gerontocracy 2, 7–8, 16–18, 22, 27–8, 40, 200; guardian spirits 85–90, 112, 253–4; less concerned with sorcery 7, 84, 176, 200; links with Parakuyu 228–30; mother’s brother 81–2; polygyny 2, 15–16, 41n6; religion 6–7, 81, 83–91, 253 seasons 71–3, 95n5, 138–40, 187 sections see tribal section Sendeu 107, 111–12, 114, 117, 206, 212, 216, 218, 222, 230n4, 231n17, 232n24, 233n45; see also Lenana–Sendeu feud Sikirari 181, 194–5, 201n2, 202n10, 203n13, 204n19, 206, 222, 226 sin, irredeemable 75–6, 79, 96n22, 106 sorcery, fear of 57, 84–5, 198, 223; and the bush 6, 54, 102–3, 127, 259; caricature of elderhood 6, 71, 82, 94, 120, 201, 258–9; converse of ritual correctness 68, 71, 84; and cursing 76, 89, 102, 121; and festivals 39, 62, 71, 93–4, 112, 149–50, 160, 176, 196–7, 217, 259; see also diviners, oracles, Prophet southern model 176, 190–1, 205, 252, 259, 265–6; contrasted with northern model 8–9, 20, 198–9, 219, 221, 248, 264, 267–8; see also firestick alliance spokesman: information network 52, 109, 153, 209, 216, 230n8; manyata spokesman 20, 153–6, 209, 211, 230n11; principal spokesman (Purko) 148, 153–4, 156–7, 159, 178n9, 261; and Prophet 109–10, 116, 153; and ritual leader 156–7, 159, 178n9, 202n10, 209; and sorcery 109–10, 116, 153, 196; see also raiding stock theft 16, 55–6, 75, 101, 126, 128, 155, 177n3, 183, 253, 258, 266 ‘stools’ ceremony 163, 166–7, 189

284

SUBJECT INDEX

203n17; see also Keekonyukie, Kisonko, Loita, Loitokitok, Loodokilani, Matapato, Purko, Uasinkishu Turkana 87, 115

strangers 6, 62, 64; and age-set 59–60, 83, 89–90, 150, 185; and clan 60 Supeet 107, 114, 218, 222, 232n29 Theory of Dilemmas 9, 250–71; and age system 257, 259, 263, 265–7; and constant-sum games 250–4, 267–8; and Providence 9, 249–50, 263, 268; see also Cat-and-Mouse, Game of Chicken, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Rebel’s Dilemma Theory of Games 9, 248–50, 263, 268; constant-sum games 248, 250–1, 267–8, 270n2; see also Theory of Dilemmas ‘thong’ ceremony 159, 163, 165–8, 189 time cycles: annual 72, 138–40; and festivals 6, 37–40, 135–7; monthly 69, 72, 135–8; and oracles 7, 134–43; social construction of 37–41, 269–70; see also age-set cycle transactional approach and self-interest 9, 243, 248–9 Transmara Maasai 3–4, 112–13, 115 tribal section 3, 6, 96n17, 230n4; and the age system 3, 6–7, 19, 59, 83; boundaries and unity 55–65, 83, 151; and manyat 19, 21, 45, 52, 151; out-marriage 6, 58–9, 61, 64; out-migration 6, 44–5, 56; variation 4, 6–7, 9, 31, 68; see also Prophet’s domain tribal sections list xvi, 10n3, 107; Dalalakutuk 177n3; Damat 62, 149, 160, 177; Kaputiei 201n3, 233n33; Moitanik 3, 112, 115; Siria 3, 4, 20, 95n4, 112–13, 115, 123n9, 178n16,

Uasinkishu xvi, 3–4, 20, 69–70, 95n4, 112, 115, 149, 158, 173–4, 177n3, 201n1, 213, 232n29 unpropitious: actions as sorcery 68; objects 68, 97n25, 131–3, 135–7; see also propitiousness village 43–5, 50–1, 53, 63–4, 133; see also bush, elders, manyata Wakuafi 62–3, 224, 229 wastrels 57, 88, 102, 106, 121, 152, 156, 160, 171–2, 184; and sorcery 102, 121 women 5, 35–7, 270; and age system 4–5, 33–5, 50, 227; confined to village 50–1, 54; as custodians 36–7, 46–8; domain 5, 35, 67; and domestic space 45, 226; fertility dance 54–5, 73–4, 253; and marriage broking 33, 48–9, 172, 227, 237; mobbing 36, 48, 92–3, 178n16, 253; as mothers 46–8, 67, 89–90; networks 5, 35–6, 46–8; as possessions 6, 9, 16, 32–3, 35, 37, 46, 64, 122, 170, 226–8; prayers 55, 65, 67, 212, 227; rights 36, 42n13, 43, 46, 226–7; spirit possession 54, 96n24; trading 51, 227–8, 230n8, 233n46; see also family, girls, manyata

285

NAME INDEX

Almagor, U. 42 Arhem, K. 226 Bagge, S. 178 Bailey, F.G. 42 Ball, K. 95, 97 Barth, F. 248, 270 Baumann, O. 228 Baxter, P.T.W. 42 Beattie, J.H.M. 92, 97 Beckwith, C. 177 Beidelman,T.O. 10, 66, 202, 204 Berntsen, J.I. 66, 97, 122–3, 178, 203, 230, 232, 233 Bloch, M. 144 Burghart, R. 42 Caine, N.G. 41 Chammah, A.M. 271 Chieni,T. 10, 50 Davenport,W. 270 Demos, J. and V. 41 Dohinow, P. 41 Dumont, L. 30, 42 Durkheim, E. 144, 250, 264, 269 Dyson-Hudson, N. 95 Eliot, C. 66, 231–2 Erhardt, J. 66, 229 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 144 Farler, J.P. 123, 231 Fedders, A. 177 Fischer, G.A. 178 Fosbrooke, H.A. 27, 122–3, 201–3, 214, 216, 226, 231–3 Fox, D.S. 174, 231–3

Galaty, J.G. 66, 144, 247 Geertz, C. 144 Gluckman, M. 236, 244, 247 Gulliver, P.H. 2, 26–7, 42, 66, 143, 202, 234–48, 250, 252, 270 Harris, M. 233 Heine, B. 228 Heusch, I. de 92, 97 Hill, P. 228 Hinde, H. and S.L. 95, 122–3, 178, 214, 231–2 Hobbes,T. 16, 250, 257, 264 Hobley, C.W. 95 Hodgson, D.L. 66, 226–8, 233 Hohnel, L. von 214, 228, 232 Holland, K. 10, 177 Hollis, A.C. 66, 95–7, 123, 143–4, 174, 177, 202, 206, 214, 229, 231–3, 263 Hubert, H. 92, 97 Hurskainen, A. 66, 96–7, 204 Isnard, C.A. 271 Jackson, F. 178 Jacobs, A.H. 10, 66, 202, 214, 226, 232–3 Jay, N. 97 Johnsen, N. 122–3, 143 Johnston, H.H. 10, 62, 66, 214, 225, 228, 229, 231–3, 257, 271 Jolly, A. 41 Kipury, N. 66, 226, 262–3 Kjekshus, H. 228 Krapf, J.L. 62–3, 66, 97, 214, 229, 232 Lamphear, J. 115 Last, J.T. 229

286

NAME INDEX

Leach, E.R. 42, 264, 271 Lévi-Strauss, C. 34–5, 42, 250 Lewis, O. 42 Leys, N. 214, 226 Lienhardt, G. 79, 96 Little, P.D. 271 Llewelyn-Davies, M. 10 Macdonald, J.R.L. 232 Machiavelli, N. 250, 254 Maine, H.S. 79, 96 Marx, K.H. 250 Mauss, M. 92, 97 Mead, M. 41 Merker, M. 8, 10, 24, 41–2, 66, 95–7, 114, 122–3, 143–4, 173–4, 178, 201–2, 206–27, 230–4, 244–6, 251, 271 Mitzlaff, U. von 5, 10, 46, 49–50, 66 Mol, F. xv, 95–6, 144, 163, 230 Mpaayei, J.T. xv, 10 Muriuki, G. 228, 233 Ndagala, D.K. 123, 202–4, 233 New, C. 66 Novelli, B. 95

Quiatt, D. 41 Rapoport, A. 270–1 Reynolds,V. 41 Rigby, P. 66, 226 Saitoti,T. Ole 10, 41, 66, 123, 177 Salvadori, C. 177 Sandford, G.R. 123, 203, 231–2 Sankan, S.S. Ole 66, 123, 179, 201, 262 Shelford, F. 231 Simmel, G. 143, 250 Simpson, G.L. 233 Smith,W.R. 91, 97 Sommer, G. 229 Spear,T. 230, 232 Srinvas, M.N. 42 Stigand, C.H. 231 Talle, A. 66, 226, 233 Thompson, F. 66 Thomson, J. 53, 62, 66, 178, 214, 228, 230, 232–3, 256, 271 Tignor, R.L. 178, 233 Tucker, A.N. xv, 10 Vossen, R. 228–9, 204n22

Olsson,T. 96–7 Pareto,V. 259, 264–6, 271 Peters, C. 228, 232 Peterson, D. 97 Plato 6 Priest, D. 95–7

Waller, R. 3, 95, 115, 123, 205, 230, 232–3 Weber, M. 5, 15, 268 Western, D. 144 Whitehouse, L.E. 203, 214, 232–3 Zeeman, E.C. 266, 271

287