While the others were on safari in Amboseli Park, I stayed behind to interview women about their views of childhood and childrearing in Maasai country. Mama Kakuta (Singote Maimai) and Mama Loorpapit (Noosiapai Parseloloi) were my primary sources, but other younger women, like Nolapeta and her friends, dropped in and out of the conversation. Samuel was the translator, a role that at times caused laughter, as he translated questions about sex and childbirth.
Mama Kakuta and Mama Noosiapai are both elders and our conversations ranged over the changes in Maasai life since they were young girls. Both were married very young, and both were in polygamous marriages - Singote as a first wife and Noosiapai a 'small' wife, the term that is used for second or third wives. Polygamy was common in the Maasai culture, perhaps as a response to the fairly high infant mortality rate in the past. (Infants are not typically recognized and named until they have survived at least three months.) Although still practiced, it is less common now according to Mama Kakuta and Noosiapai.
They described the family structure as largely organized around the compound or enkang set up at the time of first marriage or when a couple leaves the parents' home (which might be when the second son gets married). Each compound is likely to have three or four huts to house the members of the extended family.
They described a culture organized around 'age groupings.' Young children play in the compound and help with the chores. Both play and chores are gendered, with the girls helping with homemaking, childcare, fetching water and firewood, cleaning, and preparing food. Girls also pick calabash gourds, hollow them out and create the containers for milk, cornmeal or blood that are stored inside the huts. Like their jewelry, these calabash are often decorated with beads, leather and/or carvings - the functional made beautiful.
Boys help tend the cattle and goats and fetch water for the animals. The games they described were largely games that prepare the child for adult responsibilities - making small huts out of dirt, building small corrals and using stones to make a herd of cattle to tend.
Maasai is largely patriarchal, with the Maasai elders making most of the decisions for the tribe, but the interactions between the men and women are lively and full of laughter and teasing.
Both sexes are initiated into adulthood through circumcision rituals at about 15 to 18 years. The elders of the tribe decide when they need a new group of warriors, and initiate a circumcision ritual; all the boys/girls in the age range are circumcised at the same time. Although questions are being raised from within the Maasai community about circumcision practices, especially female circumcision, this ritual is still an important and significant marker of the step from childhood to adulthood, and the roles and responsibilities a boy and girl have in society change significantly. The tasks you are assigned, the clothes you wear, Samuel says that often a child (boy or girl) who is going away to boarding school may be circumcised before leaving to instill the attitude of mature decision making and behavior.
After circumcision, the boys become Morani, an age-related group of warriors whose primary responsibility is to protect the cattle and the tribe. Traditionally, the Morani lived together in their own compound (a Manyatta) for 8-10 years as junior warriors. The warriors wear the traditional red robes of the Maasai, braid their hair in intricate patterns, often colored with ochre.
The girls do not have such a tight age-mate structure, but are considered adults, helping build the huts in the Manyatta, singing praise songs for the lions and the warriors and preparing for marriage.
Warriors eventually go though the eunoto ceremony, preparing them for marriage and children. Warriors may choose multiple wives, and any warrior may have sexual relations with any circumcised woman of their age group, although women are free to reject the advances of any man. Any child that might result from sexual relations with his age mate is raised by the husband as one of his own.
The major sexual taboo, according to Mama Kakuta and Samuel, is sexual relations between an uncircumcised boy and a circumcised girl or a circumcised boy and an uncircumcised girl. This transgression brings great shame on the family, requires the payment of a large fine in cows or goats and may impact the woman's ability to be married, helping to perpetuate the practice of female circumcision
Another major sexual taboo is a man forcing sex on his pregnant or nursing wife. A woman who has been violated in this way goes to her age mates, who band together, gathering sticks and march naked to the husbands home to beat him. Samuel says that when men see the women coming, marching naked, they all scatter for the bush, as any man in their path might be disciplined.
Bride price is still practiced, and as the Maasai view cattle as the primary source of wealth, cows are typically part of this exchange. According to Samuel, the price is paid in appreciation for the work done to raise the girl child to be a good wife and mother. Although most girls used to be married right after circumcision, today they are likely to continue their schooling through high school before being married and an educated girl's family can now demand a higher bride price.
When a girl is married, she joins her husband's family compound; she and her husband are likely to live with the extended family until the next son is ready to marry. Then she and her husband (and any other wives) leave to start their own compound nearby.
After marriage, warriors transition with their cohort to become junior elders. They are given responsibilites of governance and leadership within the tribe.
Mama Kakuta and Noosiapai both had large families, 6-10 children, which was pretty common in those days. Wealth in the Maasai community was traditionally counted by the number of cattle and children, and a man who had few of either was considerd poor. Today families are smaller; Samuel said that in part the economics of sending children to school and the later marriage age of young women has changed these practices.
After we finished the interview, I invited the women to ask me any questions they would like. Immediately they shifted to sexual practices, curious about whether women have sex during pregancy (taboo after the first three months in Maasai culture) or during breastfeeding (also taboo). They wanted to know if women still had sex after 'the eggs are gone' and laughed right out loud when I said that many American women do. I gathered from their responses that Maasai women don't continue to have sexual relations after menopause.
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