CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Cultural Anthropology

[Name of the Institute]

Cultural Anthropology

Maasai Worriers - Introduction

Maasai is the people who live in southern Kenya and north central Tanzania. The total population of Maasai is around 883,000. Maasai people speak Ol Maa, which is also known as Nilotic. They are a very traditional group and are a tourist attraction. The foods cumsume most often are milk, blood of cattle and meat. They prefer to live with cattle as it makes their life good. They are known as the warriors because of their history. Nowadays Maasai got forced to settle and enter the modern world, by taking jobs in towns. Maasai society got organized into male age-groups whose members successively pass through initiations to become warriors, and then elders.

Maasai are known as the warriors, and they have divided themselves into two groups. These groups are named as moran and laibons. They are divided on the bases of their performance and strengths. Morans usually cry over the loss of their youth and adventurous lifestyle. These are the people who are comparatively weaker than the other group. Liabon is the group, who celebrates the victory without recalling the loss they suffered, and they are consulted whenever misfortune arises (Nanda, 2010). Maasai make sure that their children are taught how to become a fierce warrior from the beginning of their life. They give their children training of becoming a tough warrior by training them, and they put their children into different situations so that they should learn to handle the situation.

Childhood and Education

When a child is born into the Maasai, the most important person for the baby is the midwife in Maasai. The midwife has two vital roles in the Maasai culture. They receive the baby and welcome him or her into the contemporary world, and the second role is to separate the baby from the mother by cutting the umbilical cord. When a child is born, a sentence is said to him that he or she is responsible for his or her life in as much as the midwife is responsible for her life. Once the child starts growing, he is trained to become a warrior. From his a young age, he is put on trials so that he can learn to face different situations. Education was not important for Maasai, so they do not prefer girls being educated (Swadener, 2000). They prefer boys to go to schools, get an education. In their schools, special classes of becoming a warrior.

Age sets and Rites of passage

Maasai has a distinct social structure based partly on significant stages of life. They have divided the different age groups in different groups. Young children fall under the group names Enkang. They have the duty of minding the cattle, as they get older. When these children grow up and fall in the age group of 15 to 18 or more, they get more responsibility of handling the cattle. Maasai people have a group of warriors, which they change after every 6 to 10 ...