The Masai are among the most striking and widely known people in Africa.Their colorful dressing,elaborate ceremonies and bravery exude the culture they are proud of.There are those still living in the past and those that have entered the modern world.Inevitably in changing times,this rich culture is threatened and the Maa people are threatened to choose between an uncertain leap into modernity or face the sure possibility of extinction as apeople if they hold on to old ways.
Theirs is a rich history of customs and rituals,its difficult to talk about the Masai as a generalisation without erasing complexity,nuance and pride of their rich culture,its these traditions that hold and unite the Masai as a people despite their diversity in geographical location and clan and subclan distribution.To know the Masai,we have to look at conclusive history of their origin and what shaped them but this article only aims at to present their struggle to conform to modernity and give up what defines them as a people.
This article is for those who wish to know the Masai not as a curiously attractive group in their war dances and attire but as a peole with a soul,a history and a future threatened with extinction due to their practices.This is a noble story,a poignant story of hope,anger,bitterness,laced with wit of a brave people fighting to hold their place in a rapidly changing society.
The Masai view themselves as a chosen people,all powerful,confident as God's chosen people and contemptious of lesser beings,perharps its this very attitude that has kept them from entering the modern world.Its a hard task to try to change the Maa way of living to suit modern trends and as a Kenyan Britisher put it,'its like telling a zebra that since he is realy a horse,he should be better off with a saddle pulling a cart to carry people,a useful occupation rather thanroaming about i the grasslands.'
Typical of this attitude is the question,'what is the future of the masai',which road to take?This is the dillema they face as a tribe,the full force of modernity is upon them,with no more wars to fight,no cattle to raid,the millitary purpose that bound the tribe,a desparate struggle against civilization now face the tribe,their land is coveted by agriculturalists and their territory has been reduced to an area of 60,000 square miles of marginal land.
The chains of tribal unity are breaking all around them with brutal swiftness,they now face a painful decision;to abandon all that characterises them as Masai and become indistinguishable citizins,to them,artificial community or political state?Hold on to the bitter end in a steadily diminishing endare until finally even that is overrun and the Masai are only a memory of something proud and couragious that used to be?
The world is pressing harder,they must cooperate with the future or be engulfed by it.When at last the glory has gone out of the souls of these proud people,in the minds of the younger generation will be implanted another way of life and a new culture will begin to emerge from the ruins of the old.
