Masai

Masai or Maasai (mäsī`), a largely nomadic pastoral people of E Africa, chiefly in Kenya and Tanzania. Cattle and sheep form the basis of the economy that they have maintained in resistance to cultural change. The Masai live off the milk, blood, and meat of their livestock. Masai society is patrilineal; polygyny is practiced. Boys are initiated into a warrior age-group responsible for herding, killing predators, and other tribal labors; only after serving as a warrior may a man marry. The Masai, who are characteristically tall and slender, live traditionally in the kraal, a compound within which are mud houses.

Bibliography

See A. C. Hollis, The Masai: Their Language and Folklore (1905, repr. 1971); G. Hanley, Warriors and Strangers (1971).

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Masai

 or Maasai

Nomadic herders of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They speak a language (usually called Maa) of the Nilo-Saharan family. Numbering some 900,000, the Masai subsist almost entirely on the meat, blood, and milk of their cattle herds. A kraal, consisting of a large circular thornbush fence around a ring of mud-dung houses, holds four to eight families and their herds. Polygamy is common among older men. All men are grouped into age sets. Young men traditionally live in isolation in the bush for varying lengths of time in order to develop strength, courage, and endurance. See also Nilot.

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Masai 

(self-designation, il-masai) a people living in Kenya and Tanzania. Total population, about 370,000 (1967, estimate).

The Masai language belongs to the Nilotic language family. Traditional beliefs (cult of natural forces, ancestor worship) and vestiges of a clan tribal system survive. The majority of Masai are herdsmen, wandering from place to place in search of good pastures. The socioeconomic development of independent Kenya and Tanzania is leading to gradual change in the Masai’s traditional way of life and to the decline of their clantribal system.

REFERENCES

Merker, M. Die Masai: Ethnographische Monographic eines ostafrikanischen Semitenvolkes. Berlin, 1904.
Huntingford, G. W. B. The Southern Nilo-Hamites. London, 1953.

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Masai 

(Maasai, Maa), the language of the Masai people, spoken in northern Tanzania and southwestern and western Kenya, by approximately 370,000 people (1967, estimate).

Masai is related to the Nilotic language family. It has three dialects: Masai proper, Njemps (Ntiamus), and Samburu (Sampur). Masai has 18 vowels; the consonant system includes the glottalized (preglottalized) injectives b, d, j, g. Phonological tones exist. Vowel harmony occurs in the word according to the feature of openness (i, u, e, o) and closedness (i, u, e, o). Word inflection is partly of the fusion type (suffixes or infixes) and partly agglutinative (personal verb conjugation prefixes, classes). Verb classes indicate direction of movement and change the verb’s relation to its object (a-isúj “to wash something,” a-isuj-yé “to wash with [by means of] something”). There are two cases: an absolute case and a subject case. The noun is marked by a prefix (article), which differs according to gender and number.

REFERENCES

Tucker, A. N., and J. T. O. Mpaayei. A Maasai Grammar. London, 1955.
Hollis, A. C. The Massai: Their Language and Folklore. Oxford, 1905.

A. B. DOLGOPOL’SKII