810 MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



are plastered with mud and cow-dung. The villages of both sections of 

 the Masai are surrounded by fences. In the case of the agricultural 

 Masai these are strong palisades with openings at intervals that are 

 carefully guarded by doors made of huge hewn planks. With the pastoral 

 Masai the hedge surrounding the settlement is of thorn bushes, and is 

 merelv arranged so as to keep off wild beasts, the pastoral Masai not 

 having hitherto had occasion to fear the attacks of their fellow-mem 

 Inside the villages there are one or more cattle kraals surrounded by 

 independent hedges of thorns or sticks, and their enclosures are fenced in 

 for sheep and goats. Inside the continuous houses of the pastoral Masai 

 beds are made of brushwood neatly stacked and covered with skins. The 

 fireplace is simply a circle of stones. At night skins are hung over the 

 doorway (all the doorways in the houses of the pastoral Masai are on 

 the inner side of the circle made by the continuous houses) in order to> 

 keep out the cold night air. The only furniture in the huts besides- 

 cooking-pots and skins are long gourds used as milk vessels, half-gourds- 

 which are cups, and small three-legged stools cut out of a single block 

 of hard w T ood and used by the elder men to sit on. 



The agricultural Masai live in their villages permanently. The 

 pastoral Masai are inclined towards a semi-nomad existence, no doubt with 

 the intention of seeking fresh pasture for their cattle. They generally, 

 however, range within certain prescribed districts. They will often 

 abandon a settlement for a time, and have no objection to other persons, 

 using it in their absence, providing they are ready to evacuate it without 

 having done any harm on the return of the original owners. Formerly 

 the warriors among the pastoral Masai, from the time they reached the 

 age of puberty until they retired from the warrior existence and became 

 married men, lived in villages by themselves with their mothers and 

 sweethearts. The mothers kept house for them, and the young unmarried 

 Women attended to very little else but pleasure, though they superintended 

 the young calves which w T ere left behind in the settlements when the 

 cattle were driven out every morning to pasture. A few boys would hang- 

 about these warrior villages, their presence being tolerated for their 

 usefulness in herding cattle and milking cows and goats. With the 

 general break-up of the Masai system of paste ral life which has come 

 about through the repeated cattle plagues and the European administration, 

 of their country, they are rapidly beginning to live more after the normali 

 negro fashion, in villages inhabited alike by married and unmarri* d 

 men, girls and married women. Every village elects a head-man, who- 

 settles all disputes and acts as leader of the warriors in case of any 

 righting. 



Neither agricultural nor pastoral Masai are hunters of game in the same- 



