MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



813 



their egg*; but fowls and eggs are absolutely eschewed by the pastoral 

 Masai, who never keep this domestic bird. 



The domestic animals of both divisions of this race are cattle, sheep, 

 goats, donkevs. and dogs. The cattle are of the humped zebu type, and 

 do not differ in any important respect from the other humped domestic 

 cattle of Eastern Africa. As the mainstay of their existence, the pastoral 

 .Masai attach enormous importance to their herds of cattle; and these 

 animals, having been brought up from birth under the constant handling 

 of man, woman, and child, are extremely docile to their owners, with the 

 sole exception of milk-giving. Here the Masai cow, as is so often the 

 case among the domestic cattle of Africa, is capricious, and. from a 

 European point of view, very tiresome. She will withhold her milk 

 invariably if the calf is not present to Inn - sight or sense of smell; yet 

 her senses are easily deceived, inasmuch as she will often yield milk 

 when a stuffed calf is held before her, even if it be little more than the 

 skin of the dead calf roughly filled out with straw. The milking of the 

 cows is usually done by the women twice a day, and generally in a 

 special building erected in the village — a building in which the young 

 calves are kept at night. In the warriors' villages, however, milking is 



451. A VILLAGE OF THE AGRICULTURAL MASAI (KN.IAMI'SI 



sometimes done by the boys who herd the cattle; and all Masai men 

 are adepts at milking both cows and goats, for which reason they are 

 much in request as herdsmen in the employ of Europeans. The Masai 



