828 MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



summary manner. Unless the dead person is a male and a chief, the 

 corpse is simply carried to a short distance from the village, and left on 

 the ground to be devoured by hyaenas, jackals, and vultures. The constant 

 presence of hyaenas and the small Neophron and Necrosyrtes, and the large 

 Otogyps vultures round the Masai kraals is encouraged by this practice, 

 and the Masai never actively interfere with these scavengers, unless a 

 hyaena should attempt — as they sometimes do — to enter a village and 

 carry off live-stock or children. Important chiefs, however, are buried, 

 and a year after the burial the eldest son or the appointed successor of the 

 chief carefully removes the skull of the deceased, making at the same time 

 a sacrifice and a libation with the blood of a goat, some milk, and some 

 honey. The skull is then carefully secreted by the son, whose possession 

 of it is understood to confirm him in power, and to impart to him some 

 of the wisdom of his predecessor. In several parts of the Rift Valley 

 cairns of stones meet the eye. They mark the burial-places of dead 

 chiefs, though there is probably no supreme chief of the Masai race 

 buried in that direction. 



Women are unable to inherit property. The property would be held 

 for them by their sons or brothers under special circumstances. After 

 the death of a Masai father his clothing and adornments are generally 

 destroyed, and his weapons are given to his sons, or are sold. His eldest 

 son inherits all his property in cattle, sheep, and goats, and it rests with 

 him henceforth to support his mother and his step-mothers, and to look 

 after his brothers and sisters. 



As regards the diseases from which the Masai suffer, Dr. Bodeker, a 

 Government medical officer who has lived for some years amongst the 

 Masai of the Uganda Protectorate, sends me the following particulars : 

 Malarial fever is rarely met with amongst the Masai in the countries to 

 which they are indigenous. These countries lie for the most part on the 

 healthier plateaux of East Africa. But if a Masai leaves this relatively dry 

 grass-land either for the lower levels nearer the Indian Ocean or for the 

 rich forest-lands of Uganda, he is almost as liable to malarial fever as a 

 European. In the same way cases of blackwater fever amongst the Masai 

 may occur when these people enter the forest regions of Central Africa. 

 It is stated that the Masai cure themselves of malarial fever in their own 

 country by a decoction of cassia bark. They drink, at any rate, an 

 astringent potion made from the bark of some tree which belongs to the 

 great leguminous order. They are most subject to smallpox. This 

 terrible scourge, which does not seem to have been known to the Masai 

 until about 1850 (or sixty years ago), has repeatedly swept through their 

 country, carrying off hundreds, even thousands, at a time. In 1892 one of 

 the worst of the epidemics of smallpox occurred, and Dr. Bodeker states 



