MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



831 



a grey god, who was wholly indifferent to the welfare of humanity ; and 

 a red god, who was thoroughly bad. The black god was very human in 

 his attributes — and, in fact, was nothing but a glorified man. and the 

 ancestor of the Masai. They generally imagine that the black god 

 originally lived on the snowy summit of Mount Kenya, where the other 

 gods, pitying his loneliness, sent him a small boy as a companion. 

 When the boy grew up, he and the black god took to themselves wives 

 from amongst the surrounding Negro races, and so procreated the first 

 Masai men. Afterwards, 

 the grey and the red 

 gods became angry at 

 the increase of people on 

 the earth, and punished 

 the world with a terrible 

 drought and scorching 

 heat. The child-com- 

 panion of the black god, 

 who had grown up into 

 a man and was already 

 the father of several 

 Masai children, started 

 off for the sky to re- 

 monstrate with the 

 deities. A few days 

 afterwards he returned, 

 bringing copious rain 

 with him, and remained 

 henceforth on earth till 

 his own death at a ripe 

 age. This child is sup- 

 posed to have been the 

 principal ancestor 1 of the 



Masai people, while his god-companion, the black deity, was the founder 

 of the royal house of the Sigirari tribe — represented at the present day 

 by two great chiefs, Lenana and Sendeyo. half-brothers, one of whom 

 lives on British territory near Nairobi, and the other within German East 

 Africa. After the child had brought rain to the earth, the grey and 

 the red gods quarrelled with each other, and were killed. The black 

 god also died, after he had founded the reigning family ; and now the 

 Masai only acknowledge the existence of one deity of supreme power and 

 vague attributes, the white god of the firmament, who often shows himself 

 strangely indifferent to the needs of humanity. 



462. MASAI CHIEF AND MEDICINE MAN (THE LATE TERERE) 



