MARITAL JEALOUSY 193 



The redoubtable Masai of East Africa inhabit a 

 district now partly comprised in German partly in 

 British territory. They are divided for purposes of 

 internal organisation into " ages," each of these ages 

 including the boys who were circumcised within a 

 certain limit of time and the girls who were subjected 

 to a corresponding operation during the same period. 

 These operations are performed on batches of children 

 at or about puberty, and are the occasion of a festival. 

 A close bond unites all boys or girls of the same 

 *' age." After circumcision the boys enter the warrior- 

 class, and are taught the profession of arms as it is (or 

 used to be, before the intrusion of European rule) 

 practised by the Masai. A man is counted as belong- 

 ing to the warrior-class until about the twenty-eighth 

 or thirtieth year of his age, and before he quits it he is 

 not allowed to marry. The warriors live not in the 

 villages occupied by the married men, but in separate 

 warrior-kraals. Each of these kraals is inhabited by 

 fifty to a hundred warriors with their mothers and 

 some of their younger brothers. In addition there are 

 perhaps twice as many young girls as warriors. These 

 girls, who have not yet undergone the puberty cere- 

 monies, sleep with the warriors, now with one and now 

 with another, unless when a raid is in contemplation. 

 Since it is a disgrace to a girl to bear a child before 

 she has undergone the puberty ceremonies, pregnancy 

 is as far as possible averted or abortion practised. 

 Meanwhile it often happens that the girls are already 

 in infancy betrothed. Betrothal makes no difference 

 to their residence in the warrior-kraal ; but if a be- 

 trothed girl became pregnant it would as a rule put an 

 end to her engagement to marry. On emerging from 



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