THE MASAI 



drink it because it has a most peculiar taste, owing 

 to the women cleaning out their gourds in which 

 they carry the milk with cow's urine and ashes. 

 These seem to be with the natives their primitive 

 cleansers and disinfectants ; I have seen them use 

 ashes for so many purposes. 



I have never heard of any natives so immoral 

 as the Masai, from early childhood up, and yet per- 

 haps they are less immoral than possessing an 

 absence of morals, for at least they are by custom 

 polyandrous and polygamous. 



The Elmoran are those Masai who have grown 

 beyond the stage of Laioni or youths, and have 

 reached the time they become warriors. In olden 

 times, and until quite lately, they lived in villages 

 with one or two young girls, with whom they 

 cohabited, and their own mothers to do the work 

 for them. This was not looked upon as wrong ; 

 it was an old custom. When the girl reached 

 a certain age she returned to her mother, till she 

 married some man who on his marriage ceased to 

 be a warrior, but became an 01-Moruo, or elder — 

 this happens when he nears the age of thirty. After 

 her marriage it is looked upon as very wrong if she 

 lives with any man other than her husband, without 

 his consent. 



There are generally a few small boy relations of 



the girls who live too in the warriors' villages, and 



who tend the cattle. 



81 6 



