XXXIII 



THE MASAI : A WARLIKE PEOPLE OF HERDSMEN 



THE Masai who inhabit the high-plateau steppe of 

 British and German East Africa, and who are a 

 warlike people of herdsmen, have until very recently 

 been considered a mixed Ethiopian-Negro people. In 

 1896 Captain Merker, of the protective troops, and I 

 already had our doubts about this racial designation. 

 We agreed that their features were rather more Semitic 

 than Hamitic. 



Captain Merker, who made a special study of this 

 highly interesting subject, has published the result of 

 his investigation in a book on the Masai. He has 

 arrived at the conclusion that, at a time which ante- 

 dates the oldest Egyptian documents, they emigrated 

 from Arabia by way of Egypt into tropical Africa, and 

 had lived in the high-plateau region for centuries, in 

 the main leading the life of nomadic herdsmen. Merker 

 has also collected material to prove that the Masai, 

 whose religion is monotheistic, are descended from the 

 same Semitic stock of nomads who are also the ances- 

 tors of the Hebrew nation of herdsmen. He further is 



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