96 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
VIII 
sometimes take a thousand head of cattle in a single ! 
raid. After a successful capture of cattle the warriors , 
returned to their kraals and divided the spoils. 
The foe is routed : surely not in vain 
Upon our brows we bound the lion’s mane. ! 
With bootless zeal the herdsman tracked our line, | 
Ear, far ahead we drove the captured kine. 
Their kraals we’ve burnt, their cattle we have ta’^en, I 
And now we come in triumph home again. 
TT. J. Monson. 
Feasting and fighting among themselves were usual 
sequels to successful raids. Joseph Thomson in his 
African romance, Ulu, has described a blood-and-meat 
orgy which followed a cattle raid. i 
The most remarkable adornments of the men and ■ 
women are the curious ornaments worn in their ears, ! 
especially that known as the ’surutya (see the Essay j 
on Ears). I 
All tribes which disregard clothes as a rule pay great ■ 
attention to their hair. This is true of the Masai. After ; 
the boys have been circumcised, the hair is allowed to ■ 
grow and, as soon as it is long enough, worked into ; 
plaits. In wet weather the hair is protected by a cap ; 
made from the paunch of a goat. ■! 
The women dress in leather garments; shave their 
heads and eyebrows ; wear earrings and encase their i 
legs and arms with coils of iron, brass, or copper wire. 
The wire coils are sometimes wound so tightly round 
the limbs that the wearer moves with difficulty. The i 
wire coils around the neck resemble the well-known 
firework arrangement called a Catherine wheel. All j 
these metal ornaments are kept brightly polished. 
The young unmarried girls have an agreeable time, 
for when a boy becomes a warrior he no longer lives 
among the married members of his tribe, but in separate 
kraals with the girls. The newly initiated warrior 
usually selects the girls with whom he wishes to live. 
Thus whilst the warriors and girls are philandering and 
