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The Maasai Warriors: pattern maintenance and violence in colonial Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Robert L. Tignor
Robert L. Tignor
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior (moran) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of the moran system; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and their esprit de corps.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 271 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 This essay deals only with those groups known as the pastoral Maasai in Kenya. There are other Maasai-speaking people, the Samburu and the Arusha Maasai, for instance, who are culturally distinct; Alan, H. Jacobs, ‘The Pastoral Masai of Kenya, A Report of Anthropological Field Research’ (1963), I.Google Scholar The information on other East African societies comes mainly from my own researches on the Kikuyu and Kamba and such standard works as: Gulliver, P. H., Social Control in an African Society: A Study of the Arusha Agricultural Masai of Northern Tanganyika (Boston, 1963);Google ScholarGulliver, P. H., The Family Herds, A Study of Two Pastoral Tribes in East Africa: The Jie and Turkana (London, 1955);Google ScholarPaul, Spencer, The Samburu: A Study of Gerontocracy in a Nomadic Tribe (London, 1965);Google ScholarPrins, A. H. J., East African Age-Class Systems: Galla, Kipsigis, Kikuyu (Djakarta, 1953);Google ScholarHuntingford, G. W. B., The Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pastoral Society (London, 1953);Google ScholarPamela, Gufliver and Gulliver, P. H., The Central Nilo-Hamites (London, 1953);Google ScholarHuntingford, G. W. B., The Southern Nilo-Hamites (London, 1953);Google Scholar and Huntingford, G. W. B., The Galla of Ethiopia (London, 1955).Google Scholar

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23 Some of the older Maasai to whom I talked recalled having worked as day labourers filling in the marshes of Nairobi. Interview with Mutunkei ole Nchoonka, 15 June 1970. Preliminary findings suggest that Maasai society was far from intact when the British began to move into the country. The people were more dispersed and their institutions more disintegrated than the Kikuyu. A very large-scale process of population movement and reformation around certain dominant sections was occurring. Further information on this Maasai diaspora may be found in King, ‘The Kenya Maasai and the Protest Phenomenon, 1900–1960’, J. Afr. His., XII, no. I (1971), 118 ff.Google Scholar

24 Interview with Kipopo ole Loisa, 24 June 1970.

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26 This is all the more unusual when one remembers that there was a poorly planned and abortive effort to move the Maasai out of Laikipia in 1911, shortly after the signing of the new treaty.

27 All informants stressed the role played by Olonana and the leading elders and that the most persuasive argument was that resistance would be useless.

28 These names are given in Belfield to Harcourt, Confidential, 16 Jan. 1913, P.R.O., C.O. 533/116.

29 In fact, Ole Gelishu was one of the defendants in the court case because he had signed the treaty of 1911. He argued that he had signed under duress. Belfield, to Harcourt, , Confidential, 6 02 1913, enclosing Collyer to the Officer in Charge of the Masai Reserve, 20 Nov. 1911, P.R.O., C.O. 533/116.Google Scholar

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32 In fact, I interviewed thirteen Purko Maasai older men at different times and places.

33 The evidence was suppressed in the final report of the Masai Enquiry Committee (1926), but was brought to light by Lord Delamere, a member of the Committee, first in confidential correspondence with the Colonial Secretary, G. A. S. Northcote, in K.N.A. Attorney General 2/113, and then publicly in a debate in the Legislative Council. Kenya, , Legislative Council Debates, I (1925), 242 ff.Google Scholar

34 Interview Munke ole Koina, 59 July 1970.

35 Interview Mantanya ole Lange, I Aug. 1970, an especially reliable source as he has spent much of his life collecting Maasai history.

36 Interview Ole Gilai ole Gisa, 19 July 1970, a participant in the uprising.

37 It is not possible to do more than speculate because so much of the local administrative correspondence has been lost or destroyed.

38 No. 387A, Northey, to Milner, , 30 04 1919, P.R.O., C.O. 533/209.Google Scholar

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41 Annual Report of Narok District, 1927, K.N.A., D.C./N.R.K. I/I/I.

42 Ibid.

43 Interview with Ntagusa ole Kiok and Rumpeni ole Yiankere, I Aug. 1970.

44 No. Coryndon to Churchill, 19 Oct. 1922, P.R.O., C.O. 533/283.

45 This was not just the hope of the government. Some of the Maasai I spoke with stated that elders wanted to alter the moran system, especially Mutunkei ole Nchoonka, 55 June 1970. Also in the meeting of the Kajiado Local Native Council in 1932 the Maasai delegates were most emphatic in their support of the governmental policy for disbanding manyattas and forcing moran to settle. K.N.A., D.C./K.A.J. 5/I/2, Kajiado Local Native Council Minutes, 30 June-2 July 1932.

46 Annual Report of Narok District, 1929, K.N.A., D.C./N.R.K. I/I/2.

47 No. 367, Wade, to Macdonald, , 07 1935,Google Scholar enclosing report by Major, Buxton, 16 07 1935, P.R.O., C.O. 533/459/38143.Google Scholar

48 Details may be found in K.N.A., P.C./S.P. 6/2/IA, a very large file on the riot at Rotian, as well as no. 367, Wade, to Macdonald, , 25 07 1935, P.R.O., C.O. 533/459/38143.Google Scholar

49 Clear accounts of this riot were given by the Rev. John, Mpaayie, 3 06 1970,Google ScholarKipopo, ole Loisa, 24 06 1970,Google Scholar and Senjaura, ole Nchoe, 18 07 1970. There was remarkable unanimity, all the more significant because Kipopo ole Loisa resided in Kajiado District and had to get his information during his trips to Narok.Google Scholar

50 Again, the most authoritative sources on Maasai political institutions are Jacobs, ‘The Traditional Political Organization of the Pastoral Masai’, and ‘The Pastoral Masai of Kenya: A Report of Anthropological Field Research’. But it is important to know in greater detail how these political structures were actually operating in the early colonial period. Merker, M., Die Masai: Ethnographische Monographie einer Ostafrikanischen Semiten-Volkes (Berlin, 1910), 86–7 has a clear description of the moran leadership system.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 This dilemma was clearly pointed out in a discussion on the moran during a meeting of the Kajiado District Local Native Council in 1932. K.N.A., D.C./K.A.J. 5/I/3, Kajiado Local Native Council Minutes, 12 Aug. 1932.

52 Goldschmidt, , ‘Theory and Strategy in the Study of Cultural Adaptability’, 405.Google Scholar

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