KENYA
a traditional maasai tribe welcomes visitors to their home on the maasai mara animal land reserve
KENYA’ S LANDLESS TRIBE Creating borders for the once frontierless Maasai
words and photography by sarah rowland
NOAH NYAKUNA RAN THROUGH the grasslands of the Maasai Mara in search of a leopard. Earlier that morning, the same leopard had killed his younger brother.
For members of the Maasai tribe, this is simply part of their existence. They live under tribal customs from centuries past, coexisting with the abundant wildlife on the Maasai Mara animal sanctuary in Kenya, a natural reserve spanning over 1,500 kilometres in the north of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem.
“ The land is sacred and so is everyone and everything that lives on it. We share everything with the animals. We live as one. They’ re our friends and we are theirs,” says Maasai warrior Noah.
Maasai from Noah’ s village are part of a traditional warrior tribe where wealth is measured in cattle and cattle are protected as family members.“ My brother was protecting his herd when attacked. He died an honourable death. To honour him, I had to kill the leopard that stole his life. We don’ t want to harm an animal of the Mara. Not even a bug. Sometimes it has to happen this way. It’ s our tradition. But the animals, they and us, we are one in the same.”
land control
For Noah and much of the tribe, living a traditional Maasai lifestyle is all they have known and is what they want to maintain in the future. Government land control however, has made their semi-nomadic lifestyle increasingly more difficult. Maasai land rights are based on old-age traditions, leaving today’ s Maasai with no legal rights to the land they live on.
Commencing in 1963, Maasai land has been divided into pastoral, communal land plots. Essentially this type of community land ownership lacks legal formality, leaving the government free to dispossess people of their land at any given moment. As a result, Maasai are often left without a place to call home. >>
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