Each new dawn brings a new thing into the world. So as the world advances every new day, so does the rich Masai culture continues to change.
The Masai people are well known for keeping their culture alive, even in this era of so many new technologies. The sweet Masai culture is known internationally for being one of the most attractive cultures in the world and it acts as a tourist attraction in Kenya, visitors from abroad come all the way only to interact with Masai people.
Change is coming
In today’s world, the great Maa community is facing a huge change and challenges in the preservation of its sweet culture, due to the dynamic process of globalization and modernity.
The world becomes more globalized and interconnected each new dawn and the pastoral lifestyle of the great Maa people become more difficult to maintain.
In our culture the cow and the beauty of our costumes play a central role. They act as source of our wealth but they are slowly coming to an end.
What will happen to this sweet culture when pastoralism is no longer a viable way of life?
What happens when the preserved Masai culture is uncoupled?
Negative changes
In a culture where respect was the core value in the community, this has been minimalized day by day. No more respect as it used to be where little girls greet their elders by giving them the head. Our culture is losing its roots of respect. I miss seeing the Masai girls wearing long clothes to cover up their body, this was a sign of respect. Masai girls could not be seen sitting in one place with their fathers and they could not just get out to face their fathers directly.
Are we losing our identity? As the Masai, we no longer value our clothing, we no longer value our norm of living, we no longer value our pastoral life, we no longer value our traditional occasions such as orgesherr and emanyatta.
We are now losing our language as the young generation, which is the future, no longer talk the Maa language. Most of them speak Swahili and English and when a child is born, the first language is Swahili and we forget our language.
The Masai are well known for their traditional weddings but now the modern way of marriage has overlapped our traditional way of marriage. Many of the young people in the Maa community prefer doing their marriage in the modern way.
But my question is: globalization and modernization are bringing both positive and negative changes to the Masai culture. Although we have lost a large part of our cultural practices; we have gained more positive ways of living as well.
Positive changes
Acceptance of education
The Masai never valued education, especially in a young girls' life: our fathers only saw cows when they saw girls. But as the world changes, our parents started to see the importance of education to both genders, and they started educating girls and prioritizing education more than anything else.
When the Masai started educating children, they experienced and tested the sweetness of education. Education came with knowledge and people started to admire living a better life and development came into the Masai land.
Changing of our mode of living
The Masai are well known for their unique housing (manyatta), which is built by the Masai women. In this modern life, a higher percentage of the Masai people now have built a small metal sheet house beside their manyatta. We never had pit latrines in our manyatta, the forest was our latrine. Now 50% of the Masai people have built pit latrines in their compounds.
Our way of dressing also changed. We are well known locally and internationally by our unique way of dressing (the Masai shukas). Now, as the world changes, so does our way of dressing. We no longer wear the shukas throughout. We have found our self with new cloths and we are running with the new fashions as well, which is good.
The world modernity and education has made us realize our talents. Now, the Masai are heroes of athletic like Rudisha, a two-time Olympic champion, and many higher education holders.
In every field of life you will find Masai, even in our government.
In the business world, the Masai are not left behind, they are also on the frontline doing business. They no longer depend on the pastoral life only, but they also run businesses and become farmers.
Conclusion
During the recent years, projects have been implemented to help the Masai leaders find ways to preserve their traditions and way of life, while also trying to balance the education needs of the Maasai children for the modern world.
Change is here to stay. The Masai are open for that.
FAITH KATITA SUPEET
September 2021
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