Massai Warriors- National Geographic Report :: essays research papers

In the September 1999, issue of National Geographic Magazine, there is sooner an interesting article that has been written by Carol Beckworth and Angela Fisher. It deals with the Masai Warriors of Kenya, and how their culture recognizes an adolescent male that is becoming a earthly concern, or entering manhood.The Masai warriors are a convocation of semi- nomadic population who live on the border of Kenya and Tanzania. They are a relatively small group, with only about 300,000 people in their culture. They hunt for their pabulum with spears, they live in small homes made out of cow dung, and their most advanced form of technology seems to be the bark shoes that they wear on their feet. They are fairly quiet, subdued people, and they seem to ignore the changing world around them. Their customs greatly differ from the outside world, and many of them would nowadays be called in truth inhumane and primitive. But these ways are the only ways that they know. But, unfortunately, it may not always be that way.The Masai culture finds the changing of boy to man to be a very important event in life. It is not something that will just happen on it&8217s own. It is not something that takes place everyplace the course of a decade, either. It is a very spiritual ritual that occurs over a four-day period. This event is known as Eunoto. It is a very rigorous, very challenging, and to the highest degree an inhumane ceremony.Eunoto involves the slaying of a lion, the skinning of a buffalo, sexual intercourse with prepuburtal and uncircumcised young girls, the erection of a new building for each young man involved, and very often, the hysterical trance of a young man, during which he may attempt to slay himself with a spear. The young man being initiated finally ends the ritual by having his hair cut off by his mother. This very important event symbolizes the end of the maternal bond between the two.The morals of this culture seem to pull out a little something to be desir ed, however. Marriage, for instance, doesn&8217t mean quite what it means here (although in some cases, they are more loyal to their spouses there than people are here). A man may be married to more than one wife there, and sex out of wedlock doesn&8217t appear to be frowned upon there. Many times before the Eunoto is carried out, the young men (18 &8211 19 years of age) sleep with 9- 11 year old girls.