Broken Spears : a Maasaï Journey
Liz Gilbert
“The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other; consequently the information that is to be gathered for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost for all time. It is this need that has inspired the present task.”
Edward Sheriff Curtis
From his foreword to Volume I, The North American Indian, 1907
Numbering nearly 400,000 people today, the Maasai are a pastoral tribe living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Their powerful class of warriors lorded over the Rift Valley plains until British settlers occupied Kenya in the late 19th century.
Relegated to live on an isolated reserve during nearly sixty years of colonial rule, the Maasai continue to practice the same traditions that have held them together as a tribe for centuries.
Today they are one of the best known tribes in Africa, but in reality their culture is threatened by the strains of poverty and Westernization.
Preview
Since their southern expansion from the Nile, the Maasai have sustained their society by separating themselves into age groups, with each being given a set of responsibilities.
Boys herd livestock until their early teens when they are circumcised and become warriors. After a military service of seven years, warriors are allowed to retire and marry. Women and young girls are responsible for all household chores, including the collection of water, food and firewood. Elders offer counsel, settle disputes, and oversee the needs of the cattle.
The passage from one age group into the next is marked by ceremony and ritual.
Elizabeth Gilbert's book, BROKEN SPEARS: A MAASAI JOURNEY, is the result of a four year journey across their tribal reserve, documenting those aspects of Maasai life most in jeopardy of being lost to education, agriculture and the subdivision of land.
At first glance the images seem timeless, but closer inspection reveals the tokens of modernity that are evident in bush life - a pair of sneakers, a wrist watch, a T-shirt.
They remind us that the Maasai are people of present time, consciously upholding their traditions as they carve out their identity in the modern world. It is the elders who are most intent on maintaining Maasai culture, and when they are gone, much of the past will go with them. The Maasai know this, too. Allowing themselves to be photographed for the purpose of preserving their culture was an acceptance of its end, their own acknowldgement that the idealized Maasai identity that has existed for two centuries is finally disappearing.
These photographs are dispatches from a vanishing world, meant to preserve a record of Maasai heritage when that way of life has passed into history.
