THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY AND THE MASAI
In the heart of the East African highlands, as far south of the
Mediterranean Sea as New York is distant from Denver, and as far west of
the Indian Ocean as Pittsburgh is west of the Atlantic, I am writing this
chapter. Lake Naivasha, which is spread out before me, is in the Great
Rift Valley, a mighty trough that runs almost north and south through
this part of the continent. This great rift begins, it is now believed,
south of the Zambezi and embraces Lake Rudolf on the north. Traces of it
are to be found even in Palestine. It is supposed to have been formed
by the earth’s folding up after a stupendous volcanic eruption, which
left the craters of Kilimanjaro, Kenya, and Elgon touching the clouds at
altitudes of from fourteen thousand to nearly twenty thousand feet.
The valley was named by Professor J. W. Gregory, the famous British
geologist, who came out to East Africa in order to explore its system of
valleys and to discover their origin. For many months he disappeared.
There were rumours that he had been killed and cut to pieces by the
Masai. But one day he turned up, looking ill and worn but triumphant. The
results of his trip were published in a book now historical, “The Great
Rift Valley,” from which this huge trough got its name. To-day one sees
everywhere in this part of the country notices of “Rift Valley” farms or
“Rift Valley” hotels. It is still an objective of scientific explorations
and the subject of scientific discussions.
This mighty valley narrows and widens, it rises and falls, and it has
many big lakes. Broadly speaking, all the great lakes of East Africa are
in it or in its spurs. North of here are Lakes Baringo and Rudolf, and
still farther north in Abyssinia is Lake Tsana, the source of the Blue
Nile. As I write I am looking out on Lake Naivasha, a beautiful sheet
of blue water over which white cranes are flying. I can see zebras and
buck feeding not far from the water, and with my glass can watch the ugly
black heads of three hippopotami bobbing up and down like giant fishing
corks upon the surface. The swampy shores are lined with masses of reeds.
Just back of them the ground rises into rich pastures which are protected
from sportsmen by the reservations allotted to the Uganda Railway and
which fairly swarm with big game.
The weather here is delightful. We are so near the Equator that we can
almost straddle it, but the altitude is such that blankets are needed
at night and it is never excessively hot during the day. Naivasha is
a little higher up in the air than the top of Mt. Washington. Indeed,
the climate of the whole Rift Valley is said to be suited to white men.
This matter is being tested by settlers, for large tracts of land have
been taken up in different places not far from the railroad, and there
are many Englishmen who are going into stock raising. Near the lake,
at Morendat, the government of Kenya Colony has started an experiment
farm and there are big ranches in the immediate vicinity. There are no
tsetse flies here, for even in the tropics the tsetse is seldom found at
an altitude over four thousand feet. The zebras, which one sees by the
hundreds in almost any ride over the valley, are evidences that horses
will thrive. There are also many ostriches, and in time we may have
ostrich farming here as in South Africa. The average elevation of the
lake valley is something like six thousand feet, and the grass is said to
be luxuriant everywhere.
[Illustration: Mr. Carpenter, who is five feet eight inches tall, cannot
reach more than half way up the tall stalk of the elephant grass. It has
been introduced from Africa into some of our Southern States and makes a
coarse forage crop.]
[Illustration: The Nandi are among the most warlike of the tribes, and
before they were overcome by the British were the terror of more peaceful
neighbours. Like the Masai, they bleed their cattle and drink the blood
hot.]
This is one of the strongholds of the Masai race, who have always been
noted as warriors and stock raisers. I see them about Naivasha, and not
a few still carry spears and shields. They have many little towns near
by, and their settlements are scattered throughout the Rift Valley. They
live in huts about four feet high, six feet wide, and nine feet long.
The huts, which look like great bake ovens, are made of branches woven
together and plastered with mud. Sometimes they are smeared over with
cow dung, which material often forms the floors. When it rains, skins
are laid over the roofs to protect them. The houses are usually built in
a circle about an inclosure, in which the cattle are kept at night. The
sheep and goats are allowed to run in and out of the huts. Some of the
towns have fences of thorns around them to keep out the wild beasts.
These Masai are a fierce-looking people. The men are tall and straight,
and walk as though they owned the earth. When they have their war paint
on, they use a decoration of ostrich feathers which surrounds their
faces, and is supposed to carry terror to the souls of their enemies.
These natives are by no means pure Negroes, but belong to the
Hamitic-negroid or non-Bantu group. Their skins are dark brown, their
noses are often straight, and their lips not very thick. I can’t tell
you whether their hair is woolly or not, for the women shave it close to
the scalp, using razors of iron or glass, and polish their heads with
grease so that they fairly shine in the sun. I understand they pull out
the hair from all parts of their bodies and that even the babies are
shaved. Many of the men carry about tweezers of iron to pull the hairs
from their chins, cheeks, and nostrils, and they keep themselves shaved
until they are old enough to be warriors. This comes along about the time
they reach manhood. They then let the hair of their heads grow and plait
it into pigtails, which they frequently wear down over the forehead. The
head, along with the rest of the body, is often anointed with oil and red
clay. The warrior sometimes wears a lion’s head and mane in addition to
the circle of ostrich feathers about the face. His arms are a sword and
a club. He has a spear with a very long blade and an oval shield bearing
figures which indicate his clan.
Like the Kikuyus and Nandi, these people buy their wives. Marriage,
however, is not supposed to take place until the Masai becomes an
elder—that is, until he reaches the age of about twenty-seven or thirty.
This is after his fighting days are over and he is ready to settle down,
as it were. The warriors and the young girls of the tribe live together
up to that time in a separate establishment apart from the rest of the
people.
In order to marry, a warrior has to ask permission of the elders of
the tribe. If this is given, he straightway buys his wife. If she is a
good-looking girl she will cost him two cows, two bullocks, two sheep,
and some goatskins. This money goes to the nearest relative of the woman
he has selected, who may lower the price if he will. Divorces may be had
for laziness and bad temper on the part of the wife; and in such cases
a part of the marriage fee is sometimes returned. A widow cannot marry
again. If her husband dies, the relict goes back to her mother, or to her
brother if her mother be dead.
As far as I can learn these Masai girls have a soft snap. They are
required to do nothing until they are married. Before that they play
with the warriors, spending their time in dancing and singing and
loafing about. The unmarried girl often does not do her own cooking.
This condition continues for a long time after marriage and up until
all the babies of the family are fairly well grown. As soon as that is
accomplished, however, the hard-working period begins. Almost all the
hard labour of the tribe is done by the older women, who collect the
firewood, build the mud houses, and gather the cow manure with which
their walls are smeared. When the villages are moved from place to place,
these withered dames take the parts of donkeys and bullocks in carrying
the burdens, and then erect the new huts.
These Masai are a nation of stock raisers and own herds of cattle, sheep,
and goats, which they drive about from pasture to pasture in the Southern
Reservation where the British Government has put them. The cattle are
of the humped variety like the sacred cows of India, many of them being
fat, sleek, and fine looking. Some of the animals are branded, and not
a few have rude bells of iron so they may be traced if they stray. Most
of the cattle are watched by half-naked boys, who drive them about with
sticks. Morning and evening the cows are brought into the villages to be
milked, and nearly every town of mud huts has its cow houses. The women
do the milking. This is contrary to the custom in some parts of Africa,
where it is thought the cows will go dry if any female touches them. The
milk is caught in gourds which are afterward cleaned with handfuls of
burnt grass. The people always drink their milk fresh, but their method
of cleaning the gourds gives it a smoky flavour. If a calf dies, it is
skinned and stuffed with straw and then placed under the cow’s nose at
milking time, for the natives say the cow will not “let down” her milk
unless the calf is alongside.
The Masai are blood drinkers. Their country has practically no salt,
and I am told that they make up for this lack and keep healthy by blood
drinking.
The people eat but few vegetables and, strangely enough, do not kill or
eat game. They do no farming whatever. Their cooking is usually done in
pots of burnt clay varying from eight to twenty inches in height. The
larger pots are not placed over the fire, but at the side of it, and are
turned around, now and then, in order that they may be evenly heated.
Much of my information about the Masai comes from Captain Sidney L.
Hinde, who has had a long experience in Africa as an official, explorer,
and lion hunter. He has written some books upon the Congo and other
African countries, and knows much concerning this part of the world.
My talk with Captain Hinde was at Mombasa, in a beautiful cottage
overlooking the Indian Ocean. Upon the floors were skins of lions and
leopards killed by Captain or Mrs. Hinde, and on the walls were the heads
of giraffes, antelope, and gnus shot by her.
[Illustration: The Kavirondo wear little in town and less in the country.
The tassel hanging from the waist at the back is the tribal mark of a
married woman, while anklets of telephone wire are the style for both men
and women.]
[Illustration: By putting larger and larger objects in the lobes of their
ears the natives stretch them into great loops of flesh, sometimes so
long as to be tied under the chin to keep them from catching in going
through the bush.]
The evolution of a British colony and how John Bull assumes the white
man’s burden can be read between the lines of my conversation with these
people. Said Captain Hinde:
“When Mrs. Hinde and I first came into the province the country was in
the same condition it had been in for ages. We found that it contained
about a million people, who lived in little villages, each containing
about ten huts or so. There were no great chiefs. Each village was
independent and almost constantly at war with the neighbouring villages.
The citizens of one settlement knew nothing of those of the other
settlements about. A man dared not venture more than ten miles from his
home, and he had little knowledge of the country outside that radius.
There were no roads whatever excepting trails which wound this way and
that over the land. The only meeting places were at the markets, which
were held at fixed points on certain days of the week or month. It is a
rule throughout Africa that warfare and fighting must be suspended on
market days, and no one dares bring arms to a market or fight there. If
he should engage in fighting and be killed, his relatives cannot claim
blood money.
“When we took possession of the Kenya province we had to fight our way
in. As soon as we had subdued the people, we made them work at making
roads as a penalty for their insurrection. We connected all the villages
by roadways and gave each town so much to take care of. As a result we
now have in that province alone several hundred miles of good wagon roads
each ten feet wide. We have also made it the law that all roads shall be
treated in one respect like a market place. This means that no native can
assault another while walking upon them and that all feuds must be buried
when travelling over the highways. Many of these roads connect villages
which were formerly at war with each other, and the result of the law is
that they have become peaceful and the citizens can now pass safely from
one town to another. They are really changing their natures and are going
through a process of travel-education. As I have already said, five years
ago they never left home. Now thousands of them go over our thoroughfares
down to the seacoast, and we have something like eighteen hundred natives
of Kenya here at Mombasa.”
The British have found the Masai such good cattlemen that they believe
they can train them into good grooms for horses. Another feature of
British dealings with the natives is the establishment of trading posts
in the native reserves. Here the Africans are encouraged to set up little
stores of their own. It is hoped that this will develop wants and help
civilize the more backward groups, like the Masai, until they become as
enterprising as the Bagandas and Kavirondos.