Such things must be viewed from the standpoint of the
people believing in them. The Masai are moral in the sense that they
very rigorously live up to their own customs and creeds. Their women are
strictly chaste in the sense that they conduct no affairs outside those
permitted within the tribe. No doubt, from the Masai point of view, we
are ourselves immoral.
The small boy, as soon as he is big enough to be responsible--and that
is very early in life--is given, in company with others, charge of a
flock of sheep. Thence he graduates to the precious herds of cows. He
wears little or nothing; is armed with a throwing club (a long stick),
or perhaps later a broad-bladed, short-headed spear of a pattern
peculiar to boys and young men. His life is thus over the free open
hills and veld until, somewhere between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-one, the year of the circumcision comes. Then he enters on the
long ceremonies that initiate him into the warrior class. My knowledge
of the details of this subject is limited; for while I had the luck to
be in Masailand on the fourth year, such things are not exhibited
freely. The curious reader can find more on the subject in other books;
but as this is confined to personal experiences I will tell only what I
have myself elicited.
The youth's shaved head is allowed to grow its hair. He hangs around his
brow a dangling string of bright-coloured bird skins stuffed out in the
shape of little cylinders, so that at a short distance they look like
curls.
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