The days have begun to fall off of the calendar faster than I can keep track of. It is hard to believe that more than a quarter of the program has already gone by. It is tough because I am looking forward to everything that is coming up and forget to appreciate the present as much as I should. It is a lesson in the perceptions of time I suppose, although tIme can still be terribly relentless.
One of the major components of this program is conducting an independent research project in the field. In two weeks, we will be traveling to Tarangire National Park in northern Tanzania where we will stay for one month to conduct a research project of our choice. Around Tarangire, there are Maasai villages, which many of us will be going to to conduct ethnographic research. Initially, I wanted to study an aspect of the interactions between the Maasai and the environment. However, our director told us that the initiation ceremonies, which take place only once every seven years are happening this year. So, I decided to switch my research and focus on these ceremonies, particularly how they create and maintain Maasai ideals of masculinity. These initiation ceremonies consist of the rite of passage for age-sets of both men and women. For the men, they are initiated into warriorhood, only if they refrain from flinching during their circumcision and survive a temporary period of wandering in the bush on their own. When the warriors are in their late thirties, the warriors retire this status and go through another initiation to become junior elders, and eventually elders. For women, there is a circumcision ceremony that marks their transition into womanhood.
According to oral traditions, the Maasai people have practiced pastoralism on the East African savannah since the 19th century. With cattle as that source of their economy and subsistence, the young men protect the cattle and also participate in raiding other groups for theirs. The Maasai organize themselves into patriarchal kinship groups, with the male head of the patrician controlling his large herd of cattle and goats with the help of his family. I look forward to observing first hand the social dynamics of the Maasai and how my research question fits in to that. I highly recommend "The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior", which is an autobiography of a Maasai man who pursued a western style education after growing up in traditional herding community. It is an insightful and entertaining narrative into Maasai culture.
A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to speak with the tour guide who will be taking us to the Serengeti and then to Tarangire. He is a young Tanzanian who has incredible knowledge about traditional cultures of Maasai, Hadzabe, and other pastoralists. Asking him about my research questions, I was informed that many of the Maasai warrior initiates are not traveling into the bush to undergo the first hard learning experience of surviving on one's own, necessary to be a successful warrior and protector of his families herd. Instead, they are spending this period of time on the sides of tourist laden roads around the national parks, asking for water and money for photographs of or with themselves. Chaka (our tour guide) suggested that I talk with the junior elders who have already gone through initiations and warriorhood because they will be better able to reflect on what the ceremonies and status meant to them. I also hope to interview women, warriors, and men who opted out of the initiations.
There is a little bit on the research that I plan to do in Tarangire. I am really excited to conduct this type of research for the first time and know that I will learn so much from the experience. I look forward to sharing my findings with all of you.
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