Even today, the Masai are among the best known of the tribes of Africa.

The elegant, almost classical silhouettes of the warriors, with their togas and
spears, are familiar from any number of books and TV documentaries about the East African plains. A hundred and thirty years ago, at the beginning of the
period of European exploration, they already had an unsurpassed reputation as a warrior people. And yet from a wargaming point of view, they are still
virgin territory. In a way this is not surprising: they never fought a full-scale battle against the British colonisers, and so their military profile is inevitably
lower than that of, say, the Zulus; and no one else looks anything like Masai, so substitution or conversion of other figures would be difficult if not
impossible. Fortunately, though, this is yet another army which is due to be covered in Guernsey Foundrys 25mm. Darkest Africa range, sculpted as
usual by Mark Copplestone. At the time of writing their Masai figures have yet to be released, but several different packs are in the pipeline, reflecting the
enormous variety of costumes worn by these individualistic warriors. So for those who may be interested in producing and playing with one of the most
spectacular and colourful armies imaginable, this article aims to provide some background.
SPLENDID FELLOWS A MASAI ARMY FOR DARKEST AFRICA
BY CHRIS PEERS
Origins and History
Like a lot of African peoples the Masai have only vague traditions of their
early history, making it impossible to reconstruct a coherent narrative.
Physically, they tend to be tall and slender, graceful rather than muscular,
like many of the cattle-herders of the upper Nile. They speak a language
distantly related to those of tribes from the southern Sudan like the
Latooka and Bari, and more closely to the Samburu of northern Kenya.
Certainly both the appearance and language of the Masai are distinctively
different from those of their Bantu-speaking neighbours in East Africa,
and it is a logical conclusion that their original home was somewhere to the
north, along the Nile valley. At some fairly recent time - perhaps as late as
the 16th century - their forebears migrated into the Lake Turkana region of
northern Kenya. Surviving legends tell how, forced onwards by drought,
they then climbed the great Rift Valley escarpment onto the Kenya
plateau, and proceeded to drive out or absorb the previous inhabitants of
the highlands to the east.
The heart of their newly acquired territory was the high plateau which lies
between Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro, and continues from there
southwards into modern Tanzania. It was mostly open grassland, and ideal
for cattle. Whereas the previous inhabitants, the Sirikwa, had had a mixed
pastoral and agricultural economy, the Masai brought with them a greatly
increased emphasis on cattle-raising, and possibly a better-adapted strain
of cattle. They scorned farming, hunting, metal-working - and in fact just
about any way of life except herding and war - and considered themselves
superior to those peoples who lowered themselves to such activities.
(They referred derisively to the Swahilis, who often made their living as
porters, as donkeys). Like the Nuer of the Sudan, the Masai had devised
a creation myth according to which God had made all the cattle on earth
especially for them. Over the next couple of centuries, they set about the
ambitious task of repossessing those beasts which had somehow fallen
into the hands of other tribes. By the time they came to the notice of
Europeans in the 1850s, they were the undisputed lords of the East African
highlands.
Unlike other great conquering peoples such as the Zulus, however, the
Masai were not a united military power. They never acknowledged a
paramount chief or king, although their laibons - sort of combined sages
and medicine men - sometimes exercised limited authority over several of
the dozen or so clans or sub-tribes which made up the Masai nation.
(There were also secular chiefs called beijanis, but these seem never
to have been as influential.) At various times different clans managed to
achieve a vague predominance over the rest, but never maintained it long
enough to establish a dynasty. The most powerful of these groups in the
early 19th century were the Uasinkishu and the Laikipiak, later succeeded
by the Purko in the north, and the Kisongo in the south. All of them
frequently fought with each other over cattle and grazing grounds, and in
the middle decades of the 19th century the whole Masai community
became embroiled in a series of vicious civil wars, which left large
stretches of the highlands virtually depopulated. The hitherto mighty
Laikipiak were scattered beyond recall in the middle of the 1870s, when a
combined Purko and Kisongo army overran their principal warrior village
in a night attack. The allies, it is said, were able to achieve surprise with the
help of spells cast by the most famous laibon in their history, Mbatiany.
These wars have often been represented as a struggle between the true
Masai and the Masai-speaking but semi-agricultural Kwavi, in which
the latter, having somehow degenerated from the pastoral ideal, were
defeated and driven to the edges of the plains. This sounds like the sort of
interpretation which Masai traditionalists themselves would have put on
events, but it is probably wrong. The losers were not beaten because they
were Kwavi; they became Kwavi - ie. mixed farmers - because they had to,
having been defeated in battle and pushed off the best pasture land.
Certainly there is little evidence that they looked or fought any differently
from the so-called true Masai. In fact it is probable that the majority of
long-distance Masai campaigns in this period were carried out by the
defeated factions, seeking to recoup their losses at the expense of someone
else.
By the late 19th century Masailand was about the same size as Germany,
and about as popular with its neighbours. Other tribes in the vicinity were
terrorised by an ever-increasing spate of raids in search of cattle, women
and glory. In the north the young Masai warriors, or moran, raided as far
as Mount Elgon, and into the lands of the nomadic Boran and Redille
around Lake Turkana. They also clashed with the Galla in the far north-
east of what is now Kenya, and with the Somalis, whom they respected as
warriors as proud as themselves. To the west, only the shores of Lake
Victoria blocked their expansion. The tribes living there - such as the Luo
and Nandi - fought back hard, having nowhere to run. In the south they
victimised the Mbe, Nyika, Nyamwezi and Gogo, among many others,
and clashed with the formidable Hehe of the Iringa Highlands, who had
adopted Zulu-style tactics from the Ngoni. If any African army was a
match for the Masai it was the Hehe, whose tradition describes a battle
against the Masai in which everyone on both sides was killed! (Although it
should be remembered that this much-lauded Hehe victory was not
really a fair test. It was fought between a Hehe standing army under a royal
princess on the one hand, and on the other a remnant of one of the Masai
refugee groups already defeated in the civil wars - probably Parakuyo
Kwavi, fleeing from the Kisongo.)
The semi-Arabised Swahili farmers of the east coast were especially
roughly handled, because despite their numbers and the guns with which
they were well supplied, they lacked any sense of unity, and failed to
organise themselves to defend one anothers cattle. The Masai despised
them as cowards, and wandered through their lands in small groups with
impunity; it was said that the sight of one moran could frighten a thousand
of the locals. The explorer Joseph Thomson was told that their scouts
could sometimes be encountered strolling about the town of Mombasa in
the middle of the night.
Nevertheless, some other tribes managed to survive on the very fringes of
Masai country. They could achieve this in three ways. One or two of them
made themselves useful by working for the Masai as blacksmiths, like the
Chaga, or as hunters of wild game and suppliers of buffalo skins for
shields, like the Ndorobo. Others, such as the Kikuyu and Kamba,
retreated into the inaccessible depths of their mountains and forests,
where the terrain was unsuited to Masai tactics. A very few, like the
Nandi, adopted Masai methods, and made themselves so formidable that
it was no longer worth the warriors' while to attack them. A branch of the
Chaga led by an extraordinary character called Sultan Mandara,
although no more than 1000 fighting men strong, survived and prospered
right through to the colonial period in the very shadow of Mount
Kilimanjaro by a combination of diplomacy, fighting skills, deviousness
and sheer nerve.
There was no chivalry in Masai warfare, and for those were not able to
escape or hide, the raids could be devastating. Their aftermaths were
sometimes witnessed by Europeans, as for example by a Commander
Dundas, who described the results in the Scottish Geographical Magazine
of March 1893:
On our return through the Mbe country, a most harrowing sight presented
itself: what only a few days before were prosperous villages, standing
amid fields of grain, were now smoking ruins; bodies of old men, women,
and children, half-burnt, lay in all directions... I was informed that the
Masai had unexpectedly arrived one morning at dawn, spearing and
burning all before them, and carrying off some 250 women, and large
herds of cattle.
The Arabs also fell foul of them on many occasions. The moran raided as
far as Bagamoyo, the main Zanzibari settlement on the mainland and the
starting point for many explorers expeditions, and terrorised the Sultans
allies in the vicinity. In 1856 a party of 800 Masai actually managed to
break into the coastal town of Mombasa. The garrison - a mere 25 Arab
and Baluchi matchlockmen - appear to have got off only one volley before
they were overwhelmed. John Hanning Speke refers to a two-day battle in
the 1850s between cannon-armed Zanzibaris and 1000 Masai. On
occasion - as if all this activity was not enough for them - the moran took
temporary employment in other peoples wars. In 1882, for example, the
Swahili warlord Mbarak recruited some Masai and other tribesmen as
mercenaries to aid him in his unsuccessful revolt against the Sultan of
Zanzibar.
The Mombasa affair took place while Speke was in the area carrying out a
survey of the coast. In general, however, the Masai remained aloof from
the early European explorers. The first white man to mention them except
in passing was the missionary Ludwig Krapf, who in 1860 reported that:
They are dreaded as warriors, laying all waste with fire and sword, so that
the weaker tribes do not venture to resist them.
Europeans were seldom killed without a very good reason, but the Masai
nevertheless felt that they were entitled to take anything they wanted from
lesser breeds who dared to approach their territory. Favoured visitors were
pestered to distraction by forceful demands for gifts, which often shaded
imperceptibly into barefaced robbery, as well as by relentless intrusions on
their privacy. If they liked you, they would spit on you: a sign of respect
and friendship, according to Harry Johnston, who met them in the 1880s.
Unlike most Africans, the moran at least were not in awe of white men.
Joseph Thomson, who also travelled through their country in the 1880s,
and made strenuous efforts to conciliate them and avoid provoking
conflict, likened them to the flies which swarmed around their cattle. They
took out Thomsons false teeth to examine them, and then pulled his nose
to see if that would come off as well. Despite this, Thomson could not help
liking them. In a memorable passage in his Through Masai Land, he
describes his first meeting with them:
The word was passed round that the Masai had come... Passing through
the forest, we soon set our eyes upon the dreaded warriors that had been so
long the subject of my waking dreams, and I could not but involuntarily
exclaim, What splendid fellows!
But what happened to people they didn't like? Let the German explorer
Carl Peters tell it:
...in the year 1887 they cut down, to the last man, an Arab caravan
numbering two thousand guns, laid all the corpses in ranks and rows side
by side, and in scorn put each mans gun across his shoulder.
On other occasions they made similar artistic arrangements with peoples
severed heads. It was sometimes their habit to place a slightly more subtle
no trespassing sign in the middle of a track (in one case this is described
as a bullet, over which they cross two twigs stripped of foliage, with the
exception of a tasselled brush at the top), and then wait in ambush to
spear the first person who stepped over it. It is no wonder that as late as
1891 Mrs. French-Sheldon, on safari through southern Kenya, describes
the panic which swept through her armed askaris at the sight of a handful
of itinerant pedlars, whom they mistook at a distance for Masai warriors.
Until towards the end of the 19th century, these methods generally
succeeded in keeping outsiders away from Masailand. Take a look at any
map showing the routes taken by explorers and traders in 19th century
East Africa, and a strange pattern will soon become apparent. Caravans en
route from the coast to the rich kingdoms north and east of Lake Victoria
seldom took the obvious direct route via the cool and healthy Kenya
Highlands, but would make a long detour southwards through the fever-
ridden and often waterless bush of what is now central Tanzania, before
striking north to the southern shore of the lake. On the way they had to deal
with tribes like the Gogo, who had developed the extortion of tolls or
hongo to a fine art; the unpredictable Watuta; and the Ha, whose
reputation as the Comanches of Africa speaks for itself. Even H. M.
Stanley, who was not easily diverted, used the terrifying reputation of the
Kenya route as an excuse to take his Emin Pasha Relief Expedition via the
Congo. It may be true that certain Arabs who had established perilous
trading relations with the Masai spread exaggerated rumours of their
ferocity in order to keep the northern route for themselves, but it is also
clear that their reputation did not need much exaggerating.
As late as 1895, when Kenya was already nominally under British rule, a
party of 1000 Swahili and Kikuyu porters working for the government got
into a scuffle with Masai warriors in the Kedong Valley, over some girls
who had been abducted by the caravan leader. A cow was shot by accident,
and the moran retaliated by massacring the porters. More than half of them
were killed, and an English trader who intervened met with the same fate
as soon as his ammunition ran out. (Surprisingly, the colonial authorities
did not take the revenge which might have been expected, justly
considering that the victims had been asking for trouble.)
It took the amateur German imperialist Carl Peters to make people feel
sorry for the Masai. This unpleasant young man was almost single-
handedly responsible for the German theft of Tanganyika from the Sultan
of Zanzibar, and took the refusal of any Africans to kowtow to Europeans
as a personal affront. He sems to have thought that Thomsons peaceful
approach was the cause of the Masais arrogance. Instead of presents, he
took with him on his 1889 expedition a force of heavily-armed Somali
soldiers. He went out of his way to be even more overbearing and arrogant
towards the Masai than they were to him. He insulted and threatened them,
refused them gifts, and finally started shooting stray bulls, which were
supposedly threatening his camp. To the Masai, their cattle were not just
the only form of wealth, but almost sacred, and seldom slaughtered except
for ceremonial feasts. Inevitably, the warriors attacked him.
However, Peters repeating rifles came as a shock to them, and in several
hard-fought battles they were repulsed with heavy losses. Peters then
burned their villages and stole thousands of their treasured cattle. The
Masai had learned a hard lesson, and never again tried conclusions with a
well-equipped white expedition. (This was by no means the worst Carl
Peters could do, however. He fancied himself as a philosopher, and at
Christmas dinner 1889, still in the heart of Masai country, he took the
opportunity of delivering a short address to Herr von Tiedemann on Arthur
Schopenhauers negativity of the perception of pleasure. This much fun
was obviously too much for von Tiedemann, who shortly afterwards came
down with dysentery. Peters later went on to add to his list of friends by
machine-gunning the Gogo when they came to demand tribute.)
When the British took over Kenya in the 1890s, they employed Masai as
auxiliaries in their campaigns against the neighbouring Kikuyu. The
moran continued to raid into German-occupied Tanganyika, and had a last
fling as late as the First World War, when their British and German masters
were otherwise occupied, and they swept down to the shores of Lake
Victoria to replenish their cattle herds at someone elses expense. (In fact
cattle-raiding still goes on today, if more discreetly.) But white settlers had
already begun to move into the Kenya Highlands before 1900, and soon
after the turn of the century the laibon Lenana - Mbatianys successor - had
reached an agreement with the British, by which the Masai evacuated
much of their traditional territory, but were allowed to keep a part of it as a
tribal reserve. Inevitably a lot of this remaining land was soon stolen from
them, but the people survived, and continued to lead their traditional way
of life as far as they were permitted. They are still there today - a little less
warlike perhaps, but as independently-minded as ever.
Masai Warfare
The most distinctive feature of Masai military organisation was the age-set
system, which in its essentials they shared with many other East African
cattle-herding peoples. This was - and remains - a very complicated
business, but the gist of it is as follows. At some time in their late teens, the
youths were formally initiated en masse as moran, or warriors. The
ceremonies were held only at intervals of about seven years, so that a
whole age group would go through the process together, and subsequently
live and fight together. For the next 15 years they would form part of the
military caste of the tribe, first as junior warriors and then graduating to
seniors, as a new generation of juniors came forward. Each age-set had a
specific name, generally meaning something along the lines of Those
who cannot be defeated; and the Masai customarily dated events in the
past according to which age-sets had constituted the moran at the time.
Eventually another ceremony marked the transition of the senior age-set
to the status of elders.
The junior warriors at least were not allowed to marry, and had to live
exclusively on beef, blood and milk, as vegetables were believed to make
them soft. They slept in their own separate villages or manyattas, which
were enlivened by visits from the young girls, or even (under cover of
darkness) married women. The moran were not needed as an agricultural
labour force - cattle-raising being fairly undemanding in terms of actual
work - and so they spent their time protecting the herds, hunting lions and
leopards, raiding and fighting neighbouring tribes, or, if all else failed,
fighting among themselves. They developed their fighting skills by
hunting wild animals - starting with giraffes, which although hard to kill
were not particularly dangerous, before graduating to the most prestigious
prey of all - lions. Lion hunting with spears and swords was extremely
dangerous, and warriors were often badly injured by their quarry; the best
way to gain kudos was by grasping the tail of the beast while it was still
alive. There is a recorded case of two men, armed only with their short
swords, who fought for an hour with a lion which was attacking their
livestock. All three - men and lion - died.
From the point of view of the rest of Masai society, this system of
institutionalised hooliganism had several advantages: it directed the
energies of the young men away from making trouble at home, and it
provided the community with what was in effect a standing army, ready to
take the field at a moments notice. (The older men also appreciated it
because, as the youngsters could not marry, the elders got first pick of the
young women.) The problem with the system, of course, was that you had
a lot of warriors with time on their hands, living away from the moderating
influence of their parents, armed to the teeth, and able to gain status among
their peers only by fighting and cattle-rustling. It is no wonder that the
tribe as a whole gained such an unsavoury reputation.
Though widely admired by friend and foe alike for their courage and style,
the moran were not really the sort of people you would want to invite to a
party. They took themselves rather seriously, and did not indulge in music
and dancing except as part of solemn rituals or as exercise for war. They
were seldom seen to laugh, and with foreigners they usually maintained an
attitude of surly arrogance. They did have a sense of humour, though, even
if it was of a knockabout sort which would not appeal to everyone.
Thomson describes a warrior entertaining his comrades at the expense of
some Swahili porters:
These he would dub donkeys, in allusion to their being burden-bearers
like those interesting quadrupeds. He could keep the kraal in a roar of
delight, as he described how he had frightened this one out of his wits, or
spitted another on his spear, or smashed the skull of a third into jelly.
Armament
The elders and young boys might carry bows, and archery is described in
some accounts of battles fought by the Masai - notably against Peters - but
usually only when they were defending their villages. Arrows could be
poisoned. The moran, however, used only spears, swords, and wooden or
rhinoceros-horn clubs. The latter sometimes had rounded heads like Zulu
knobkerries. The spear associated with them in the 19th century was not
the slender, long-bladed type seen in modern photographs, but a
distinctive weapon rather like a longer version of the Zulu stabbing
assegai. Of a total length of about five and a half feet, some 30 inches were
accounted for by the huge blade, and another 18 inches by a long, thin
metal butt spike. Southern clans apparently used slightly shorter and
broader spearheads than their northern relatives. The short sword (known
as simi, or more properly olalem) had a blade which was narrow near
the hilt, then flared outwards before curving back to a point - a design
which must have been effective for cutting as well as for stabbing, in
contrast to the bizarre and often impracticable shapes of many African
bladed weapons.
Shields were made of tough buffalo hide. Harry Johnston describes them
as being about four feet long, but most 19th century and modern pictures
show them as closer to three feet. They were stripped of all the hair,
polished, then painted in various patterns of white, red, black, and
occasionally grey (see illustrations for some examples). The patterns
constituted a complicated system of Masai heraldry, the basics of which
are roughly as follows. The ground colour of the shield was white.
Running down the middle from top to bottom was a pattern in black or
black and red, representing stylised cowrie shells, which were widely used
in Africa as currency. On one half of the shield (usually the left, looking
from the front) were elliptical designs painted in red, which were specific
to a particular age-set and clan. On the other side might be a set of symbols
in black, representing the lineage of the individual bearer. The latter did
not always appear, and seem to have virtually died out by the beginning of
the 20th century, with the disruption of lineage groups by civil war and
European conquest; where they were not used, the red patterns might be
repeated symmetrically on both sides of the shield.
Smaller designs at the top and bottom of a shield were sometimes added
by the warriors engaged in a specific campaign, no doubt to aid
identification when men from different clans or age-sets fought side by
side. A small circular or semi-circular motif - usually on the right - was the
equivalent of a military decoration, permitted only to a moran who had
shown exceptional valour. It is very difficult to be more specific than this,
but the symbolism of shield-painting varied from one clan to another, and
also changed over time. The Masai themselves had forgotten a lot of it by
the time anthropologists got around to asking them about it. From the
point of view of painting wargames figures, it is reasonable to suppose
that at least the red parts of the design should be uniform within each unit,
and this is borne out by the battle illustrations in Carl Peters book.
Elsewhere, however, both sketches and photographs often show warriors
with differently painted shields standing side by side.
War Dress
In their natural state, the Masai men did not look particularly frightening.
One observer remarked that The expression of some of the younger men
is almost feminine in its gentleness. Perhaps realising this potential
moral disadvantage, the moran devised a costume which was intended to
be as spectacular and intimidating as possible. They are usually described
and illustrated as wearing a sort of short toga, made of hide and painted
red, which was draped over one shoulder and extended to just below the
waist (though one sub-tribe, the Kisongo, are associated with a longer
version which covers the knees). However, in battle they usually tied the
garment up around the waist as a sash, under which the sword and
knobkerry could be thrust. Victorian writers often describe them as
fighting naked. Strictly speaking this is not true - apart from their togas
they wore leather sandals, sometimes capes or cloaks, and an abundance
of ornaments - but no doubt what is meant is that the rolled up togas did
not cover those bits which Europeans thought ought to be covered.
Warriors bodies were painted red with a mixture of grease and ochre.
Nowadays their legs are often smeared with white clay, and elaborate
patterns drawn in the clay with the fingertips, but 19th century moran are
not described as being painted in this way for war. Hair was usually
dressed with a similar red-coloured substance, and worn in two or three
plaits brought forward over the forehead. The war head-dress was made of
black ostrich or vulture feathers, worn in a ring around the head. The
occasional use of parts of lions manes and bits of colobus monkey fur to
Pygmy Chief. Painting by Kevin Dallimore
decorate these is documented, but the tall busby-like
lion's mane headgear often seen in modern photos was
and remains basically ceremonial, and does not seem to
have been worn in battle.
Leg ornaments, and a short cape which was sometimes
worn around the shoulders, were made from the skins of
black and white colobus monkeys. Metal wire was used
for bracelets and earrings; as children the Masai had their
ear lobes pierced and stretched with enormous ivory
plugs, so that they hung down almost as far as the
shoulders. In battle, the warriors wore metal bells
strapped around the thighs. Imported cloth, decorated
with stripes, checks or other patterns in red and white, was
sometimes used for cloaks, which were known as
nebaras or naiberes. Richard Burton describes the
Masai trading for cloth with the Gogo, who had probably
acquired it from the Arabs.
Several European explorers left eloquent descriptions of
the overall appearance of these extraordinary warriors.
This is Joseph Thomsons:
Let us pause and in imagination watch some enthusiastic
young ditto (an unmarried girl) buckling on the armour of
her knight. First there is tied round his neck, whence it
falls in flowing lengths, the naibere, a piece of cotton, six
feet long, two feet broad, and a longitudinal stripe of
coloured cloth sewed down the middle of it. Over his
shoulders is placed a huge cape of kites feathers - a
regular heap of them. The kid-skin garment which hangs
at his shoulder is now folded up, and tied tightly round his
waist like a belt, so as to leave his arms free. His hair is
tied into two pigtails, one before and one behind. On his
head is placed a remarkable object formed of ostrich
feathers stuck in a band of leather, the whole forming an
elliptically-shaped head-gear. This is placed diagonally
in a line beginning under the lower lip and running in
front of the ear to the crown. His legs are ornamented with
flowing hair of the colobus, resembling wings. His bodily
ornament is finished off by the customary plastering of
oil. His sime or sword is now attached - it does not hang -
to his right side; and through the belt is pushed the skull-
smasher or knobkerry, which may be thrown at an
approaching enemy, or may give the quietus to a disabled
one. His huge shield in his left hand and his great spear in
his right complete his extraordinary equipment. For the
rest you must imagine an Apollo-like form and the face of
a fiend, and you have before you the beau-ideal of a Masai
warrior. He takes enormous pride in his weapons, and
would part with everything he has rather than his spear.
He glories in his scars, as the true laurel and decorative
marks of one who delights in battles.
It is unlikely that the entire panoply described here would
have been worn by every warrior, and individuals
obviously indulged in all sorts of variations on the basic
theme. With their body paint, beads and feathers they
must have looked as diverse and colourful as Plains
Indians. Ludwig von Hohnel, writing of Count Telekis
travels, regarded the appearance of the moran as an
essential part of their psychological warfare:
There is really more pretension and impudence behind
the self-consciousness of the moran than real courage,
and they owe much of the dread in which they are held to
their effective get-up. The short mantle of brown haired
kidskin, which he generally wears fastened on the right
shoulder, is twisted into a girdle and transferred to his
waist. He leaves some of the gala ornaments at home,
substituting for them an iron bell worn above the knee.
His head and shoulders and also his spear are profusely
smeared with red grease, which makes him look as if he
were dripping with blood... Thus adorned he dashes on
with diabolical cries, his shield in his left hand and in the
right his uplifted spear. Such an apparition strikes terror
into the hearts of the natives, and at its approach they flee
without coming to blows at all.
Mrs. French-Sheldon echoes von Hohnels opening
comment in even more forthright terms:
With all their ferocity there is, as I have said, a great deal
of sham and bluster about the Masai.
The rest of her description, dating from 1891, differs in
some details from the others, but gives another vivid
impression of the appearance of a Masai army - a
spectacle which within a few more years would have
vanished forever:
...I was afforded the extraordinary opportunity of
seeing over one thousand Masai armed and ready to
enter battle, having as an objective point Arusha-jue in
the German territory which they had but recently been
forced to evacuate by the Germans. The sight was
certainly a magnificent spectacle, equipped, armed, and
adorned with their picturesque paraphernalia, faces
daubed with paint, splendid masks made of masses of
ostrich and vulture feathers, plumed at the top with fine
sweeping feathers, lions manes, and white bits of
Colobus monkey hair; huge vulture feather ruffs about
their necks, and even encircling their faces, and
enormous feather panniers around their thighs; here and
there a warrior with an entire Colobus monkey-skin, slit
in the centre, through which he had thrust his head, and
the tail and long hair blowing straight out in the wind;
from his shoulders wildly floated in the breezes a
nebara made of stripes or figured red and white cotton
cloth, and a long hyena tail decorated with a lions mane,
and Colobus monkey tails swinging from his shoulders
as an emblem of war, - forsooth the African shoulder
chip! About the warriors waists was strapped goats
hides, into which they thrust their knives; below their
knees, and over long oval iron bells a strip of Colobus
monkey-skin, with the long white hair standing straight
out like a pennant, and similar adornments on their
ankles; and the leaders wore strapped across their
shoulders a leather quiver, containing a supply of ostrich
feathers to refurbish their masks.
Sword belts and similar equipment could be decorated
with elaborate beadwork, although old-fashioned belts
made of ribbed leather, with just a scattering of white
beads, were still more common than the multi-coloured,
lavishly adorned varieties often seen today. In contrast to
the profusion of colours in use nowadays, in the 19th
century beads were generally red, blue, white or black.
There are the usual complicated rules about the
preferences of different clans, and the precise sequences
of colours and patterns which distinguish the Masai from
their neighbours. Only the Masai themselves can ever
remember these, so I dont think that there is much point
in wargamers worrying about them.
Elders might be present at a defensive battle, rather than
on a raid, but only in relatively small numbers. They
would probably not wear the moran regalia, but content
themselves with just a toga or cloak, as they still do in
daily life. Elders often shaved their heads, although
unlike the moran, they were now entitled to wear their
hair however they liked. Pieces of patterned cloth
resembling nebaras are sometimes shown in 20th
century photographs being used as flags, but it is not
certain whether these had any military significance in
earlier times. Mrs. French-Sheldon refers to a Masai
truce-flag, but the usual sign of peace or truce was a
bunch of grass held above the head.
Tactics
The advent of muzzle-loading guns, which
revolutionised warfare in most of Africa, made no
appreciable impact on the Masai, who must often have
come into possession of muskets after defeating the
Arabs or Swahilis, but never bothered to learn how to use
them. Carl Peters describes the tactics which they
employed to deal with firearms:
The Massai (sic) knows how to protect himself from the first shot by
throwing himself on the ground, or sheltering himself behind a tree; and
long before the muzzle-loader has been made ready for a second
discharge, he has come bounding up, to finish the matter with a thrust of
his lance.
Not surprisingly, as same author remarks: Generally, in fact, the (Arab)
caravans fire their guns once, and then immediately take to flight,
whereupon they are regularly massacred to the last man by the swift-
footed Massais.
For fighting in the open against opponents armed in traditional fashion, the
favoured formation was known as the eagles wing. This consisted of a
central wedge formed by the bravest warriors, supported by flank guards
on each side and a rearguard. The function of the wedge was simply to
break through the enemy frontally, with the rearguard forming a rallying
point in case of a repulse. To judge from Masai accounts, such reverses
were rarely experienced in battles against other tribes, but despite all their
boasting the moran were not reckless fanatics, and a rapid retreat if the
circumstances required was a recognised option. They did not drink
alcohol, but they did have a sort of soup made from bark and herbs which
might be drunk before a hunt or battle, and which is variously said to have
an effect similar to amphetamines or marijuana! The young warriors
manyattas were deliberately left unfortified in order to encourage
vigilance, but ordinary kraals or engangs were well protected with thorn
hedges, within which the cattle were kept at night.
At their peak the Masai may have numbered as many as 50000 warriors
altogether, but individual armies rarely exceeded 1000 men. A
complicated system of command was not required in battle, as the range of
tactical options was fairly limited. Such a system would in any case have
conflicted with the anarchic tendencies of the moran. Some laibons acted
as charismatic war leaders; the most famous of these was Mbatiany, who in
the early 1870s put together a large coalition of clans against the Laikipiak.
At least for small raiding parties, however, the moran elected their own
commanders. In addition, the age-set system provided a rough ready-
made hierarchy, and elders noted for their wisdom and experience were
sometimes obeyed if the warriors felt like it. Each manyatta also had a
group of embikas, or picked warriors, who acted as a sort of military
police. The long, twisted horns of the kudu antelope are still used as
musical instruments in ceremonies, and may once have had a command
function. Drums were not used by the Masai. Various traditional war-cries
and chants were known, and Carl Peters describes the hyena-like battle-
howl of the warriors.
Peters pays reluctant tribute to the way in which the Masai adapted
themselves to facing the rapid fire of his breechloaders, advancing
cautiously and in extended order from one patch of cover to another.
Among the Masai themselves, the northern clans had a reputation for
charging rashly, throwing their weapons instead of keeping them to thrust
with, and simply trusting that their first rush would break the enemy. If it
did not, they would raise a cry of Save the warriors by their feet! and run
away. The southerners, on the other hand, were said to be inclined to err on
the side of caution. It is often said by 19th century writers that spears were
never thrown, and certainly the old-fashioned type would be too heavy
and unbalanced to be an effective missile, but the Masai do throw spears
nowadays. Clubs and even swords, however, were sometimes hurled at
the enemy in battle.
The return to Masailand of a victorious army was not always the end of the
bloodshed. The anarchy of the moran ethos was not restricted to the
battlefield, and the accepted way of achieving a division of the captured
cattle or other spoils was simply to fight over them. Thomson describes
the sequel to one raid:
The raid was, of course, successful, and our savage friends returned in
great glee. On reaching their homes, however, matters had to be squared
up, and the spoil divided. So many head of the captured cattle were set
apart as the portion of the lybon Mbaratien, who had directed them so
well, and whose medicines had been so potent. Then followed a
sanguinary scene over the apportionment of the remainder. There was no
attempt at a fair division. The braver men and bullies of the party,
consulting only their own desires, took possession of such cattle as
pleased them, and dared the rest to come and seize them. The understood
rule was that if any warrior could hold his own in single combat against all
comers for three days, the cattle were his. And thus began the real fighting
of the expedition, revealing sickening sights of savage ferocity. There
were more warriors killed over the division of the spoil than in the original
capturing of it. To kill a man in this manner was considered all fair and
above board. Blood feuds were unknown, a man not being considered
worth avenging who could not hold his own life safe. If, however, a man
was murdered treacherously, the criminal had to pay forty-nine bullocks.
So there should be plenty of scenarios available for wargaming the Masai,
ranging from skirmishes over cattle to full-scale battles against European
expeditions, Arabs, or any one of countless other African tribes.
Further Reading
Mrs. M. French-Sheldon, Sultan To Sultan. London, 1892.
H. H. Johnston, The Kilima-Njaro Expedition. London, 1886.
C. Peters, New Light On Dark Africa. London, 1889.
J. Thomson, Through Masai Land. London, 1885.
Numerous modern works, notably:
T. Saitoti and C. Beckwith, Maasai. New York, 1980. A coffee table
book, full of good modern photographs and drawings, with a sympathetic
text by an educated Masai.
T. Spear and R. Waller (eds.), Being Maasai. James Currey Ltd., 1993.
There is a good section on the Masai and their fellow East African
pastoralists, including some nice colour pictures of shield patterns, in:
C. Spring, African Arms And Armour. British Museum Press, 1993.