Kenya - Maasai Cultural Village
Location
Outside the Ngong Hills, Rift Valley, Kenya, Africa.
Concept Drawing for the future development of
the Maasai Cultural Village by Peter Edgeley
Geography
The Maasai are an indigenous African ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. Due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa, they are among the most well known of African ethnic groups. They speak Maa, a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer, and are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahili and English.
The Maasai population has been variously estimated as 377,089 from the 1989 Census or as 453,000 language speakers in Kenya in 1994 and 430,000 in Tanzania in 1993 with a total estimated as “approaching 900,000” Estimates of the respective Maasai populations in both countries are complicated by the remote locations of many villages, and their semi-nomadic nature.
Culture
Maasai society is strongly patriarchal in nature with elder men, sometimes joined by retired elders, deciding most major matters for each Maasai group. A full body of oral law covers many aspects of behaviour. Formal execution is unknown, and normally payment in cattle will settle matters. The Maasai are monotheistic, and they call God Enkai or Engai.
As a historically nomadic and then semi-nomadic people, the Maasai have traditionally relied on local materials and indigenous technology to construct their housing. The traditional Maasai house was in the first instance designed for people on the move and was thus very impermanent in nature. The Inkajijik are either star-shaped or circular. The structural framework is formed of timber poles fixed directly into the ground and interwoven with a lattice of smaller branches, which is then plastered with a mix of mud, sticks, grass, cow dung and human urine, and ash. The enkaji is small, measuring about 3x5 m and standing only 1.5 m high. Within this space the family cooks, eats, sleeps, socializes and stores food, fuel and other household possessions. Small livestock are also often accommodated within the enkaji.
Socio-Economic
Traditional Maasai lifestyle centers on their cattle which constitutes the primary source of food. The measure of a man’s wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not the other is considered to be poor. A Maasai myth relates that God gave them all the cattle on earth, leading to the belief that rustling cattle from other tribes is a matter of taking back what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has become much less common.
Government policies such as the preservation of parks and reserves, with the exclusion of the Maasai, along with increasing populations, etc, have made the traditional Maasai way of life increasingly difficult to maintain. With increasing poverty and migration, the traditional authority of Maasai elders appears to be lessening.The emerging forms of employment among the Maasai people include farming, business (selling of traditional medicine, running of restaurants/shops, buying and selling of minerals, selling milk and milk products by women, embroideries), and wage employment (as security guards/ watchmen, waiters, tourist guides), and others who are engaged in the public and private sectors.
Many Maasai have moved away from the nomadic life to responsible positions in commerce and government. Yet despite the sophisticated urban lifestyle they may lead, many will happily head homewards dressed in designer clothes, only to emerge from the traditional family homestead wearing a shuka (colourful piece of cloth), cow hide sandals and carrying a wooden club (o-rinka) - at ease with themselves and the world.
Education and Health
Over the years, many projects have begun to help Maasai tribal leaders find ways to preserve their traditions while also balancing the education needs of their children for the modern world.
A high infant mortality rate among the Maasai has led to babies not truly being recognized until they reach an age of 3 moons. For Maasai living a traditional life, the end of life is virtually without ceremony, and the dead are left out for scavengers. Burial has in the past been reserved for great chiefs, since it is believed to be harmful to the soil.
Project Aim
Working with the Maasai community, a new form of cultural village will be designed and built to support the traditional Maasai culture but taking them successfully into the future. The role of women, improved health, vocational opportunities and education will be at the forefront of this significant project in partnership with the local Government and Maasai Elders and community leaders. A museum, health centre, school, shops, archive centre and a number of facilities will be constructed. In addition a unique project is to be conducted with ‘Land Art’.
Brief
A focus on the Maasai culture and the preservation of their crafts, heritage and skills unique to this part of the world. This proposal for the development of a unique Cultural Village situated in the Rift Valley, Kenya is to promote the exchange of knowledge and best practices, to provide discussions, to encourage positive thinking and to build and nurture an active role for men, women and children to preserve, promote and educate their cultural knowledge and skills.
The proposed Cultural Village is supported by the UNESCO Observatory, Multi-disciplinary Research in the Arts in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia. The proposed Cultural Village has the capacity to serve as a focused environment for the Maasai people working in the area of culture, cultural education, arts and media in order to express and share their ideas and views on the issues of concern for them; to foster co-operation and exchanges among different organisations; to maintain dialogue between different groups through the creation of a Maasai Cultural Village Network and focusing in particular on artists, artisans, educators, vocational trainers, traditional leaders and creative people. All recommendations are also based on the use of new information and communication technologies.
More specifically, some ideas for consideration include:
- A resource centre
- Office block
- Museum
- Curio/Gallery
- Workshop (for making artifacts and for training)
- Lecture halls
- Conference Rooms/facilities
- Power house for a generator
- Theatre
- Dispensary/clinic
- Eco-tourism lodge/ section including catering and accommodation
- Cottages (Traditional / Improved)
- Sports quartres
- Servants quartres
- Indigenous trees woodlots
- Canteen (To serve the local community)
- Maasai traditional houses (manyatta/kraal).
NB: The eco-tourism lodge can be designed to accommodate approximately 60 persons with room to expand later.
The cottages section (Traditional improved) is to accommodate volunteers and the local people attending workshops/seminars.