Photo Album 2               KOIJA

Koija, Mukogodo, Laikipia, Kenya — A Traditional Ilwaso Laikipiac Maasai Wedding, December 2005.

7) Ceremonial Attire cont.

5) Prayer Songs

6) Traditional Maasai homes

     

       This is a hut used by the pastoral Laikipiak maasai community. It is built by using small poles and twigs and smaller and fine twigs, branches and leaves of Croton dichogamus to fill the spaces between the poles and finally smeared with a mixture of cow dung, soil and small ashes. The building may take a week or a week and a half to build and is very symbolic of this nomadic community.

7) Ceremonial Attire

      

       Red ochre is usually used as ceremonial attire by the maasai community. It is obtained from a special location. We buy it as a powder which is then mixed with sheep fat The ochre is then smeared on the heads of those involved at the ceremony, except for the morans who use it as nourishment of their long plaited haur since it does not allow dirt to get at the hair. The club (rungu) at the armpit symbols the young  man as a junior elder. The ornaments (beads) are only used as beauty and adornment.

4) Jewellery

1) Maasai Wedding

 

       At the beginning of the wedding, the bridegroom slaughters a ceremonial bull (Ram, considered by the Maasai as equivalent of a bull) on the doorstep of the mother-in-laws house. The blood is drawn and the women use it to make a delicious meal known locally as 'munono'. Mixing of blood, fatty meat and soft or tender meat/neck meat in case of a ram. Note that the bridegrooms and his relations do not eat the ceremonial bull and that applies to the bride as well (otherwise a taboo broken and something worse befalls you like unsettled family life). The rest of the meat from the right side of the bull is consumed by men and the left side is consumed by women since they (women) are considered inferior.

2) Water

       

       Water has been a major problem, therefore on an occasion like this wedding, young men (morans) assist the women (whose role it is to fetch water) to fetch water using their bicycles which are faster & less tiring than women walking 5km or so to collect it.

3) Wedding custom

       

       The mother-in-law shares a few hairs from both daughter and her son-in-law and mixes them with milk and some ochre as symbols of the bond of marriage as a permanent bond in life.

8) Milking

Milking : at dawn on the day that the bridal couple leave the in-law's home, the bridegroom should leave his mother-in-law's house with a gourd full of milk that will be used on the way to symbolically feed the bride to ensure that she is not hungry, since some bridal couples travel long distances before arriving home. The mother wears a sheepskin to symbolise the connection of the ceremony to the traditional way of life of our forefathers.

9) Maasai bride leaving family home

10) Bride’s Family

12) Traditional maasai house with chimney innovation, Koija Cultural Manyatta

13) Cooking with the aid of

a chimney

Smoke is a major health hazard in traditional African homes, especially in Maasai houses which have tiny windows & very poor ventilation.

 

Here, the innovative addition of a chimney (provided by a visiting well-wisher) in one of the traditional houses at the Koija Cultural Manyatta demonstrates how beneficial *chimneys would be for families in other homes both here & elsewhere.

 

 

These homes at the Koija Cultural Manyatta have been constructed by women of the local community to provide basic traditional-style accommodation for more adventurous paying guests.

 

Ceremonial Maasai Night Dances & local Guides can also be organised.

No more smoke in her eyes.