TREE

For the Maasai, cattle are everything: food, material, culture, ritual. Cattle are life. "I hope your cattle are well", they say in greeting.
More than any other Kenyan people, the pastoralist Maasai are a cattle-herders par excellence. Cattle provide almost everything they need for survival, and much more besides. They are a symbol of wealth and a source of pride, and a person's entire life revolves around the herds: the need to pasture and care for them, the need to protect them, and the need to move with them in search of fresh pasture and water. The paramount importance of cattle - the more the better - have also marked the aggressive nature of Maasai relations with their neighbours: warfare was inevitably fought over land and grazing rights, and cattle raids were essential in guaranteeing a family's prosperity, as well as to massage the warrior's ego and enable him to get married (for which he needed cattle).