Bringing the Stories of Maasai to Life

The Maasai are one of the oldest communities in the world. They live in parts of Kenya and Tanzania as a pastoralist society. Despite the rapid modernization across the globe, the community still maintains and live by their proud culture.

Their proud culture and heritage are reflected in the stories of many community members. During a research project, we asked them about their life experiences and lessons learned from them. The collected stories were conceptualised and painted on canvas by artist Advithi Emmi.

This canvas draws inspiration from the story of Elias, a 21-year-old Maasai moran. He has a business selling cows. He buys cows from Tanzania and sells them in Kenya. For this, he travels between the two countries on foot.

It takes him 5 days to cover the distance. Eventually, he wants to be a big businessman and help people. With the profit he earns from his business, he wants to build a school in the village.

This canvas was inspired by one such incident in the life of John Sandamuliza. He shared, “My parents did not like for their children to study. They, like others in the community, loved for them to graze cattle."

“We used to go early in the morning for herding and come back late evening. I still managed to go to school. Although I had to escape wild animals to make it there every day. One day, I met a lion. I had to climb a tree nearby and wait for it to leave.”

This canvas is inspired by joyful women like Naskito. A group of women one day visited the community centre. They spent the first few minutes of their arrival looking around the different coloured walls and talking amongst themselves.

We asked them if they would like to paint with us and they readily agreed. Surprisingly, it was the first time they held paintbrushes in their hands. Their joy of painting was captured in this canvas!

This canvas is inspired by Agnes's life lesson, “Education doesn’t die in a drought, as a cow does.” Due to water shortage, there is a scarcity of resources, like food and trees, as everything has become dry. She collects firewood from the forests to sell at the market.

The money that she earns from it is used to buy essentials and clothes for her children and herself. She wishes for her children to be educated so that they don’t have to depend on cows or farming for economic sustenance.

The Losimingoiri village faces a severe water crisis. The women and young girls of the village walk long distances to collect water from the nearby Nanja dam. Anna Yamat, a 43-year-old woman walks for 6 hours to collect four buckets of water. She consumes only 5 cups of water every day.

If she was given 5 buckets of water to use within a day, she will still not consume all of it. “It is important to preserve what you have to use for another day”, she shared with us. 

It is said that the people in Maasai society keep the bomas of those who passed away just the way they are to honour them.

55-year-old Elikana has kept the house of his mother intact. The family provides food every day in respect of the person in her boma. She is buried right in front of the house.

Arusha is home to many animals and birds, that attracts tourist from all across the world. This bird, known as Superb Starling, is can be seen commonly throughout the region. These birds could be seen every day, sitting on Acacia trees, overlooking the center.

Traditionally, the Maasai men married multiple wives in order to take care of the large number of cattle each house owned. The wives generally share a cordial relationship with each other. Botoro and Anna, painted on the canvas, are co-wives of Rafael. 

Anna shared, “We share everything, and find solutions to our problems together.” With the change of time, many young Maasai now prefer a monogamous relationship. Botoro shared, “I don't advise my child to have more than one wife, Times are changing.”

This canvas is inspired by Ava, a 36-year-old Maasai woman. After her husband passed away 6 years ago, Ava built a boma (house in Maa language) near the edge of a national park and lives there with her three children. She shared that the life of a widow in the Maasai society is a tough one. She very rarely gets visitors, but the day we visited her, she was very joyous and happily served us tea.

Despite all the challenges, life has thrown her way, if she was to meet God ever, all she would say to him is thank you! She shares,  “My hope is that my children will have a good life. That they will get educated and make a difference.”