Facing the Lion

The book I chose to read was "Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton. The book is about his experience growing up in the Maasai culture and the customs and rituals he experienced. Joseph lives in northern Kenya and is a part of a subgroup of the Maasai called the Ariaal. Ariaal is a mixture of two groups, the Sumburu and the Rendille. His mother is Rendille and his father was Samburu. The Ariaal are nomad people and rely highly on cattle. They go where there is food and water for the cattle and where there are minimal predators. They look for the best land for the cattle to graze and may walk 25-30 miles a day looking for new land to graze. There are several thousand Ariaals but there is no exact number because the Ariaal do not believe in counting people.

The book starts out with Lekuton explaining the importance of lions in the Maasai culture. Lions are seen as a symbol of bravery and pride. The Maasai hunt lions and if you were lucky enough to kill one, you were highly respected. The Maasai wrote songs about lions and sang them when they were hunting. If you killed a lion, there would be a song written about your bravery. Animals are very important to the Maasai, but lions were the most sought after.

The Maasai society has a fair system. The system is based on the family and the village as a whole. Everyone takes care of each other and no one goes hungry. Children respect their elders and any adult can correct a child that has done something wrong. Everyone in the village is seen as equal. Their village has a "disciplinarian" who disciplines children for his job. He is known as the pinching man because when you are disciplined, he pinches you really hard on the leg. Every village has a pinching man and according to Joseph, each one is just as scary.

Joseph goes to school. The government of Kenya has a law that every nomadic family must send one child to school. Joseph's father did not want to send his kids to school because he wanted them home to work and wanted them to grow up in their own culture. The authorities came and said they must send a boy to school. No one sent girls to school. The school is taught by American Missionaries and they taught them reading, writing, and Christianity.

I really enjoyed this book because it gave an inside look to the life of the Maasai. I am really excited to continue researching and am very glad that I chose this topic to research. I am hoping to focus my paper on the Maasai and their customs and rituals. I would like to further research the different subgroups of the Maasai and the different customs of each. I can't wait to see where my research takes me!