More land was taken to create wildlife reserves and national parks: Amboseli National Park, Nairobi National Park, Maasai Mara, Samburu National Reserve, Lake Nakuru National Park and Tsavo in Kenya and Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tarangire and Serengeti National Park in what is now Tanzania. Maasai in Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania) were displaced from the fertile lands between Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro, and most of the fertile highlands near Ngorongoro in the 1940s. By one estimate two-thirds of the Maasai died during this period. The Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann travelled in Maasai lands between 18 and described the old Maasai settlement in the Ngorongoro Crater in the 1894 book Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle ("Through the lands of the Maasai to the source of the Nile"). German doctors in the same area claimed that "every second" African had a pock-marked face as the result of smallpox. The estimate first put forward by a German lieutenant in what was then northwest Tanganyika, was that 90% of cattle and half of wild animals perished from rinderpest. This period was marked by epidemics of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, rinderpest (see 1890s African rinderpest epizootic), and smallpox. The period of expansion was followed by the Maasai "Emutai" of 1883–1902. 1906–1918īecause of this migration, the Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers. Maasai warriors in German East Africa, c. In 1857, after having depopulated the "Wakuafi wilderness" in what is now southeastern Kenya, Maasai warriors threatened Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. In 1852, there was a report of a concentration of 800 Maasai warriors on the move in what is now Kenya. Raiders used spears and shields but were most feared for throwing clubs (orinka) which could be accurately thrown from up to 70 paces (approx. At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger Nilotic group they were part of, raised cattle as far east as the Tanga coast in Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania). The Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-19th century and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south. The Nilotic ancestors of the Kalenjin likewise absorbed some early Cushitic populations. Other, mainly Southern Cushitic groups, were assimilated into Maasai society. Many ethnic groups that had already formed settlements in the region were forcibly displaced by the incoming Maasai. The Maasai and other groups in East Africa have adopted customs and practices from neighbouring Cushitic-speaking groups, including the age-set system of social organisation, circumcision, and vocabulary terms. Most Nilotic speakers in the area, including the Maasai, the Turkana and the Kalenjin, are pastoralists and are famous for their fearsome reputations as warriors and cattle rustlers. The Maasai inhabit the African Great Lakes region and arrived via South Sudan. Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visitors to their villages to experience their culture, traditions, and lifestyle, in return for a fee. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 1,189,522 in Kenya in the 2019 census, compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census, though many Maasai view the census as government meddling and therefore either refuse to participate or actively provide false information. Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English. The Maasai speak the Maa language (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilotic language family that is related to the Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer languages. They are among the best-known local populations internationally due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes and their distinctive customs and dress. The Maasai ( / ˈ m ɑː s aɪ, m ɑː ˈ s aɪ/ Swahili: Wamasai) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.
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