Day 12

These guys were really brave. Maybe crazy was a better word to describe them.

A few days after the lion incident, I was told that one of the five Masai’s had died and the other was in a hospital somewhere in bad shape but would recover.

The Masai talked about death rather casually. Actually too casually. They didn't even seem to be sad at the fact that somebody had lost their lives as they did this crazy thing of trying to corner a full grown lion. Was a human life worth that of a few miserable cows?

I found out that on the fateful night, about 4 lions had approached the village and were after the cows. The other 3 got away when the Masai’s emerged but they cornered the single one and killed it. But at what cost?

The skin of the lion and it's head now hang in the village entrance way (there was no gate as such), a constant reminder to me of the terrible events of that night.

But if I though that I had discovered everything shocking about the Masai, I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Take their marriages for example.

Wives here were allowed to be sexually promiscous, as long as it was with the same age group as the husband.

All that happened was that when a Masai came across a hut where there was a married woman and the husband was away or not yet home for a reason, they simply dug their spear to the ground near the door and entered the hut to make love to the woman of the house.

The spear outside kept away all men, including the husband.

I realized that there were many married women in the world already doing what the Masai were doing openly, secretly.

But the same dangers applied and I did not have to wait long to see them.

Her name was Soila, and there was something about her that the Masai men found irresistible. Through the translators they tried to explain it to me.

They said that Soila 'smelled of sex all the time'. That's exactly how my translator put it. I gathered that that meant that when a man stood close to her, they would want nothing else but to make love to her.

This was all new to me. How was it possible for a woman to have a sex scent all the time? Did they mean the chemistry?

She also had the looks and was extremely attractive in the Masai way. Their women would pierce their ears and hung great huge earings on them that completely deformed the ears after a short while.

Soila had a lighter complexion than most Masai's and a cute gap on her front teeth. She liked smiling all the time and when she talked, she would keep on shutting her eyes, as if she was imagining something.

She was married to a young warrior by the name of Loliong.

I sensed trouble because I soon noted that on most afternoons one particular spear belonging to Lesirma, another warrior of the same age group, was always stuck to the ground outside Soila's hut. I also noted that Loliong was not very happy about this and felt that his colleague, who had his own wife, was trying to take advantage of this strange tribal custom.

His choices to deal with the problem were few. He would lose face as a weakling if he reported the matter to the elders. Murder was out because that would place a terrible curse on him and his children for generations to come.

So he chose to deal with the problem on the next lion hunt. They were not that frequent but he bid his time patiently until the opportunity presented itself. I was naturally not present at that lion hunt, but I was told all the gory details.