Have spear, will travel

Dar es Salaam – Three hitchhikers stand in deep dust at a T-junction, 300 kilometres west of here.
The sun is like an oven, but the three neither wilt not sweat. The do not wear the uniquitous khaki and denim of foreign visitors, nor bear themselves down with backpacks. They are not ordinary hitchhikers.
The three men are clad, off-shoulder to knee, in dyed cotton with a water gourd around the waist and a clutch of hunting spears held forward as though presenting arms.
From this posture, they wave down a truck as it emerges from the Tanzanian bush. The driver brakes at once. These, after all, are odd people. Shun them, and you might find a sudden leak in your petrol tank.
The truck is east-bound, but it could as well be going in any direction. Masai warriors are seldom choosy. Not for nothing do they remain nomads, following the instinct to move anywhere except where they happen to be.
How far they will travel on this route will probably be subject to the affirmative nod of three heads. It might depend on the sighting of untended cattle, or merely another of the whims that shift the Masai.
Motor transport is relatively new to these particular tribesmen, but they have adjusted quickly. They know the times of day when vehicles are more likely to appear. They also know – from exposure to passing tourists – that they are a saleable commodity.
Female Masai, generally, may not be photographed, under threat of death or bad wounding. Males usually accede, but at an extravagant fee that could test a tourist’s budget. Sometimes refusal to pay is not worth the risk of asking what that fee might be.
The Masai are still the mavericks of Africa. All other tribes are either wary or alarmed by their doggedness to go where they please and graze their cattle on any available land.
An interesting juxtaposition of cultures occurs around a settlement near Morogoro, in central Tanzania. Here, one of Africa’s least Westernised people has met elements of the continent’s most sophisticated blacks, expatriates of the African National Congress.
There was one particular encounter a few weeks ago when a pride of lions threatened local stock on the fringe of the town. Masai warriors were alerted, killed four of the marauders in one day with their spears and put the others to flight. To the ANC cadres, such feats are awesome, part of an Africa they have never known.
Any sighting of the Masai makes them shake their heads in astonishment. A teacher at the ANC’s Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College near Morogoro tells with wonder how the rest of the Tanzanian population seem to view the Masai.
He went on a package tour of one of the game parks in central Tanzania. The guide enumerated all the animals in the reserve. He began by informing the tourists that there were this many elephants, that many impala, wildebeest, zebra and so on.
Then the guide added, “And we have nearly two thousand Masai.”

From One Man’s Africa (Jonathan Ball Publishers).