The Maasai - Essays on Culture, Conservation, and the Pastoral Predicament

The Maasai: Essays on Culture, Conservation and the Pastoral Predicament gathers together a selection of anthropological essays on the pastoral Maasai, based on the author's fieldwork in Ngorongoro, Tanzania, in the 1980s. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area, world-famous for its exceptionally rich wildlife, is also the home of a large population of Maasai livestock herders. The essays provide a penetrating portrait of the age-old Maasai culture and pastoral way of life and a close-up study of the predicament of the Ngorongoro Maasai who, evicted from the adjoining Serengeti National Park in the 1950s, currently live under 'conservation rule' in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The book is lavishly produced and richly illustrated with color- and black-and-white photos by the author. Drawing on published sources on the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania in the light of the author's fieldwork in Ngorongoro, the first three essays examine little-studied aspects of Maasai culture, including the