Maasai: A dispossessed community

Images of some Maasai have been placed on the front pages of tourism brochures yet the community suffers the pain of a forgotten people. Unlike other communities that are used as national symbols of identity — such as the Red Indians in the US and the Aborigines in Australia — the Kenyan Maasai are fast becoming a mere trophy on the shelf. The Government has often been accused of not putting much effort into the preservation of the Maasai cultural practices. The woes of the Maasai did not start recently. Like the Red Indians in the Americas, the Maasai suffered significant loss of land and culture with the arrival of colonial settlers more than 100 years ago.