The Maasai Warriors: Pattern Maintenance and Violence in Colonial Kenya

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Periodical article

Title:	The Maasai Warriors: Pattern Maintenance and Violence in Colonial Kenya
Author:	Tignor, Robert L.
Year:	1972
Periodical:	The Journal of African History
Volume:	13
Issue:	2
Pages:	271-290
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	social change Maasai resistance rebellions Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) colonialism History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/180856
Abstract:	In the connection between early 20th-century Maasai conservatism, Maasai social structure and in particular the warrior (moran) age-grade, modernizing changes meant different things to different groups (to some elders: increasing political power and wealth; to the warriors: a threat to their declining status and obligations like roadwork). Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by uprisings: 1918 - over the recruitment of children for school; 1922 - over attempts to do away with essential features of the moran system; 1935 - opposition to road work. With their autonomy within the society and their esprit de corps the Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change. Notes, summary.