Wilson — the modern Maasai warrior
MAASAI MARA, KENYA— Wilson Meikuaya was about16 years old when he killed a lion.
Picture it: nine adolescent warriors armed with heavy spears at the edge of a dense forest. The lion growling, clawing at the earth, staring into Meikuaya’s eyes.
“This is something that you prepare for,” Meikuaya says. “It is very much like a competition between the warriors . . . You don’t want someone to spear the lion before you, because if you are the first, then the mane is yours. I mean, the whole group will be honoured, but you will be the most honoured person.”
Meikuaya tells me this as we take an early morning stroll through the grassy scrubland surrounding Me to We’s camp in southwestern Kenya. Me to We, an offshoot of We Charity (formerly Free the Children), has worked to transform the surrounding community over the past dozen years. Meikuaya now works with the organization as a guide, teaching visitors about his culture.
Draped in a dazzling red shuka, and armed with a spear, club and machete, Meikuaya cuts a striking figure amidst the gold and green foliage, stopping to point out wild plants that can heal and strengthen — and even one, leaves soft like lambs’ ears, that’s used as deodorant and toilet paper. It’s been said lions in the region have evolved to fear the colour red — the colour the Maasai favour.
“I took the mane,” Meikuaya says. “I’m glad. I wanted to. I didn’t want anybody to shoot before me.”
A Maasai warrior’s rites of passage have traditionally been violent, Meikuaya says. As adolescents, would-be warriors are even circumcised and have an incisor removed in public ceremonies. To show pain would bring humiliation.
“The community depends on you, so you have to show them you are strong,” Meikuaya says.
An estimated1.5 million Maasai live in and around the great savannah that stretches across southwestern Kenya and northern Tanzania. While many Maasai have integrated into mainstream society, you can still see semi-nomadic herders’ circular wooden compounds and lone machete-armed warriors clad in brilliantly coloured robes standing lean and strong amongst their feasting cattle in the high, undulating grass while animals such as zebras and giraffes graze nearby.
Meikuaya wants to preserve his culture, but believes killing lions — which is illegal in Kenya — should be a thing of the past.
“We want to benefit through tourism and we want generations and generations to come and see this wildlife,” he says.
“In the current world that we are in right now, you can be a warrior with education.”
Meikuaya, who has a diploma in tour guiding and administration, also co-authored The Last Maasai Warriors: An Autobiography. He’ll be visiting Toronto to talk to students and activists about his culture and community at We Day on Oct. 19. Daniel Otis was hosted by Me to We and the Kenya Tourism Board, which didn’t review or approve this story.