Anthropos: Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6

Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6

Bibliographic Data

Journal

Structure Type:: Journal

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistent identifier:: BV043334262

Title:: Anthropos

Sub Title:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Place of Publication:: Fribourg

Publisher:: Ed. St. Paul

Year of Publication:: 1906

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Domain:: Social and cultural anthropology > General overview

Journal Volume

Structure Type:: Journal Volume

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711876

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711876

Persistent identifier:: 1513673764894

Title:: Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6

Year of Publication:: 1989

Call Number:: LA 1118

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Issue

Structure Type:: Journal Issue

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Anthropos 84.1989: 1-23 Maasai Food Symbolism The Cultural Connotations of Milk, Meat, and Blood in the Pastoral Maasai Diet Kaj Ârhem Abstract. - The paper presents a cultural analysis of pastoral Maasai food habits. An examination of dietary rules and ideals in various social and ritual contexts shows the Maasai pastoral diet-ideally consisting solely of milk, meat, and blood from do mestic livestock - to be highly charged with symbolic meaning; it serves to identify the Maasai as a people and encodes funda mental values of their culture. Food is as much culturally con structed as materially produced. [Maasai, pastoral diet, symbol ic analysis, cultural code] Kaj Arhem (Ph. D.), Associate Professor at the Dept, of Cul tural Anthropology, University of Uppsala; 1980-82 Senior Re search Fellow at the Institute of Resource Assessment, Univer sity of Dar es Salaam; 1987-88 Visiting Professor at the Nation al University of Colombia, Bogota. - He has carried out anthropological fieldwork in Zambia (1969), Colombia (1971-74, 1987), and Tanzania (1980-82, 1984, 1986). - His publications include; Makuna Social Organization (1981); Pas toral Man in the Garden of Eden. The Maasai of the Ngorongo- ro Conservation Area, Tanzania (1985); and numerous papers; see also References cited. Introduction The Maasai are unique among East African pasto- ralists in their cultural choice to live exclusively on pastoral foods. In a natural environment which abounds in wildlife and which, in parts, is excel lently suited for intensive agriculture, the pastoral Maasai attempts to subsist on a diet solely consist ing of the milk, meat, and blood of their domestic stock. 1 Their dietary ideal excludes, and their en tire culture strongly devaluates, all plant food and game meat. This extreme dietary selection poses an imme diate and anthropologically relevant problem. How do we account for the cultural choice to live exclusively of pastoral foods in an environment which so clearly offers alternative sources of sub sistence? The question touches on the wider prob lem of the dialectics between what we, with Sahlins (1976), may call “culture” and “practical reason,” i.e., between the symbolic construction and mate rial grounding of social life. The Maasai food sys tem provides us with a particularly instructive ex ample of this dialectic, since it represents a form of dietary selection which clearly cannot be ac counted for solely in terms of economy and ecolo gy. The dimension of meaning, the ideas and val ues associated with food, are central to any effort to understand Maasai food habits. Using a fashionable metaphor, and without denying that the pastoral foods - including blood - can also be eaten, I shall in this paper treat the Maasai diet as a cultural text, a code conveying in formation about Maasai culture. By examining Maasai food habits in the context of their cosmolo gy and social ideology, I attempt to decipher some of the meaningful messages encoded in the pasto ral diet. In so doing, I also hope to shed light on the problem of how meaning and utility articulate in the shaping of social reality. 1. The Pastoral Diet: Rules and Contexts Milk, meat, and blood constitute the basic compo nents of the Maasai diet. Honey and honey mead are also traditionally valued “foods,” occasionally consumed in great quantities. Vegetable food was traditionally - and still is - considered inferior food. Yet it has probably always served to supple ment the ideal food in times of scarcity - particular ly for women and children. Today maize porridge forms an increasingly important part of the pasto ral diet. 1 2 * Nevertheless the purely pastoral diet of milk, meat, and blood remains a dietary ideal and is still adhered to by adult men as far as circumstances al 1 This point has been made by Jacobs (1965: 115, 142). 2 Due to pressures from the dominant agricultural population and the national states of Kenya and Tanzania, the pastoral economies are declining. The Maasai of today are caught in a process of empoverishment and marginalization. Their herds and pastures are insufficient to support them. Milk and meat are becoming increasingly scarce and the need for supplementary foods is growing (cf. Arhem 1981, 1985a, 19856).

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