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Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6

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Bibliographic Data

fullscreen: Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6

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

Contents

Table of Contents

  • Anthropos
    -
  • Anthropos, 84.1989,1/6
    -
  • Front Cover
    -
  • Front Paste Down
    -
  • Endsheet
    -
  • Title Page
    -
  • Legal Notice
    -
  • Table of Contents: [Inhalt] Anthropos 84.1989/1-3
    -
  • Table of Contents: [Inhalt] Anthropos 84.1989/4-6
    -
  • Journal Issue
    [1]
  • Advertising
    -
  • Journal Issue
    [363]
  • Table of Contents: Autorenindex
    [687]
  • Table of Contents: Rezensenten
    693
  • Table of Contents: Geographischer Index
    [694]
  • Postscript
    -
  • Back Paste Down
    -
  • Back Cover
    -
  • Color Chart
    -

Full Text

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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