Cathedral of the Wild by Boyd Varty

Author:Boyd Varty [Varty, Boyd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-679-60485-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Over the course of several years, Uncle John became very close with a group of Masai who lived in the Mara. He hunted buffaloes and lion with the herdsmen, and drove several of them to the hospital after a lion attacked them during a hunt. They allowed him to put up a tented camp on the banks of the Mara River on the fringe of the Masai Mara National Reserve. He also bought a rather nice herd of Nguni cows, which he co-owned with the Masai.

Uncle John had decided to make a movie called Brothers in Arms, a documentary about the tribe to which he had become so close. The film would place him inside the lives of the Masai and their manyattas, or homesteads, amid dwellings made of cow dung, sticks, mud, and human urine. And it would witness the fading light of one of Africa’s most traditional tribes. Their lifestyle, which had been in tune with the great plains and its animals, was changing. The Kenyan government was trying to persaude the Masai to become wheat farmers because there was a robust market for this coveted grain. Some Masai leaders were encouraging the shift. Money had entered their life, and wheat was a way to get it. Bron, Kate, and I were thrown into that fading manyatta life as the sound crew for Uncle John’s documentary.

The Masai’s faces are sharp and eaglelike, but despite their ferocious appearance—something that has unnerved many a foreigner—they are, in fact, like most tribal people: focused on family life and extremely gentle. They don’t walk; they glide across vast distances on the savannah.

The Masai are passionate about two things: their cows and their children, in that order. The greatest honor they can bestow on you is to offer you a drink of cow’s blood and milk. A cow is pulled out of the herd and held down as it bellows for the safety of its companions. Then a warrior expertly shoots an arrow into its neck. A plume of perfect lipstick-red blood shoots into the air and is captured in a gourd. The cow quickly stops bleeding and is returned to the herd. Meanwhile, milk is added to the gourd, turning the concoction into a beautifully viscous teeth-staining red syrup. This is then handed to you with a loving smile. You drink it while making a big show of receiving the honor: lots of holding the gourd high up in the air, smacking your lips, and saying, “Mmmmmm” and “What an honor!,” all the time trying not to vomit up your spleen.

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