Maasai Mythology & Spirit Guides

In this post, I’m going to write about The Maasai tribe in Africa whom are a Nilotic ethnic group of semi-nomadic people inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania and noticed that this ancient culture has also referenced Spirit Guides in their mythology. The reason as to why I am mentioning the Maasai tribe is because of a past life connection after stumbling across a past life reading which mentioned it and resulted in doing some small amounts of research.

The Maasai believe in one God, whom they call Ngai. Ngai is neither male nor female, but seems to have several different aspects. For instance, there is the saying Naamoni aiyai, which means “The She to whom I pray”. There are two main manifestations of Ngai: Ngai Narok which is good and benevolent and is black; and Ngai Na-nyokie, which is angry and red, like the British.

Ngai is the creator of everything. In the beginning, Ngai (which also means sky) was one with the earth, and owned all the cattle that lived on it. But one day the earth and sky separated, so that Ngai was no longer among men. The cattle, though, needed the material sustenance of grass from the earth, so to prevent them dying Ngai sent down the cattle to the Maasai by means of the aerial roots of the sacred wild fig tree, and told them to look after them. This they do to this day, quite literally taking the story as an excuse to relieve neighbouring tribes of their own livestock. Any pursuit other than a pastoral one was considered insulting to Ngai and demeaning to them. No Maasai was willing to break the ground, even to bury the dead within it, for soil was sacred on account of its producing grass which fed the cattle which belonged to God… Equally, grass has acquired a semi-sacred aura, and is held in the fist as a sign of peace, and similarly held is used for blessings during rituals, a sheaf of grass being shaken at the people or animals being blessed.

No surprise, then, to find that cattle play an important role in ritual occasions, such as initiation, marriage, and the passage of one age-set to the next, where their sacrifice bridges the gap between man and God. Yet for all the deep significance cattle embody for the Maasai, a stupid person will still be referred to as a cow or a sheep!

The Mythology of the Maasai is such that they too believe that each person is sent a guardian spirit. They obtain this guardian during the birth ceremony. This guardian is sent to protect the person and ward off danger until the day the person dies. At the time of death, the guardians do one of two things with the people’s spirits. If they were bad people during their time on earth, they are carried off to a desert, with no water and no cattle. If they were good people while on the earth, then they are carried off to a land with many cattle and plentiful pastures.