SEDACIÓN POR PROFESIONALES NO ANESTESIÓLOGOS

For Maasai, marriage is the act of ‘sending off the girls’, by the villagers of the girl’s native village, or of the ‘taking of the bride’ from the village the girl is moving to, respectively. For most women, marrying results in a spatial displacement or

movement in space, sometimes to sectors so far away that the ‘sending’ would take weeks on foot.28 Marriage itself is an act of migration, of connectivity and, ultimately, of peace, given that it deters interior conflict. Marriage is an institution or mooring that binds remote areas together, historically strengthening kinship ties (Talk, 1987), the defence system of Maasailand. It is a practice of territoriality, place making, linking villages to the broader network of Maasailand.

As with many ceremonies, marriage is a lengthy process. Like the traditional leader initiation ceremony, which stretches on for days (see 6.5.), ceremonies are fluid in both space and time and are based upon an idea of the complete transformation of the person or people at the centre of the ceremony. As elaborated upon in Chapter 6, ceremonies mark the start of a new ‘culture’. After a ceremony, one has new

responsibilities and tasks and access to new information. Though fluid, Maasai

28 _{A comprehensive network of busses and mini busses connects Maasailand: Dala Dala known as}

Matatu in Kenya as a mini bus. Some operate on fixed schedules, others when depart when they are

full (ca. 20 people). Many drive within towns or cities, some cross-country. Busses (up to 50 passengers) have fixed schedules, typically drive long-distance and Noahs (taking 10 pax) drive whenever they are fully loaded with passengers and/or luggage. Noahs drive between Karatu and Arusha and were formerly known as Peugeots. Noah is an 8-seat Toyota vehicle only sold in Asia,

ceremonies are structured by protocol and are bound by strict rules. They are

understood as individual cultural entities and journeys (explained further in Chapter 6). Coast (2006) describes Maasai marriage as a process, rather than as an event. If an ‘event’ can be categorised as being static, then ‘process’ is mobile, once more

showing how marriage is embodied mobility when analysed in symbolic terms.

‘The junior elder getting married is clad in blue and fine jewellery and ornaments, for hours, he is congregating and discussing with members of his own age set, receiving advice, giving advice. Their mood rather serious. We are at the village of the girl and she never leaves her hut and does not see the ceremony outside, instead she receives advice and blessings inside the hut. Tomorrow, in the early morning, she will depart tomorrow morning together with her new husband to her new village.’

Fieldnotes, 4 July 2013

To quote an elder, moving brides across long distances ‘makes strong warriors.’ Navaya, a wildlife guide explains that genetic diversity created through movement (here involving humans) is a side effect of marriage over which a certain awareness exists among elders (who are herd managers), and this is due to breeding experiments with cattle. At markets in Ngorongoro, you will often find Kenyans buying or selling bulls from their home country, given that cattle differs significantly in genetic terms to the cattle found in Tanzania and can go for much higher prices than they would in Kenya. Similarly, a Tanzanian cow can have more value in Kenya.

Within anthropology, Maasai mobility is often only analysed from a male perspective: i.e. the manyatta, the forest camps, cattle herding (Hodgson, 1999) and physical or geographical mobility is in focus. Yet, the migration of women also creates a certain binding material of Maasailand, one which defines its boundaries, and justifies or enables the continuation of a somewhat unified society. This aids in

preventing sections or clans from departing from mainstream Maasai culture. One could argue that with today’s communication technologies, and their quick

embracement by Maasai across East Africa, the necessity to physically embody space, that is, to move across distance, becomes obsolete; however, cell phones, cars and the internet cannot replace the willingness to bond and to connect with others that the process of arranging and negotiating marriage offers. All of the ‘modern’ elements listed here do facilitate communication, but do not necessarily motivate connectivity and place-making. Place is culturally produced, through activities such as marriage. Culture both takes place and makes place (Hubbard and Kitchin, 2011). Maasai marriage, as an institution, has been studied extensively by anthropologists (Coast, 2006; Hodgson, 2000). Most studies look either at the household itself, how (polygamous) marriages contribute to the livelihood of the household-structure, or discuss demographic factors such as changes in the age of marriage, polygamy, divorce or church wedding or traditional wedding.

Van de Walle (1985) argues that ‘the nature and rationale of the mechanisms linking society and marriage are poorly understood’ (Van de Walle, 1985:110). I have not yet found a study that has analysed this link. Studies often do not grasp the

rationalities of marriages that go beyond the household itself, with ethnographic studies instead focusing on interactions within the household and demographic studies looking at the structural differences, described above. What I contend is that the mechanism linking marriage to the structure beyond the household, i.e. the community, or Maasai culture, is the socio-cultural rationale of connectivity, communication and the setting of boundaries that go with marriage. Marriage is a communication device, employed amongst many other things, to give meaning to or between spaces; it is a place-maker. Marriage defies the imaginary of the mobile

Maasai man versus the woman as a caretaker (explored further in Chapter 5). After all, it is a radically disruptive act for the woman who migrates and marriage is one of several connectors. Marriage enables patterns of mobility and practices of place- making. Marriage is a communications device aimed at peacebuilding and re-

enforcing connections, it keeps Maasai culture connected’ women, having migrated, often make great story-tellers, sharing and passing on geographic imaginaries, or imaginaries of Oloshoo. I will focus on the connector and place-maker in the following sections and how the arere nkejek can be compared to the concept- metaphor of ‘Flânerie’.