Edited by Azizi Powell
[This is a complete reprint of a 2017 pancocojams post that was updated on September 17, 2026 mostly to replace videos that are no longer available on YouTube. This 2026 post includes the comments that were published in the comment section of that 2017 post.
This updated post showcases videos from 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2024, 2025, and 2026.
That 2017 post is still available on this blog.]
This pancocojams post showcases seven YouTube videos that document the changes which have occurred and are still occurring in the ways that Maasai females wear their hair.
Every internet article that I've read about Maasai culture indicates that Maasai women wear their hair shaven bald. Although this is the traditional custom for Maasai females, a number of YouTube videos, especially contemporary videos document that many Maasai women wear their hair in multiple other hairstyles, such as short cropped natural hair, or various styles of braided hair with or without extensions, or in multiple styles of straightened (chemically relaxed) hair, with or without hair pieces or weaves.
The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to the videographers and the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Click the Maasai culture and Kenyan Gospel music tags to find other YouTube videos of Maasai songs. These videos include other examples of contemporary Maasai women's hairstyles.
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/12/youtube-videos-that-showcase-multiple_5.html for a pancocojams post that showcases multiple hairstyles that are worn by Samburu women. The Samburu are an ethnic group that is very closely related to the Maasai.
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DISCLAIMER:
The only "research" that I've done on the subject of contemporary ways that Maasai females wear their hair is through the internet, and particularly by watching a number of YouTube videos of Maasai people.
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This post isn't meant to convey that no contemporary Maasai women is bald headed. Based on YouTube videos, there are Maasai women who still completely shave their hair or who wear their natural hair very closely cropped.
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This post also isn't meant to suggest any positive or negative valuation about the custom of shaving any female's hair or any female wearing her hair in any particular hairstyle.
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Furthermore, these videos aren't meant to represent every Maasai females hairstyles.
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These examples aren't meant to chronologize the ways that Maasai females shaved their hair or when a number of Maasai females began wearing their unshaved hair in various hairstyles.
However, for comparisons sake, the videos below that are published in 2007, 2010, and 2013) show Maasi women with bald heads or with their natural hair closely cropped. The other four videos (dated 2012, 2024, 2025, and 2026) show Maasi women with long braids (extensions) and other hairstyles most of which are the same as or very similar to the naural hairstyles that are worn by African American females.
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I'm not a hair stylist. Therefore, I may have used incorrect terms for the examples of hairstyles that I've noted which are shown in these videos. Additions and corrections are welcome.
Any information about this topic is welcome in this post's comment section below. Thank you.
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SHOWCASE YOUTUBE VIDEOS
xin zang, Published on Jun 29, 2007
These are Maasai women dancing to welcome visitors. The all gather in front of the village. The have very short hair cuts.
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Example #2: Maasai women singing before the ceremony to honor the new Chief Otumoi William ole Nairuko
Marilyn Parver, Published on Sep 18, 2010
The Maasai women of Loita Kenya sing in celebration of Chief Otumoi William Ole Nairuko!!
He is about to be made the Chief of his generation.
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Example #3: Enkisuma(Education) Maryanne Naipasoi Tutuma
Maryanne Naipasoi Tutuma, Published on Mar 29, 2012
Education Is the key to a successful life. OLOLOSHO LAI MAISUMATA.
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Notice that instead of the traditional shaven hairstyle for Maasai females, some of the young girls wear their hair in various contemporary hairstyles.
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Example #4-A Tanzanian Maasai tribe's singing and jumping dance in their boma
franklinclayfilms, Published on Oct 7, 2013
"I was told there are at least 128 different tribes in Tanzania. Most have their own language and customs. The Maasai tribe(s) are known as livestock grazers. The importance or wealth of a Maasai family is determined by the number of animals it has (cows are most prized). A Maasai family lives in a home or enclosure called a boma. The boma provides protection for the animals from carnivores. Adult Maasai men can have more than one wife. There is a hut for each wife in the boma.
The Maasai are known for their unique kind of dance -- they propel themselves straight into the air. One of my primary objectives of this trip in 2013 was to film their dance."
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Notice that some women shown in this video had short natural hair (hair that is unprocessed), sometimes with one or two lines shaven into the hair: as shown at 1:13 and 1:28 of this video.
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Example #5: LOVE WINS ..The Best 2024 Maasai wedding (ASHLEY WEDS ENOCK)HD
MAA MEDIA TV, Dec 27, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enKp1Bp3CzA&ab_channel=africanews
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This video shows multiple Maasai women wearing different hairstyles.
Example #6- ATONYORAYIE BY DORCAS KAREI (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
DORCUS KAREI, Sep 12, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p66Kt54RR3E
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Dorcus Karei (often spelled Dorcas Karei) is a Kenyan gospel recording artist, songwriter, and brand promoter.
Earlier videos of this singer showed her with straightened hair worn in hairstyles like African American women used to wear before the natural hair movement began for Black females in the USA in the 1970s and before the braided extensions hairstyles began for Black women in the USA around the 2000s.
The hairstyles that are worn by the women in this video are the same as those worn in 2026 by many African American females.
Example #7 - Joshua & Everlyne Full Wedding
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This video replaces one that is no longer available on YouTube.
A few older women in this 2026 video of a Maasai wedding wear the traditional shaven hair style. However, this video shows that most of the young Maasia women wearing long braids (extensions hairstyles that are the same as braided hairstyles that are worn by contemporary African American women (including at least one young woman with her long braids dyed red. Some other young Maasai women in this video wear their hair short to their scalp or in the African female hair style that African Americans refer to as "Bantu knots".
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COMMENTS FROM THE 2017 PANCOCOJAMS POST'S COMMENT SECTION
While I was researching the topic of the custom of Maasai females shaving their hair, I came across this internet page: https://www.quora.com/Africa-Why-do-in-many-countries-African-girls-shave-their-heads "In Africa: Why do, in many countries, African girls shave their heads?"
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Here are three responses to this question from African women:
"Tawani Anyangwe, Born in Africa
Answered Jan 7, 2015
Back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was in boarding school (PSS Bamenda, Cameroon), the idea was that your hair was a distraction from your education and sense of time
- that women spent too much time taking care of their hair.
- also that you shouldn't be concerned about your beauty at such a young age (you not allowed to date until maybe university)."
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"Biche Shuke, East African Lifestyle Blogger,
Answered Jan 21, 2015
I believe Tawani's answer is the reason it is most common but from personal experience, even though I never went to boarding so was never required to cut off my hair, my mother did it because it was the easiest way to handle my very tough hair, I.e., keep it low so there's little of it to comb through.
I did this through most of University too by choice, and when I get so busy that I have no time to fuss with my natural hair, it's still an easy alternative."
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Cherrie Kandie, Student at Dartmouth, Kenyan
Updated Sep 22, 2015
"I understand where this question is coming from. It is from the mindset that the length of a person's hair is gendered in such a way that you expect a man to have short hair and a woman to have long hair.
Pre-colonially, for many African, at least Kenyan, ethnic communities, the length of hair was not gendered at all in the way that you expect it to have been. For the Maasai and Samburu, the moran (young warrior) grew his hair and kept it in very long, thin braids that fell down across his back-- braids dyed red with red ochre soil. The women simply just shaved their heads. I like to think of it as the lion and his lioness.
Kikuyu women shaved their heads too, and in Out of Africa, Dr. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), writes of Maasai and of Kikuyu women, "Native women shave their heads, and it is a curious thing how quickly you come to feel that these little round neat skulls, which look like some kind of dusky nuts, are the sign of true womanliness, and that a crop of hair on the head of a woman is as unladylike as a beard."As an African American female, I'm not used to seeing females with bald heads. However, since the late 1960s and particularly as a result of the natural hair movement in the USA since the late 1990s, early 2000s, a few brave Black American females have adopted the custom of having a bald head in public rather than wearing their own hair, or adding extensions to their hair, or rather than wearing a wig.
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One reason for Black women having a bald head is that they may be purposely emulating African females and, in so doing, promoting another standard of beauty.
Black and non-Black women may [also] "sport a bald head" rather wearing a wig to hide the effects of chemotherapy or scalp diseases that result in hair loss.
That said, although I wouldn't phrase it the same way that Biche Shuke did (in the second comment quoted above from the quora.com website) i.e. "my mother did it because it was the easiest way to handle my very tough hair, I.e., keep it low so there's little of it to comb through", my guess is that the custom of African females a having bald head is because tightly curled, kinky hair is difficult and time consuming to take care of.
I also wonder if African patriarchal cultures instituted the custom of females wearing their hair shaved because it helped reinforce uniformity while females wearing their hair in different styles helps develop and reinforce individuality.
In many of the Maasai (and the closely related ethnic group Samburu) YouTube videos that I've watched I noticed that a number of the females and males have a gap in the teeth (have the center tooth missing) in the lower row of teeth and sometimes also in the top row.
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Although I haven't found any information about this custom online, my guess is that this is a traditional Maasai (and Samburu) beautification custom which may not be followed by urbanized members of those ethnic groups.
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Visitor comments are welcome.
While I don't assign any positive or negative valuation to any hairstyle, I definitely consider it to be very positive that Maasai women (and all women) may choose to have a bald head or choose to wear their hair in any hairstyle. Furthermore, I believe that these hairstyle choices can be symbolic of other choices that these contemporary women can make regarding how they wish to lead their lives.
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