Eunice Weds David
published by Julius Ole Kuyioni, Nov. 10, 2020
A maasai super wedding 2020
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases a 2020 YouTube video of a Maasai wedding.
A hyperlink to a YouTube video of a 2010 Maasai wedding is included in this post along with a hyperlink to a 2018 Maasai wedding and a hyperlink to another 2020 Maasai wedding.
This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series that focuses on changes in the traditional Maasai customs regarding hair for females and males.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the publisher of this embedded video and the publishers of the videos whose hyperlinks are included in this video. Congratulated to the brides and grooms whose weddings are showcased in this post.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
I'm an African American woman who has watched a number of YouTube videos of Maasai culture and has read a number of online articles and offline books about Maasai culture. I've done so as part of my general interest in Black cultures around the world.
By no means am I suggesting that I am an expert on Maasi culture. I'm also not a beautician and, therefore, these hairstyle descriptions may need some corrections.
As a result of perusing numerous YouTube videos of secular and religious Maasai music -especially videos published after 2017 - it appears that few young Maasai women shave their hair. This contradicts the descriptions of Maasai women that are found in most internet articles. I decided to search for and then post information and videos on this subject to help correct what appears to me to be outdated and erroneous information about this African culture.
In the religious and secular YouTube videos of Maasai culture that I've watched, the Maasai women (particularly those who wouldn't be categorized as "older women") wear their hair in very similar (if not the same) hairstyles as some of the hairstyles that are worn by African American females, although the percentage of these hairstyles that are worn by Maasai females and the percentage of these hairstyles that are worn by African American women vary.
In most of the YouTube wedding videos that I watched, the Maasai women who were part of the wedding party have hairstyles that consist of multiple long braids (probably made with extensions of fake hair). In these videos the long braids are usually worn in one ponytail, sometimes the hair in the ponytail and/or other strands of that hair are dyed a "pop up" color such as one woman with her ponytail braids dyed blue, another with her ponytail braids dyed red. Sometimes the entire hair is dyed red. Choosing that particular color links back to Maasai traditions. However, hair coloring is also commonly done among contemporary African Americans and other non-Maasai cultures.
Other Maasai hairstyles for women that I saw in contemporary Maasai wedding and non wedding videos were "medium" length hair (not down to the shoulders or below the shoulders) that is straightened (by a perm). These hairstyles may include some strands with curls or coils. (My sense is that the hair lengths that are worn by African American females who wear these straightened hairstyles is often much longer than the hairstyles that are worn by the Maasai women in the YouTube videos that I watched).
In some Maasai wedding videos, some women who were part of some Maasai bridal parties had natural hair that was braided on the sides with one big puff on the top of their head. In the Maasai wedding video that is embedded in this post, one of the bridesmaids has a two toned light brown medium length (not shoulder length) curly hair style that might have been created from a "twist out" or "braid out" hair style or might have been a wig. Some Maasai women in the videos that I watched (other than the wedding videos) could have worn a hair piece in a bun on top of their straightened hair.
Some other Maasai women (particularly younger and middle age women) who watched the wedding processions/services also wore their hair in those braided styles or in short afros, but not in the straightened hair styles. In one video of a Maasai wedding, I recall seeing a woman with a medium length gray dreadlock.
In some other YouTube videos of Maasai women, some young women wear their hair in fuller "twist out", "braid out" natural styles. However, it appears to me that far fewer Maasai women wore these hairstyles than the percentage of African American women who wear these styles, particularly the styles where you unbraid or untwist the hair and leave it "as is" (without combing the strands out) or in "blow out"/flat ironed" hairstyles (where the natural hair is somewhat straightened without chemicals or a hot iron.)
In the contemporary YouTube Maasai videos that I watched, I don't recall seeing Maasai women wearing natural hair where one or both of the sides and the back of the hair is completely shaved. Since at least 2018 those hairstyles have been popular with some young African American women.
Although women are the focus of these pancocojams posts about changes in Maasai hairstyles, these showcased videos (and some other YouTube videos) also document changes in the ways that some Maasai men wear their hair (including young men with tapered hair and other barbered hair, and young men with closely shaven moustaches and hair on their chin.)
Some of the videos that I watched also showed young girls with shorter braided hair that was worn in various hairstyles.
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The pancocojams posts in this series aren't meant to suggest any positive or negative valuation about the changes in hair shaving and hair styling customs among the Maasai people. However, it seems likely that such significant cultural changes as the ways that women-and men- wear their hair has had and may continue to have societal ramifications for Maasai people.
Recent changes in Google blogs makes it difficult to showcase more than one YouTube video.
Here's one hyperlink to a video of a traditional Maasai wedding in 2010 that I tried to embed in this post:
Maasai Wedding Ceremony 2010 Supukuu Enkiama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW-Ku8wm-7Q&ab_channel=hollersepp
hollesepp, Jan 2, 2011
Here are hyperlinks to two other video examples of Maasai weddings that I akso wanted to embed in this post:
Ann weds Nicholas. Best modern maasai traditional wedding of the year 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2YJYhiDw8M&ab_channel=BethelProductionsKimana
Bethel Productions Kimana, Dec. 12, 2018
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Maasai Best Wedding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWmNBHa1-74&ab_channel=JuliusOleKuyioni
Julius Ole Kuyioni, Aug. 22, 2020
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Click the "Maasai shaven heads and hairstyles" tag for other pancocojams posts on this subject.
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Visitor comments are welcome.
Notice that in the 2020 wedding video that is showcased in this pancocojams post. a small number of people wear a face mask because of Covid-19.
ReplyDeleteIn the August 2020 video whose hyperlink is given in this pancocojams post there are also a few people who are wearing a face mask because of Covid 19.
DeleteHere's an excerpt from a Dec. 7, 2020 Reuters article entitled "In Kenya, Covid-19's rural spread strains creaky health care
Story by Reuters"
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/africa/kenya-covid-rural-spread-intl/index.html
"Mombasa, Kenya The recent deaths from Covid-19 in Kenya of a refugee, a member of parliament and a retired civil servant all happened for the same reason: emergency help was hours away.
Nearly three quarters of Kenya's intensive care unit (ICU) beds are in the two largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa.
Yet the new coronavirus is spreading into rural areas where the public health system is creaking and scarce ICU units are full and turning patients away, medics round the nation told Reuters.
[...]
Africa is recording is recording 10,000-12,000 cases daily, moving toward a July peak of 14,000, after most governments eased lockdowns that curbed the disease but decimated jobs.
After measures were softened, Kenya had record daily cases and deaths in November, taking the totals to nearly 90,000 infections and 1,500 fatalities here.
Experts say the real tally is much higher due to inadequate testing and a policy of only counting hospital deaths."...