This rite of passage is one of the most important Masai festivals - it marks the coming of age of Masai boys who are 12-25 years old. The planning for this ceremony itself takes two months. First, the boys must give away everything that they own. Then, on the day of the ceremony, the boys shave their heads and paint their faces with white chalk. They put on black cloaks and ostrich feather headdresses. Then, the village elders perform the initiation rights on each boy inside a small tent, where they are circumcised.The circumcision is done without anesthetic, which makes it quite painful. The boy must endure this pain in silence, and expressions of pain bring dishonor. The healing process takes about 3-4 months, and the boys much remain in black clothes for a period of 4-8 months. After this ritual is performed, the boys are now considered to be warriors. These warriors are in charge of the society's security, and during the drought season, both warriors and boys are responsible for herding livestock.
When analyzing this, we can see the three stage process quite clearly. The first stage is the separation stage. This can be either when the boys are taken to kill their lion (according to the myths), cloaked and painted, and then taken into the tent. The second stage is the transition stage. This can be seen as what the boy goes through when he is inside that tent. He is circumcised, and this marks his transition from boy to man. It can also be said that the 4-8 months of having to wear black clothes could be also part of this transition; it can mark the spiritual transition of the boy into man. The third and final stage is the incorporation stage, where the boys are re-admitted into society as warriors. These warriors have a different job to do than the boys (they can now be seen as protectors of the village), and they are also ranked higher on a social scale (are more important, in other words).
Funerary Practice
A Masai chief.
Enkai is a term that includes the sky, earth, and everything in between. They believe that Enkai has two faces - a black side that is kind and loving, and a red side that is evil and cruel. Thunder is said to be the sound of the two sides fighting. This is what the Masai believe in, though it may not seem so simple to those that live in the Western world. It is said that every person has a guardian spirit, and at the moment of death, this spirit carries the person to one of two places: to a desert if the person has led an evil life, or to a cattle-rich land if the person has led a good life. If a child dies, then it is said that they have gone missing, and if an old person passes away, it is said that they are sleeping. The actual burial is exclusively reserved for the great chiefs of the tribe only, as a sign as a sign of respect, while the rest of the tribe are almost always left outdoors for scavengers and predators to dispose of, since the Masai believe that the burial of a dead body is harmful to the soil. They also believe that when you are dead, you are gone, and there is no after life.