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kodak.com
presents
Liz Gilbert
Life of the Massai
May 31, 2001
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Page 4 of 5
Marky:
Did you get to witness a Massai wedding? I hear they are a wonderful celebration!
Liz Gilbert:
As a matter of fact, I did attend a wedding. You can get a sense of what that's like with these next photos. It is a festive occasion because it's another initiation and families are always happy to see the next generation go on to get married. However, it has to be said that the girls are often saddened by the occasion and are reluctant to leave home.
Girls are excised or circumcised between the ages of 13 and 16, after which time they are married to men who are much older than they are. Teenagers don't marry other teenagers in Maasiland. This is because teenage boys are going through warriorhood and are not eligible for marriage during that period. I think that these girls, of course, fall in love with their age mates and they are often saddened to take on their much older adult husbands and the responsibilities that that new life entails.
On the day of a Massai girl's wedding, she is dressed in all of her finest jewelry, her bags are packed by her mother and sisters, and she is marched out of the family home and sent on a long walk to the new home where she will reside in her husband's boma. This is quite a sad occasion for the girl, and like any initiation, it marks the end of an era or a chapter of her life. As an afterthought, there is some dancing.
Snapshot:
What kind of equipment did you find valuable for this project?
Liz Gilbert:
I've never been an equipment fanatic. I always find that the less I have to carry the better. By now you know that I hate these questions, but I'll try to answer as best I can. I find my camera body and three lenses very useful. My tent and all sorts of camping gadgets were also helpful. And I had to have a car.
Angelfish:
What was the big takeaway for you after doing this project, photographically and emotionally?
Liz Gilbert:
The biggest takeaway was the typhoid and the amoebae. (smile)
Sleeping Man:
How did you go about contacting and approaching the tribe for your project, and how receptive were they at the beginning? If they weren't receptive, how did you bring them around to allowing you to continue with the project?
Liz Gilbert:
If you live in Kenya, you just inevitably know a few Massai. So I started with the people I knew, either through friends or previous trips I'd taken into the reserve. I explained the idea and asked if they would be willing to introduce me to anyone they knew who was still living traditionally on the reserve. I like to think that the Massai were supportive of what I was doing. The older Massai especially thought that the documentation was a good idea because they had lived to see so many of their traditions disappear or change. The support from the elders was critical. Many of the younger Massai who'd been subjected to the prying lenses of tourists were against the idea of photography in general, and I needed the help of the elders to convince them. The Massai have an enormous respect for the elderly, so the younger ones were willing to listen. They listened to what the older ones had to say, and then they got to know me, and I think that I had a good rapport with them. Like anyone, once you get to know them and talk to them, you can sense whether they have good intentions or not, and we all sort of made friends also. As I became more comfortable with them and knew them better, the whole thing took off. People liked the idea. And the more I went in, the more receptive people were, to the point where I was then invited and asked to go see ceremonies. They got to know me in the area and knew what I was up to, and they would send me letters in the mail to New York City. Finally, when the project got going and I had pictures to show them, I brought those with me on subsequent trips and that was quite a lot of fun. It was a good time to be able to go back to villages that I had visited a year or so before, and bring back the photos I had taken of those people. Once I did that, people were quite happy with the whole thing. They very rarely get to see photos taken of themselves, especially by foreigners.
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