Forced evictions suppress Maasai spirituality & sacred spaces in Tanzania

 

 

 

When the dawn breaks over Kisokon village in Kenya’s Narok county, Maasai herders leave their bomas, tend to their cattle and follow them around as they graze in nearby pastures. But this is rarely the morning routine of Mokompo Ole Simel, one of Africa’s oldest oloiboni, a traditional spiritual leader.

Simel, in his 90s, wakes up by the sun, offers daily prayers to his ancestors and the Maasai’s traditional supreme deity, Enkai. He then spends the rest of his morning sauntering around his land, covered in old sacred oreteti fig trees (Ficus thonningii), which his ancestors have owned for generations.

“Land is everything to a Maasai. It is our identity, wealth and culture that defines our spirituality and existence as people,” says Simel, an oloiboni who also holds authority and respect in communities across the southern border in Tanzania. “But it is under threat as our people are evicted from their ancestral lands in Tanzania.”

In the last decades, the Maasai in Tanzania have faced a series of evictions. Starting in 1959, and continuing in 2009, 2013 and 2017, communities were evicted to expand parks and promote protected areas, luxury tourism and safaris that boost the country’s economy. Now, Simel’s worries are on this year’s eviction plans.

In March, the Tanzanian government issued two eviction notices. The first one was issued to the Maasai community in the Simanjiro district for the expansion of Tarangire National Park while the second was issued to the people of six villages for the expansion of the Kilimanjaro International Airport. Other plans this year include expanding protected areas and creating game reserves.

According to the Pastoralists Indigenous Non Governmental Organization’s Forum, (PINGO’s Forum), the eviction plans scheduled for this year will disrupt their Maasai peoples’ spiritual connection to their ancestral lands and rip them away from their sacred sites — as evictions recurrently have.

For the Maasai, sacred spaces are the pieces of land, rivers, water sources, oreteti trees, mountains and places designated by their ancestors as areas to carry out specific rituals and ceremonies. These include rites of passage ceremonies, prayer offering sites and places to pass on information to their ancestors or receive blessings from them.

While the previous evictions have impacted six Maasai sacred sites spread across Tanzania, the 2024 eviction plan around KIA will impact three: the Elangata Oongishu, Oloip le Ngigwana and Endonyo Olmorwak in Hai district in the Kilimanjaro region. These are holy sites to perform male rites of passage.

For 60-year-old Nayauesupat Olesipai, a Maasai herder from Ngorongoro district, Maasai life revolves around the rituals that help them commemorate their ancestors while coping with climate hazards. During the most severe droughts, the Maasai set fire to olive leaves so that the cloud rising from them would go up to the sky and call for rain. People also call for rain by offering prayers to Enkai under the sacred oreteti and palm tree.

“The older generation led a free and happy life before eviction,” Olesipai says. “We gathered in communal lands for rituals but many of our community members have now been evicted from Ngorongoro.”

Eviction in progress

Under the eviction plan, Kilimanjaro International Airport is set to be expanded from 4,000-11,000 hectares (more than 9,800-27,000 acres). So far, around 20,000 people from the eight villages around the Kilimanjaro International Airport have been evicted, according to PINGO’s Forum. However, many of them have resisted by staying on their lands despite their homes being demolished. Human rights organizations like PINGO’s Forum and Avaaz estimate that up to a million people could be impacted if the government’s entire eviction plan for 2024 continues.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) plan aims to establish 15 new game reserves and expand existing protected areas in Maasai ancestral lands in these districts and others.

Many of these lands are communally managed through the guidance of elderly people such as Simel who transfer knowledge and wisdom from one generation to another.

Simel says losing agency over their lands poses serious threats to their value systems and sacred beliefs.

“The eviction separates us both as individuals and from our sacred spaces where we perform Maasai rituals,” he tells Mongabay. “Spiritual and cultural ceremonies like Olamal [women praying for blessings and fertility] and Enkipaata [male rites of passage ceremonies] would be impacted by the eviction of Maasai from communal lands.”

One of the biggest ceremonies for the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania is Endonyo Olmorwak, where Maasai from both countries come together to celebrate.

“It is a holy ground and the eviction has happened just 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] away! When the Maasai who live adjacent to the holy place are evicted, these groups are likely to seek refuge on the holy ground, encroaching on the sacred space and spirituality,” a Maasai elder, Andrew Simon Msami from PINGO’s Forum, tells Mongabay.

Over the decades, Simel has witnessed episode after episode of evictions impacting Maasai people, part of a move by the Tanzanian government to make way for tourism. Over the years, the evictions also came with protests that were quelled by forceful measures by the Tanzanian government. On June 8, 2022, Tanzanian police and authorities killed a local and arrested and injured many Maasai who were protesting the demarcation of their lands in Loliondo. Unidentified Maasai also killed a police officer in the clash. At least 700 Maasai people fled the region and escaped to bordering Kenya to seek refuge and medical support.

For a while, the series of conflicts seemed to have been contained until eight Maasai villages bordering Kilimanjaro International Airport received a notice in early March 2024 to vacate 7,000 hectares (17,297 acres) of grazing and residential land by the end of the month. The notice followed the government’s announcement of a new plan two months before in January to restrict any human settlement in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Ngorongoro district.

Through the NCA, which is popular with tourists and for its safaris, the government aims to boost the economy by attracting more than 5 million visitors to Tanzania by 2025. To protect nature and biodiversity, the government also views forced removals as part of a conservation strategy. However, in the name of conservation, they have previously evicted people and opened spaces for trophy hunting in Ngorongoro. About 150,000 Maasai people have already been evicted across Ngorongoro alone since 2009.

According to PINGO’s Forum, the government’s eviction plans since 2009 have so far targeted more than 90% (63,900 sqare kilometers or 24,600 square miles) of Maasai pastoralist land in districts that include Monduli, Longido, Ngorongoro, Simanjiro and Kiteto. All these Maasai-inhabited districts have a combined population of nearly 1.3 million people.

“And despite the court order giving the Maasai people the right to stay in the 11,000 hectares of land, the evictions in Hai and Meru districts have also taken place,” Msami says.

In Irkiushioibor village of Kiteto district alone, one of the eight villages affected, 236 Maasai bomas with 628 households of 2,835 Maasai, including 41,138 livestock, will be affected by the potential eviction.

“This is a tangible calculation of eviction. The impacts on loss of pastoralism, culture and spiritual connection with our lands are beyond measure,” Msami tells Mongabay.

Dissatisfaction with compensation

Many Maasai sources and civil organizations Mongabay spoke with say the compensation for KIA eviction is neither fair nor transparent. They say many people have been evicted without receiving any compensation and relocation options at all.

“No alternative land was given. Those whose homes were demolished are sleeping in the open. A few of those who were compensated have failed to reestablish their lives normally like before,” Msami says.

However, some have received compensation and accepted it, though it was not through an official government source.

“Many community people are lulled and coerced to take money, around $300-$800, to vacate the area,” says Maria Sarimu, a herder. “Although many of them denied the offer and were finally evicted.”

abay has reached out to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) and Kilimanjaro regional government office for comments but has not received any response.

Sarimu, a 55-year-old single mother to six children from Hai district, says she’s been receiving threats to vacate the area for the airport since 2002. Sarimu says she owned a little over 1 hectare (2.5 acres) of farmland, which is the only source that she depended on to support her family after her husband’s death. However, following this year’s eviction, Sarimu and her community people are homeless, though they resisted relocating to other areas.

“We were given notices and an ultimatum to leave our lands or the government will evict us forcibly, and that is what has happened.”

She says women, especially single mothers who share the double burden of working to raise their children while taking care of their livestock, are more vulnerable.

“These were not mere lands but the sacred spaces and grazing areas for my 10 cows and 20 sheep. The government said they would compensate for the dead and harm caused to the community and people, but it was a big lie,” she tells Mongabay.

Amid all the tensions, Simel fears the sacred trees and forest might be under threat in the future if eviction persists. The community-conserved Loita forest, spread across 33000 hectares (81544 acres) that Maasai people along Narok/Kajiado border, depend on for food, water, medicine, traditional rites and cultural ceremonies, might be in jeopardy in the name of fortress conservation and if the Maasai lose their control and guardianship over their lands.

“For Maasai, when land is lost, all is lost.”

 

Banner image: Preparation towards graduating boys into Maasai warriors in Simanjiro District. Image courtesy of PINGO’s Forum.