ABSTRACT
The Maasai age system is the most characteristic feature of their social organization, and it entails a ritual cycle that recurs every fifteen years or so.This imposes a cultural construction on the natural process of ageing, providing a constant backdrop to people’s experience of time and punctuating their awareness that the life-course is ticking away.The Maasai are a very age-conscious people. For men in particular, the age system patterns their lives and cultivates a sense of shared destiny. It is essentially a male institution, but it also shapes the way in which both men and women relate to one another and through one another to third parties. Women play a significant although largely passive role.
