ABSTRACT
This chapter examines certain aspects of the practical reasoning underpinning Maasai pastoralism. The logic underlying extensive semi-nomadic specialized animal husbandry, the informal reasoning associated with the pastoral experience, the more formal symbolic classification systems through which cognitive apprehension of the pastoral field of activity cakes place, and the processes of identifying and remembering individual animals. The logic of specialized pastoralism, as practised in several semi-arid land communities in eastern Africa, can be distinguished from that of ranching in several respects pertinent to the cognitive concomitants of animal husbandry. Cognitive processes, such as classification, description, pattern recognition, and problem solving, associated with the use of cattle and other livestock are not simply individual responses to concrete situations of environmental use and animal production. Such cognitive operations reflect capabilities which are institutionally shaped, both by the patterns of activity proper to pastoralism and by the cultural strategies and formal classificatory systems collectively encoded for carrying out pastoral tasks.
