ABSTRACT
At the inauguration of each new age-set, the Maasai look northwards towards the Keekonyukie, where the new firestick patrons kindle their fire for the first time, and the boys ‘seize the ox’s horn’. After this cue, other tribal sections follow with their own customary procedure towards initiations and moranhood: they may take similar steps, though in a different order, or they may vary in the internal structuring of the age-set, and so on.1 About twenty-three years later, they all look southwards for a further cue to round off the ceremonial sequence for this age-set.This occurs when the firestick patrons of Kisonko sponsor the olngesher festival as their final collective act; and again, other tribal sections follow with their own prescribed pattern. In this way, ritual anticipation switches between north and south, corresponding to two points on the age cycle – or rather spiral – one-and-a-half loops apart. Popular awareness of time, linked to the process of ageing, looks alternately in these two directions for the ceremonial cues that synchronize age organization throughout all Maasai proper.
