Masai: What do you know about the environment where lions and humans live peacefully together?

Masai: What do you know about the environment where lions and humans live peacefully together?

The culture of the Masai people, especially men, completes their manhood when they are killed by a lion, but now that culture has been removed, and it is because of the plan to protect the forests of Kenya that has led to the Maasai people and lions living peacefully together in the forest.

Meiteranga Kamunu Saitoti, remembers that he was very ambitious to kill the lions.

As a young boy, he grew up on the mainland of his Maasai tribe in southern Kenya, and he says lions were everywhere.

Amboseli forest is famous for elephants, lions and the view of Mount Kilimanjaro to the south. Lions and other wild animals used to patrol the Saitoti area peacefully.

The land where the Maasai live is geographically close to or on the edge of the Kenyan forests.

For example in Amboseli Forest, it is home to Elephants, Logesi, Hyenas and Lions. The Maasai tribe graze their livestock in the forest, sheltering from the lions who eat their livestock when he gets the chance.

This is still the case in most rural areas of Africa. Lions and other wild animals live with people in forests without deer or fences. Life has become very difficult for both wildlife and humans.

The Maasai and the lions have shared this land for centuries.

The Maasai people see themselves as the symbol of lions - they see themselves as a noble, high-status, and strict people.

When Saitoti was very young, his family members told him unusual stories about hunting lions and how they behaved when they encountered a lion.

A lot was expected of him: his family alone, his father and uncle killed about 15 lions.

Saitoti killed his first lion at the age of 19, killing it in a thicket of trees. He said that he was waiting for a while, and then when they saw each other, he stabbed him with a long spear before he jumped on the lion, and that's how the lion died.

Hunting the Maasai lions was a battle between life and death - two sides of great enmity.

It is not bounty hunting, but they call it sport hunting. They wait for the lion in a secret place and then a trap is set for it, and then it is shot with a very powerful weapon.

To kill a lion with a spear, and to fight hand to hand requires great courage. But Maasai lion hunting was very low, which reduced the number of lions killed.

Years after killing the first lion, Saitoti killed four more lions. He was one of the best men of his generation who could kill lions, and his people recognized him as a hero.

The Maasai people simply cannot believe in a world without lions, and they do not want to live in a world without lions.

"If there are no lions in Maasai land, it means something bad," Saitoti said.

"The roar and roar of the lion is a sign of joy in the wild, and good fortune."

After a while everything changed

The population of Amboseli Valley has been increasing rapidly in recent decades. In 2006 it reached its peak, when every 100 lions lived next to 35,000 Maasai and two million livestock.

Therefore, little land is left for lions and wild game.

The lions began to hunt Maasai animals like never before, and the Maasai people began to kill the lions in retaliation.

In 2006, the Maasai killed up to 42 lions with spears or poison. This led to a fundamental cultural change, and threatened to exterminate the lions of Amboseli.

After killing his fourth lion in 2006, Saitoti was jailed and fined 70,000 Kenyan shillings (about £465); Despite its prevalence, the killing of lions and all other hunting has been illegal in Kenya since 1977.

Shortly after Saitoti was released from prison, some of his cattle disappeared. Convinced that he was eaten by a lion, he went after him, and he began to search for two lions.

Hours later, he saw a lion lying under a tree, full, and he approached it to within a meter or two. He stabbed him in the chest with a spear.

Looking for evidence that the lion killed his cattle. Saitoti dislodged the lion from its stomach. When he saw the lion in his stomach, he despaired that he did not kill and eat his cattle.