The Maasai bear the weight of being one of the original noble savage dream tribals that the British and the Germans salivated over (in India, the Sikhs play the role of the exotic, animal protein-loving warriors, whose aggression got recruited into the Crown’s loyal service). The Maasai are such a standard-bearing cipher for all that ‘modernity’ regards as unadulterated, wild masculinity that a recurrent news story in Northern Euro/Brit tabloids is one where some random white European woman visits East Africa, meets the fabulousness that is the Maasai/Samburu warrior, and takes him back to her cold homeland. Then, there’s the inevitable photo of him bagging groceries at the local Aldi or Tesco (and his whole masculine juju is gone.) But here’s something different: the British newspaper The Telegraph, and US magazine The Atlantic (online) are running photographic galleries of strapping “Maasai Warriors” in full beads-and-braids regalia playing cricket. [Read more...]