Broken Spears: A Maasai Journey

Broken Spears: A Maasai Journey by Gilbert, Elizabeth L.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780871138408.

The Maasai are an African tribe whose adherence to cultural traditions is legendary. Most still live in a five-thousand-square-mile tribal reserve of empty bush that stretches south of Nairobi all the way to Tanzania. When Elizabeth Gilbert initially came into contact with the Maasai over ten years ago, their images were everywhere in Africa. Pictures of warriors were printed on postcards, T-shirts, safari advertisements, and hotel logos, but in reality their traditional life was disappearing. So Elizabeth set out on a four-year journey to photograph what was left of traditional Maasailand. Broken Spears is the result of that remarkable journey. Over 120 images capture the rituals, secret ceremonies, landscapes, rites of passage, and warrior portraits of Maasailand, documenting the life of this extraordinary tribe in the most comprehensive collection of photographs of the Maasai from the nineteenth century and reproductions of historic photographs, documents, and land treaties.