Maasai people are originated from an indigenous African ethnic group of what they are called, semi-nomadic people. Semi-nomadic means that they do not have a permanent place at which they are staying, in which they move from place to place. Gathered from the article, they are located in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania along the Great Rift Valley. In the Maasai culture, there is a distinct social hierarchy system. The different levels of social groups are determined by the different age groups, and these age groups are important to make sure that everyone gets the certain needs that they should considering what group they are in. As a person gets older they move into the next age group and so on and so forth. This is marked by killing and sacrificing a cow to the Gods. The different age groups include Elders, Senior Warriors, Junior Warriors, Women, and Children. The Maasai people have been through many different changes including one social transformation being the deletion of one of the social sections. The Maasai has sixteen sections within it’s society. There was an extra section called IItorobo but it was taken in and joined by other sections, causing it to then not be existent anymore. Since then, they have lived on with only sixteen social sections. To have elements from different societies mixed to form a modern society, this means that some of the society will have mixed traits of different cultures and others will adapt to these. I believe that if the Maasai lets others into their environment and influence their way of living, then they will adopt different cultures and traditions and become a different type of society with new rules and different styles of living. Once people of other cultures filter into one specific culture, then that culture tends to adopt some of the traits and ways of living from the new people of a different culture. There are many different aspects that have to do with the difference in societies and the way they have changed over time. The social transformations in a Maasai culture differ very tremendously from the changes that have occured in the U.S. culture because the U.S. has many more people and many different cultures living within, but within the Maasai culture it is just the people of that culture living along the line at which they should be. In the U.S. we are free to live how we want and to believe in what we want. Of course the Maasai people can move to another area and continue with a different culture but it is not the same as how it is within the U.S. culture. For example, many people in the U.S. are affiliated with different cultures that are much larger than that of just their own, and that is called a sub-culture, a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture. There is also the act of counter-culture which is a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm. What we have in today’s society is what we call pop culture, it states that the ordinary or individual people have their own tastes rather than following someone that is higher than you educationally.
