Don't Photograph the Elephants
By: Amos Goodall
I knew we’d really begun a new, absolutely foreign experience, when the troop of monkeys passed through our campsite as we were helping set up our tents for the first night in the bush of Kenya. It’s possible to capture some of the magnificence of Niagara Falls, the straits of Bosporus or Mount Fuji in a picture, but nothing prepared us for this group of independent, curious, self confident creatures as they passed through our area of the grounds. No image I’d seen before could duplicate this wonderful sight.
We were with various groups of Kenyans as we traveled through their country, sampling their hospitality in various venues. None were more thought provoking than the Maasai. To start with, in a relatively small country with forty two different tribes, each with their own languages, customs and levels of embracement of the twenty first century, the Massai stood out.
For the most part, eschewing modern dress in favor of more traditional garb, it was possible to pick out a Maasai warrior in a crowd. Posture, obvious self assurance and confidence were other dead giveaways. We learned something of the rich traditions which continue to be important in their lives today.
No one can gainsay their devotion to family, to their village and to their animals. We were in Nairobi during a time of drought, and apparently no one raises an eyebrow when Massai bring their cattle to graze on berms along the roads in affluent areas of this large metropolitan area, where the rich folks’ lawn sprinklers have maintained the green grass. They hold to other values which would be questioned in our country.
Polygmous marriages, female circumcision (in addition to adult male circumcision), arranged marriages taking place at a girl’s puberty which–from her point of view–seem simply to be a sale of her body to whatever older man has ten cows to pay for her, rejection of education for many children, all seem to be ideas whose time has now passed. As they explained their customs to us, obviously our Maasai hoses had been sensitized to fact that many outsiders were critical of these practices.
I was uncomfortable encountering these issues. What was my credential to say that customs which had developed over millennia as the Maasai gradually emigrated South from the Nile through the Rift Valley were wrong? How would an attack on their values change the friendships which were developing with the young Maasai men who were trying to become modern people while staying true to the traditions (including the ones I privately questioned) which had set them apart. Did I really understand enough about their lives to have enough information to have an opinion to voice? For example, apparently Maasai warriors don’t always live to maturity; wild animals and other encounters cull a sizeable number. Maybe plural marriages are a rational response to this problem.
In the end, I kept my mouth shut. What I did resolve to do was to support the activities of a Kenyan headmistress of a private girl’s secondary school whom I met. Her school provides shelter and an education for Maasai girls who run away for forced marriages. For $300/year a Kenyan institution can change one girl’s life, which seems better than all the criticism I could have mustered. Our Kenyan travel agent said that her customers (and she) routinely supported nearly two dozen girls in this fashion.
What does this have to do with photographing elephants?
Near the end of a long hike the day after we encountered the troup of monkeys, we came upon a large herd of resting forest elephants. "Don’t take pictures," the guide whispered after I’d snapped one shot. "The elephants don’t see well, but they have very good hearing, and if they hear a sound that they don’t understand, the mill around and can eventually stampede, trampling anything they encounter." His photography custom was something I had never encountered before and would not have predicted. When I understood, it made perfect sense. Perhaps if I understood the Maasai their customs would have made more sense as well.