Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the core recursiveness of motherhood motif in rain-invoking rituals that took place during my fieldwork in Maasai village, in Tanzania. I present spatial and temporal features and symbolism of Alamal – the participants of the rituals, ritual songs and its procession.

Paper long abstract:

Last two years Tanzania, and Maasai steppes in particular faced droughts to the point that cattle were dying. Maasai like other communities have been experiencing droughts and they have proper institutionalised rituals for invoking rain. The paper employs discourse analysis to describe and characterise the ritual spatial and temporal features from Maasai point of view and then theorise them with nature conservation perspectives/theories. Taking the praxeology and discourse analysis-a theory of purposefulness of human action- the paper analyses the composition of Alamaal, the spaces it occupies and the songs that are sung during the ritual. Basically, the Alamal for invoking rain is composed of elderly women, middle-aged mothers, pregnant women, recently married girls and newly born babies who are the key participant of the ritual for invoking rain. In their songs, they beseech god not to let their children and cattle die of drought. While singing pregnant women will lie on their backs and open their bellies to face the skies. This says much about the Maasai conception of life, nature conservation and motherhood.