Q- Give any five reasons to explain why the cattle stock of the Maasais decreased under colonial rule.
Answer- The five major reasons behind descrease in the cattle stock of the Maasais under colonial rule are as follows:
·From the colonial rule period the Maasais were bound down in fixed area, confined within a reserve, and prohibited from moving in search of pastures.
There was a huge shortage of pastureland that made a hyper situation that in just two years of severe drought, 1933-34 over half the cattle in the Maasais reserve died.
·Since they could not shift their cattle to places where pastures were available, large number of famine condition occur for them.
·They were cut off from the best grazing grounds and forced to live within a semi-arid tracts prone to frequent drought.
·The main reason for this was that the reserves were made fixed so that people cannot move from one place to another with their cattle to search pastureland for their cattle. This made impossible for them to follow their traditional seasonal movement.