- The Organisation of a Maasai Fertility Ceremony
The first in a series of films about cattle-herding Maasai of East Africa. 'If you bear children, your husband loves you. But a woman who hasn't given birth is like a wilderness....' says Nolpiyaya who has four children. Nolmeeyu, her co-wife, and Kisaro, her stepson's wife, are less fortunate. Both have so far proved barren. The film follows the women as they and others try to persuade the men of their area to let them hold a fertility ritual which they believe will increase their chances of becoming pregnant. When the men hear that in another Maasai district a ceremony is to be held to wash away the sin of a homicide, they decide to refuse the women. They argue that ceremonies connected with death should not be held at the same time as ceremonies to encourage fertility. The women produce counter-arguments of their own. A violent quarrel breaks out which threatens to have repercussions on the whole society ...
Photography DICK POPE. Sound BRUCE WHITE Film editor DAI VAUGHAN
Director MEUSSA LLEWELYNDAVIES
(Diary of A Maasai Village begins on Monday 25 June)
★ Subtitles on Ceefax page 270
.FEATURE: page 76