Mwene Nyaga

The Maasai are Nilotic cattle herders who came south into the Rift Valley of Kenya and northern Tanzania. Their Kikuyu neighbours call their own distant high god Ngai, and also know him as Mwene Nyaga.

The Maasai worship one creator, Enkai, who is both male and female and made the sky, the earth, people and cattle. He shows two faces: Black Enkai, who brings rain and fertility, and Red Enkai, who brings drought and lightning. His first dwelling is Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God.

The laibon, priest, diviner and healer, stands between the living and the creator and leads sacrifices. Cattle are held to be Enkai's gift. Their dead were left in the open, because burial was thought to harm the land.