I wrote on a previous post how local police preferred a dead thief body over a live one.
Here is one example of mob lynching but the Masai way, in style. A bit of a change from the usual burning tyre around the neck…
Some years ago in Arusha, some Masai warriors went in a police station and gave a plastic bag to the receptionist. The poor guy must have been surprised because the bag contained a severed human head. The warriors explained that they had caught a thief and gave him a royal treatment. And they left with a police blessing.
The funny part, so to speak, was that the thief hadn’t stolen anything from these warriors but from a neighboring village apparently, village where he was spotted and chased by angry warriors. One managed a hit with a spear across the torso at which point they all decided to stop the chase since the thief was seriously wounded. The thief reached another village…a Masai village too where he didn’t get a proper welcome. The people there noticed the spear in the wound, recognised a weapon of their own and assumed the previous attackers must have had a good reason to try to kill the visitor so they nailed him on the ground with the same spear while deciding what to do! Just to be sure he wouldn’t run away or what? Then the old men had a meeting, talked and talked and finally decided decapitation was the most human way to kill the thief. No need to call the cops, let’s be good citizens and help them instead… that story was in the newspapers and no one was ever questioned further by the police.
Special breed the Masai… and the local police.
