Maasai woman wearing bead collars, Olengaitoli village, Kenya

"If circumcision in a sense physically brings about humanity, dress and adornments visually express this humanity. Dress and body decoration -including ear-holes, lobe-extensions and the excision of the two central incisors- communicate conventional social and cultural messages. In this extended sense, the "decorated body" of the Maasai (Masai) serves to differentiate children from adults, women from men, and warriors from elders. The decorated body not only differentiates people from wild beast; it also identifies men with cattle. Children, women and elders have their heads clean-shaven to differentiate them from the prototypical wild beast -the lion." [Kaj Århem, 1987: Milk, Meat and Blood: Diet as a cultural code among the pastoral Maasai. African Studies Programme, Dept. of Cultural Anthropology, University of Uppsala]. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and traveled to Africa from August 18, 1959 to December 20, 1959.