When a Maasai child is born, he/she is not given an official name; rather, the child is given a temporary name, which is called the embolet, meaning an opening. From the day of his birth, until the naming ceremony is held, the child will be referred to using the embolet name. Maasai children are not all the same age when their naming ceremony is held. Depending on their family clans, some children may be as old as three years before the naming ceremony, which is called Enkipukonoto Eaji, meaning, coming out of the seclusion period. In the period leading up to the Enkipukonoto Eaji the mother and the baby remain in seclusion and let their hair grow long.
As the ceremony begins they come out of seclusion and their heads are both shaved, a common practice used in many Maasai rite of passage ceremonies. The preparations for the naming ceremony take two days and are made up of several specific activities. First, two sponsors, one for the mother and one for the baby, are selected to assist during the ceremony. Each sponsor must be in the age group of the mother or baby respectively and will remain very close to the family. Then two male sheep are selected, one to be killed and eaten on each day of the ceremony. Only the women are allowed to eat these. This is normally done to make women happy and try to compensate for the pain they felt when giving birth. The women also eat the meat as a way to give thanks to Engai, the Maasai term for God, or a supreme being, for giving them the ability to bear children. The mother then puts the olkererreti, a bracelet made using the right leg of one of the sheep, on the child's right hand; and water is collected from a river using a calabash, a type of gourd native to Maasailand. The mother will drink this water when the ceremony begins.
Once the meat is ready and all the above activities have been carried out, the mother is given the water in the calabash to drink, and the mother's sponsor announces that the ceremony is ready to begin. The mother and her sponsor are then joined by other women who begin by examining the child's embolet and decide on a new name based on the child's personality since his or her birth. If many people are fond of the temporary name, that name may be kept. The women bless the child and the new name, saying, "May that name live in you," and the new name, called the enkarna enchorio, becomes permanent. Finally, the mother removes the baby's bracelet and the ceremony is over. The Maasai typically live in fenced-in family settlements called kraals that contain a few houses and their cattle. During the two days of the naming ceremony, the mother and her baby are honored by being the only ones who may open and close the gate to the kraal.
