When a child is being born, the most important person in attendance is the midwife. A midwife in the Maasai culture has two crucial roles. The first role is to receive the baby welcoming her into the new world. Second, the midwife severs the umbilical cord thus separating the baby from its mother. As she cuts the cord, she utters the following words: "You are now responsible for your life in as much as I am responsible for mine." These words warns the baby now entering into the new world that the baby has left the comfort and security of the mother's womb and has now become a separate being with a separate life of it's own and must now be responsible for itself hence forward.
After the initial ceremony which ends with the burying of the afterbirth, the mother is initially fed with honey taken from a beehive within the area. In addition, the father of the baby or his representative goes to draw blood from a cow. The way of drawing blood from the cow depends on whether the baby is a boy or a girl. If it is a baby boy, the father takes a rope, a bow and a blunted arrow, and makes a mock attempt at trussing a heifer before obtaining blood from the jugular vein of a bullock. Incase of a baby girl, the procedure is reversed.
After the father or his representative has drawn blood from the cow, there is the blessing given for the house where the baby was born. One way of blessing the house and the most commonly used, entails slaughtering a sheep or using the cud that has been chewed on by either a brown or a black sheep since brown or black colors are considered sacred in the Maasai culture.
