Lifted from a friend of a friend’s blog: “This took my by surprise. It’s an actual bow and arrow battle between the Masai and another tribe over land disputes.”

Maasai warriors cover a battle field as they clash with bows and arrows with members of the Kalenjin tribe…in Western Kenya…over ongoing land disputes. Over twenty warriors from the tribes have been killed in bow and arrow battles near the borders of these tribes in the last couple of months. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)

A war of bows and arrows in the heart of Kenya’s crisis

Far from the political wrangling taking place in Nairobi’s corridors of power, a medieval-like ritualised warfare of bows and arrows has been raging several times a week between Maasai and rival Kalenjin tribesmen.

“Here, we believe in fighting on a battlefield. We don’t go at night to attack. It’s no good,” says Chris Kosgei, a young Kalenjin usually employed in the world-renouned Maasai Mara natural reserve.

Unlike the lawless rioting and looting that marked the immediate aftermath of Kenya’s disputed December 27 elections, the fighting taking place in the Trans Mara region is very codified and follows age-old traditions.

Both sides have since been methodically killing each other, in almost daily arching contests run like clockwork and barely interrupted by the police…

“Nobody can remain at home doing nothing. You have to go. One day, instead of going to church, everybody went fighting,” Kosgei says.

Wow.