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When a bribe threatened to tear the Maasai apart

Maasai morans with a herd of cattle. [File, Standard]

Bribery or the exchange of cash or its equivalent to receive a service is as old as mankind.

Locally, bribes have been used to circumvent justice or deny life-saving services to the deserving citizenry. However, as one Joseph Thomson realised, bribes were an essential means of gaining passage through hitherto hostile Maasai territory.

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