Which Excerpt from "The Beginnings of the Maasai" Is the Best Example of a Feature Found in Myths?
The excerpt describing the god Enkai sending cattle down the roots of the fig tree to the Maasai is the best example. It shows a deity performing a supernatural act to explain an origin — a defining feature of myths.
The answer
The best example of a mythic feature is the excerpt in which the god Enkai sends the cattle down the roots (or bark) of the fig tree to give them to the Maasai people. This passage is the strongest choice because it contains the hallmarks of a myth all at once: a deity (Enkai) performing a supernatural act (delivering cattle from the sky) that explains the origin of something real (why the Maasai are a cattle-herding people).
Myths are traditional stories that explain the natural or social world through the actions of gods and supernatural beings. When you scan the answer choices, you are looking for the one that puts a divine being at the center of an impossible-in-real-life event that serves an explanatory purpose. The Enkai-and-cattle excerpt does exactly that.
What makes something a mythic feature
Use a simple checklist to test any excerpt:
- A god or supernatural being is involved (here, Enkai, the Maasai sky god).
- A supernatural or impossible event occurs (cattle descending from the heavens along a tree).
- It explains an origin — where a people, custom, or feature of the world came from (why cattle belong to the Maasai).
An excerpt that satisfies all three is unmistakably mythic. The winning choice does; the others typically satisfy none or only look mythic on the surface.
Why the other options are wrong
On this kind of question, the distractors are usually excerpts that are descriptive, ordinary, or purely factual:
- A line that simply describes the landscape, the people, or daily herding life contains no god and no supernatural event — it's realistic detail, not myth.
- A line of dialogue or plain narration about characters talking or traveling shows story action but nothing divine or impossible.
- A line that states a historical or geographic fact about the Maasai explains something but without any supernatural agent, so it fails the god/supernatural test.
Each of these can appear inside a myth, but none is itself the best example of a mythic feature, because a defining feature of myth is the presence of the supernatural. Only the Enkai excerpt shows a deity actively shaping the world.
The bigger picture
"The Beginnings of the Maasai" is a creation/origin myth — it accounts for how the Maasai came to be a pastoral, cattle-keeping people, and it grounds that identity in a divine gift. Recognizing the genre helps you answer quickly: in any creation myth, the sentence that shows the god causing a wondrous event to bring something into being is almost always the best example of a mythic feature. Reading with that lens — hunting for the supernatural agent and the origin it explains — lets you rule out the realistic, factual, or purely descriptive choices with confidence.
Which Excerpt from "The Beginnings of the Maasai" Is the Best Example of a Feature Found in Myths?
Frequently asked
What are the common features of a myth?
Myths typically feature gods or supernatural beings, supernatural or impossible events, and an explanation of an origin — how the world, a people, or a custom came to be. They are traditional stories passed down within a culture to make sense of nature and society.
Who is Enkai in Maasai mythology?
Enkai (also spelled Engai or Ngai) is the supreme creator god of the Maasai, associated with the sky and rain. In their tradition Enkai gave all cattle to the Maasai, which is why they regard cattle as a sacred, divinely granted possession.
What is the myth 'The Beginnings of the Maasai' about?
It is an origin myth explaining how the Maasai became a cattle-herding people. In the story the god Enkai sends cattle down to the Maasai — often along the roots or bark of a fig tree — establishing their identity as pastoralists and their special bond with cattle.
How do you identify a creation myth?
Look for a story that explains how something first came into existence — the world, humans, animals, or a people's way of life — through the actions of gods or supernatural forces. If a deity causes a wondrous event that brings something into being, it is a creation myth.