they know the songs of grasses and the script of snakes

"The Mara belongs to the Maasai or the Maasai to the Mara.  The umbilical cord between man and earth has not been severed here. The Maasai pasture their cattle next to leopard and lion.  They know the songs of grasses and the script of snakes. They move like thin shadows across the savannah. A warrior with a red cloak draped over his shoulder stand silhouetted against the sun.  Beefeaters, blood-drinkers, the Maasai are one of the last strongholds of nomadic life."

- Terry Tempest Williams from An Unspoken Hunger